CIVILIAN PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT In most of your billet assignments as an LN you will work side by side with civilian personnel who augment the staffing of NLSOs or SJA offices. Quite often you will  supervise  some  of  them. Together,   civilian employees  with  military  counterparts  are  an  integral team  that  contributes  significantly  to  the  mission success of your office as well as the command. In the next section we will address civilian employees and two important aspects of your supervision, namely, writing position  descriptions  and  performance  appraisals. THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEE Too  often  the  unfamiliarity  with  civil  service regulations  causes  problems  in  carrying  out  good management   practices. Again,   involvement   is important in achieving office efficiency. To understand the world of a civil servant you should not hesitate to pursue whatever is available in the way of training. A visit  to  your  servicing  civilian  personnel  office  should be your first stop. They not only keep up the records of civilian  employees  hut  also  maintain  publications  and regulations governing civil service; for example, copies of the Federal  Personnel  Manual,  the  Civil  Service Reform Act pamphlet, and the Manager’s Handbook. The most helpful and highly recommended guide is the local standard operating procedures (SOP). You can obtain the SOP from the servicing civilian personnel office also. The local SOP explains in specific detail how actions are handled by that servicing personnel office. Each SOP is different and should never be used at  another  location  because  it  would  not  apply.  There arc procedural differences at each Servicing civilian personnel office. The local SOP defines the procedures for all personnel actions.   For instance, it explains the procedures for staffing, classification, and employee relations.  These  offices  also  conduct  seminars  and training for military supervisors. Your efforts to get as much  information  as  possible  will  enhance  your understanding of the civilian personnel who staff your office. POSITION DESCRIPTIONS One   of   the   major   tasks   concerning   civilian employees that you may find yourself involved in is the writing of position descriptions. Positions must be classified before employees can be hired. A position description is an official record of the work assigned by management to an employee. Position descriptions are useful in setting qualifications used in filling jobs and promoting  employees.   They can be used to orient new employees   in   their   duties. The  duties  and responsibilities in a position description are also used in developing performance standards for the work and in deciding on (mining courses related to the work. Although   different   position   descriptions   are required   for   different   classifications   of   federal employees, we will touch briefly on the General Service (GS) position description because, in most cases, it will be the GS civil service employee that you supervise. The following is a broad outline of the major elements that make up a GS position description. Most GS position descriptions are now written in a Factor Evaluation System (FES) format. The FES is a method  of  assigning  grades  in  the  classification  of nonsupervisory positions, GS-1 through GS-15. Under the FES, position descriptions consist of a brief listing of  the  major  duties  followed  by  a  description  of  those duties in nine FES evaluation factors. The nine factors are  as  follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Knowledge required (by the position) Supervisory  controls Guidelines (for the work) Complexity  (of  the  work) Scope and effect (of the work) Personal  contacts Purpose  of  contacts Physical  demands Work  environment For  additional  information  on  writing  position descriptions  using  the  FES  format,  refer  to  the  guide How to Write Position Descriptions Under the Factor Evaluation  System. All servicing civilian personnel offices should have this guide. PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS Another  important  task  is  the  writing  of  the performance  appraisals  of  your  civilian  personnel. Performance appraisals are used as a basis for decisions to train, reward, assign, promote, demote, retain, or remove  (for  reasons  other  than  misconduct)  employees. Because most performance appraisals are based on locally prepared criteria, we will only briefly cover the major areas that supervisors need to be concerned with 14-4