Processing People

The Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection bureau, which hires hundreds of Border Patrol agents, detention and removal officers, and immigration and customs inspectors every year, has placed great faith in automation. For many of the bureau's managerial jobs, candidates fill out applications online, listing their education and experience. They then answer a series of questions to determine their qualifications. The questions are weighted by importance and applicants are scored on their answers. Only those who achieve the highest scores are referred for interviews.

Customs and Border Protection's human resources staffers administer the process, but they play virtually no role in vetting the candidates. They make no attempt to verify the truthfulness of applicants' responses before they are interviewed. They don't check to see whether applicants' degrees are from accredited universities. They don't call references. When the computer spits out a list of the top candidates, HR staffers simply pass it on to the manager who is hiring, allowing that person to handle the interviewing and the decision-making. That's exactly the way the DHS leadership wants it.

"What [top management] is trying to do is take those duties out of the hands of [the human resources] staffing [professionals] and put them in the managers' hands," says an HR assistant at Customs and Border Protection who asked to remain anonymous. "It gives managers a lot more power over the selection process."

DHS managers reason that if they're going to use an automated hiring system, they should trust its results. To second-guess and allow HR staff to review the applicant rankings would eliminate one of the primary benefits of automation: speed. Agencies using automated hiring systems, including Customs and Border Protection, have seen dramatic decreases in the number of days it takes to fill positions. At DHS, the interval between the time a job is opened to applicants and the time managers receive a list of qualified candidates has dropped precipitously since the agency automated the hiring process. In an era when candidates are weighing job opportunities in both the private and public sectors, acting quickly is essential. Consequently, en-couraging managers to get more involved in the hiring process should, ideally, boost the quality of those hired.

But automating entails risks. Applicants who make simple coding errors on online applications are eliminated from consideration with little recourse to protest. At the same time, an employee who exaggerated his credentials might be incorrectly judged to be qualified. Unless the manager sniffs out the deceit, the person might get the job, while a more honest applicant was eliminated.

Pluses and minuses aside, across government, automation of human resources functions is here to stay and proceeding apace. A recent Government Accountability Office survey of agency Chief Human Capital Officers (GAO-04-797) found that nearly all major agencies already have automated or are planning to automate hiring. In addition, agencies are moving quickly-and spending big bucks-to automate routine transactions, such as promotions, within-grade pay increases and changes of address. And some agencies are using automation to help managers keep track of workforce development and to encourage employees to seek training for promotion. Online learning centers then provide much of that training.

Many human resources managers rejoice at this progress, marveling at the newfound speed and efficiency of processes that took much longer and yielded reams and reams of cumbersome paper records. They say the human resources professional is being transformed from a paper-pusher into a strategic consultant who advises agency management on workforce planning and development.

But others in HR offices say they have yet to see much of a change in their daily lives. Rather, they say many agencies are using technology as a crutch, eliminating HR positions, while barely focusing on the strategic planning seen as the solution to government's impending retirement wave. In the past 10 years, they point out, the number of employees in HR offices has declined by 20 percent, from nearly 50,000 in 1994 to just over 40,000.

Technology's Promise

Capt. Thomas Broderick, director of the Navy's Career Progressions workforce development system, is an unabashed technology booster. In fact, he is so enthused about what automation has done for the Navy that he has traveled the country touting the PeopleSoft software the Navy is using to bring coherence and a long-term outlook to its training regimen. The key to using technology effectively, Broderick says, is to make it a complement to, not a replacement for, good management.

For most of his 30-year career, Broderick recalls, the Navy provided sailors with only sporadic guidance on what they needed to do to move up the ladder. Much of the managerial training was conducted on an ad hoc basis, following the latest fads in management theory and ebbing and flowing with the whims of senior leaders.

But a few years ago, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark set in motion a plan to use automation to bring Navy human resources management into the 21st century. The Navy evaluated both the current state of mentoring and myriad software packages aimed at making it easier for managers and employees to track training. "The vision was one where every sailor would have an individual development plan from the time they walk into boot camp or Officer Candidate School or out of the Naval Academy that would take them through the knowledge, skills and abilities required for a successful 24-year career," says Broderick.

Each development plan was based on a Five Vector Model, which measures the sailor's progress in professional development, personal development, certifications and qualifications, leadership, and performance. Weighted metrics in each vector play a critical role in determining promotions. The resulting "human capital index" allows managers to drill down and review each employee's skills and training. Sailors know exactly what they need to do to get to the next level. At the same time, Navy leaders get a clear picture of skills gaps emerging as sailors retire. But Broderick stresses that the index works because of the emphasis Navy leadership has put on mentoring. In other words, the system doesn't work on its own.

Planning Ahead

The need to marry HR technology with good management also is clear to Jeff Neal, human resources director of the Defense Logistics Agency. Like many agencies, DLA is faced with an aging workforce. So far, many retirement-eligible employees have decided to stay on and turnover has been low.

Technology has helped guide managers trying to hold on to valuable employees, Neal says. DLA developed a Web-based exit survey for retiring employees. From that, Neal discovered that many of those leaving were dissatisfied with their first-line supervisors. The finding led to the creation of an enterprise leader development program that provides new supervisors two years of on-the-job training. DLA also has changed application requirements for supervisory positions, stressing qualities that employees indicated were most important. "To know where to take action, you need data," says Neal. Among the supervisory qualities employees found important: coaching and mentoring, decisiveness combined with consensus-seeking, ability to face adversity, and willingness to take unpopular positions for the good of the team.

