Progress toward Achieving a Representative Federal Bureaucracy: The Impact of Supervisors and Their Beliefs

Abstract

Research conducted during the late 1970s and 1980s suggested that one reason greater progress was not being made in achieving a fully representative federal bureaucracy was that federal supervisors, who make hiring and promotion decisions on a day-to-day basis, did not support increasing workforce diversity. This paper updates and expands those findings by examining supervisors' responses to a recent governmentwide survey. It then examines the extent to which such attitudes have an impact on supervisors' efforts to hire Hispanics when they are aware that Hispanics are under-represented in their own work unit. Survey responses suggest that there is not widespread support for the concept of representative bureaucracy and that such attitudes may have an impact on their recruitment efforts. What is of more consequence in their recruitment activity, however, is their own race/national origin.