The Changing Face of Georgia's Merit System: Results from an Employee Attitude Survey in the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice

Abstract

In 1996, the state of Georgia passed a radical civil service reform law that, in effect, removed all new employees from the traditional civil service system and made them “at-will” employees. Additionally, many functions, such as recruitment and classification, were decentralized to the operating agencies. This study attempts to review the impact of these changes on employees in one of the agencies, the Department of Juvenile Justice. A comparison is made of the attitudes of employees who are covered by civil service regulations and those who are not, principally with respect to organizational commitment and loyalty. The results of the survey suggest that, to date, the impact of these reforms on commitment and loyalty is not significant.