IERs: We’re Not Doing ‘Em Anymore, We’re Doing Something Better — Oh, Smashing, Groovy!

March 4, 2014 By in Ambassadors, Foreign Service, Govt Documents, Grievance, Leadership and Management, Promotions, Realities of the FS, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , ,

— Domani Spero

We’ve been harping about the termination of the OIG prepared report cards (officially called Inspector’s Evaluation Reports) for ambassadors and senior embassy officials. For career diplomats, these reports used to be sent to the Director General of the Foreign Service (DGHR) for inclusion in the employees’ official personnel files (OPFs) and were accessible to members of the FS Promotion Boards.  For political appointees, these reports were previously sent to the White House.

The OIG spox told us last week that “Although OIG no longer produces IERs, senior official performance issues that were previously addressed in IERs are now addressed transparently in OIG inspection reports, which are available to all stakeholders.” We’ll have to wait and see what this transparency looks like. We must say, however, that even if  this were true, the fact remains that “senior official performance issues” will no longer be included in the information available to the Promotion Boards. So basically that DCM over there who caused the resignation/retirement/curtailment of FSOs from post for workplace bullying may be penalized in an OIG report that when released to the public may/may not have redactions, but will suffer no consequence when promotion time comes.

Yup, we’re beating this dead horse to death because …

It is true that Inspector’s Evaluation Reports  (IERs) are “non-public documents processed internally within the Department and used for performance evaluations of senior Department leadership”but as we’ve blogged last week, some of these cases do end up in the Foreign Service Grievance Board. And one of these IERs was published in full (stripped of identifying details) in the official record of proceeding.  The consequence in this 2004 case, included the curtailment of the second highest ranking embassy official from post, a year before the scheduled conclusion of his tour. The official subsequently grieved the IER, prepared following a post inspection conducted by State/OIG, alleging that it “did grievous injury to [his] professional reputation and career prospects through distorted and defamatory allegations of managerial negligence.”  In dealing with the various arguments by official/grievant that the IER was false and inaccurate, the Grievance Board found that the official/grievant “failed to shoulder his burden of proof” and denied it in its entirety.

The following IER exhibit is extracted from FSGB 2004-055:

 {Grievant} has served as Deputy Chief of Mission at {Host City} at perhaps the most demanding time in this embassy’s history.  The political and security situation in the nation is highly dynamic, as {blank} insurgents use violence in their efforts to undermine the government, impeding economic development and regional stability.  Tourism has dropped, the safety of remaining Americans has become a constant concern and U.S. engagement with the government of {Host Country} has increased exponentially.  The new U.S. program of military assistance has jumped to $20 million and the budget for longer-term economic and social assistance is at an all-time high of $42 million.  The expansion in U.S. engagement has been matched by dramatic growth of embassy staff.  Over the past year, there has been an increase of more than 50% in State Department American staff – primarily junior officers and specialists in the consular and administrative sections.  This situation demands strong, engaged leadership.  Unfortunately, the management of Embassy {Host City} has not risen sufficiently to meet this challenge.

The ambassador delegated authority for overseeing overall operations of this mission to {Grievant}.  This has included chairing country team meetings, meeting regularly with heads of mission elements, clearing and editing the majority of cable traffic and handling personnel and management problems.  {Grievant} has also had to take center stage in coordinating the assessments of the {blank} threat and communicating and defending that assessment to Washington.  Perhaps, this was too much delegation.  The result has been a daunting workload and a time management problem, with key DCM functions neglected.

Matching the ambassador’s focus on our foreign policy agenda, {Grievant} has worked hard to advance our goals of increased economic and security support to the government of {Host Country} to help combat the {blank} insurgency.  He has been instrumental in helping craft U.S. policy and has carefully coordinated the efforts of embassy sections and agencies working on this priority.  He has also engaged effectively with the {blank} and {blank} embassies to garner their support. {Grievant} worked closely and successfully with the RSO and ADMIN to press Washington for the resources to relocate the vulnerable American Center.  In addition, he successfully worked with the government to overcome legal obstacles to security upgrades at The [sic] embassy’s downtown compound. and [sic] problems related to visas for {Host Country} residents immigrating to the United States.  These are considerable achievements, but they came at a high price.  {Grievant} has generally remained subsumed in policy activities to the detriment of basic management of the embassy.  Tied to his desk, he has not been a visible presence around the mission and has failed to address some key personnel and management problems effectively.

While many staff declared great respect for {Grievant}’ deep experience in {region} and his political skills, their overall assessment of him as a manager and leader was poor.  He received low scores in most categories of OIG questionnaires assessing leadership and direction, with particular weakness in coordination, vision/goal setting, engagement, feedback, judgment and attentiveness to morale.  His lowest mark was in the area of problem solving.

Morale has suffered and employee relations have been strained due to management shortcomings and the intimidating atmosphere some staff face at post.  {Grievant} is not the intimidator.  Quite the contrary, he was appalled at this situation and had consoled officers who were the victims of this behavior.  He did try to diffuse these problems somewhat, but did not deal with them sufficiently.  Poor management practices and the abusive behavior by some key officers to American and local staff were allowed to persist.

Finally, {Grievant} has not provided necessary guidance and mentoring of the many junior officers at this mission.  Indeed, he claimed that – having not had State Department training for a decade – he only became aware of the extent of his responsibilities for them earlier this year, at a management conference in {Embassy}.  Due to the poor management of the post and the abusive atmosphere noted above – some of these junior officers told OIG inspectors that they were now questioning whether they would remain in the Foreign Service.

So now, no more IERs, best try the um …

Pardon me?  You expect that the members of the Promotion Panels will now dig up the unredacted OIG reports when they deliberate the promotability of senior employees?  As Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery used to say, “Oh, smashing, groovy!”  

For reports on performances with redactions, see  the previous OIG reports on US Embassy Islamabad and Constituent Posts, and US Embassy Lebanon; for reports on performances with little or no redactions, see the ones on Luxembourg, Malta, Kenya.

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