United States

Office of Personnel Management

Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness

Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions

September 1991

No. 15-06

Standard:

Factor:

Issue:	Sharing of supervisory responsibility

Although the Supervisory Grade-Evaluation Guide was superseded by the General Schedule Supervisory Guide, the discussion in this article is still valid under the General Schedule Supervisory Guide.

Identification of the Classification Issue

This issue arose in an Office of Personnel Management region's adjudication of an appeal from a Supervisory Engineering Technician. Among the positions receiving technical supervision from the appellant was a GS-12 Engineering Technician who was designated as a team leader. The agency considered the team leader position to be inappropriate for inclusion in the Base Level since it essentially shared in the supervisory responsibilities by providing technical direction to other employees. The issue was whether the team leader position should be included in the Base Level of Work Supervised.

Resolution

The primary consideration in this issue is whether the following statement on page 42 of the Supervisory Grade-Evaluation Guide precludes consideration of the grade (GS-12) of the team leader position in the Base Level of Work Supervised:

The Base Level of work should not be determined by reference to grades of subordinate positions in cases in which such grades depend primarily on:

(a) A sharing of the supervisor's responsibility for planning, reviewing, and/or coordinating work; . . . .

Although there appeared to be some limited supervisory-sharing aspects to the team leader position, The Office of Personnel Management did not find that the grade depended primarily on them. The position description for the team leader position credited the performance of the most complex and difficult assignments involving one-of-a-kind instruments and systems in a specialty field. A further review of the position clearly indicated that it was the special knowledge, skill, and judgment required to perform such complex assignments that distinguished the work rather than the supervisory responsibilities. Because it was the team leader's personal and individual working involvement in the substantive, more difficult assignments that was the paramount grade-influencing factor, The Office of Personnel Management found the GS-12 team leader position to be appropriate for inclusion with the positions used to determine the Base Level of Work Supervised.