Why They Stay In

By Niels Marquardt

I have an upbeat response when I hear dirges about the demise of the Foreign Service. As director of entry-level personnel for the Foreign Service since August 1998, I have witnessed a period of record-breaking hiring of new junior officers and FS specialists. Where some see crisis, I see opportunity. And, based on the quality of new employees, I see new life and a strong future for the Foreign Service.

I am writing largely in response to two recently resigned junior officers who wrote an article entitled "Why We Got Out" in the December FSJ. Their complaints struck a sympathetic chord with me in some ways. I remember firing off a self-satisfying fare-thee-well letter to the Peace Corps many years ago. But I also found their list of wrongs about embassy Mexico City to be typical of frequently heard negative opinions, which I believe are mostly untrue. I am especially skeptical because I made a trip last April to Mexico and talked with junior officers there myself.

First, statistics show that junior officers are not leaving the Foreign Service in large numbers. On average, only 20 junior officers have left the Foreign Service each year for the past six years. In 1999, the authors were two of only 18 junior officers who resigned worldwide. During that same period, 313 new junior officers were hired. In 1998 the State Department hired 224 JOs; 280 more will be added this year. Few organizations in the public or private sectors can point to such loyalty among their new recruits.

The Foreign Service does have staffing shortages, as the situation in Mexico City illustrates, but these are due to insufficient hiring in the budget-crunch years of the early 1990s rather than any increase in resignations or attrition. Moreover, the authors' reasons for resigning -- profound dissatisfaction with the profession -- were unusual. Most JOs resign because of irreconcilable "lifestyle" issues: spouses or partners with personal or professional reservations about a transient lifestyle, better pay in the private sector, a desire to return to graduate school and so on. Attrition among junior officers is a healthy mechanism for both the Foreign Service and the officers who leave. Neither the profession nor the lifestyle is for everyone; what surprises me is how few JOs leave for any reason.

A recent study on the State Department by the McKinsey Group entitled "The War for Talent" certainly makes clear that even difficult professional and lifestyle issues are on the table for discussion and remedy. The study revealed significant disparities between the attitudes and expectations of the current generation of new hires and those of current management. These disparities will need to be addressed if the State Department wishes to remain a competitive employer. I know of many posts -- including Mexico City -- where the McKinsey findings have generated worthwhile modifications in the way that junior officers are treated. For example, many posts are rotating JOs more to enhance their career development and provide them more variety, offering them more opportunities to do reporting and more temporary duty assignments at other posts.

I have gotten to know personally more than half of the 1,000-plus JOs currently on the State Department's payroll. Mexico City and other posts I have visited with serious consular workloads are far along in helping themselves by introducing new management policies that are part of the Consular Bureau's "Best Practices" program. This program of innovative management approaches speaks well of State's commitment to improving working conditions and providing good public service, all in a taxpayer-friendly manner. So to my second point: The notion that the situation in Mexico City is an example of State department's "unmanaged" nature is contradicted by the facts. Most of the problems in the non-immigrant visa unit in Mexico City can be traced to the crushing and rapidly increasing workload. The number of NIV applications increased 80 percent in two years, from fewer than 800,000 in FY97 to almost 1.4 million in FY99. The expected FY00 level is 1.8 million. Much of the increase is the result of congressional mandates for which no additional resources were allocated. On top of these increases, immigrant visa applications for all of Mexico almost doubled, from about 67,000 in FY97 to more than 130,000 in FY99.

Faced with the avalanche that resulted from the recent amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, the State Department and Embassy Mexico City didn't just ask more of their junior officers. Instead, staffing was increased. The total number of consular officers devoted to NIV work in Mexico tripled from 40 in FY97 to 120 in FY00. This was accomplished by creatively mixing junior officers, civil servants and other added personnel. The number of locally hired employees devoted to NIV work across Mexico was also increased from 43 to 207. None of this would have occurred without vigilant, energetic management in the consular and administrative sections in Mexico City and in Washington.

In addition, Embassy Mexico City reconstructed the non-immigrant visa pavilion to provide better working space for employees and to create a more efficient flow for the thousands of visa applicants who pass through it every week. Eight additional consular sections have been renovated throughout Mexico since 1998.

Other innovations also make consular work in Mexico more pleasant and efficient. A computerized appointments and home delivery system for visas has reduced the traditional four-to-six-block-long line of visa applicants. For the first time in years, consular employees on their way to work don't have to negotiate a snaking throng of visa applicants, many of whom have spent the night on the sidewalk. The new system also allows post management to control in advance the number of daily applicants, match staffing to demand, reduce applicants' waiting time, and reduce stress and improve attitudes on both sides of the interviewing window.

When I visited Mexico City, I held a meeting for all junior officers, but neither author of "Why We Got Out" chose to attend. During the meeting, I found great appreciation for recent changes in the consular section. I stand by my observation at the time that the JOs' morale -- with the explicit exception of that of the authors -- was positive and improving. Much of the credit goes to good management at post and particularly to increased staffing to meet surging demand. The JOs also appreciated ongoing renovation projects, including major improvements to residences for entry-level officers in Mexico City. A further reason for the improving morale was the focussed, hardworking, professional attitudes of the JOs themselves. Most understood the challenge before them, saw that help was on the way and did their best under the circumstances.

Most JOs today are working very hard doing consular work. This is because, as in Mexico, most of State's entry-level workload is in the consular area. Every new officer is asked to do a minimum of one year of consular work, but each is also offered the opportunity to work in at least one other cone during the first two assignments. Many opt voluntarily for more than one consular tour, because they appreciate that the skills they develop are valuable over a long-term career.

In reading literally thousands of junior officers' performance ratings, I have noted the following skills and traits particularly exhibited by those doing consular work: decisiveness, foreign language ability, ability to perform under pressure and under a deadline, courtesy, good judgment, the key diplomatic skill of saying "no" in a way that both sticks and does not alienate, supervisory skills across cultural and language barriers, ability to innovate, stamina, and self-discipline, among others. Those are some of the same attributes the State Department seeks in its deputy chiefs of mission and deputy assistant secretaries.

Many issues raised in the December FSJ have merit. But I also believe that those issues are receiving serious attention. The question of nepotism, for example, presents particular challenges. There are no easy answers to the dilemma of having to chose -- as was the case in Mexico -- between full staffing and the issues raised by tandem couples. There are, in fact, no easy answers when managing a staff as large and diverse as the Foreign Service.

When I wrote my own "why I got out" letter so long ago, I had no idea what it was like to manage people and organizations. I have come to realize that State's worldwide management challenges are, simply put, phenomenal. But I have also seen that State's responses to these challenges are often phenomenally creative -- often more creative than we admit to ourselves. No doubt State will face huge new problems in the new millennium. But I am happy to report that we have recruited some truly outstanding junior officers who will be responsible for coming up with solutions to those future challenges, and those JOs are staying in the Foreign Service in record numbers.

Niels Marquardt, an FSO, is director, entry level personnel, in the Office of Career Development and Assignments, Bureau of Personnel.