June 27, 2005

[Federal Times]

How to increase Hispanics’ profile in the federal work force

By JORGE PONCE

In April the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released its Annual Report on the Federal Work Force for Fiscal Year 2004. Unfortunately, the report shows that the representation of Hispanics in the federal work force is getting worse.

The civilian labor force (CLF) is defined as people in the United States who are 16 or older and are employed or seeking employment. It does not include those in the armed forces. Hispanics made up 8.1 percent of the CLF in the 1990 census and 10.7 percent in the 2000 census. But Hispanics represented 6.1 percent of the federal work force in 1995 and 7.5 percent in 2004. At senior pay positions, Hispanics represented 2.6 percent of governmentwide workers in 1995, and 3.4 percent in 2004. So while the Hispanic population in the CLF has risen 2.6 percentage points since 1995, their representation in the federal work force has risen only 1.4 percentage points -- and just 0.8 of a point in senior pay positions.

There are all kinds of position papers and reports to justify the perpetual underrepresentation of this minority group. Some would point to the fact that there are many Hispanics lacking the U.S. citizenship required for most federal jobs. However, there are also non-Hispanics who lack U.S. citizenship. Why raise this barrier only when it comes to Hispanics? Others point to the importance of retaining the merit principles of the civil service. But no one is advocating for the hiring of unqualified Hispanics or any other group.

Note that there were 39.9 million Hispanics as of July 1, 2003, according to the Census Bureau, and only 2.6 million employees in the federal government in fiscal 2004, according to the EEOC?s report. Of course, the 39.9 million figure excludes 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico, who have automatic U.S. citizenship. So, we can let the numbers speak for themselves.

I would like to offer five suggestions to managers interested in enhancing Hispanics? job opportunities:

· Hispanics cannot afford to blame only non-Hispanic federal employees for this challenge. They must lead by example and become part of the solution. Thus, it is unconscionable for Hispanics who are already at the senior pay level to compete with GS-15 Hispanics for senior pay level vacancies ? for a lateral reassignment. This happens frequently, and I am shocked to find that some of these senior pay level Hispanics are the same ones attending summits to develop strategies to enhance Hispanic representation at the senior pay levels.

· Selecting officials should realize that, if the choice is between a GS-15 Hispanic and a senior pay level Hispanic and they select the latter, there is a zero-sum gain for minorities and Hispanics in the federal work force. Most of the time, the assumption that the senior pay level Hispanic is better qualified than the GS-15 Hispanic is flawed. The ambition of the GS-15 Hispanic who seeks a promotion is often greater than that of a senior pay level Hispanic looking for a lateral reassignment.

· Various agencies set goals to increase the diversity of their work forces. However, I have found that some of these agencies who should advertise their vacancies to all sources to reach their diversity goal limit consideration to internal applicants only.

· Most agencies have established candidate development programs to make their GS-14 and GS-15 employees more competitive for senior pay level vacancies. However, the majority are not tracking the race and national origin information of applicants for these programs, and I think they should. If there is not a representative number of applicants from any group, these agencies can switch to more aggressive marketing strategies until they attain a more diverse applicant pool.

· Most candidate development programs provide noncompetitive promotions to senior pay level positions upon graduation. The employees who benefit the most by enrolling in these programs are GS-14s or -15s with one or two years of experience, or GS-15s with no management experience. Seasoned GS-15s, those with more experience, are ready, willing and able to get promoted to senior pay level positions without enrolling in candidate development programs. Thus, if agencies use the majority of their senior pay level vacancies to promote employees who have successfully graduated from the programs, they will deny these opportunities to seasoned GS-15s. The key is to strike a balance between the allocation of senior pay level positions to both groups.

Jorge Ponce is co-chairman of the Council of Federal Equal Employment Opportunity and Civil Rights Executives