[Senate Hearing 115-257]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-257
EXAMINING FEDERAL MANAGERS' ROLE IN HIRING
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 1, 2018
__________
Available via http://www.fdsys.gov
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RAND PAUL, Kentucky HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
STEVE DAINES, Montana DOUG JONES, Alabama
Christopher R. Hixon, Staff Director
Margaret E. Daum, Minority Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma, Chairman
JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
STEVE DAINES, Montana KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
John Cuaderes, Staff Director
Clark Hedrick, Professional Staff Member
Eric Bursch, Minority Staff Director
Ashley Poling, Minority Counsel
Mallory Nersesian, Subcommittee and Document Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator Lankford............................................. 1
Senator Heitkamp............................................. 2
Senator Daines............................................... 15
Senator Harris............................................... 18
Senator Carper............................................... 20
Senator Hassan............................................... 31
Prepared statement:
Senator Lankford............................................. 37
WITNESSES
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Mark Reinhold, Associate Director Employee Services, Office of
Personnel Management........................................... 4
Angela Bailey, Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 6
Kevin Mahoney, Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department of
Commerce....................................................... 7
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Bailey, Angela:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Mahoney, Kevin:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Reinhold, Mark:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 39
APPENDIX
Clarification statement submitted by Ms. Bailey.................. 57
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from:
Mr. Reinhold................................................. 58
Ms. Bailey................................................... 61
Mr. Mahoney.................................................. 70
EXAMINING FEDERAL MANAGERS' ROLE IN HIRING
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THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Regulatory,
Affairs and Federal Management,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. James Lankford,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lankford, Daines, Heitkamp, Carper,
Hassan, and Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD\1\
Senator Lankford. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to
today's Subcommittee hearing entitled Examining Federal
Managers' Role in Hiring. In the 115th Congress, this
Subcommittee continues to look to find bipartisan solutions to
the broadly recognized challenges which prevent the Federal
workforce from more effectively serving the American people
through hiring process.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Lankford appears in the
Appenidx on page 37.
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We are here today to address the problems associated in
Federal employees to fill vacancies left by a growing number of
retiring Federal employees. The strain on agencies hinders
their ability to accomplish their core missions and to serve
the American people.
In order to help alleviate this problem we will recognize
the role that managers play in the hiring process and identify
the ways they can be empowered to cut the time to hire a new
employee. The hallmark of the American civil service has always
been that we are able to draw our best and brightest to serve
our country.
As we sit here this morning, I am concerned that this may
no longer be the case. The Federal Government is facing a
hiring crisis. In 2013, the governmentwide average time to hire
a new Federal employees was an unsatisfactory 90 days. However,
the number has steadily risen to 106 days in 2017. Each year it
has just gone up a little bit.
This is not sustainable. The American economy continues to
improve and jobs are becoming easier and easier to find in the
private sector. For the American civil service to continue to
recruit the best and brightest American talent, a vacancy
cannot be open for 106 days, nor can someone in the process
wait that long to get an answer. The best and brightest
candidates will not wait around 3\1/2\ months and our strategy
cannot rely on just hoping that they will.
So that is why we are here today. It is a simple question:
where can we cut the days in time-to-hire? What do agencies
need to do to drive down the time-to-hire a new employee? What
bottlenecks can be removed? What can we do to ensure that
managers have the competence and resources they need to quickly
bring the best and brightest on board? What can agencies do to
prioritize this issue and ensure they are not losing qualified
candidates to government inefficiency in the hiring process?
We have here today three Federal agencies: Office of
Personnel Management (OPM), the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS), and the Department of Commerce (DOC), which are on the
front line of all these issues. I thank all of you for being
here today and I look forward to discussing with our
participants ideas to improve the way agencies manage
personnel, and thus better enabling them to deliver a more
effective Federal workforce for the American people.
With that I recognize Senator Heidi Heitkamp for an opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Senator and Chairman Lankford.
As many of you already know, I have felt strongly about
improving supervisory training across the Federal Government
for some time, and I am thrilled that we are going to have a
chance to talk about that in length today.
I think it is also important, however, to make note about
the administration's proposed fiscal year (FY) 2019 budget and
the grave impact it would have on Federal employees if it were
implement, and, consequently, the grave impact it would have on
recruitment of Federal employees.
The proposed threats to Federal employees in the budget are
numerous, from pay to retirement to health care and student
loan forgiveness benefits to collective bargaining and due
process rights. There are proposals that treat Federal
employees, I think, in a way that is less than fair.
Federal employees are absolutely a critical part of the
Federal Government and they make North Dakota and our country a
better place to live every single day. In fact, I was just with
one of our ranchers who was talking about the failure to have
scientists out on the grasslands and the rangelands has really
slows down a lot of innovation in terms of management, and I
asked him, ``Is that because of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) not being fully staffed?'' He said it is a
real problem in western North Dakota.
And so it is really interesting to hear, people that you
would think are maybe more conservative who would otherwise be
very critical of, as people would expect, Federal employees,
recognizing that we need to have these folks in these roles so
that they can get their job done.
So I look forward to diving into this critical problem, but
I think we cannot talk about our lack of success in recruiting
millennials, and I know I get in trouble when I talk about age,
but recruiting new employees into the Federal system without
looking at how we are treating current employees and whether--
like any other recruitment tool, the best recruitment we have
are people who are always sitting in those desks who say, ``You
ought to do this. It is really interesting work. I am treated
really well at work. I am respected at work.'' And when you do
not have an army of people out there recruiting because they do
not feel valued at work, they do not feel like there is a
future, we are going to have more and more problems with
recruitment.
And so it is really important that we talk about
supervisory training so we improve the morale of the people who
are there, but that we also talk about the broader public
policy issues relative to how we are treating Federal employees
today and how that is going to affect our recruitment for
tomorrow.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to this
hearing.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. At this time we will proceed
with testimony from our witnesses. Mark Reinhold is the
Associate Director for Employee Services at OPM. Mr. Reinhold
is responsible for designing, developing, and implementing
governmentwide human resources (HR) policy and programs for
strategic workforce planning. He previously served as OPM's
Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) and has more than 25 years
of human resources experience in the Federal Government, and is
no stranger to that table right there, as we have tapped on
your insight before, so thank you.
Angela Bailey is the Chief Human Capital Officer at U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, where she has served since
January 2016. Prior to DHS, Ms. Bailey worked at OPM as the
Chief Operating Officer (COO), Deputy Associate Director for
Recruitment and Hiring, and the Chief Human Capital. Thank you
for being here.
Kevin Mahoney is the Chief Human Capital Officer at the
U.S. Department of Commerce, where he has served since March
2013. Prior to his current role, Mr. Mahoney has served as the
Chief Human Capital Officer for the U.S. Small Business
Administration (SBA) and the Associate Director for OPM's Human
Capital Leadership and Merit System Accountability Division.
Thank you for being here as well.
I think we should all clarify for everyone, before we throw
it around, what a CHCO is a Chief Human Capital Officer because
that term will probably get thrown around. So there is our
legend for the hearing today.
