The Twentieth Charles L. Decker Lecture in Administrative and Civil Law

• Author: Janice R. Lachance
• Pages: 03

138 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 163

THE TWENTIETH CHARLES L. DECKER LECTURE IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND CIVIL LAW1

JANICE R. LACHANCE2

It is a true pleasure for me to be here for the Twentieth Annual Charles Decker Lecture.3 I have to admit, one of the reasons I decided to accept the invitation to be here today was the intriguing write-up I received on JAG. It said: "The combination of mystery, courtroom drama, and men and women in uniform keeps viewers coming back for a taste of the excitement. The military spin makes for some intriguing situations in what could

otherwise be just another show about lawyers . . . ."4 Oh wait, that was the write up for JAG the TV series!

Seriously, The Judge Advocate General's Regiment (JAG) and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management5 (OPM) are actually very similar in some ways. Just as JAG officers serve as a liaison between the military community and its real world legal needs, the OPM serves as the bridge between the federal workforce and its real world human resources needs. At the center of both of these relationships is the critical element of public trust.

With that in mind, I would like to start my discussion with you today by looking a little more closely at how the OPM came to inherit this trust. You all probably know the story of how the U.S. Civil Service Commission, which later became the OPM, was created in 1883 as a response to widespread political corruption and favoritism. When President James A. Garfield was shot and killed in 1881 by an angry office seeker, an enormous outpouring of public anger from the American people prompted Congress to pass the Civil Service Act of 1883.6 The bill was introduced by a Democratic senator and signed into law by a Republican President- an indication of just how strong the bipartisan support was for this measure. If you follow Washington politics at all, you know how hard it is for

the two major political parties to agree on anything, which was just as true 115 years ago.

This law's basic principles-which have not changed in more than a century-have stood the test of time, and the transition from a rural, pioneer society to one of the most complex industrial societies in the world. Since that time, federal jobs are offered and filled based on what you know, not who you know.

By 1978, changes were needed if the merit system was to remain effective. As a result, the Civil Service Reform Act of 19787 abolished the Civil Service Commission and divided its functions and missions among three new organizations: the Merit Systems Protection Board; the Office of Special Counsel; and my personal favorite, the OPM. As the human resources agency for the federal government, the OPM takes its responsibility for administering the merit system very seriously. We know that the American people are relying upon us to make sure our federal employment system is fair and stays fair.

However, more than just merit is at stake here. We also have an obligation to build a workforce that is competitive in the next century. Thus, for me and for the federal government, it means we continue to take great care to select and develop employees who have the skills and expertise to lead our government into the changing world of the new millennium. People talk all the time about the impact of this change on our workforce and our society. I am here to tell you that the impact is already being felt-it is real, it is significant, and for those caught unaware, it will be catastrophic.

Lately, I have been talking about something that I call the "Dinosaur Killer"-and no I am not talking about some giant asteroid striking the planet, as recent movies have suggested. Instead, I am talking about an overwhelming, unavoidable force of nature that is changing the climate of the world's workforce and ushering in a new age-this time we are calling the Dinosaur Killer by the name of "The Information Revolution."

More and more information is becoming available to an ever-expanding number of people around the world at an ever increasing pace. New technologies, new work environments, new needs for skills and learning, all these changes are having a deep impact, at work and at home, in soc

eties around the globe. Rest assured, the demands of the Information Revolution will kill our twentieth century dinosaurs-those organizations that cannot, or will not, adapt to the new global realities of the next millennium.

At OPM, we have been working hard to fight off the Dinosaur Killer by anticipating the specific nature of work and the workforce of the twenty-first century, and by seeing what OPM can do now to create and sustain learning environments. We already see the trends for the next millennium-the theme is: "Adapt or be pushed aside."

Organizations are already learning that they must adapt to changing missions and become more diverse and more flexible. In the years ahead, organizations will no longer have a permanent workforce, or even a temporary workforce, instead they will have what I call a "situational work-force." Needed work will be done by a blend of core employees in cross-functional teams and by temporary employees, consultants, and contractors, when necessary.

Full-time, lifelong jobs and job descriptions are already disappearing, and instead, employees are increasingly being called upon to be general-ists-omnivores in the new world order, with the tools to survive and flourish at many different tasks and in many different environments. Fewer jobs will fit into a neat job description, and our core government employees will be called upon to perform one role today and another tomorrow.

Obviously, this has significant implications for how skills are valued, how salaries are set, how performance is evaluated, and how learning needs are assessed and met. Organizations will have to look at the bottom line and weigh the cost of investing in specialists who can only do one thing very well, versus the benefit of using generalists who can perform multiple tasks and who are adaptable to changing organizational needs. The way work is organized is also being affected by the speed of change. Work processes are increasingly driven by what employees know-that is to say, how well the work is done is increasingly dependent upon the level of knowledge the employee...