The 20 panelists—current or former federal officials and academicians—joined the presenters for the symposium’s group discussions. Value people as assets rather than as costs. 3. 4. Use different organizational models as appropriate. 6. 7. 8. Assuming these barriers were overcome, many of the principles could be put into practice without changing any laws. Barriers Exist to Putting Some of These Principles Into Practice

Some symposium participants agreed that in the federal government, a number of barriers do exist to the sort of thinking embodied in the eight principles for managing people. It takes persistence. But some symposium participants considered this approach a barrier to the creation of high-performance organizations for three reasons: it puts constraints on innovation and flexibility; it transfers the real responsibility for managing people from agency managers to agency personnel staff and OPM; and it ignores the differences among federal agencies in their missions, cultures, sizes, and other characteristics. “Basically, the principles and values were that we should have an apolitical public service, that we should continue to have merit-based staffing, that we should maintain high standards of honesty and integrity among public servants, that there should be a very strong focus on efficiency and results, and that  should continue to be accountable to the government of the day while it maintains the capacity to provide it with high quality advice.”
If Congress should decide to comprehensively decentralize the civil service, it could do so by revising Title 5 to articulate guiding values and principles but omit detailed rules of implementation. We have a mission. How Do Public Managers Manage? Innovative Approaches to Human Resources Management, August 1995. Perry, James L. “Transforming Federal Civil Service: Strategic Human Resource Management”, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Vol. Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe. Management Reform: Implementation of the National Performance Review’s Recommendations (GAO/OCG-95-1, December 5, 1994).
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO sponsored a symposium on transforming the civil service.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) the symposium brought together leading private and public sector employers and former federal officials to discuss new human resource management approaches; (2) there were eight overlapping personnel management principles that focused on people as assets, organizational missions, accountability, appropriate organizational structures, integrating personnel management into an organization's mission, continuous learning, integrated information management, and sustained leadership; (3) symposium participants found that a comprehensive rather than a piecemeal approach to human resources management was more effective; (4) although some federal agencies have adopted some of these management principles, attitudinal, political, and structural barriers hamper wider acceptance; (5) although some of the principles could be adopted without changing any laws, others would require congressional action and increased civil service decentralization; (6) recent legislation and the National Performance Review have recognized the value of these management principles; (7) the federal government should retain its merit system core values while allowing federal agencies more flexibility to meet their disparate needs; and (8) Congress must take into consideration the fundamental differences between government and private sector functions in applying these management principles.