I do want to thank all the witnesses for being here and I
appreciate it very much.
It is a custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all the
witnesses before you testify, so if you would please stand and
raise your right hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give
before this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Reinhold. I do.
Ms. Bailey. I do.
Mr. Mahoney. I do.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the
record reflect all three witnesses answered in the affirmative.
We are using a timing system today, and unfortunately we do
have votes that are coming up around 11:30, so we will be a
little bit tight on time to be able to get it all in, but we
want to make sure we get everything in. So as you give your
testimony you will see a countdown clock there and then we will
open this up for dialogue immediately after that.
Mr. Reinhold, you are first up.
TESTIMONY OF MARK REINHOLD,\1\ ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR EMPLOYEE
SERVICES, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
Mr. Reinhold. Chairman Lankford and Ranking Member
Heitkamp, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to
discuss the important topics of hiring and supervisory training
and development.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Reinhold appears in the Appendix
on page 39.
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The day-to-day operational aspects of the hiring process
are carried out by Federal agencies but OPM plays an important
role in promulgating regulations and guidance necessary to
execute Federal civil service laws. OPM also provides
oversight, leadership, tools, and assistance to help agencies
in meeting their hiring needs and their responsibilities to
establish and operate training programs for supervisory and
leadership positions. As the Associate Director for Employee
Services at OPM I appreciate the opportunity to discuss how OPM
is working with agencies in this important areas.
OPM recognizes the laws and regulations governing hiring
are complex and in need of reform, and we are proactively
working with agencies to simplify and improve hiring practices.
We have to take a fresh look at how the system can be improved
to better meet the needs of a 21st Century government. We can
also do better and we continue to strive to do better.
A few highlights of OPM's recent work just this year to
help support improved hiring in agencies include hosting
technical training classes for agency HR staff who provide
staffing services, issuing a comprehensive question-and-answer
guide on how to share certificates between agencies, new
streamlined templates agencies can use to request approval to
offer higher amounts of recruiting and retention incentives, a
fast facts guide on Federal hiring authorities and flexibility,
and approval of an extensive direct hire authority to help
support an agency's critical need to address severe recruiting
difficulties.
OPM developed a number of legislative proposals that were
delivered to Congress last year that will better enable
agencies to recruit highly talented individuals. The
administration continues to support these proposals and we
would like to thank Chairman Lankford for sponsoring some of
them. OPM also appreciate Ranking Member Heitkamp and the full
Committee's work in advancing these proposals and we look
forward to continuing our work with the Committee to ensure
their enactment.
The average time-to-hire for fiscal year 2017 is just under
106 days. This is an improvement from the 122 baseline
established in 2009, but disappointing considering the 87-day
average that agencies achieved overall in fiscal year 2012. The
average time-to-hire has increased each year since 2012.
The 80-day end-to-end hiring model identifies the key
components of the hiring process. Many of the core elements and
steps in the Federal hiring process are not unlike the hiring
process in other sectors. However, there are additional
elements of the Federal hiring process that differ from common
practice in other sectors, such as providing preference to
veterans who served our country and selection rules based on
the merit system principles.
We recognize that time-to-hire is not a perfect metric for
success. We must also look at the quality of the hire, and we
must make sure that we are hiring people with the skill sets
that are fully aligned with agency mission needs.
As part of OPM's goal to support improvements in agency
hiring programs, this year OPM launched the Federal Human
Resources Institute to offer a robust training curriculum for
HR professionals. OPM is also launching a new interagency
developmental program through which OPM will host HR
professionals in various OPM policy offices to enable these
professionals to develop highly needed expertise.
OPM is also looking at ways to provide tools to agencies
that can help them improve the way they assess applications.
USA Hire is a professionally designed library of off-the-shelf
assessment solutions to produce higher quality candidate
referral lists. These assessments can help reduce time-to-hire
because they are scored automatically and reduce the burden
involved in administering traditional assessments.
OPM is continuing to work to improve the applicant
experience. This includes regular improvements to USA jobs,
which are guided by customer feedback.
In addition to OPM's work to help improve agencies' ability
to execute the hiring process in a timely and efficient way,
OPM is also working to support agency heads in meeting their
responsibilities to establish and operate training programs for
their employees in supervisory and leadership positions. While
agencies are required to provide training for new supervisors
on a specific set of topics, agencies have discretion in how
they implement that training. It is important for each agency
to conduct a needs assessment to determine what their workforce
will benefit from and tailor programs to meet those needs.
Hiring the best available talent must be a management
priority, administered through a modern system that enables
trained and engaged managers to fill jobs with top candidates.
With your support, we can get there.
OPM looks forward to working with you on these efforts.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome any
questions you have.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Ms. Bailey.
TESTIMONY OF ANGELA BAILEY,\1\ CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Bailey. Good morning, Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member
Heitkamp, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you today to address
the manager's role in hiring and our efforts to improve time-
to-hire, along with supervisor training at the Department of
Homeland Security.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Bailey appears in the Appendix on
page 61.
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As the Chief Human Capital Officer for DHS, among some of
my top priorities are addressing our hiring process, including
the time it takes to hire, ensuring our managers are involved
in the hiring process, and providing our supervisors with the
training needed to accomplish this important role.
The reason these priorities are so important is because our
men and women within DHS work incredibly hard safeguarding the
homeland. They carry out their missions with pride, courage,
and dedication, and do so under some of the most extreme
conditions. The least we can do is ensure we have our positions
filled in a timely manner, equip our managers with the
necessary tools to not only hire the right folks, but also to
engage and encourage their workforce to help stem unplanned
attrition.
I take this responsibility very seriously and have made it
my mission to uncover unnecessary steps in the hiring process,
streamline and automate our processes and procedures, and
identify ways, both traditional and non-traditional, to educate
our managers in not only the basics of supervision but also
leadership development. I am fortunate in that within DHS I
have excellent leadership who fully support me. They have
resourced an increase in the number of human resource
specialists across DHS, recognizing you must have HR
specialists on board if you are going to get any of this
accomplished.
That also includes investing it in HR Academy. They have
invested in Human Resources Information Technology (HRIT) and
hiring innovation and transformation, where I co-lead these
efforts with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and each
component and line of business is a voting member on the
executive steering committee. In other words, we are all vested
in improving HR processes and procedures, including automation.
And finally, to tie this all together, the leadership team,
from top to bottom, is engaged in Leadership Year, a year in
which we are devoting our time and energy to ensure our
supervisors and managers have not only the basics to do their
job but are also developed into the leaders we want and our
employees deserve.
At the end of the day, we do all of this so we can ensure
our employees are able to carry out their missions, by ensuring
we get our positions filled with quality people, where we need
them most, and in advance of the need.
Thank you again for supporting our employees who protect us
and our great nation. I look forward to answering any questions
you may have.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Mahoney.
