Morale at the Department of Homeland Security remains low, but Marta Perez, the department’s new human capital officer, says that “significant progress is being made.” It’s just not clear what the department is progressing toward, exactly.

“It’s no secret that morale in the department is low, one of the lowest of all federal agencies,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The department ranked 29th out of 30 large federal agencies in the recently released 2007 Best Places to Work rankings issued by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.

Testifying before the committee April 19, Perez said that DHS’ plan to change from its MaxHR system to a new system known as the Human Capital Operational Plan wasn’t just the rest of the old system with a new coat of paint.

[Perez] assured lawmakers that the new plan will implement many important initiatives that MaxHR did not address, including hiring, retention, training and vocational efforts. “What we have done in the operational plan is define new priorities to make sure we have the right talent in place,” she said.

But lawmakers expressed concern over portions of MaxHR that are continued in the new system. Last spring, an appeals court ruled the labor relations portions of MaxHR illegal, and while the court did not rule against the regulations on appeals, adverse actions and performance management, it did label them as unfair, lawmakers said. The Human Capital Operational Plan seeks to implement the portions of MaxHR not struck down by the court.

“These regulations effectively gut employee due process rights, putting in serious jeopardy the agency’s ability to recruit and retain a capable workforce,” National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley told the subcommittee. She offered strong support for legislation recently passed by the committee that would repeal the DHS system in its entirety. — Government Executive

Perhaps part of the problem is thinking of employees as “human resources,” or worse, “human capital.”

Another part of the problem seems to be an employee performance evaluation component which seems unusually harsh.

J. David Cox, national secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees, also voiced doubts about HCOP’s performance rating system.

“In the new system, failure to meet a single expectation requires a rating of ‘unacceptable,’ which in turn requires an employee to be fired, demoted or reassigned,” he said. — Federal Computer Week

The performance evaluation applies to the rank and file, but the most serious problems are at senior management levels, where the department consistently has trouble attracting and retaining good managers, and trouble getting rid of bad ones.

Perez replaced K. Gregg Prillaman, who resigned last year amid similar criticisms of Homeland Security’s personnel management practices. Morale at the department has been among the lowest in the federal government since its creation.

One thing’s for sure. Working at DHS isn’t going to get better anytime soon. “DHS is only four years into this journey,” Perez said. “While we are making great progress, it will take time to become a fully integrated organization.”

After four years, the progress made is barely statistically significant. It’ll probably take a lot longer than four more years to work out the morale problems. And before then, Congress might rearrange the deck chairs again anyway. The question for DHS employees reading this is, do you want to stick around that long in a job you hate?

And if you must remain in government service, might I recommend the nearest inspector general’s office? Virtually all of them scored high in the rankings despite criticism from bureaucrats and others who would rather not see waste, fraud and abuse caught.

The worst place to work in the federal government was the Small Business Administration, according to the survey.