Management reports highlight agencies’ human capital achievements
Accomplishments shared by agencies that got to green in personnel reform on OMB's latest management scorecard.
On the Office of Management and Budget's latest quarterly scorecard illustrating achievements in five areas of government reform, agencies made the greatest improvement on human capital management. Nine agencies earned improved grades on the traffic-light style report, with five moving to a green light, the highest possible score. The following is a sampling of accomplishments these five agencies highlighted in management reports to OMB, published earlier this week.
The department has concentrated on streamlining administrative work and eliminating excess bureaucracy, with the result of trimming the ranks of federal employees by more than 6 percent over three years, from 14,688 in 2001 to 13,707 in 2004. At the National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency within Energy, officials consolidated three business and administrative offices to one service center, leaving room to cut 200 positions. Energy also is designing training programs to fill skills gaps. For example, the department designed a certification course to help managers of multimillion-dollar projects learn to stay on schedule and on budget.
The human capital section of State's management report begins with a May 2001 quote from Secretary Colin Powell: "People get work done, not buildings, not staffs in a generic sense, and not plans, but people. And people will always be my first priority." In working to uphold that pledge, Powell oversaw the department's most significant hiring effort in three decades, designed to "correct long-standing critical staffing gaps, to make training and crisis response possible and to strengthen our consular and diplomatic security staffing." The department's staff grew by 2,000 in three years, in large part thanks to aggressive recruitment programs and use of hiring flexibilities. For example, State offered bonuses to attract technology specialists to the Foreign Service, paid off portions of student loans for workers accepting dangerous assignments and cut in half the average time to hire after completion of the Foreign Service exam. The IT bonus program helped attract 530 new technology experts and eliminate a 30 percent rate of vacancy for specialist positions. More than 660 Foreign Service members benefited from the student loan repayment program; only five left the department. Interest in the Foreign Service exam has spiked: 8,000 candidates took the 2000 test, 17,000 took the 2002 exam, and 20,000 showed up for the test in 2003 and 2004.
Workforce planners from across the department formed a Human Capital Planning Council and designed a five-year personnel reform strategy. In an assessment of Transportation's accomplishments, the Office of Personnel Management noted that the department also has designed meaningful measures of performance and pay-for-performance plans for more than 80 percent of managers.
While helping other agencies upgrade their personnel systems, OPM made some improvements of its own. Nearly 95 percent of the personnel agency's employees now operate under job performance plans directly related to OPM's mission. The agency has also emphasized the collection and analysis of workforce data. Such efforts help officials tailor recruitment and training programs. OPM used data to justify certain investments, said Doris Hausser, OPM's senior policy adviser to the director and chief human capital officer, in an interview Wednesday. For example the agency collected statistics indicating how, or if, participation in various leadership development courses improved employees' chances of earning a promotion. An analysis of that data helped OPM determine which courses yielded the most impressive returns. The use of human capital data to show that reforms worked pushed OPM over the edge on the quarterly management scorecard. "What had gotten us to a yellow . . . is that we were demonstrating that we had plans in place [and that we were] taking the right steps," Hausser said. "We had not demonstrated results. That was the test."
Though SSA only reached a green light on the latest OMB scorecard, the "agency has worked hard for many years to meet the challenge of hiring, developing and retaining a highly skilled, high performing and diverse workforce." To that end, SSA has transferred 5 percent of headquarters jobs to the field. It also has stepped up recruiting efforts by marketing agency jobs using the slogan "Make a Difference in People's Lives and Your Own," distributing mini-CDs, posters and brochures around the country and redesigning an agency Web page on career opportunities. According to OPM, the SSA also has created a successful system of rating the job performance of Senior Executive Service members and GS-15 level employees. On the first set of annual evaluations under the system, 10 percent of employees earned a grade "fully successful," 47 percent achieved an "excellent" and 41 percent received a mark of "outstanding." The agency also offered bonuses to "top performers." Last fiscal year 37 percent of SSA's employees received a bonus, proof according to OPM that only the best workers earned rewards.