TESTIMONY OF KEVIN MAHONEY,\1\ CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Mr. Mahoney. Good morning. I would like to thank the
Chairman and the Ranking Member for inviting the Department of
Commerce to share its view on this very important topic of
management involvement in hiring and workforce planning. I
would also like to thank my colleagues from the Office of
Personnel Management and the Department of Homeland Security
for their dedication to advancing effective human resource
management in the Federal Government.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Mahoney appears in the Appendix
on page 70.
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The Department of Commerce has one overarching purpose:
helping the American economy grow. The Department is a diverse
agency comprised of 12 Bureaus, employing nearly 47,000
employees domestically and internationally. The Department is
placing an increased emphasis on the commercial opportunities
of space exploration and aquaculture. Our scientists are
conducting foundational research in areas ranging from
artificial intelligence to quantum computing. Our patent
professionals are working to improve the protection of
intellectual property.
The Department is enforcing trade laws to ensure trade is
free, fair, and reciprocal. The Department is also working to
conduct the most accurate, secure, and technologically advanced
decennial census. Finally, Department teams are working to keep
Americans safe by predicting extreme weather events earlier and
deploying a nationwide broadband network that allows better
coordination of first responders.
With that as a backdrop, I would like to discuss four areas
where the Department is working hard to improve: time-to-hire,
enterprise services, maximizing employee performance, and
workforce planning.
With respect to time-to-hire, for fiscal year 2017 that
just ended, the Department's time-to-hire was 105 days, clearly
one day under the governmentwide average but well above the 80-
day model. The Department follows OPM's 80-day model and we
track performance across all the 11 steps in the model. The
Department has been a participant in OPM's HRStat review from
its inception and we report those results quarterly with our
principal human resource directors and senior management in the
Department.
The Department constantly monitors all the 11 steps in the
80-day model. We require managers to check in regularly as to
their progress, and, in some cases, ask for permission to
extend a deadline. When a problem is identified, it is
escalated through the appropriate management channels.
With respect to training, training for managers and
supervisors for hiring varies by each of our Bureaus, but each
Bureau annually conducts mandatory training for Uniformed
Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA),
veterans' employment training, and disability hiring. Beyond
that, the Bureaus offer a variety of courses in interviewing,
job analysis, classification, special hiring authorities, and
merit system principles, just to name a few. Our goal, over
time, is to standardize training so that a consistent message
is being given to managers and supervisors on the hiring
process.
We conduct training through a variety of channels, which
include computer-based training, instructor-led training,
subject matter experts, and informal events like brown bag
lunches.
I would like to turn now to enterprises services. Our
mission-enabling services such as acquisitions, financial
management, human resources, and information technology (IT)
provide the underpinning on which agencies accomplish their
mission. Over the last 2 years, the Department has worked to
identify the transactional aspects of back office and support
services. Our goal is to achieve economies of scale,
standardize the process, and reduce the transactional work so
that our mission-enabling employees can spend more time on
strategic work with the Bureaus. To effectively manage this
transition, the Department created the Enterprise Services
Organization.
With respect to employee performance, we are following the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo M-17-22, which
requires agencies to develop a plan to maximize employee
performance and design a workforce that meets the needs of
today and the future. The Department is developing a plan that,
when completed, will ensure, first, updated policies are in
place to address poor performance; second, performance
standards are comprehensive and ensure alignment between
employees, qualifications, and position duties and
responsibilities; third, performance management training exists
to maintain high standards; and fourth, management and
supervisory workforces are equipped and supported to execute
performance management responsibilities.
The first step that we took in this process was to conduct
an inventory across all of our 12 Bureaus on the topics related
to performance management, and as we suspected, we are doing an
awful lot of work in this area but we are all doing it somewhat
differently. We also surveyed nearly 7,000 managers and
supervisors on performance management. The results of this
survey will guide us in developing a new training program for
performance management.
On workforce management, the Department is committed to
ensuring we have a long-term plan for the workforce of the 21st
Century, and over the next 10 years the government will
transition fully from the baby boomer generation to the
millennial and gen X generations. Our goal is to focus on what
people, technology, and acquisitions the Department needs to
accomplish its various missions and identify gaps and develop a
strategy to close them.
Again, I want to thank you for inviting Commerce to be part
of this important discussion and I look forward to your
questions.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. We are going to ask Ranking
Member Heitkamp for opening questions.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you so much. Stronger supervisory
training is something that I have advocated for since coming on
this Committee, and I am pleased that Senator Lankford is
working with our office and working with me to try and design a
bipartisan bill that we can advance, for looking at supervisory
training.
And so I am just going to spend some time here visiting
with you all about how the system currently grades and trains
and works with supervisors. And rather than kind of getting
into the proficiencies and the substantive area--which I think
frequently supervisors have great proficiency. That is why they
end up being supervisors. The problem is that they do not have
the soft skills that they need to inspire teams, to inspire the
workforce to come together and achieve results.
So when you look at the 2017 study that Deloitte did with
the Senior Executive Association (SEA), I was struck by their
evaluation that only 35 percent of career senior executives
that responded felt that career senior leaders were selected
because of their ability to inspire teams.
I am wondering how these soft skills, these kind of
interpersonal skills that are hard to quantify in a multiple
choice test, how do you evaluate those soft skills? How do you
evaluate a supervisor's ability to inspire teams and achieve
results and create a positive workforce, with high morale?
And so maybe we could start with you, Angela. We know that
DHS has, over the years, gotten beat up pretty bad for low
morale, and I know how hard you have been working. We are
grateful that you have taken on this challenge, and we will
talk a little bit more about that as we get another chance
here.
And so I am wondering, when you look at supervisory
training and you look at supervisory evaluation, how do you
deal with this intangible that I am talking about?
Ms. Bailey. I think that is a great question and it is
almost like the age of time that we have been dealing with
this, right? And over the course of the years, I think it is
absolutely true that what we have done is we have promoted
folks based on their technical skills, and I think we have put
this whole idea of soft skills as being something on a side
burner.
But it really has come to light, and I think within DHS,
with our Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), and looking
at this and really examining it, we really said to ourselves,
look, I think one of the things we really need to focus in on
is these particular skills.
And so one of the things that we did, we started listening
tours, and it started with Secretary Kelly, and then Deputy
Secretary Duke, and then our current Secretary as well, myself,
our Deputy Under Secretary for Management. You name it. We go
out and we actually hold listening tours.
Senator Heitkamp. With who?
Ms. Bailey. Not only with the employees but with the
supervisors as well.
Senator Heitkamp. OK.
Ms. Bailey. And to really sit down and understand, at the
ground level, what is it that they are really dealing with?
What are the struggles that they are having? How can we help
them, and prepare them to be able to deal with some of the
things that they are facing on a daily basis? Because I do not
think anybody wakes up in the morning and says, ``I think I am
going to go in and just be a real jerk to my employees.'' I
think, instead, they are struggling to be both the supervisor
that we want them to be, and then also try to carry out their
technical responsibilities at the same time.
