The paperwork was staggering. Officials at the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) knew it. So they counted the pieces of paper and came up with 79. It took 79 pieces of paper to bring one new employee on board. No wonder the hiring process seemed so slow. It would take two to four weeks just to obtain the names of eligible applicants from the Department of Central Management Services (CMS), according to Loleta Didrickson, IDES director.

But since last August, a new electronic system has allowed IDES to receive the eligibility list from CMS in 48 hours, significantly reducing the time it takes to review applicant files and hire new staff. Employment applications taken at CMS are immediately scanned into a computer system, which means they can be transferred electronically rather than sorted and sent by mail.

IDES, in cooperation with CMS, is on the leading edge of electronic scanning, filing and transferring employment and personnel records, Didrickson says. The goal is to reduce paperwork through automation, to decrease the time required to process various documents, and to eliminate the loss of information or delay in transferring that sometimes occurs in the mail. "We were technically positioned to do this," says Didrickson, whose agency has worked with IBM to make electronic "imaging" a routine part of their paperwork reduction plan. Ideally, the number of papers required to hire a new person could be reduced from 79 to zero, even to the point of persons completing the initial application on computer.

This IDES initiative is one of several pilot projects underway as part of a statewide effort to review the entire state government personnel system, which has been in place without major redirection since the Personnel Code was enacted in 1955. Significant changes in the state's hiring and personnel practices could be on the horizon. In 1991, a series of reports recommended "radical" revisions in the Personnel Code "to allow government agencies to fulfill not only their missions, but also the aspirations and potential of every government employee." These reports of the nonpartisan Illinois Commission on the Future of Public Service, sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust, recommended the creation of some pilot projects and a Governor's Human Resources Advisory Council.

Gov. Jim Edgar accepted those recommendations and in September 1991 appointed persons from government, business, labor and universities to the advisory council. In an

Principles guiding revisions of state Personnel Code The Governor's Human Resources Advisory Council submitted an "interim report" to Gov. Jim Edgar in February, explaining its work to date on Edgar's desire for a report on how to revise and restructure the state's Personnel Code. The final report, due in September, is expected to address management technologies, worker morale, worker recruitment, hiring, training and advancement, and how to make state government more customer-driven rather than regulation-driven. The council outlined in its interim report the principles by which it will arrive at its final conclusions. These principles say the state's revised human resources management system must be: • Flexible and responsive, to improve efficiency and effectiveness. • Streamlined and focused on people and results, with a goal of allowing for quick action rather than "assuring compliance with rigid administrative procedures." • Able to present a positive image of state service, where state employment is perceived as productive, challenging and rewarding. • Customer responsive. • Quality-based, insuring quality services and quality delivery of services. • Based on highly valued employees. • Prepared to continually improve its work force with adequate training. • Effective in recruiting and retaining candidates with needed skills. • Able to provide "fair, equitable and effective compensation," with more classification of positions handled not by the Department of Central Management Services but at lower levels of administration. If changes are recommended and implemented to match these principles, the state likely would be moving toward a decentralized system for managing one of its most valuable assets: human resources.                                                                                                 Ed Wojcicki

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interim report submitted to the governor in February, the council labeled the Personnel Code "outdated" and expressed the principles to be considered in modernizing the state's human resources management system (see "Principles guiding revisions of state Personnel Code" in box). After hearing the governor's response, the council plans to issue its final report in September.

"Nothing at this point is sacred," said the council's executive director, Thelma Basley, when asked in February if the council might recommend replacing the entire civil service system. "We've been given carte blanche to look at many areas." But the council does not yet have enough information to know whether the system should be thrown out, Basley added, noting the pilot projects are incomplete.

Besides the IDES pilot project involving the reduction of paperwork, other pilots are also under study at IDES and the departments of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA) and Revenue.

At DASA, a computer programmer in the Information Services Division who lives a 45-minute commute southwest of Springfield is one of two union workers who occasionally works at home. In this fledgling telecommuting pilot program, the programmer receives permission to work on a specific project at home, where he has his own computer and can also connect to his office via modem. The next day, he must document all that he accomplished at home the day before.

The two DASA programmers have been so appreciative of the opportunity that they probably do more than if they had been in the office and occasionally get interrupted, said Jan van Blommesteyn, administrator of DASA's Office of Personnel and Labor Relations. These programmers consider the plan family friendly. One day, one of them worked at home while a two-year-old child had chicken pox, and the parent did not have to use a sick day. "I feel that this new program has been one of the most motivating and satisfying perks here at DASA," she said.

Van Blommesteyn said the pilot flex time programs at DASA have been so successful he would like to see them approved and expanded to other state agencies. But he cautioned that working at home is limited to one day a week, and it is not suitable for the work of all employees. When employees are involved in keyboard production work that can be documented and measured, he said, working at home is a possibility. Van Blommesteyn would not predict that such an arrangement would be "the work schedule of the future."