DLA has used a similar survey to evaluate skills gaps and training needs. "Training is often an ad hoc process," says Neal. "Managers come up with a list of things they think would be good and someone sprinkles holy water on it, and lo and behold, you have a training program."

To better evaluate the success of DLA's training investment, Neal assembled experts who put together lists of competencies needed in the professions common to the agency. A skills survey of employees and managers followed. Because the process is automated, agency managers can-at the click of a button-evaluate existing skills gaps and identify emerging ones. Employees interested in promotions soon will be able to go to an agency intranet site to compare their own training with that required for other jobs.

Having automated much of DLA's hiring and HR transaction processing, Neal has reorganized his staff. "A staffing specialist isn't reading a 100-page stack of applications anymore," he says. "They have more time to spend on providing substantive [workforce planning] advice."

To make sure that shift took effect, Neal created a subset of his office that deals only with planning. Had he not set up that special group, Neal believes, the strategic planner role always would have played second fiddle to daily business. "If you have three things to do, one due tomorrow, one next week, and one in a year and a half, when are you going to do the one due in a year and a half?" he asks.

Extreme Hiring Makeover

In October, the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington nonprofit working to help government agencies appeal to a new generation of federal workers, launched an "extreme hiring makeover," in which top corporate HR consultants and technology firms would help three federal agencies-the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Nuclear Security Administration, and Office of Student Financial Aid-rebuild their recruitment and hiring systems. The makeover, playing off the reality television craze, lured a crowd of government HR managers to a forum introducing the initiative. But its implication that government hiring systems could be fixed as rapidly as ugly houses on a half-hour TV show, was quickly dispelled by the consultants on hand.

"Is an automated process the silver bullet?" asked Chris Forman, CEO of AIRS Human Capital Solutions in White River Junction, Vt. "If you automate a bad process, it's just a bad process faster. You need a two-pronged approach," including a big investment of time and energy by agency managers. Agency hiring will improve, he said, "when managers go from reactive to pro-active."

There is no shortage of cautionary tales of agencies that underestimated the management burdens that accompany new technology. For example, the Justice Department recently scrapped an effort to implement a PeopleSoft system to handle routine HR transactions after managers realized how much work would have been involved in customizing the system.

The Health and Human Services Department faced a similar quandary, but forged ahead anyway. Now, some managers there are longing for their old, creaky, home-built system.

HHS is using PeopleSoft, which like its primary competitor, Oracle, offers an impressive array of tools that allow agencies to track personnel moves and keep detailed records of each one. Agencies can modify the systems to handle their unique personnel requirements and special authorities. But the developers discourage customization because of the cost and the necessity of duplicating the enhancements every time the agency upgrades the software.

Agencies using popular hiring systems, such as those from QuickHire LLC in Alexandria, Va., and Avue Technologies Corp. in Tacoma, Wash., which evaluate applicants' answers to questions about their education and experience, have found these systems are only as good as the questions loaded into them. Agencies that don't develop appropriate questions have to go back to the drawing board. Kathy Slaga is an HR information systems specialist with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Minneapolis. Her agency launched a QuickHire system a few years ago only to discover that "people were inflating their experience," Slaga says. "We had no checks and balances." Managers complained that the system was generating unqualified candidates.

But the problem was that managers hadn't played an active role in developing the questions asked of applicants, Slaga says. For systems like QuickHire to work, managers must get more involved in the hiring process. Managers "are going to be more actively involved in selecting questions and weighting those," she says. "We rely on managers. We walk them through the process and help them, but if it's very important for some job that the person understand COBOL, then [the manager has] to tell us to weight that question."

60 Ways to Automate

During the past few years, the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget have launched initiatives aimed at not only automating government HR processes, but also establishing standards for future agency HR investments.

Nearly complete are initiatives to automate the application process for security clearances, consolidate the number of government payroll providers, create an electronic personnel folder for every government employee, build a virtual university merging redundant agency online training programs, and transform the once-moribund USAJobs Web site into a one-stop recruitment center for people interested in government employment.

Now, OPM and OMB are focusing on a human resources line of business initiatives that will encourage further consolidation and standardization. The idea is to have between four and six providers that will serve numerous agencies, says General Services Administration Deputy Associate Administrator for Government-wide Policy John Sindelar, who is overseeing the projects for OMB. The shared-service centers are slated to open by October 2005.

The range of services they will provide has not yet been determined, but could include everything from routine personnel transactions to recruiting and hiring. OMB and OPM asked the private sector to submit ideas for implementing the line-of-business project earlier this year. "A major thrust of the [HR line-of-business project] is to use information technology and computer-based solutions wherever possible," says Norm Enger, OPM's e-government program manager. Sindelar says agencies won't be forced to use the shared-service centers until they are ready to upgrade their own systems. "They could go for years, and when they are ready to upgrade, they would integrate," he says.

Still, HR administrators worry about outsourcing some practices, such as hiring, that require an understanding of agency missions and requirements. Others wonder whether the notion of shared services is at cross purposes with the trend toward agency-specific personnel rules. The Homeland Security and Defense departments already have won congressional approval to scrap the General Schedule and set up their own personnel systems. "The whole line-of-business projects would imply a standard set of policies," says an HR administrator at the Justice Department who asked to remain anonymous. "You aren't going to automate 60 different ways, you are going to automate one way."

But Sindelar trusts that Congress ultimately will move to free other government agencies from the strictures of the General Schedule and the civil service code. DHS and Defense are only the beginning. "I don't see DHS and DoD standing by themselves. [New HR authorities] will spread to rest of the government," Sindelar says. Soon, he believes, all agencies will build their HR systems around new, but still similar, features, such as pay banding and pay for performance.