And so this year of leadership that we have created I think
is an excellent opportunity. We are not only giving them the
skills that help them be able to understand how to recruit
better, understanding our hiring authorities, understanding how
to have a difficult conversation, understanding how to take
those actions that ultimately, at the end of the day, they may
have to take that is pretty darn tough.
But then we also intersperse that with actual leadership
development as well. Just next week, in fact, we are having a
Women in Leadership panel, where, myself, I serve on the panel
along with some other folks, to really have a conversation with
not only our supervisors but our employees as well, with regard
to what it is like to be a woman in a leadership position. What
are some of the things that we bring to the table that might be
different from our male counterparts and how do we, in essence
lead from where we are, regardless of whether we have the
supervisor moniker or not.
And so we have also introduced some things that are kind of
non-traditional. Just this week, in fact, we pulled all of our
Senior Executive Service (SES) within the Management
Directorate, so it was over 60 of us, into a conversation
around Henry the Fifth, and what he went through with regard to
inspiring his troops, and how to go ahead and, get England to
be able to win a battle within France. And you may say, ``Well,
what the heck does that have to do with real employee
engagement?'' But to a person, every SES walked out of there
and said, ``I just learned something. I learned something about
myself. I learned something about what I gravitate to. I
learned something about how to inspire folks, to get them to
actually be motivated and want to do the job that we need them
to do.''
Senator Heitkamp. So how do you--Angela, though, I mean,
doing all those things----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. And getting people to think
different about their role as----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Not just supervisors but
leaders----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. How do you then evaluate
that? How do you, I think a lot of times----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. People see it coming, OK,
now I get it, and then slide back to what is familiar.
Ms. Bailey. Right. Exactly. So one of the things we have
started to do is the FEVS is great but it is a once-a-year
annual survey. By the time we get it, it is almost time to take
it all over again. So we have started doing poll surveys, where
we actually send out, to the groups, and just a few questions.
We do not make it burdensome on them.
But we send out these little poll surveys to say, hey, we
had this kind of training. Did it really have an impact? Did
you notice that the communications actually improved? Did you
notice that your supervisor seemed to be a little bit more
interested in how your day was going and not just simply
telling you where to head for the next shift? And then we use
that to evaluate whether or not that kind of training or that
kind of educational experience was really even having any
impact that we wanted to.
So we do not want to get stuck on just doing something for
the sake of doing it--because that is how it has always been
done. Instead, I think, what we are doing is seeing this as
being very fluid. Nothing is etched in stone. If it did not
work then we will try something different.
Senator Heitkamp. Well, I am curious because as we look at
supervisory training and this challenge that we have between
the tangible and the intangible--and I really see a lot of
these traits as intangible----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. And difficult to apply
baseline metrics, but you know it when you see it, kind of
thing.
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp. What advice can you give to us, in terms
of our supervisory role, our oversight role, on building better
leadership and better supervision?
Ms. Bailey. Sometimes it is like we struggle between this
line of legislating behavior, right, versus, like, how do we
ensure that we have the kinds of resources that we need,
dedicated, quite frankly, to these kinds of programs. Sometimes
what happens, I think, is that when cuts need to come for
resourcing and stuff, one of the first things that we have a
tendency to cut would be training programs. At least that has
been my experience throughout my entire career.
And I think the military often says that you train the way
you fight and you fight the way you train. And I think that we,
in the civilian agencies, need to have that same kind of
mindset, where training is something that is absolutely seen as
a crucial part of what we do.
Senator Heitkamp. Yes. I do not think you can have culture
change without training.
Ms. Bailey. Correct.
Senator Heitkamp. I think that is the lesson from the
military----
Ms. Bailey. Exactly.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. That when you train together
and when you train with a common purpose you achieve culture
change----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Within organizations. And I
think, in many cases, as we look at the challenges going
forward, that culture change, especially at DHS----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Number one, we need to
appreciate them more for what they do.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp. But I think that we have a big job----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. That has been ignored for 15
years. I know you are celebrating 15 years of the agency. We
just were talking about authorization for DHS----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Very difficult to get kind
of a sense of prioritization from Congress when you have 100
committees----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Telling you what to do----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. And coming at you, and
mostly critical.
And so, I mean, I think we do not want to just bring out
the stick. We want to know what that carrot is, and we want to
work with you, Angela. But I think you are kind of a case study
for me in supervisory training, and that is why I think it is
interesting what you are doing.
Ms. Bailey. Thank you.
Senator Lankford. Can I press on that a little bit as well?
You mentioned, in your testimony, about an HR Academy. Tell us
a little bit about that.
Ms. Bailey. Sure.
Senator Lankford. What is that?
Ms. Bailey. Well, one of the things, whenever I first came
on board at DHS and I had the opportunity to work with our
Deputy Under Secretary at the time--well, he is still there--
Chip Fulghum, first of all, he is just a really incredibly
strong supporter of the programs that we have within HR. And
one of the things we recognized is, number one, we needed the
resources. So we went after that, meaning get HR specialists on
board.
But then, number two, we said to ourselves, but once they
are on board, and to include the current folks, by the way--
they really need to have career paths so that they understand
how their career is going to be progressing. They need to
understand that they are part of a really noble profession and
it is not just this one-off thing that anybody can do, which
often is what happens with the HR field.
And so we created this idea of having an HR Academy, and
what we mean by that is, first of all, we are using the good
work that OPM is doing with their Human Resource Institute, and
we are taking all of those courses. So it will be heavily
influenced by the courses that OPM is doing.
But we decided that we are actually going to do this by
DHS, for DHS. And I need to tell you, I was actually at
Transportation Security Administration (TSA). When I said that
to the HR community they actually clapped about that, which
really send a message to me to say that they are just clamoring
to be a part of a profession and to have somebody--to know that
there is a career path for them, to know that we are going to
have coaching for them, that we are going to have rotational
experiences for them, that we are going to make sure that they
get joint duty kinds of experiences, that they are going to get
not only the traditional but the non-traditional kind of
education and training as well, to go in this whole package
called an HR Academy.
So it is not brick and mortar. Right now, it is a virtual
thing. It is being done on the backs of--internally, within the
Office of the CHCO, and just some excellent detailees that have
come in from the components. They are so excited about building
something for their own community.
Senator Lankford. So what is the model for this? You are
modeling it off of what? You are making it look like, or you
have seen it somewhere else and said, ``That seems to really
work,'' or are you starting from scratch?
Ms. Bailey. I think the model, really, for me, because
coming out of Defense, I would say that the model for me is
really when you look at the acquisition corps. And so the
acquisition corps really professionalized themselves. They have
career paths that they have built that are very clearly
defined. They have intermixed it with Defense Acquisition
Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) requirements and Defense
Acquisition University (DAU). And so that all just kind of
played in my head.
I also, of course, coming out of OPM, you have Joseph
Kennedy's group that does all of the HR training, Federal
Executive Institute (FEI) and stuff. So it is this
conglomeration of pooling together just probably 36 years of,
like, watching different things go on, and kind of pool it
together but say, what is in the best interest for DHS, right?