Another pilot project at DASA involves an expanded definition of flex time. State workers since 1977 have been able to get permission to change their daily work schedule, say from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. instead of 8:30 to 5. DASA is taking this several steps further. Every day, an employee can decide when to arrive and to leave, within a 30-minute window. For example, a worker can arrive at 8:52 with no problem, but then is expected to work until 5:22. Workers can also take long lunches up to two-and-a-half hours, with approval of their supervisors. If they take an extra hour at lunch, however, they must make up that hour on the same day before or after regular office hours, van Blommesteyn said.

These flex time programs are not an honor system because everything must be documented, he added, explaining that without rules and procedures, people would abuse it. He says flex time is very popular among workers, allowing them to balance family and business needs. "If I were to take that away now, I would get lynched," he said.

With all workers, the criteria for using flex time are good judgment and scheduling their time so office operations are not negatively affected

Two other flex time initiatives at DASA are a four-day work week and allowing salaried management people, with approval, to have a flexible "seven-day work week" in which they must put in their 37.5 hours. That might mean leaving early a couple of days during the week and then working late one day and for a few hours on Saturday or Sunday. With all workers, the criteria for using flex time are good judgment and scheduling their time so office operations are not negatively affected. "It is common sense," said van Blommesteyn. The only thing preventing more liberal use of flex time in the past was that "the level of integrity of the documentation has been missing." No longer, he says. In fact, some of the professional staff resented that they had to start filling out time sheets every day, writing down precisely when they arrived at work and when they left in order to be in compliance. Van Blommesteyn said that overall the changes have accomplished their purpose: tardiness has been eliminated.

At the Department of Revenue, implementation of several proposed pilot projects are on hold because they have significant union ramifications. Only two of seven planned pilot projects have been fully implemented to date, said Mike Klemens, department spokesman.

Not carried out is the pilot project that would make it easier for the department to place college interns into full-time positions. The employee union bargaining contract generally gives eligible current Department of Revenue workers a chance at openings that otherwise might go to new college graduates. "We intend to protect the seniority principle in the contract," said Rich Abelson, assistant director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31. He said AFSCME has not even been asked to talk about this issue yet, possibly because CMS and Revenue have been spend-

Continued on page 37, See Reinventing state Personnel Code

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Reinventing state Personnel Code
Continued from page 25

ing time planning for the other pilot projects. Klemens countered, however, that CMS is attempting a similar project statewide for placement of interns, and Revenue is waiting for the outcome of CMS's project before implementing its own.

Another sticky issue is a proposed project to consolidate many workers into fewer job classifications. One of Revenue's proposals would allow for more cross training of workers as the job classifications are consolidated. While Revenue hopes to push forward with the pilot projects, Klemens acknowledged, "We recognize there are some fundamental changes [being sought] here." So negotiations continue between AFSCME and the Department of Revenue. Abelson said he received the skeleton of Revenue's proposal in January. He has not had a chance to discuss the details with the local unions and therefore did not want to mention them publicly.

But Abelson did call Revenue's proposed changes "significant" and described the practice of consolidating job classifications as "broad banding." While reclassification of jobs on a small scale is a fairly common practice, the level of broad banding now proposed by Revenue is uncommon, Abelson said. He said AFSCME has concerns about where employees would be slotted in a new classification system, whether people would still be buttonholed without enough chance of advancement, and how employees would be paid. He did not say when he expected negotiations might be concluded.

The two pilot projects Revenue has implemented in connection with personnel policies are "the easier ones," Klemens said. They are:

• Allowing Revenue to keep about half of its employees' personnel records in-house on computer rather than having employees fill out paperwork and send it to CMS for processing; and

• Allowing Revenue instead of CMS to assume responsibility for the classification of agency-specific job titles. Turnaround time on classifications has been reduced from four-to-eight weeks to one week, according to a Revenue report.

Another pilot project involving decentralization of the classification of positions unique to a state agency is underway at the Illinois Department of Employment Security, where 40 job titles will be reduced to 17 by the end of summer, director Loleta Didrickson said. Having fewer classifications will make it easier to move people around into different positions, she said.

Yet another pilot project at IDES gives more people around the state computerized access to information about job openings at the agency. IDES has identified a list of its positions filled most often by external candidates. When vacancies occur for these positions, they can be listed with the IDES Job Service and are available for review by the general public at any of the agency's 62 local offices. The next step could be for other state agencies to include their job listings on this computerized network, Didrickson said.

The upshot of all of the pilot projects, the governor's advisory council hopes, is that its final report to the governor will include documented results that lead to some fundamental changes in the state's human resources management system. The council's interim report last month included more vague principles than specific proposals. Basley said it would not be wise for the council to suggest a lot of major changes and expect them to happen quickly.

The pilot projects and union negotiations are still underway even as the governor's advisory council, which includes both state and AFSCME representation, continue to seek a consensus on the future direction of state employment. Basley said that the council most likely will recommend a few specific changes and make "future recommendations" on ideas that could be implemented perhaps in the next four to five years. *

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