In its quest to attract and retain the best and brightest, the IC has undertaken an effort to retool its compensation and benefits offerings so as to more effectively compete with the bandits that poach its highly and expensively-trained workforce. Matching salaries is only part of the problem though and by far not the most important. Matching private-sector labor rates is a suckers game anyway: no one gets into this line of work to become a contractor.
Still, there are issues associated with the government’s idea of fair and just compensation. As one would expect in a paramilitary allusions to hierarchy pervade the thinking associated with what is fair and just; longevity is still rewarded to a greater extent than skill. When someone new does not start off at the bottom or when someone insufficiently aged (per the arbitrary standard set by those from the Ancien Régime) makes it to the upper echelons, you can cut the feelings of resentment and disdain with a knife.
Implementing pay-banding and tying compensation to both skills and performance (see Workforce Performance briefing for additional details) would help to combat the idea that time-served is more important than what one brings to the table. The problems facing our intelligence agencies are constantly changing and the workforce needs to change with it. Make it clear that resting on one’s laurels is going to mean tightening one’s belt.
All things being equal, serious practitioners are not easily swayed by the size of a given paycheck, but by a diverse set of factors that recognizes that money, while important, is not everything.
Maintaining skills and keeping abreast of the latest developments in pertinent fields means maintaining membership in at least one professional society. Membership costs money and if that membership supports the mission then that is something that the government ought to pay for. If membership in an external group is not practical for some reason, those funds could be used to pay for subscriptions to pertinent journals or trade publications.
Sufficient funds should also be allocated to pay for attendance to at least one conference a year. Conferences have long ceased to be boondoggles and in some cases they are where the most current training is made available.
Maintaining a skill set is an essential part of being competitive in any workforce, and not paying for that skill maintenance is a signal to the employee that they are not worth investing in. Agencies talk about acquiring the best people and demanding high standards, but those words ring hollow when the burden for maintaining those high standards falls exclusively on the shoulders of the employee.
When all that skill is employed successfully it should be rewarded substantially. Implement a performance bonus system that operates on two tracks; cash and time off. Small amounts of cash (popularly branded bank or gift cards are probably a better idea) or time off (in four-hour increments) should be available to division-level management to reward those who step-up for those high-pressure, time-sensitive flails. Reserve larger rewards –at least five-figures - should be awarded annually to the top 3-5% of those in the collection, analysis and technical support fields (see Workplace Performance brief for additional details).
No one gets into the intelligence business to get rich, but when the same job can be done regardless of badge color, people are naturally going to pay more attention to the money and fringe benefits. When pay and benefits are nearly a wash – all other things being equal – people will have no compelling reason to jump ship.