It cannot be the DAU model, that is necessarily acquisition and
that is specifically for Defense. I do not think it is
necessarily just the OPM model. I think it is what is in the
best interest of us.
Senator Lankford. So how do you measure it? Look out 5
years from now, as you are looking back at it. Is it working?
Not working? What are you going to look for?
Ms. Bailey. Well, that is a great question. I would think
that the way that we are--and we have not really defined yet,
completely, how we are going to measure everything. But I think
at the end of the day the outcomes has to be that we have a
professionalized HR workforce that understands the nuances of
the hiring authorities, that understands all the different
things that they need to do to be able to deliver to the hiring
managers and help coach those hiring managers through some of
this as well.
And it has become a partnership, actually, with the hiring
managers, to be able to deliver and fill our positions, stem
some of the unplanned attrition, do all the things that are
actually the outcome of all of this, is not just for the HR
community but the outcome is that the mission for DHS is
actually delivered in a better fashion--more efficient and
certainly more effective.
Senator Lankford. Yes. Mr. Reinhold, who else is doing a
model like this? What are your initial thoughts on it?
Mr. Reinhold. Well, so I can tell you that OPM has invested
a lot of effort in looking at the HR workforce. We have done
extensive work over the past few years, because this is
identified as one of the governmentwide, mission-critical
skills gap.
So we have put our best talent on it. We have a set of
professional psychologists that have done extensive competency
analysis, to really hone in on what are the key competencies
and skills required of an HR specialist, and we have worked
very closely with our colleagues in our HR Solutions Division
to now build a curriculum that reflects those competencies.
And as Angie mentioned, it is through our Federal Human
Resources Institute--this year we have begun to launch this
institute, starting with the staffing function, because we have
found that that is a critical pain point across government. We
have a 22-course curriculum that includes both technical
training and the soft skill training. So far, about 18 of those
courses have been launched, and the remaining 4 will be live by
the end of this fiscal year. And then moving into 2019, we are
looking at building additional curricula for the other
specialty areas within the HR discipline--performance
management, benefits administration.
And one of the things that we believe in is that as Angie
mentioned, there is a huge appetite for this out in the Federal
Government, and depending on where you go for your training it
is going to be better or not as good. But what we have found is
that there is a huge appetite for OPM to establish some
leadership here, or take some leadership here, and I think we
have done that. And by having a robust set of courses and
curricula, that has the Good Housekeeping seal of approval on
it, from OPM, we believe will pay off in the long run.
Senator Lankford. So let me just bring this up, then I am
going to go to Senator Daines for his questions as well. But
this is my concern, because I want to go back to what else
needs to change. As we have all talked about before, it if is
106 days to hiring right now, you are not going to achieve it
by finding one area to be able to cut and change. You are
probably going to define five areas that you are going to cut 3
or 4 days off of each, to be able to get down to, as Mr.
Mahoney mentioned, this 80-day model, and trying to figure out
how to be able to get there.
But I had my team just pull the last 10 years, just grab
the last 10 years, some of the initiatives. So in 2008, the
End-to-End Hiring Roadmap initiative. In 2010, the President's
Hiring Reform piece. Also in 2010, the Veterans Finding Federal
Jobs piece. In 2011, OPM had the Students Finding Federal Jobs.
In 2015, the Recruitment, Engagement, Diversity, and Inclusion
strategy to improve the hiring process. In 2016, the Hiring
Excellence Campaign (HEC).
This is not to be critical. This is something we have all
known about for a while and there is a little piece edit, and I
hope we are making progress on it, a little bit at a time, to
be able to chip away on it. Not every program is going to be a
success. Some we are going to try it and it is not going to
work.
What I am trying to figure out is, for the HR folks that
are out there that are trying to figure out what do we do, how
can the process get better, how can I get greater connection to
the people that are actually my customers, which piece of it do
you look at over the last 10 years and say, ``That has made the
greatest progress on it but this is what is still missing?''
Mr. Reinhold. Yes. So that is a fair point about the number
of initiatives that are rolled out.
I will say that one of the things that we see is that with
every initiative comes visibility and prioritization, and I
think that as you look at each of these initiatives there are
things that you can point to say, ``Oh, wow, that did drive
some visibility and attention to it.''
For example, the time-to-hire and hiring model. The initial
results were that agencies got on board and they drove down
time-to-hire. I think one of the things that we found, though,
is that it is not just about speed of hiring. It is also about
quality of hiring. And I think, this all kind of works on a
model of continuous improvement, where if we squeeze the
balloon here and focus on speed of hiring and that is all we
care about, then the balloon bulges somewhere else.
So that is one of the reasons why you will see some of this
evolution of the thinking and, for example, a focus on quality
of hire, and, some of the things that OPM had engaged in to
really drive things that contribute to quality, like engagement
of hiring managers, and collaboration with HR.
One of the things that we have found in a lot of our data
was that supervisors and HR people do not talk to each other,
and that is not going to lead to a great hiring outcome. So
that is one of the reasons why we began to work with agencies
to really drive home the idea that collaboration between HR and
hiring managers is important, and that was reflected in our
Hiring Excellence initiative.
So, again, I think, in sum, I think it is kind of a
continuum or a range of continuous improvement that there is
not one perfect solution.
Senator Lankford. No, there is not, and we will come back
to that. I want to be able to drill down on a couple of things
specifically on that as well. Senator Daines.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAINES
Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank you all for testifying before this Committee.
President Trump began his term by emphasizing the
government needs to provide better customer service. I could
not agree more. In fact, I tell my team oftentimes that we are
in the customer service business. I spent 28 years in the
private sector before coming to Capitol Hill. We need to
provide better customer service to the American people. One of
the best ways to bring about better customer service is to
start by hiring, certainly, better employees.
The President also recognized, in the State of the Union
address, that hiring good employees also means you need to fire
bad ones, and particularly in places like the U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA). When I was leading organizations for
Procter and Gamble (P&G) for 13 years, in fact, my first job at
the age of 21 years old at P&G, I was managing a team of 30
people right out of college. They had a management development
program. They said, ``Steve, here is a team of 30 people. Go
get them.'' I was 21. So you learn a lot by trial and error.
But later on in my career, when I would teach and train new
managers and more experienced managers about what is the most
important thing about management, I would say the three most
important things about management, your highest priorities,
number one is hiring, number two is hiring, number three is
hiring, because when you hire well, it makes all the difference
in terms of outcomes in organizations.
But with an average time-to-hire, as was noted, of 106 days
in fiscal year 2017, we know the agencies are not getting as
many good candidates as they could, and we see this because
your best candidates cannot stand to wait when there are easier
job offers elsewhere. Your mediocre candidates and your lower-
performing candidates, which we should not be trying to hire in
the first place, but they will be the first ones to hang out
for 106 days, because they have no other options. The best
people have three or four options, and, to me, we are never
going to be able to hire and retain the best people unless we
can shorten up this time-to-hire.
