Daily Archives: May 13, 2011

On Performance Pay Awards and Why No HR Seniors to Rat-Tat-Tat-Kaboom Posts?

May 13, 2011 By in Ambassadors, Awards, Foreign Service, FSOs, Leadership and Management, Transparency

It’s not everyday that the State Department’s Human Resources Office is called “as opaque as the black hole of Calcutta on a moonless winter night.” Which sounds almost poetic and all, but not in any way something you want to brag about. Below is from this post at WhirledView by Patricia Kushlis. Excerpts below:   

As I noted in previous posts, ambassadorships have gone overwhelmingly to HR insiders over those who have put their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latest — and most appalling — examples? The most recent Director General and his Deputy — both having spent their two-year tenures pushing their State colleagues off to war zones — are going where? To Iraq or Afghanistan? Not a chance. They are both enjoying agreeable posts in the South Pacific.

Nor has the situation regarding bonus pay for senior foreign and civil service improved. HR insiders dot the lists as they have for years. As an example on the Civil Service side, a current senior HR official and a former senior HR official (now at the Department’s training institute) have received either SES (Senior Executive Service) Performance Awards or Presidential Rank Awards every year for at least the last five years — including 2009. Whether the awards lists are long or short — these two women are on them.


HR is a support function at the Department — not a line function. The several hundred SES employees in the State Department do complicated, high-profile work on the front lines of diplomacy; many of these people are ignored at awards time. It is difficult to imagine how these HR employees (who after all, have run a Bureau unable to put together six-person meetings on a regular basis) manage to snag the US government’s top honors year after year. It certainly calls into question the integrity of the awards process — from the selection of the boards that grant the awards — to the choice of award recipients themselves.

I repeat my suggestion to Hillary and her people — revise the regulations to bar any one senior employee (Civil or Foreign Service) from getting an award more than once in three years.

Not a new post but still relevant. Active links added above. Continue reading The Broom’s April Check Up.
 
OPM has an August 2010 order to freeze discretionary awards, bonuses, and similar payments for federal employees.  But wait – the directive has the following exception:

Although Foreign Service Officers and career members of the Senior Foreign Service (SFS) appointed under section 302(a)(1) of the Foreign Service Act receive PAS appointments, they are not political appointees and are not subject to the freeze.  Also, SFS members with PAS or PA appointments who elect to retain eligibility for SFS performance awards under section 302(b) of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 are not political appointees and are not subject to the freeze.  

So – I guess you better be in the lookout for the next performance pay cable.  Unfortunately, none of those cables seem to be available anywhere in the public domain. Wonder why that is, ward off the evil eye?  But isn’t that taxpayer money?  You can look those up for comparison year to year if you are inside the firewall at State.  It now seems amusing to watch folks get all contorted over political ambassadorships when right in the front inside of the yard — well …

Anyhow, Patricia’s suggestion that the revised regs should only allow senior employees in the Civil or Foreign Service to receive performance pay awards once every three years sounds extremely reasonable given our current budget pains.   

In the same spirit, shouldn’t senior officials serving in the HR Bureau ought to have a “cooling off” period after serving in that bureau before being considered for career ambassadorships? I mean, if I’m the boss/next bosses of the bureau that puts together the names of the next ambassadors and my name is in it, too — well, wouldn’t you think that smells Epoisses cheesy? Unless, of course — I’m going to one of the two, wait three, no – five war zones, two of them undeclared.

I do think that the next Director General of the Foreign Service ought to have experience not just in hardship posts but real on the ground experience from one of our increasingly rat-tat-tat kaboom posts, that now includes Pakistan and Mexico (although they’re not listed as such anywhere).  Why? Because why not? The DG is the most senior HR person at the State Department. His/Her office is the arm twister, excuse me, the carrot dangler for all those folks who are volunteering to serve in the rat-tat-tat place.  One old friend could not get hold of anyone during the bidding season, that is, apparently, no one was reading the old friend’s multiple emails until there was nothing left on the bidlist. In this case, the carrot was hidden not dangled.  When the old friend finally got a response, well, all the options in that short list says Iraq.  But she’s the small fry!

As far as we are aware, one senior official at State went directly from an HR tour to a warzone tour.  That’s Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, now of the US Embassy in Slovenia. He was the Director of Human Resources/Entry-Level CDA at the U.S. Department of State for a year prior to deploying to the US Embassy in Kabul as Assistant Chief of Mission, then went on become ambassador to Ljubljana.  Yay for Ambassador Mussomeli!

But other senior HR folks seems to have skipped the warzone tours before proceeding to ambassadorial appointments.  HR’s top recruitment guy went on to an ambassadorship in Europe. Another director of HR’s Entry-Level Career Development and Assignments went on to an ambassadorship in Europe. Two former top HR officials, went on to ambassadorships in Asia. And one senior advisor to the Office of Performance Evaluation went on to a lovely island in the South Pacific.  

But if these are important enough foreign policy engagements that the HR bureau cajole colleagues every year to volunteer to go, shouldn’t the HR seniors’ names be on that volunteer list, too?  Because that’s probably the best recruitment tool for the warzones …

Everybody would finally come around to thinking — hey, things must be really serious … the boss who’s asking me to go to the rat-tat-tat kaboom place, is also going to the rat-tat-tat kaboom place…

Note: The term “rat-tat-tat kaboom” to describe posts in war zones was absolutely originally coined by one of our favorite bloggers, Dakota of The Afghan Plan.
The rat-tat-tat-kaboom posts in our book includes all posts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and Mexico.
 

