Has anyone else wondered why they changed the term for local employees from Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs) to Locally Engaged Staff (LES)? I mean, I understand that LES is supposed to include Eligible Family Members (EFMs) and FSNs, so it’s more inclusive. On the other hand, while Foreign Service Nationals had a nice symmetry with Foreign Service Officers and Foreign Service Specialists, LES just seems like calling people “less.” Really? No one fought that?
FSN or LES
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I have it on good authority (ie, a snarky friend of mine with the same sentiments) that it’s actually meant to be the start of a return to French as the primary language of diplomacy. The appropriate pronunciation is, for one person hired from the local economy to work at the mission, is “luh staff,” and for multiple people in this category, they’re called “lay staff.”
There was a period in which, from the perspecitve of the HR (Personnel) staff the term “Foreign Service National” referred exclusively to local nationals hired directly by the USG. Informally the term FSN was used colloquially to refer collectively to both direct hires and local nationals hired on Personal Service Contracts (PSCs). Although most Embassy staff (American and local) couldn’t tell you who belongs to which category, there are legal distinctions. It is possible that if you look carefully at an Embassy staffing pattern now, it will indicate whether the individual is a direct hire or a PSC (my last post’s staffing pattern did).
This got confusing, because on the one hand you had HR (Personnel) with policies and regulations applicable to “FSNs” which distinguished those “FSNs” from “PSCs” - and on the other everyone else in the Embassy was establishing policies regarding “FSNs” intended to cover all local staff (e.g. a policy regarding visa referrals).
“Locally Employed Staff” is a broader category that encompasses both “FSNs” and “PSCs” - as well as at least one other category - US Citizens hired into local positions.
EFM’s are not considered LES
At my post everyone is still saying FSN. I don’t think “L.E. Staff” is really catching on (neither did LES, whether for the “less” connotation or otherwise. I don’t see what was wrong with FSN in the first place. And I wasn’t aware EFMs are FSNs, is that actually true? If it is they don’t know it.
HR is very much aware that LES sounds like less, so they are always very carefull to refer to LE Staff, never to LES. JC’s explanation above is correct. When local hiring expanded beyond host country nationals, the term LE Staff was brought into use to include all local employees, including third country nationals, locally hired (foreign-resident) Americans, contractors and others.
EFMs are not LES, but there are some Americans who do get hired who are not otherwise connected with the embassy. Sometimes they are family members of people working for NGOs.