Mr. Reinhold, the objective of successful hiring is
certainly having a good, or I would even argue a great
workforce. Taking this good to great analogy, we used to be
required reading in organizations I used to manage, part of
having a good workforce is to expeditiously fire bad employees,
because when you do not do that, as we know, it demoralizes
your best people when you see that bad performers are not held
accountable.
We recently saw the Department of Interior, our Secretary,
Ryan Zinke, take necessary steps by terminating four senior
employees on the basis of workplace harassment, including
sexual harassment.
My question is, what are the barriers to firing employees
who are poorly performing or have engaged in misconduct?
Mr. Reinhold. Thank you for that question. So I think there
are several. I think you could point to some of the, I will
call them provisions or constraints of the system, where we
need to take a fresh look at the basic rules and laws and
regulations that govern how we do performance management and
accountability.
I think another piece of that, though, even without
substantive reform, is figuring out how we execute better,
making sure that managers are held accountable for being
managers, and taking appropriate actions when there are--when
there is misconduct or poor performance.
Senator Daines. What incentive is there in the system to
fire a poor-performing employee, if you are a manager in this
system?
Mr. Reinhold. Well, for me the incentive--I mean, I guess
from my personal experience the incentive is it helps my
overall organizational performance. So I may not get a bonus or
accolades for it, but at the end of the day other employees
notice this.
Senator Daines. Do they stack rank performance in our----
Mr. Reinhold. No, we do not.
Senator Daines. And why not?
Mr. Reinhold. Actually it is a current provision of law
that requires an objective assessment of an individual's
performance against their performance standards. So we are not
rated against each other but we are rated against a set of
performance requirements.
Senator Daines. Yes, and that really is a controversial
issue, but I tell you, I have found one of the best
guidelines--and it is a guideline--is you ask your manager to
stack rank your employees, because what you often find out is
you are negotiating on the standards half the time with the
employee and so they get into this back-and-forth.
If you have an organization of 100 people, put them in
relatively populated groups here of peers, you stack rank them.
Tell me who your top 20 percent are, your middle 70, and your
bottom 10. It is a telling exercise, and if we cannot do it
officially, we still out to do it unofficially, just to make
your managers think about their organization, because your top
20 percent deliver a disproportionate share of results.
Typically your top 20 percent is delivering half the results of
the organization, your bottom 10 percent is taking up half of
your time as a leader because you are coaching out and having
to deal with poor performance. Just a comment on how we could
make this place run a little better.
Can this Subcommittee count on OPM to quickly finalize
guidance in order to prevent abuse and improve the government
workforce so that better employees can be hired?
Mr. Reinhold. Yes, absolutely. I mean, as others have
noted, this administration has made it clear that performance
management and accountability is a priority. One of the early
things that was issued was the memo directing agencies to
maximize employee performance. And OPM fully supports that and
we are looking at ways that we can help advance the ball on
that.
Senator Daines. I just would ask, too, and it is--I realize
maybe we have--I do not know if there are rules or regulations,
but I would just challenge our leaders, managers across these
organizations to think about, at least as an exercise, doing a
stack ranking. And, what you do with the data is all the
difference. I realize there are pros and cons to it. I have
found it to be very instructive and informative in coaching
young managers to success and to have the manager tell you what
are you doing to make sure we really help those top 20 percent,
to promote them, pay them more, encourage them, and what are we
doing to manage the bottom 10 percent? But that is just a
comment.
Ms. Bailey, the Port of Sweetgrass has about 40 employees
in a given time. This is up in northern Montana, up near the
Canadian border. The entire town has a population of 50. Just
south of there, 7 miles, the town of Sunburst has a population
of 400, and 35 miles further south is Shelby. I was in Shelby,
Montana, last week. They have a population of 2,400.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees
there have relayed to me that hiring retention is poor because
it is difficult to hire locally. And, as a result, we will send
folks up to the Sweetgrass Port with CBP as a way to get into
the agency and then immediately they leave Sweetgrass. We have
found when you hire more Montanans locally, and not
disadvantage them in the hiring process, we get better
retention rates.
A question for you is, do you believe that hiring locally
can reduce turnover and increase morale?
Ms. Bailey. Yes. I think, fundamentally, that yes, hiring
locally does, in essence, keep the morale high. It also helps
us retain folks in a much better way, because most of the--once
you get out into the field areas a lot of the hires are local.
Sometimes we are not able, to your point, to be able to fill
all of our vacancies with local hires. But we also have to, I
think, balance that with you cannot all have all locals either,
right?
Senator Daines. Right.
Ms. Bailey. I think an infusion of folks from diverse
backgrounds and stuff into an area is good, because, in the
areas in which we are responsible for, I think we really need
to be representative of all America. And so I think we just
have to have a good balance.
Senator Daines. I am out of time. I would love to have a
conversation and go further. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Senator Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRIS
Senator Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Reinhold, talk with me a little bit about how you are
using data to inform the Federal hiring process, and, in
particular, how you are providing data to hiring managers and
agency leaders, and how are these managers being trained to use
that data?
Mr. Reinhold. Thank you for that question, Senator Harris.
So I think there are a number of important data sources
that OPM encourages agencies to use. One of the big ones is
data gathered from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Not a
perfect assessment or, a perfect measure, but there is a lot of
rich data in there that we are driving into the agencies by
producing unit-level results down to low-level work units. So
each supervisor can get their data and have an understanding of
how their employees are reacting to the items in the survey.
Beyond that, when we look more broadly at recruiting and
hiring, one of the things that OPM has really worked toward is
creating functionality, sources of data that agencies can use
to inform hiring. And whether that be informing pools of
applicants by using what we call applicant flow data, where we
can survey individuals to find out where they are coming from
and how they found out about the jobs; by taking data that we
have in USA Jobs on millions of registrants and seeing where
they are located in the country and what kinds of jobs are they
applying for, and where are they actually getting selected.
So there is a whole suite of data analytics tools that are
being created within USA Jobs to enable better strategic
recruitment. We do not want to spend time focusing our efforts
on recruiting from places that are not yielding top talent, or
we are finding that there might be better sources of hiring
more diverse talent.
Senator Harris. Do we have a timeline for when that will be
completed, and are we also instructing managers and those who
are in a position to hire, about which sources of data they
should consult, and creating protocols for that?
Mr. Reinhold. So I would have to circle back with you on
that. USA Jobs is not actually my portfolio but I know they
have done a tremendous amount of work to create kind of that
analytics foundation.
Senator Harris. OK. If you could follow up on the timeline
for when that will be complete. And also, what, if any,
commitment or plan is there to have open data, meaning allowing
the public to actually be able to have access to this
information so they, too, can understand and even evaluate the
data that is available, to give some idea of what we are doing
in terms of hiring practices in the United States government?
