Understanding the Millennial Perspective in Deciding to Pursue and Remain in Federal Employment

9/28/2016

Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Heitkamp and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to share the views of the 150,000 federal employees represented by NTEU at dozens of federal agencies. As President of NTEU, I welcome a conversation of how best to grow and strengthen the federal workforce.

AGENCY FUNDING

In recent years owing to a lack of funding, many federal agencies have been unable to hire new employees to replace departing workers, frequently instituting so-called hiring freezes. Not only do hiring freezes create more of a work burden on the existing, smaller number of employees, which can impact work production, individuals interested in a career with the federal government have simply not experienced a large number of available job positions to apply for. During the recent economic downtown, many high school and college graduates were unable to find federal positions of interest to apply for, as agencies were unable to fund existing job vacancies. In addition to not hiring, by not replacing employees who leave, agencies have also had significant less opportunities for job advancement and promotions, which while negatively impacting all employees, can easily frustrate young workers seeking job advancement.

Lack of funding has also led many agencies to forgo student loan repayments, which is of high interest to recent graduates. NTEU believes agency use of student loan programs is a key recruitment and retention tool that needs to be dramatically expanded. In a similar vein, NTEU recommends enactment of paid parental leave, which based upon its rapid integration in private sector America, is an employee benefit that many workers, including younger workers, are demanding. NTEU is proud to support Senator Schatz’s (D-HI) and Representative Maloney’s (D-NY) paid parental leave legislation for federal employees (S. 2033 and H.R. 532).

While NTEU strongly supports attracting and cultivating the next generation of federal workers, and applauds the Subcommittee for its interest in bolstering the civil service, we also recognize that the federal government as an equal opportunity employer must stand ready and be positioned to hire workers of all ages.

PAY

As you are aware, beginning in 2011 and continuing for three straight years, federal employees were subjected to a pay freeze. In both 2014 and 2015, federal employees received reduced across-the-board pay increases of 1%, and last year federal workers received a 1.3% pay increase on average, all of which were below the amount called for under the law, causing federal pay to be outpaced by private-sector wage increases. Using Department of Labor data, private sector wages have increased 10.6 % over the last six years while federal wages have increased by a total of 3.3%. Human resource consultancies are emphasizing a renewed employer focus on both recruitment and retention, with higher pay and more bonuses being provided to employees. Federal agencies must be able to respond to a healthier national economy and overall job market, and to ongoing pay trends in the private sector, in order to ensure a skilled, professional workforce to administer our nation’s laws and federal programs. NTEU has worked to focus attention on the need for agencies to be able to properly compensate their workforces, and has partnered with Senators Schatz (D-HI) and Cardin (D-MD), and Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), on legislation--S. 2699 in the Senate and H.R. 4585 in the House-- to provide a 5.3% across-the-board pay raise for calendar year 2017. Millennials, who are interested in public service, are similar to other workers in that they too will seek adequate pay, promotions, and career development opportunities from their employers.

EXISTING PAY & PERSONNEL AUTHORITIES

Under Title 5, agencies are provided with a substantial variety of human resource (HR) flexibilities and authorities, which includes pay and hiring. By intent, the federal personnel system is substantially decentralized, giving agencies full authority to determine what pay authorities and flexibilities to utilize. It is simply a myth that current statute, and the General Schedule, prevent agencies to respond to a changing recruitment and retention environment, rather many of the existing HR tools are simply not in place or used sufficiently or correctly.

Current law provides agencies with pay-setting flexibilities that are designed to respond to an agency’s need for specialized talent and highly-technical skills, and to situations where staffing shortages develop owing to an inability to recruit or retain workers.

As I testified on behalf of NTEU members at the Subcommittee’s hearing last October on pay flexibilities, we strongly ask that you help ensure that agencies actually utilize the HR tools they have been given—such as offering retention and recruitment bonuses to address staffing shortages they may be experiencing. In a similar manner, we urge a focus on assisting agencies with reviewing and implementing administrative changes to their hiring processes. It is not statute that is causing delays in hiring of candidates, but rather an outdated, non-applicant-centered, and non-sequenced hiring process that needs to be re-aligned and streamlined. A faster hiring process would greatly assist in successfully seeing millennials join the federal workforce, rather than continuing to lose them to the private-sector as they become frustrated and disheartened by a seemingly never-ending hiring process. As an example, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Congress funded approximately 2,000 new Customs and Border Protection Officer (CBPO) positions to help address current U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staffing shortages, which remain lower than what is in fact stipulated in CBP’s own Workforce Staffing Model that shows a need to hire 2,107 additional CBPOs through FY 2017 in order to adequately staff all ports of entry. However, despite congressional action to fund 2,000 CBPO positions for an agency tasked with key homeland and border security priorities, and a time when many agencies are under actual hiring freezes, CBP has not completed the hiring for these positions, with interested candidates for posted positions facing a long-drawn out process that can easily become a barrier to entry.

NTEU would strongly caution the Subcommittee against the enactment of hiring provisions that would allow federal positions to be filled with a lack of public notice and without regard to appropriate deference to veterans’ preference. These well-established merit principles have benefited both the nation and our civil service. Notably, public notice for federal jobs is what has ensured a non-partisan civil service, as well as a diverse workforce that truly reflects the American people. The need to hire the next generation of federal employees does not require abandoning key principles, but rather argues for them to be preserved. Likewise, those calling for the overhaul of title 5 and our civil service laws should not try to use millennials as the reason for long-term goals of replacing the General Schedule or

the classification system —which they been promoted since the 1980s long before any of today’s millennials were born.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Heitkamp, in closing, I want to commend you for your efforts to enhance the federal workforce, particularly at a time when federal employees have faced many challenges—from pay stagnation to agency funding woes. NTEU stands ready to work with the new President and Congress to improve the working conditions of all federal employees, including millennials. NTEU believes proper agency funding, adequate pay raises, and a streamlined hiring process will sustain the entire civil service and well serve the American people.