United States

Office of Personnel Management

Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness

Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions

October 1997

No. 20-08

Standard:	General Schedule Supervisory Guide (April 1993)

Factor:	Factor 6, Other Conditions, Special Situations

Issue:	Crediting Physical Dispersion

Identification of the Classification Issue

This issue arose in an Office of Personnel Management oversight division's adjudication of a classification appeal. The appellant was a second-level supervisor who directed the work of a transportation unit and a buildings and grounds maintenance unit associated with a military base dependent school system. The agency credited the appellant with Physical Dispersion because: (1) the maintenance and transportation units were located in separate buildings on the base; (2) there were 10 different buildings on the base associated with the school system and 1 building approximately 14 miles away; and (3) the transportation personnel (bus drivers) were dispersed throughout the base and surrounding community daily making supervision more difficult.

Resolution

The oversight division denied credit because the physical dispersion of the units in this case did not make the appellant's day-to-day supervision more difficult to administer. According to the General Schedule Supervisory Guide, Physical Dispersion is credited when a substantial portion of the workload for which the supervisor is responsible is regularly carried out at one or more locations which are physically removed from the main unit (as in different buildings, or widely dispersed locations in a large warehouse or factory building), under conditions which make day- to-day supervision difficult to administer.

The location of the subordinate supervisors themselves did not impact on the appellant's day-to- day supervision since work assignments were normally made by telephone, written memorandum, or occasional face-to-face meetings. As subordinate supervisors, they did not require close daily supervision anyway. More importantly, as a second-level supervisor, the appellant did not make daily onsite visits to supervise the actual maintenance or transportation work being performed by the maintenance mechanics and bus drivers. In addition, bus drivers, by the very nature of their work, are not subject to close daily supervision.

Although the appellant supervised a workload carried out in many locations, this did not impact on the difficulty of his day-to-day supervisory responsibilities. Therefore, the oversight division determined Physical Dispersion could not be credited.