CEO Recommended Reading: Bill mandating supervisor training passes Senate committee
By Amy Doolittle, FederalTimes.com
June 13, 2007
bill requiring supervisor training for all federal managers unanimously passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today.
“Good leadership begins with strong management training,” said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the bill’s author. “It is time to ensure that federal managers receive appropriate training to supervise federal employees.”
The Federal Supervisor Training Act would require agencies to set performance standards and train new supervisors within their first 12 months on the job. All current supervisors would have to take the training within three years of the bill’s enactment. Additionally, all managers would need to repeat the program every three years.
The bill would also require that new supervisors be mentored by more experienced managers. They would also be taught how to mentor employees and receive training on enforcement of whistleblower and anti-discrimination rights.
The only requirements placed on training in the bill are that it be instructor-based and interactive. Training could be in the classroom or Internet-based, and each agency would be allowed to develop its own training and performance standards that would be subject to yearly Office of Personnel Management and congressional review, Akaka’s staff said.
It was unclear when the bill will head to the Senate floor for a vote.
Among other bills moved from the committee today is one that would allow all nonexecutive senior employees – GS-15 and above – access to the same pay as Senior Executive Service employees if they are a part of a performance-based pay system. Currently those employees are capped at Executive Schedule Level III, which has a cap of $154,600 for 2007.
“This bill would enhance our ability to keep these people in those key jobs in the federal government,” said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who authored the legislation. “We have to recognize that we are going to have to really hustle if we are going to be able to attract the people we need to run this federal government. . . . This is the biggest business in the United States and, you know what, if you don’t have good people, it ain’t going to work.”
Also moved from the committee was the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act, a bill already approved in the House that would, among other things, expand whistleblower protections to intelligence agency employees and private-sector contractors.
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