Army begins overhaul of civilian career management

Early this fall, the Army will launch a pilot test of a new civilian personnel management system. The test will be part of a far-reaching program known as Enterprise Civilian Human Capital Lifecycle Management, through which the service intends to integrate disparately managed career programs into a centralized system.

As a key component the Army will organize dozens of job specialties for employees in General Schedule levels 7 to 15, or in National Security Personnel System pay bands 1 to 3, into eight broad career groups. Each of these career groups is to have a clear roadmap for advancement, giving employees a better understanding of the routes to promotion. By managing the program centrally, service leaders will have a more detailed picture of what the workforce looks like across the Army and will be able to shape it more appropriately to evolving needs.

At present, a large percentage of the Army's approximately 250,000 civilian employees have no established career path, said Ray Horoho, director of the civilian development office at Army headquarters.

"The three major stakeholders in this are the Army, so we can shape our workforce; the commander who will get a better prepared employee and then the employee who will be able to manage their [sic] career based on their [sic] desire or potential," he said.

In the Army's current decentralized civilian management system, some employees are well supported with training and education opportunities and have clear notions of how to move up the career ladder, while others are essentially on their own, depending on their position and where they are located. The new system, as Army leaders envision it, would benefit both employees and the Army, Horoho said.

The Army has not been able to estimate the cost of implementing the new system, but "we definitely think it's going to cost more money," he said. That's because the service will need to make training and education opportunities available to more people.

While the categories still are being hammered out, Horoho said the Army generally expects to establish the following eight career groups:

• Installation management
• Human capital management
• Resource management
• Engineering and science
• Health services
• Force protection
• Communications and information management
• Logistics

A white paper the Army produced stated the career groups will "provide alternative career paths, enabling employees to cross-train into other specialty areas within a career group. The result will be greater opportunity and visibility of opportunity for the entire civilian workforce. The vision is for each employee's possibility for advancement to be commensurate with his or her own potential and desire."

Horoho added, "Today's [personnel] system is prescriptive and reactive. We want tomorrow's system to be proactive and collaborative."