Mr. Reinhold. That is a great question. I am not sure I
have a great answer for it. I know clearly there is an interest
in looking at how we can leverage the enormous amounts of data
that we have at OPM, and it is data about current Federal
employees, it is data about applicants from USA Jobs, it is
Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data. And there are many
ways, as you know, that this can be used and leveraged, and
even to help further some of our objectives when it comes to,
how do we showcase things that might be attractive to people
who might be looking for employment.
So, yes, we do not have a specific timeline, but I know, as
a general commitment and a general strategy, this is something
OPM is really interested in.
Senator Harris. If you could follow up with the Committee
on what exactly the plan will be, or might be, or can be----
Mr. Reinhold. OK.
Senator Harris [continuing]. For an open data initiative,
again, so that the public can have this information and we can
have greater transparency in our processes.
Ms. Bailey, in your testimony, you state that reducing
time-to-hire and hiring is most important, and also that given
that one of the first goals of the administration was for DHS
to have and hire 10,000 more Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents and 5,000 more Border Patrol agents.
Is there a workforce modeling that has been done to evaluate
and justify such as massive increase in personnel in those two
areas of the agency?
Ms. Bailey. Yes, and actually what they have done with the
workforce modeling is, what we are doing is refining that. And
so it is also built on, with regard to our authorizations and
what are our appropriations, and what we can actually afford
each year as well.
So we are not hiring all 10,000 ICE agents this year or all
5,000 CBP officers this year as well. We have actually parsed
that out. Some of that is a 5- to 7-year plan to have those
folks on board.
One of the things that we are doing, first of all, though,
is investing in what I will call the logistical tail that has
to actually support all of these folks. So the last thing we
want to do is bring on a lot of agents and not have anybody
there to help do all the care and feeding.
Senator Harris. That is smart.
Ms. Bailey. Yes. So we are----
Senator Harris. Can you provide that workforce modeling\1\
to the Committee?
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\1\ The clarification statement submitted by Ms. Bailey appears in
the Appendix on page 57.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ms. Bailey. We can. Certainly.
Senator Harris. OK. Please do. Can you get it to us within
the next month?
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Harris. OK. Great. And has there been an assessment
that justifies the need for these increases, and where
individuals would be placed, and what their duties would be,
and what their priorities would be?
Ms. Bailey. Right. So that would be all part of the
modeling.
Senator Harris. OK.
Ms. Bailey. It is to really fully understand at where
exactly do we need the resources most.
Senator Harris. So that assessment has been done?
Ms. Bailey. Yes. It is an ongoing assessment. I want to be
clear about that.
Senator Harris. OK.
Ms. Bailey. I think every time, as we move and as things
are going along, it is very fluid, and understanding what that
is, where do we have the need for the most impact. And so we
are actually making those plans as we go along. I do not think
it is just a once-and-done kind of thing. I want to make sure I
am clear on that.
Senator Harris. So, I think so, but I just want to get more
clear about the plan.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Harris. So we are not going to build this thing as
we are flying it, right? You are going to complete the
assessment before we start hiring, or are you saying that
hiring will start before the assessment is complete?
Ms. Bailey. No. An assessment has been done. What I mean is
that tweaks will be done to that assessment as we go along. So
we are not going to build it as we are flying. We have an
assessment as to where we believe that we need our folks to be
placed----
Senator Harris. OK.
Ms. Bailey [continuing]. Throughout the country. Actually,
throughout the world, because it is not just the United States.
But what I am suggesting is that as we get our appropriations,
as we get different intelligence and different things that we
discover, yes, there will have to be tweaks made to that plan
to ensure that our modeling makes sense. We would never want to
say what we decided in 2017 is forever more, because it is just
not a reality of the business that we are in.
Senator Harris. OK. So we have completed an assessment of
the needs of the Department and whether we actually do need
10,000 in one division and 5,000 more in another?
Ms. Bailey. To the best of my knowledge, we have completed
an assessment of that and we are implementing that plan.
Senator Harris. OK. Well, we look forward to reading that.
Thank you.
Senator Lankford. Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. I want to say to the Chair and the Ranking
Member, thank you for holding this hearing. It is not a new
subject. This is like an ongoing subject and a number of our
colleagues, including George Voinovich, Daniel Akaka, and
others before them have tried to focus and refocus our efforts
here. The folks at this table have been a part of this effort.
I just want to start out with Angela Bailey. Nice to see
you. And thank you. I am going to be talking on the phone later
today with Alejandro Mayorkas, who used to be, as you know,
Deputy Secretary for a number of years, working with Jeh
Johnson, our Secretary. And they spent every week of the time
they were Secretary and Deputy Secretary focusing on this
issue. Jeh Johnson said to me, repeatedly, it is an
embarrassment that the Department of Homeland Security has the
lowest, in terms of employee morale, the lowest in the Federal
Government. We want to do something about that.
And they worked it hard. They worked it hard and I try to
do a little bit. I would go to the floor every month, as you
may recall, to talk about a different person in Department of
Homeland Security, and hold them up for praise, and just remind
people. Every time I go through an airport I always thank the
Transportation Security Administration people, tell them who I
am and how much we appreciate their service. I just do not
think you can thank people enough.
And the work that you are a part of and the work that Jeh
Johnson and Alejandro and others have led, it is showing
movement and change. We have a saying in the Navy, it is hard
to turn an aircraft carrier, but if you keep at it you can
actually turn an aircraft carrier.
And just talk to us about some of the efforts. Why do you
think this is working? We are now seeing the fruits of all the
labor that have gone on before. But what has happened here?
Ms. Bailey. Well, first of all, I want to thank you,
Senator, for all of your support, and I think it really
actually does mean a lot to, like, our TSA folks whenever you
thank them for a job well done, because they have some pretty
tough jobs.
Senator Carper. One guy said to me, ``Well, thank you very
much. No one ever thanks us for anything. Now take your shoes
off.'' [Laughter.]
He was kidding.
Ms. Bailey. Exactly.
Senator Carper. A TSA agent with a sense of humor.
Ms. Bailey. Yes. And there are many of them.
Senator Carper. Yes, there are.
Ms. Bailey. So you are right. Under the leadership of
Secretary Johnson and Deputy Secretary Mayorkas, there was just
so much tremendous effort put on employee engagement, and that
has carried forward into the next administration with our----
Senator Carper. Good.
Ms. Bailey [continuing]. Current leadership as well.
I think one of the main things that we honestly have done
is just got real and got local, because all engagement is
local, and if you try to keep it at the highest levels all the
time, and it is big, fancy brochures and, spiffy Web pages and
stuff, it does not resonate with the folks. So we took it to
the people and we said to them--we sat down, we started having,
and I had mentioned it earlier, listening tours, to ask them,
``What is it that you are struggling the most with? What is it
that you need our help with?''
And so we then kept a record, basically, of all of those
things, and then we just started actually making sure that the
simplest things got implemented for them.
One of the things that also was borne out of this is the
idea of leadership year, and that really came with Secretary
Kelly. Whenever he went out and he listened to folks and they
said, especially the supervisors, they said, ``What I really
want to know is that I am going to be supported whenever I need
to take whatever action I need to take.''
