WASHINGTON — At the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., examiners and employees who liquidate failed banks have operated in separate spheres for the past decade, but an effort is under way to merge them in hopes of creating a more flexible work force.
John F. Bovenzi, the agency’s chief operating officer, said in an interview last week that it wants to teach compliance and safety-and-soundness examiners how to perform resolution and receivership duties. The idea is to increase job satisfaction and help the FDIC adjust more readily to changing industry conditions.
Receivership workloads are “very unpredictable and subject to temporary periods where you might have more than normal bank failures, for example, so you might need people in that area temporarily that you don’t have work for on a long-term basis,” Mr. Bovenzi said.
The FDIC employees union was skeptical about the program, saying each job category has specialized expertise and that the effort is part of the agency’s efforts to do more with fewer workers.
Colleen M. Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said through a spokeswoman, “Our concern is that this set of actions could be a precursor to a downsizing initiative.”
Mr. Bovenzi announced the Corporate Employee Program in an e-mail to staff members last week. It will foster “a culture that both encourages and rewards cross-divisional opportunities and experience in multiple disciplines,” he wrote.
He said details of the program would be worked out with input from FDIC staff in the next few months, but that the direction and goals had been set.
The cross-training will begin with newly hired examiners, Mr. Bovenzi said. Future examiners will have fixed terms instead of permanent positions and will get risk or compliance management training — typically a four-year process. At the same time they will receive some training on resolution and receivership; after completing training they will compete for jobs at the FDIC.
Such employees will be able to move more easily within the FDIC’s divisions during their careers and gain experience that could be helpful when they seek management positions, Mr. Bovenzi said.
The program will then be expanded to existing employees with voluntary, rotational assignments from the FDIC’s supervision division to its receivership division. It is possible receivership employees could enter the exam side, but on a more permanent basis.
The basic skills required of examiners and receivers are similar, and the jobs are complementary, Mr. Bovenzi said.
“We want folks examining banks to be aware of potential costs to the insurance funds if a bank did fail,” he said.
Union officials said that specialists’ expertise could be lost and that the new criteria for hiring examiners troubled them.
There are larger labor issues at the FDIC, which reduced its work force by 28%, to 5,311, from 1999 to 2003. More cuts are expected and the agency has asked Congress to give it more human resources flexibility.
“NTEU has already objected to the agency’s attempt to change the conditions for term employees in its proposed legislative package,” Ms. Kelley said, “and will continue to object to any broadening of the length of a term employee’s appointment and the possibility of increasing reliance by the FDIC on term employees to do the important work of ensuring for consumers the safety of our nation’s banks.”
Mr. Bovenzi said the cross-training program could expand to other areas. As the agency continues to trim its work force, individual workers will have to be more versatile, he said.
“The main point from us is we want to have more people in the organization trained in” safety and soundness, compliance, and receivership jobs, Mr. Bovenzi said.
He recognizes that some things examiners and receivers specialize in cannot be taught in cross-training, but more general skills can be put to use in certain cases, he said.
For instance, in a bank failure FDIC employees assess which deposits are insured and not, then talk with the depositors. Examiners could provide temporary assistance, Mr. Bovenzi said.
“It’s not like you have to be doing that every day to be able to help out and add value to that process if needed,” he said.
