Building a Merit-Based Culture

There’s a long-standing perception that questionable, even illegal personnel practices—nepotism, retaliation, coercion and more—abound in the federal government.

Describing these and similar behaviors as “inherently incompatible with a merit-based civil service and the public interest,” a new United States Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) report, Perceptions of Prohibited Personnel Practices: An Update, offers encouragement that such behaviors may be on the wane.

The report provides data from MSPB’s most recent Merit Principles Survey, along with earlier data, to identify trends in federal employees’ perceptions of a series of expressly prohibited personnel practices (PPPs), including nepotism, considering improper recommendations, obstructing or influencing job competitions and retaliating for whistleblowing or the exercise of certain rights, for example.

MSPB has conducted this survey three times in the last 13 years—in 2010, 2016 and 2021. In 2010, 34% of respondents said they had either observed or experienced one or more of the PPPs itemized in that survey, according to the organization. That number increased to 46% in 2016, but dropped to 29% in 2021.

Fostering Positive Results

MSPB has studied federal employee perceptions of PPPs “for decades,” according to a statement from the agency, which notes that certain prohibited practices have been seen more consistently than others throughout its three most recent surveys on merit principles.

“Manipulation of recruitment actions to benefit a particular individual” was the most prevalent across the last three studies. In terms of discrimination, federal workers said they saw race, sex and age discrimination, in that order, more frequently than other PPPS related to discrimination, according to MSPB.

All told, just two prohibited practices increased by more than two percentage points between 2010 and 2021. Considering the increasingly contentious political climate permeating American life, it’s probably not surprising that both involve partisan politics.

Overall, the perception of political discrimination more than doubled, from 3.2% to 7.1%, according to MSPB. In six agencies, perceptions of political affiliation discrimination exceeded 8% of respondents.

More than half a million federal employees work at agencies where the perception rate for political affiliation discrimination approached or topped 10% of survey respondents, the report found. Political coercion perceptions doubled from 2.3 to 4.6% between 2010 and 2021.

The report offered a series of recommendations for curbing these and other prohibited personnel practices, urging agencies to “delve deeper into their workforce data for insights on human capital challenges and problematic aspects of agency culture,” for example.

MSPB’s analysis pointed out that agency heads are responsible, by law, for the prevention of PPPs within their agencies, “and should therefore be involved in the activities to achieve that goal,” with supervisors, managers and executives working collectively to ensure that federal workplaces cultivate “a healthy, merit-based culture.” The report also suggested that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) examine these survey results and use them to inform its activities.

“While perceptions of most PPPs dropped in 2021, perceptions of two PPPs (discrimination based on political affiliation and political coercion) increased,” the report read. “OPM should consider what can be done to address this. OPM should also consider what the government may have done in the two years preceding the survey that might have resulted in lower rates of perceptions for most other PPPs, and how the government can leverage any lessons learned from that period to foster positive results in the future.”

The report offers “crucial insights” into how workplaces allow PPPs to occur, and the steps needed to put a stop to such illegal practices, said MSPB Acting Chairman Cathy Harris, in a statement.

“The data show that people do not want to work in this kind of environment,” she said, noting the finding that federal employees’ desire to leave their jobs dramatically increases when they perceive that PPPs are occurring there.

“PPPs are not only against the law, but they may have serious consequences for the efficiency and effectiveness of the civil service. Any agency that is serious about establishing and maintaining a high-performing workforce should look closely at this report.”