Child Support Agency

Organizational Design

The federal government is the main office of the child support enforcement program. It directly assists and states to achieve their goals towards providing child support services. Therefore, the federal state is the head of the agency followed by the states’ administration. The states in the US are the primary administrators of the services offered by the Child Support Enforcement Program (CSE). The assistant secretary of family support, a component of the US department of health and human services takes the role of administering services at the national level. The assistant secretary oversees the functions of child support in the states. Each state has its own office managing their own staff but in accordance with the federal laws.  The OCSE partners with the local agencies to establish their programs and helps the local agencies to comply with the state and federal laws (Sorensen & Hill, 2004). Therefore, the OCSE has a workforce at the federal level, state level, tribal level and local. However, all the programs are overseen by the federal authority and must comply with the federal law.

All the states support programs have the freedom of employing new members to join the workforce. However, the employers are required to report the outgoing and incoming employees to the state agency unto which they are accountable

The strengths of this program

The program is run by the states; this eliminates bias and makes it possible for every needy child to access their services within their states. The program is overseen by the federal; as a result, the state roles abide by one law thus, the services are more likely the same in every state.  One national overseer; it is important that the assistant secretary oversees and audits all the states. This ensures the activities run in all states are done appropriately abiding by the law and that there is fruitfulness.

The weakness of the agency

The states are the primary administrators of the roles of the agency; there is a possibility of breaching the federal law governing the states since they have the freedom of planning of their own programs.

The assistant secretary of family support oversees all the states and conducts an audit; the roles of family support are enough for the assistant secretary. Having more roles cause inefficiency in meeting the requirements of the agency.

Global linkages and personnel management

Office of child support enforcement agency (OCSE) has links with other countries to provide support to needy families (Sorensen & Karant, 1999). They connect with the countries through Hague convention countries; these are countries that have membership in the Hague child support convention and foreign reciprocating countries (countries that are not members of the Hague convention but have a bilateral arrangement with the United States.). The members of the Hague convention do have annual meetings where they discuss issues pertaining the children and families. The member countries have their own programs not governed by the federal laws but controlled by the Hague convention rules and regulations. The member countries have their contact placed on the main website of the child support program so that they are easily accessible to the families. Thus the agency is able to meet the needs of the children by contacting the country representative.

Personnel recruitment and hiring process

There are several components of the agency’s human resource system where each component determines the HR goals to be achieved. Among the systems include; modern technology, resourceful leadership, and case-file tools (ACF, n.d). Regarding the modern technology, the agency needs to expand the federal technology support, enhance online customer service, increase technology in tribal programs replace the out-dated state technology. Considering resourceful leadership, the agency aims at having effective management personnel at all levels, partner with other agencies to enlarge its capacity and to educate members of the public about the activities of the child support programs. Finally, regarding the case file tools, the agency aims at improving intergovernmental case processing, improve healthcare services for the children and parents.

The human resource recruits the workforce according to the need. However, the recruitment and employment are done under the management of each program who has the responsibility of reporting the new employee to the state agency. The agency hires qualified personnel especially for technical responsibilities which require specific skills and knowledge. For instance, when recruiting an employee who will help achieve the goals of modern technology, an ICT specialist will be considered for new roles. The agency may also terminate the employment of other staff members who are considered incompetent or who their roles are no longer needed especially for short-term programs. Additionally, hiring new employees depends on the new programs to be established and new roles that come along. Thus, the employees are hired to meet the roles and help in achieving the agency’s goals.

Employee skills training

There are different kinds of employees in the agency ranging from customer service providers to the management at state and federal level. The customer service providers are very key in the agency since they directly come to contact with the children and families. They help in painting the image of the agency and developing customer opinion. Therefore, they are trained to have good communication skills and know how to handle all kind of customers both virtually and physically. The agency provides an online course through their website where all customer service providers are expected to learn and gain knowledge about their nature of work (Pirog & Ziol‐Guest, 2006). The agency offers many courses at no cost to help the employees at all levels including working with the military to provide child support services. The agency plans and holds seminars to help the employees learn more about their areas of specialization. The new employees are taken through an orientation where they are informed about the activities that happen around the agency what the program is all about so that they are well equipped with knowledge about their roles. Finally, the agency through the official website provides a resource library where the employees could navigate and find the materials that best suit their role. Thus, the resources help them to gain more information and develop new skills necessary for effective performance.

The strengths of the agency

The resource library available online; it can be accessed by the employee any time they wants to read about an issue. Holding seminars; helps the employees to interact and share new ideas among themselves as they learn more about their roles.

The weakness is that the training courses are not updated since establishment.

Recruiting and training recommendations

The agency should provide pamphlets to the new employees to help them refer in their own time the activities and the goals of the agency. The agency should hire new employees before establishing a program to allow the new employees to be trained in the roles.