Developing the Workforce
Builds Results
Sponsored by the International Quality
& Productivity Center
by Sareen R. Gerson
Federal Communicators Network
sareen.gerson@osha-no.osha.gov
16 - 17 March 1999
Most of us, by now, have a good grip on getting results. Our performance plans are up and running, at least till the next revision. Defining relevant "metrics" is no longer quite so mystical a process. But the grip can turn grim in the face of reality. People, after all -- individual workers -- are the core of successful missions. With many experienced workers close to retirement and others waiting for "early outs," some agencies fear that younger workers lack the leadership competencies we need to continue management improvements into the 21st century. So the "Workforce Planning for Government Agencies" conference presented in Vienna, VA by the International Quality & Productivity Center on 16 - 17 March proved timely and on target for agency representatives. It addressed workforce planning in terms of employee and organizational development (rather than statistical workforce analyses). And the concepts discussed went far beyond what federal managers usually think of as job-specific "training."
Conference chair Paul Longanbach, Associate Director for Professional Development at the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, is a passionate advocate of continuous learning on the part of individuals, teams, and organizations. Lifelong learning, diversity development, and partnering between labor and management are essential. Workforce planning must be an integral part of every agency’s strategic plan, Longanbach believes. A basic new theme is that federal employees need to take charge of their careers, and to "find a new kind of security -- not entitlement to a lifetime job." New legislation will make a profound difference for federal employees. The emphasis on pay for performance will mean that rather than forecasting numbers of employees, agencies need to forecast what kinds of skills they will need.
The need to promote higher budgets for comprehensive training was stressed by Dr. Carson Eoyang, Director of Training at FAA, who believes limiting federal worker training to current job requirements is no longer a good fit with agency mission accomplishment. Supervisors and managers should be allowed to authorize discretionary learning, which could enhance productivity, help modernize use of information technology, and encourage innovation and creativity. Using slack, off-peak periods to fulfill organizational training needs, and making job rotation available could expand workforce competencies without straining funding resources. Yet organizations vary widely in the amounts they are willing to invest in human resource development. Outsourcing, in many instances, is a false economy, Eoyang said. While "hiring or renting"new talent may conserve cash for the short term, it leads to inconsistent results. A better strategy would be to invest in developing an agency’s workforce. Furthermore, workforce development is too important to be subjected to the ups.and downs of budget. It should be inviolable, expanded beyond the individual to group learning (as Eoyang put it, "marbled into the infrastructure"). It is very critical to use hard data in analyzing training needs, as certain occupations are becoming obsolete, while new skills need to be nurtured. "Without strategic human resource development," Eoyang said, "people resign, relax, revolt or retire."
Outlining strategies used by the Army Management Staff College (Fort Belvoir, VA) in conducting relevancy research for their leadership program, Dr. Ursula G. Lohman, Dean of Academics, explained why it is so essential, in the context of current and future changes in managment focus, to ensure that training programs really serve customers’ needs. Radical change in the way the Army is doing business; measurement of outcomes and results, and all the other pressures that add up to "needing to deliver something that matters," helped shape the relevancy study. Interviewing their customers and benchmarking the competition, the researchers built a core leadership curriculum encompassing communication, leading, decision making, and "seeing the big picture" -- the last component including not only knowing the context of the organization within Army, but also such aspects as seeing connections and being flexible. Can these be taught? Faculty now has found a way, by bringing actual, current examples of leadership and management problems into the classroom so that they and the students can work together to solve them.
Randy Bergquist, a member of the special Human Resource Development Council task force that wrote the "little green book" ("Getting Results through Learning,"endorsed by Vice President Al Gore, June 1997) said that federal managers need to recognize and overcome such barriers to learning as autocratic leadership styles, non-sharing work environments (i.e., one or two employees take courses but fail to share what they have learned with coworkers); and treating learning as a purely individual, classroom endeavor. On-job strategies that are far more successful at spreading information are job rotation and special assignments, cross-functional teams, "flocking,"(the entire group attends a course together); "learning teams" that operate like collegiate study sections; and -- making use of available technologies -- groupware and computer conferencing. But first of all, Bergquist said, it is important to review your agency’s strategic plan and your organization’s part in it. Then you can plan learning that supports the expected contribution, and transfer what is learned into performance and results.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, union partners are involved in decision-making regarding organizational change. But according to Ken Wright, who leads EPA’s Organizational Development and Change Management program, even with employee involvement it is necessary -- particularly in a continually downsizing environment -- to build individual capacities for change and development, if you want to inspire employees to maintain peak performance.
Judy McFarland, of the TRW Systems and Information Technology Group, presented strategies tested in the private sector to attract and retain qualified employees despite discouraging shortages, and Mary Babcock, FDA’s Director of Human Resources, offered some tips for balancing shrinking resources with a stable if not growing workload. New functions imposed by Congress greatly expanded the Health Care Financing Administration workload at the same time that the health care industry was booming. Result: strong competition for experienced employees. Barbara Bertsch Boyd, Director, Career and Organization Development, described the HCFA long-term plans for meeting the challenge and lessons learned so far.
Completing the second day were presentations on the leadership challenge, how careers will change for the new millennium, how to conduct organizational assessment surveys, developing competencies, and the future role of human resources. Terry Newell, Faculty Coordinator, Federal Executive Institute, drew on his FEI experience in distinguishing leadership characteristics and described the FEI approach to leadership education.
Federal careers, according to Dr. Johari M. Rashad, Interior Department, are changing in ways that stress individual’s responsibilities for their own advancement. It is no longer possible, she said, to expect to be set for life once you get a government job.
Competency development as a formal program has been ongoing in the Department of Navy for more than three years, as demonstrated by David Amaral and Ruth Derr, who walked us through the goals and accomplishments of Navy’s Civilian Leadership Development (CDL) initiative.
Concluding the conference was Maureen Minehan, of the Society for Human Resource Management. Minehan, in a brisk review of the political, economic and social trends that will shape the workplace of the 21st century, made it clear that change is moving swiftly, bringing new challenges to government , the private sector, and workers in every occupation.
Sareen R. Gerson is a frequent contributor of reports on human resource and performance management issues, and for more than a decade has served as editor of the Classifiers’ Column, newsletter of the Washington-based Classification and Compensation Society.