Restoring Merit-Based Hiring in Florida
A New Year’s Resolution for 2025
Ensuring competence in government has never been easy.
However, for decades at the federal level, getting certain jobs required passing a rigorous civil service examination. The tests raised the bar and reputation of these positions, but were eliminated in the 1970s, following radical court rulings based on disparate impact theories, ushering in an anti-merit civil service movement. Since then, government has grown far larger and less efficient, effective, and accountable.
The Cicero Institute suggests Florida make a New Year’s Resolution in 2025 to increase access to healthcare by creating a pathway for international physicians to practice in the state.
THE SOLUTION
Florida must recruit and reward government employees based on merit rather than nepotism, coattails, ideological alignment, or college pedigrees.
WHEN HIRING:
Each state agency should be required to adopt a framework of competencies, and include descriptive information necessary to determine how to measure each.
Florida’s chief human capital officer will select existing tests and set passing scores for each to measure the competencies for each eligible job category. These assessments will:
- Screen for general aptitude across all job categories.
- Objectively measure competencies that are common across many job categories through formal assessment.
- Validate job-specific skills using at least one formal assessment per job category. Other competencies may be assessed using a variety of other measures.
Discrimination is prohibited based on a candidate’s attainment of postsecondary education, political viewpoints, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, or any other characteristics protected by law.
POST-HIRING:
Ensure Florida’s agency heads set precise and measurable goals for their departments.
Evaluate employees annually based on a set of objective criteria tied to competency frameworks and measured by regular assessments.
Employees in Florida may be dismissed based on a clear and objective framework tied to formal evaluations and the competency and assessment frameworks.
WHY IT MATTERS
It is important all government agencies are staffed by the most competent candidates. That is why it is imperative that we develop best practices to assess and reward talent, iterate and improve continuously, and resist reflexive bureaucratic resistance to meaningful and measurable accountability.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The government must hire, assess, and reward based on merit. This will ensure government at all levels is more competent, efficient, effective, and accountable.
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