The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

Generally, we see many of the same areas of concern that were expressed in the previous survey — some more ur- gent than others. For example, USAID FSOs believe they still receive inequitable treatment compared to State Depart- ment personnel in terms of salaries and other benefits. Sixty-three percent men- tioned the need for“ensuring equal ben- efits with the State Department,” a topic that AFSA has repeatedly raised with USAID administrators and the human resources department. Everything from entry-level salaries to per diems, overseas hardship differ- entials and even access to training and child care at the Foreign Service Insti- tute is significantly different between the two agencies —always to the disadvan- tage of USAID employees. As long as agency management continues to allow these differences, it is conveying the message that it considers its employees second- class vis-à-vis State employees. There is still a great deal of discomfort regarding USAID’s relationship with the State De- partment and moves to con- solidate more of our administra- tive operations into embassy functions; 57 percent of respon- dents cited this as an important concern. Also, the performance of the Human Resources Office in supporting the needs of FSOs has deteriorated year after year, in the view of respondents, to reach a new low this year with 57 percent giv- ing the office a “poor” rating. One contradictory result was that morale showed a 10 percentage point improvement, yet there is an overall be- lief by the membership that working conditions are worsening (in this year’s survey 55 percent said this was so, com- pared to 54 percent last year). One way to interpret this may be that FSOs like their jobs and what they do, but are con- cerned about the future direction of the agency. One year into the job, Administrator Rajiv Shah garnered decent scores, al- though a little lower overall than the previous interim administrator, Alonzo Fulgham. Many members seem appre- ciative that, after a year’s gap, the agency has a permanent administrator, and they seem willing to give Dr. Shah an opportunity to improve the agency. Diversity was a new topic for this survey. Many respondents were not aware of the enormous discrepancies in the composition of the USAID work force and assumed that representation of all demographic groups was ade- quate. This indicates that more educa- tion is necessary to update everyone about the true situation. Finally, we note your con- cerns that AFSA’s communica- tion with you is deficient. Many of you (25 percent) wanted more specific and frequent up- dates on what we do to support you. While we publish an article addressing USAID issues in AFSA News every other month and release The Vanguard news- letter as needed, we agree we could do better. AFSAnets from USAID have not been sent with the frequency needed to keep members up-to-date, and this will be our focus in the coming months. 52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 1 A F S A N E W S Survey • Continued from page 47 One contradictory result was that morale showed a 10 per- centage point improvement, while there is an overall belief by the membership that working conditions are worsening.