Furloughs and early retirement offers are shifting the demographics of the government workforce, opening lanes for younger employees to step in as older employees leave. The Recovery Act has increased the level of federal scrutiny on everything from transportation projects to schools – stressing outcomes based results and performance measurement.

Having streamlined employee appraisals and talent management strategies can go a long way towards improving operations and saving taxpayer dollars, says Donna Ronayne, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at Halogen Software.

“Providing an appraisal is not a once-a-year thing, it’s a living document,” she told CivSource last week in an interview. Halogen provides web-based talent management solutions that automate and integrate performance planning, learning management, compensation management and succession planning for both public and private sector clients.

“From a solutions point of view, a talent management suite can help people evaluate employees, while helping align culture and goals of the organization. It should be able to provide accurate, fair and meaningful feedback.”

Halogen has over 1500 customers worldwide with over 100 state and local government customers, which presents its own set of unique challenges, Ms. Ronayne said.

“States have a diverse and complex environment – water treatment, schools, fire departments – and they have another layer of complexity [not seen as much in the private sector] in that they deal with policies and procedures developed through collective bargaining,” she said. “But the reason states like our product is because it’s so flexible.”

In Colorado, the Douglas Co. School District needed a new Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) to keep pace with its growing student population and its more than 70 schools. HR Director Brian Ewert was tasked with working with the employee unions, while finding a solution that would help standardize appraisals, eliminate the paperwork, and allow hosting the system on-site.

“We didn’t want the system to drive our process,” according to Ewert. “We wanted our process to be able to drive the system.”

After bypassing their current HRIS vendor, Oracle, and dismissing SuccessFactors, Douglas County is using Halogen to move beyond their original solution goals, Ewert said.

“I think we’ve done some things with Halogen that most organizations haven’t even considered – it can go above and beyond a review process. For example, we were easily able to build a mentor/protégé process for our new assistant principals and principals, and we have also created a payroll audit system to maintain the accuracy of our records.”

Beyond the information management and web-based appraisal platform, Halogen provides content and coaching tips and learning management. Ms. Ronayne said a specific offering for state and local governments is in the works, which will have a built-in competency library to rate employees on issues such as citizen focus, conflict resolution, ethics / integrity, program management, and safety among others.

“Our solution does not take a cookie cutter or canned approach, it allows customers to create performance and talent management just for the areas they need.”

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• The act would require all state and local governments to collectively bargain with public safety employees–police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel.
• States would be forced to permit bargaining over wages, hours, and all terms and conditions of employment.
• States would have to provide a dispute resolution mechanism, such as binding arbitration.
• PSEECA allows the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to determine whether a state’s collective bargaining arrangements meet the standards as defined by the act. If they do not, the FLRA could impose a collective bargaining system on the state.
• The FLRA would have considerable authority to enforce the act, including:
• • Determining the appropriateness of units for labor organization representation;
  • Conducting hearings and resolving complaints of unfair labor practices; and
  • Supervising or conducting elections to determine whether a labor organization has been selected as an exclusive representative by a voting majority of the employees.
• States would be granted the authority to pass laws more expansive than those the federal government imposed.
• States would not, however, be allowed to pass narrower laws than those contained in the act.

Policy Objections

• Unionized state and local government employees earn 11-12 percent higher pay than comparable non-union workers.
• They also have more expensive benefit packages than non-union workers.
• The act would end local control and flexibility by forcing the minority that has chosen not to collectively bargain to do so. Different states and local governments have different needs and should be free to fit their policies to their individual needs. Collective bargaining does not work everywhere.
• Large majorities of public safety employees already collectively bargain. The states in which collective bargaining is appropriate and affordable have already chosen to do so. The legislation represents a solution in search of a problem.
• Not all issues should be collectively negotiated. For instance:
• • Police unions should not negotiate the terms and conditions under which their members may use deadly force.
  • Many state and local governments promote police officers on the basis of merit and performance instead of through collectively bargained seniority schedules. Merit-based promotions and raises encourage hard work and help put the best workers in the most sensitive positions. However, unions prefer seniority-based promotions. States should not be forced to bargain over this issue.
• Experience demonstrates that collective bargaining does not lead to increased cooperation between public safety employees and their employers.
• • The process is inherently adversarial: Pitting employees and employers against each other at the bargaining table creates as much conflict as cooperation.
  • Consequently, public-sector employees will often strike when the law explicitly forbids it, putting vital public services at risk.
• PSEECA may deter or even eliminate volunteer firefighting. Firefighters unions vehemently oppose volunteer firefighters because they reduce the need for paid firefighters. They levy stiff internal fines against unionized firefighters who volunteer off-duty. By requiring all states and localities to collectively bargain, PSEECA would make it easier for unions to crack down on volunteer firefighting.

Economic Effects

• The act imposes an expensive unfunded mandate on state and local governments.
• Without providing financing for the mandate, the act will force these governments to either cut services or raise taxes.
• The act prevents employers from hiring workers who would do the same job for less than union wages, thus undermining potentially more qualified competition.
• This gives the union much more negotiating power but harms workers who could negotiate a better individual deal with the employer. A non-union worker who prefers merit-based promotions must instead accept what the union negotiates for him.

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