Federal Workplace, The: Civil Service Reforms
The Civil Service Reform Act, a Democratic initiative, created a senior executive service and a performance appraisal system that ties pay to performance. It created a means to enforce the laws and write the regulations that govern the hiring, firin...
Federal Workplace, The: Bureaucracy in Perspective, The
The positive experiences people have in dealing one-on-one with federal agencies is sometimes subverted when they think of bureaucracy in broader terms. The bureaucracy poses a political problem because it embodies the tension between creating purpo...
Federal Workplace, The: Bureaucracy in Historical Framework, The
The federal bureaucracy is not defined in the Constitution; it is a creature of laws. What was originally a small, elite corps of socially prominent men in 1789 became, with the inauguration of Andrew Jackson, a group of ordinary citizens who served...
Federal Workplace, The: Balancing Act, A
The federal bureaucracy is a product of law and regulation. Congress specifies the tasks the U. S. government will undertake and delegates those tasks to the president and his subordinates. When a president is elected by a substantial margin, public...
Federal Workplace, The: Terms of Employment
The United States has fewer career public employees than most other countries but a larger layer of political appointees. Most federal employees are hired under the merit system at salaries considerably below jobs in the private sector. Constance Ho...
Federal Workplace, The: Shaping Policy
To an important degree, a federal agency or department shapes their own purposes by determining how a law will operate in practice. For example, late in the 1980s the Park Service changed its basic policy regarding fire suppression in the National P...
Federal Workplace, The: Well-intentioned Red Tape Impedes Efficiency
When there is a problem in the federal workplace, Congress or the regulatory apparatus of the bureaucracy itself will add a new law or rule. The result is thousands of pages of regulations that grind work to a halt. Requirements related to due proce...