Related item:
3 FAM 2870 | Senior Foreign Service Performance Pay and Presidential Awards 

 

Jon Huntsman: Diplomat and Almost 2012 Candidate Looks Better Than GOP Presidentiables, Expect Poison Arrows That Way

May 13, 2011 By in Ambassadors, Annual, Political Appointees, Politics

2012 Republican Presidential CandidatesImage by DonkeyHotey via FlickrNow — who would do something like this and why?

McKay Coppins of Newsweek and The Daily Beast recently wrote that Huntsman’s 2012 Buzz Caused Friction With Obama Team. Quick excerpts below:

An embassy official who worked closely with Huntsman in Beijing told The Daily Beast that the last few months of the ambassador’s tenure were marked by friction with the White House. After a January Newsweek article set off a flurry of speculation that Huntsman would make a bid for the presidency, the Obama administration began taking aggressive measures to ensure that Huntsman wouldn’t be able to use his appointment for 2012 posturing, said the official, requesting anonymity to discuss internal matters.

“Once the resignation was submitted, politics probably became much more of a question mark, and it was tense,” the official said. “On the embassy side, there was suspicion that [Huntsman] was being subjected to greater scrutiny than he would have otherwise been.”

According to the official, who was not a political appointee, the administration began micromanaging Huntsman’s schedule, canceling media appearances and carefully vetting his public remarks. The source specifically noted a major education speech in Shanghai that was heavily scrutinized by administration officials “to make sure it was kosher.”
[…]
“He was very upset when people began to question his commitment to the job, that people would question his character like that,” said the embassy official, who added that he never saw Huntsman put his own career ahead of his ambassadorial duties. “I’m sure he wished he had only agreed to stay another two weeks after he submitted his resignation, but he stuck through it.”

Read in full here.

Note that political ambassadors are almost always the only political appointee in an embassy. Members of the staff are career officers, occasional civil servants, family members on temp hiring authorities and then there’s the local staff.

Makes one wonder what motivates an embassy official to speak to a reporter about the background noise of the ambassador’s departure — are we seeing the tweaks to set the record straight, or are we watching the hansel n’ gretel cookie crumbing, in case Mr. Huntsman lands in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2012?  Can’t say.  The description of working “closely with Huntsman” could mean many things. The official could be a staff aide, though not likely, or a member of the country team, or an officer in the Political or Econ section, or a front office functionary. Did I miss the other usual suspects who works in close proximity for an ambassador?

Last week, the former Ambassador to China reportedly met with South Carolina Republicans as he was finalizing the decision about a possible presidential run.  CNN reported that Ambassador Huntsman’s remarks to the group was focused on “his family, his tenure in China and his accomplishments as governor of Utah and received glowing reviews from several Republicans in the room, who spoke anonymously because they did not want to be named discussing a private meeting.”

“The consensus was, ‘Holy crap this guy looks like a president,'” said one person who was there. “I have never seen anybody sweep into this state so quickly so fast and get as much accomplished in 48 hours as Huntsman has done.”
[…]
“From my conversations with a few others in attendance and glances around the room, his remarks were well-received,” another Republican source told CNN. “One person who had never met him before remarked, ‘I liked him better than anyone I’ve seen.'”

Holy crap he makes the other presidentiables look — what? um, like they forgot something?

As the Atlantic Wire points out, the former ambassador and former Utah Governor is not only Republican but also good-looking and rich and does super chill things like ride motorcycles and play in bands.  More here from the Atlantic Wire.

I can’t imagine Newt on a Harley, can you? TiPaw or Da Donald in a band, oh, plueeze!

I must add that the former ambassador is not only good looking, he also has perfect hair that does not look like a bird’s nest.  And perfect teeth.  And a nice smile that does not look like he’s after that bone and you’re on the way.  The other presidentiables, frankly have too much gummy smiles (almost desperate), or too contrite over past mistakes (also desperate).  Mr. Huntsman has the demeanor of a statesman, even when slightly jeered in a Beijing rally. I don’t know him but he sounds smart and seems also like-able. Above all he does not seem to be carrying 18,000 lbs of eligible family member personal baggage, on stage and off stage.

I have to agree with the ‘Holy crap this guy looks like a president’ comment.  I mean, true, 2012 is a lifetime away and the GOP base presumably will not be looking for a moderate. But they also have to decide on what is more important to them, electability or a megaphone with lots of noise.    

I can imagine Mr. Huntsman on a Harley, in a band, and frankly, even in the White House.  If he runs, expect more pointed questions on loyalty and religion, and oh gosh, what? – he lived in China for two years, did he shake their hands, too and pal around with commies? (ya, our third largest trading partner after the EU and Canada is Communist China).  Um, wait- where was he born again and does he have the long form birth certificate? His hair is too perfect, are you sure he’s not a Chinese clone?

There are folks looking under rocks, make that under every rock as we move closer to 2012.  

     

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Waiting for the burp, Blogger ate my blog posts

May 13, 2011 By in Blognotes

This week started crazy in my house. It seems only fitting that Blogger ate my last three posts to wrap up the week.  The Blogger outage was actually great timing since I could not sit still to do some work.  But don’t be too hard on them, folks are working on it.  And I needed the break.   

Friday, May 13, 2011

We’ve started restoring the posts that were temporarily removed and expect Blogger to be back to normal soon.
Posted by at 06:07 PDT

To get Blogger back to normal, all posts since 7:37am PDT on Weds, 5/11 have been temporarily removed. We expect everything to be back to normal soon. Sorry for the delay.
Posted by at 04:25 PDT

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