6
addition to personnel and training, em
ployment, and classification.
Many of the day-to-day personnel
operations would be quite familiar to
anyone in the public personnel field in
local, state, or federal jurisdictions. At
the divisional staff meetings there are
invariably discussions concerning posi
tive recruitment, compensation, alloca
tion of positions, and problems of em
ployee welfare. The pros and cons of
employee efficiency ratings have been
debated back and forth as they surely
have in countless jurisdictions through
out the United States. The internation
al characteristics of the agency not only
influence the daily operations but add
certain new factors which are essential
ly international in character. Practices
are made more complex by such factors
as the varying pay scales in different
member nations and the difficulties of
recruiting on a world-wide basis.
The international character of the
agency is perhaps most clearly evident
at the operating level when the mission
chief and his supervisors are faced with
the necessity for joining together into
an operating team the nations coming
from a variety of backgrounds and
traditions. This becomes the crucial test
as to whether an international personnel
administration can be devised which is
sufficiently imaginative and flexible to
bring about the esprit de corps and
operational drives always necessary in
any staff at any level of government
to achieve the purposes of the organiza
tion. In the long run it can be safely
predicted that one of the criteria of
success of UNRRA will be the degree
to which such integration is achieved.
Speaking of classification and pay
Mr. Howell says:
Early in the agency’s history a grade
system involving fourteen levels was
established and allocation of positions
to appropriate grades has been carried
on, particularly at the Headquarters
level. Each grade carries a salary range
with minimum, maximum and inter
mediate increments. Neat definitions of
various classes of positions is difficult
to achieve in a new, fast-growing or
ganization like UNRRA. A t the same
time, differences in occupational term
inology and qualifications standards
among the various countries makes it
most necessary to develop a uniform
pattern of titles and specifications,
thereby facilitating budget planning,
international recruitment of staff, and
communicatioris among the far-flung
offices of the Administration.
Classification is particularly essential
as the foundation for an equitable sal
ary system, especially as a useful tool
for coping with the problem of varying
pay scales in the different areas that
serve as sources of staff recruitment.
Therefore, considerable tinle of the
classification staff in Headquarters and
its counterparts elsewhere has been spent
on salary problems. At the outset the
Council established the policy of pay
ing salaries at a sufficiently high level
to attract qualified personnel, but at
the same time paralleling prevailing
rates in the countries from which the
staff is recruited. While at first glance
this might seem to run contrary to the
usual approach of "equal pay for equal
work,” actually it represents recogni
tion of the varying costs and standards
of living among the nations. In any
particular location, for example, an
UNRRA employee recruited in the
United States may be paid a base salary
of $4,000; working on similar assign
ments may be an employee recruited in
the United Kingdom at the Sterling
equivalent of $3,000 and an employee
recruited in Brazil at the Cruzeiro
equivalent of $2900. All three em
ployees will receive the same living al
lowances and will retain approximately
the same amount for local personal
expenses. The remainders of their sal
aries will be allotted to their homes
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