Individual Motivation and Institutional Changes Under the Senior Executive Service
| Author | Peter W. Colby,Patricia Ingraham |
| DOI | 10.1177/0734371X8200200209 |
| Date | 01 March 1982 |
| Published date | 01 March 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
101
INDIVIDUAL
MOTIVATION
AND
INSTITUTIONAL
CHANGES
UNDER
THE
SENIOR
EXECUTIVE
SERVICE*
Peter
W.
Colby
State
University
of
New
York
at
Binghamton
and
Patricia
Ingraham
State
University
of
New
York
at
Binghamton
Abstract
The
Senior
Executive
Service
(SES)
represents
an
attempt
to
alter
the incentive
structure
for
govern-
ment
executives,
primarily
by
introducing
new
financial
incentives
to
motivate
performance,
im-
prove
performance
appraisal,
and
make
retention,
promotion,
and
pay
truly
contingent
on
the
results
of
appraisals.
Our
findings
indicate
that
the
reform
did
address
sources
of
some
dissatisfaction,
but
that the
impact
of
SES
to
date
has
been,
if
anything,
to
make
matters
worse.
SESers
do
not
perceive
improvement
in
the
areas
that
SES
was
designed
to
address.
Introduction
The
Senior
Executive
Service
(SES)
was
created
by
the
Civil
Service
Reform
Act
(CSRA)
of
1978
to
serve
as
a
prestigious,
elite
group
of
top
government
managers.
One
of
the
most
crucial
aspects
of
the
SES
is
the
use
of
financial
incentives
to
improve
work
performance:
The
Senior
Executive
Service
compensation
system
was
designed
to
attract
and
retain
highly
competent
executives
and
to
insure
that
compensation,
retention,
and
tenure
are
contingent
upon
executive
success,
measured
on
the
basis
of
individual
and
organizational
per-
formance.
Rank
and
performance
awards
were
designed
to
reward
outstanding
accomplishments
and
performance
and
to
encourage
ex-
cellence
and
higher
productivity
(U.
S.
General
Accounting
Office,
1981).
After
just
two
and
one-half
years,
the
SES
is
in
deep
trouble.
A
variety
of
surveys
have
shown
the
dissatisfaction
of
SESers
with
their
jobs,
and
statistics
on
retirements
and
vacancies
indicate
that
their
attitudes
are
affecting
behavior.
In
a
mid-summer
1981
National
Journal
report,
William
J.
Lanouette
suggested
that
&dquo;The
Senior
Executive
Service
is
a
fine
idea
whose
time
has
come -
and
all
but
gone.&dquo;
Summarizing
data
from
several
sources,
the
article
pointed
out
that
of
8,400
SES
positions,
only
6,700
are
occupied.
Nearly
95
percent
of
those
reaching
retirement
eligibility
(ages
55-59
with
30
years’
experience)
are
quit-
&dquo;An
earlier
version
of
this
paper
was
presented
at
the
Third
Annual
Meeting
of
the
Association
for
Public
Policy
Analysis
and
Management,
Washington,
D.
C.,
October
22-24,
1981.
102
ting,
compared
to
only
18
percent
in
1978.
At
the
same
time,
a
Merit
Systems
Protection
Board
(MSPB)
survey
suggests
that
only
30
percent
of
those
in
the
SES
feeder
ranks
from
GS
13-15
have
any
interest in
joining.
A
Federal
Ex-
ecutive
Institute
(FEI)
Alumni
survey
found
85
percent
of
SESers
suggesting
that
members
should
be
entitled
to
return
to
the
General
Schedule
positions
most
left
to
join
SES
(Lanouette,
1981).
Moreover,
most
of
the
unhappiness
seems
to
center
on
the
financial
incentives
which
were
thought to
be
the
basis
for
improved
job
satisfaction
and
performance;
this
has
been
complicated
by
the
pay
ceiling
issue
(Colby
and
Ingraham,
1981).
Why is
SES
failing
to
gain
support?
If
SES
is
to
succeed,
a
fuller
and
more
detailed
understanding
of
how
SES
members
are
responding
to
particular
CSRA
reforms,
especially
financial
incentives,
must
be
developed.
This
paper
addresses
these
issues
through
survey
data
exploring
the
work
motivations
of
career
govern-
ment
executives
and
examining
how
they
viewed
the
pre-SES
and
present
SES
systems
in
terms
of
their
own
interests
and
financial
needs.
Methodology
Data
for
this
paper
come
from
two
sources;
the
Federal
Employee
Attitude
Survey
(FEAS)
and
our
own
State
University
of
New
York
at
Binghamton
Survey
(SUNY).
This
first
Federal
Employee
Attitude
Survey
was
administered
by
the
U.
S.
Office
of
Personnel
Management
in
1979,
after
passage
of
CRSA
and
just
prior to
implementation
of
SES
(OPM,
1980).
Of
the
total
sample
of
20,092,
stratified
by agency
and
by
grade
levcl, 14,599
(73
percent)
responded.
FEAS
Phase
II
(OPM,
1981b)
was
distributed
in
late
1980
to
managerial
employees
(GS
13-15) ~nd
senior
executives;
Phase
III
is
in
preparation
for
1982
distribution.
These
surveys
are
the
first
of
their
kind
in
that
they give
accurate,
government-wide
information
about
federal
employee
attitudes
towards
their
jobs
and
federal
service.
Phase
I,
used
in
this
article,
is
available
for
secondary
analysis
through
the
Inter-University
Consortium
for
Political
and
Social
Research.
An
overview
of
Phase
II
is
available
from
OPM.
For
present pur-
poses,
the
FEAS
Phase
I
provides
valuable
pre-reform
data
on
why
SESers
joined the
federal
service,
what
motivates
current
work
performance,
what
should
be
(as
well
as
what
are) the
determinants
of
one’s
pay,
and
attitudes
towards
performance
appraisal
and
its
consequences.
To
assess
the
post-reform
attitudes
of
SESers,
we
surveyed a
random
sample
of
292
of
the
approximately
1200
members
of
the
Senior
Executive
Service
from
four
domestic
agencies:
Commerce,
Housing
and
Urban
Development,
Health
and
Human
Services,
and
Labor.
A
mail
questionnaire
was
used,
and
178
ques-
tionnaires,
or
slightly
over
60
percent
of
the
total
sample,
were
returned.
Responses
were
received
over a
six-week
period in
March
and
April,
1981;
no
differences
were
noted
between
early and
late
respondent’s
views.
All
of
those
in
the
sample
are
employed
in
the
Washington,
D.
C.,
metropolitan
area.
The
findings
indicate
that
they are
in
the
age
group
45-55
and
have
at
least
one
graduate
degree.
They are,
overwhelmingly,
white
males.
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