United States
Office of Personnel Management

Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness
Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions


December 2002
Article No. 29-09

Standard:	General Schedule Supervisory Guide (June 1998) [PDF][TXT]
	
Factor:	Factor 3, Supervisory and Managerial Authority Exercised 

Issue:	Crediting work assignment and review as supervision




Identification of the Classification Issue

The appellants’ position was classified as Supervisory Program Analyst, GS-343-13, and was located at an agency headquarters office.  Each of the three appellants directly supervised four subordinate employees.  They believed that they should also be credited with supervising the regional office investigators, based on their responsibility for assigning investigations and reviewing completed cases for quality control.

Resolution

The three appellants were responsible for overseeing the operation of designated regional components of the agency’s national data collection system.  This system comprised extensive case data on product-related injuries and deaths collected from hospitals, medical examiners and coroners, the States, and other sources.  The appellants were responsible for screening the cases for predetermined categories of incidents, assigning these cases to the regional offices for follow-up investigation, monitoring completion of the investigations, and reviewing completed investigative reports for acceptability prior to their entry in the database.

Supervisory work creditable under the General Schedule Supervisory Guide specifically refers to “accomplishment of work through combined technical and administrative direction of others.”  The appellants assigned investigations as coordinators, not as supervisors.  The types of cases to be investigated were identified by the agency program and compliance staffs.  The appellants transmitted these case assignments to the regional offices, whose management was responsible for individual staff assignments.  Completed reports were technically reviewed by supervisory investigators at the regional office level for content.  The appellants’ review was more from the standpoint of whether the reports met requirements for inclusion in the database in terms of format, clarity, and completeness of documentation.  As such, the appellants did not technically supervise the regional staffs, nor did they have administrative supervisory authority over the investigators to assign work, approve leave, evaluate and reward performance, or effect discipline.  Thus, they could only be credited with supervising their own immediate staffs and not the regional office investigators.

Link to C-0343-13-02[PDF][TXT]



Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions, No. 29, December 2002