AGA Today

New Subcommittees to Focus on Workforce Management

By Stephen Barr
The Washington Post
Friday, November 17, 2006; D04

In an effort to take a more strategic approach to federal workforce management, an interagency group has reorganized with an eye to how best to help Uncle Sam recruit and train a new generation of public servants.

The group, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, was created in 2002 to advise agencies on how to improve federal personnel systems. Yesterday, Linda M. Springer, director of the Office of Personnel Management and the council's chair, announced the creation of six council subcommittees, replacing five panels, and their priorities for the next year.

Projections show that 40 percent of the federal workforce will retire by 2015, casting agencies into a war for talent with corporations, consulting firms and other employers. If the government falters in recruiting engineers, scientists, linguists and other specialized skills, the Government Accountability Office has warned, agencies might not be able to effectively deliver services to the public.

Some of the subcommittees will study workforce planning for the retirement wave, look at how to ramp up training for a possible "knowledge drain," and study how performance-based pay can help the government compete for critical skills.

The subcommittees also will work with agencies on improving marketing strategies and examining whether OPM-sponsored job fairs, which seek to find applicants for hard-to-fill jobs, are worthwhile efforts.

One of the subcommittees focuses on emergency preparedness and in its previous incarnation, helped lay plans for how the government will manage its workforce during a pandemic flu outbreak. The panel, for example, has urged agencies to adopt a Navy system designed to track the whereabouts of employees during emergencies.

Springer also has asked the subcommittee chairmen to work with Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who will oversee federal workforce issues in the next Congress, on legislation that supports the goals of the interagency group, an OPM official said.

The subcommittees are Emergency Preparedness, chaired by David S.C. Chu of the Defense Department; Hiring and Succession Planning, also chaired by Chu; Human Capital Workforce, led by Jeff T. H. Pon of the Energy Department; Human Resources Line of Business, led by Gail T. Lovelace of the General Services Administration; Learning and Development, chaired by Keith A. Nelson of the Housing and Urban Development Department; and Performance Management, chaired by Ronald P. Sanders from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Elsewhere . . .

Federal employee groups yesterday welcomed the election of Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) as the next House majority leader. Hoyer has championed federal pay raises and benefits for more than two decades. "We have never before had such a good friend so high in the congressional leadership," said Margaret Baptiste, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said the union will file a grievance against the Energy Department for delaying employee bonuses and promotions until Congress resolves a fiscal 2007 budget shortfall. She called the decision to delay bonuses "an example of management incompetence."

Office of Management and Budget controller Linda Combs announced yesterday that 18 of 24 federal agencies have received clean financial audits, the same as last year. Agencies that fell short on their fiscal 2006 financial statements included the departments of Defense, Energy and Homeland Security.