The Office of Personnel Management is considering a new exchange program that would give federal executives a chance to take temporary assignments in the private sector, an OPM official said Thursday.
The exchange program would aim to give members of the Senior Executive Service "exposure to the best practices in the private sector and to enrich agency leadership with private sector expertise," OPM Deputy Director John Sepulveda said in testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's oversight panel.
Sepulveda said OPM is also developing an Internet forum to link federal executives with career opportunities outside their own agencies, in an effort to encourage top career officials to broaden their experience. Members of the SES tend to work in one agency their entire careers.
The Senate panel's chairman, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, held the hearing to assess how well agencies are training their managers and employees.
Both Sepulveda and Diane Disney, head of civilian personnel policy for the Defense Department, said managers and executives need to cross-train in disciplines outside their areas of expertise. An acquisition professional, for example, needs to be versed in labor relations management, Disney said.
"We can't have people in their very narrow stovepipes," she said. "They must have a broader perspective."
Disney said a RAND Corp. study sponsored by the Pentagon, to be released this summer, suggests workers need to focus on learning advanced technical skills, better problem-solving skills and customer service methods.
An OPM-led task force is looking at ways to use the Internet and other technologies to help federal workers get the skills they need.
Voinovich cut the hearing short due to what he said was a procedural rule limiting the committee's time to an hour. In prepared testimony that he did not have a chance to deliver, American Federation of Government Employees President Bobby Harnage said agencies talk about the importance of training but don't do enough to help employees improve their skills.
"The usual practice is still that of sacrificing future performance to the immediate goal of cost cutting, and, in the process, losing the opportunity to get where agencies want to be on their performance by investing in employee development," Harnage said.