Managers who hire for Washington's 55,000 general service positions are still given only seven applicants to choose from. Traditional seniority rights also play a large role in restricting managerial freedom when it comes to promotion, reductions in job force and subsequent reemployment. It has replaced some 750 management job classes with four broad bands, and is placing a wide and competitive range of salary options in the hands of the agencies. This is one of the few states making a genuine effort at workforce planning. It is looking at where personnel shortages are likely and where new needs will crop up.
Training is also a high priority.
Agencies are able to retain half the money they save from re-engineering efforts, and often utilize it to build workforce skills. Governor Locke arrived in office with a management agenda as well as a political agenda, and has strongly pushed a quality initiative that emphasizes a results orientation. Locke supports the idea that performance budgeting and strategic planning should be integrated into one common initiative inside every agency. Reporting of results against targets is now required of all the agencies on a quarterly, not a biennial, basis. Plans call for agency performance against targets to be reported on the state's Web site.