And so we really are now dedicating this whole year to
making sure that our supervisors have what they need, because
we fundamentally believe if we do not take care of our
supervisors, it is pretty darn hard to take care of your
employees if you are not taking care of yourself. And so that
is one of the two-pronged efforts that we have with regard to
our employee engagement.
And as you can see, the results are--I mean, last year, I
think, not only was it statistically significant, historically
it was the highest raising of an agency with regard to the FEVS
scores. But for us it is not just about FEVS scores, right? We
are not just chasing a score. We are really actually trying to
learn from that.
We have an executive steering committee that is actually
chaired by our Under Secretary for Management.
Senator Carper. Who is that now?
Ms. Bailey. That is Claire Grady. And all of our component
leadership is there. We have action plans that we have put in
place. We hold them accountable for the action plans. We have
put it into our SES performance appraisal, or into their
performance standards, this idea of having accountability for
leadership, which goes beyond just the core competency of
leading people. And then we share best practices, and there are
a lot of good things that are actually going on.
I think some of the things we do not really kind of get
credit for is some of our components, like U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS), and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), they
have scores almost as high as National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), and they are larger than NASA. And so I
think sometimes that gets missed in all the mix of just
aggregating DHS as just one agency.
Senator Carper. Good. Well, we do a fair amount of work
with social media and other ways to communicate out of our
office, and we are going to make sure we tell this story. Thank
you very much for your part in developing a really good
turnaround. It is thrilling.
Ms. Bailey. Good.
Senator Carper. It is a thrill, and not a cheap thrill. It
is a thrill. Good work.
Ms. Bailey. It is for me.
Senator Carper. There you go.
If I can, maybe one more quick question. This would be for
the panel, the entire panel. We will let the guys talk for a
little bit here.
But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others
have identified the critical skill gaps in areas such as
cybersecurity, auditing, human resources, and procurement, to
name just a few. The two of you just take a minute and tell us
how you are working to ensure that individual hiring decisions
are in line with the long-term needs of your agency, including
tackling those areas identified as critical skill gaps. Each of
you. Mark, do you want to take it first, and then Kevin.
Mr. Reinhold. Sure. Thank you for that question, Senator.
So I would actually like to start off by talking a little
bit about some of the work OPM has done to explore the skills
gap in mission-critical occupations. We have worked very
closely with agencies to, first of all, identify what we mean
by a mission-critical occupation, the extent to which skill
gaps exist, going through a very rigorous root cause analysis
process to get to the fundamental reasons why these gaps exist
in government. And based on those findings there are action
plans and strategic plans that have been put in place for each
of the mission-critical occupations.
And we have occupational leads who are basically senior
folks from agencies who have stepped up to the challenge of
saying, ``Hey, I want to lead the acquisition efforts, or the
cyber efforts.'' And we continue to work very closely with them
to kind of drive execution of their action plans. In fact, just
later this afternoon we are having our quarterly update with
the group to talk about status and progress.
Senator Carper. That is great. Thank you, Mark. Kevin.
Mr. Mahoney. Thank you, Senator. At Commerce we are really
working to identify competencies in a lot of these areas. We
have tracked mission-critical occupations for a long time and
report them to OPM on a regular basis.
But as we make a transition to how we are delivering HR
services, we know that we have to understand what the
competencies in each of these jobs are, and that is a joint
effort between us in HR and the manager, to sit down and really
sort of assess what are the skill sets that you need to
complete your mission. And we are beginning to develop a model,
a workforce planning model, that will look at those
competencies and then be able to make some decisions on how we
close gaps.
In my own department, we have done this because we are
preparing to transition to a different way of delivering
services, and we did a complete competency assessment of the
staff and we have identified staff who can fill certain
positions for us and staff that needs to be developed if we are
going to retain them. And we are going to continue on that
model throughout the agency.
Senator Carper. OK. Good. Who is the Secretary of Commerce
these days?
Mr. Mahoney. Wilbur Ross.
Senator Carper. Really? Everybody thinks he is the guy who
made a lot of money, very successful businessperson. Did he
ever work in public service for like a limited period of time?
Mr. Mahoney. Actually, when Secretary Ross started his
career he was a Census taker.
Senator Carper. He was a kind of a numerator. He would go
door to door and take the Census.
Mr. Mahoney. Yes.
Senator Carper. And he still has an enduring interest in
the Census. And as part of the responsibility of the Department
of Commerce, it is a really important thing, not just for
creating congressional districts and, councilmanic districts
and stuff like that for voting purposes, but it is also hugely
helpful to our business community, hugely helpful in a wide
variety of ways.
We currently have an acting Census Director, an acting
Deputy Census Director, both of whom are career folks and both
of whom are highly regarded. Is the administration--are you
guys working on putting somebody like a confirmed--getting us a
couple of names for us to consider? Do you want to stay with
the two fellows that are there? Should we be considering them
as the Senate confirmed, debate them, have them here before us
for hearings? What should we do?
Mr. Mahoney. Well, I know that the Department is actively
working with the White House to identify candidates to come in
and fill those positions. The two gentlemen that you have
identified certainly have stepped up and done yeoman work----
Senator Carper. That is what I hear.
Mr. Mahoney [continuing]. And we are very pleased with the
progress that we are making with the Census. But, ultimately, I
think we will be getting some recommendations from the White
House that we will move forward on.
Senator Carper. Maybe one or both of them could be a
nominee, or ought to be seriously considered, at least.
OK, Mr. Chairman, Senator Heitkamp, I just want to say
thank you for your leadership of this Committee. I love the way
these two folks work together. It is just a great example for
the rest of us. Maybe it is their hair color. I do not know
what it is. These are kindred spirits and very good leaders.
Thank you for your leadership in this regard, and to
Angela, especially, nice to see you. When I talk to Alejandro
and Jeh Johnson later this week, maybe later today, I will be
sure to tell them we spoke and that you are doing great work.
Thank you.
Ms. Bailey. Thank you.
Senator Lankford. Thank you, Senator Carper. Let me ask a
couple more questions. We have several things that we want to
be able to still highlight with you, and this is one that has
confounded me in the process. The final approval for a
position's minimum job requirements. Who signs off on that and
who should sign off on it?
So I am asking what is current practice for who is signing
off on the final approval for a position's minimum job
requirements. Is it in the right spot? Is it OPM? Is it HR
folks? Is it down to the manager? When they are trying to
establish what is the minimum job requirements for this one,
how is that going?
Mr. Reinhold, do you want to attack that for me?
Mr. Reinhold. Yes, I would be happy to start with that. So,
generally speaking, for most occupations, the core
qualification requirement for a particular grade level is a
full year of experience doing that job at the next lower grade
level. So OPM does not prescribe, in specific terms, what that
means, so there is a lot of flexibility within agencies to say,
OK, well, what it means for my job here in my agency is that
you would have a year of experience doing X, Y, and Z, and you
would have demonstrated these competencies and skills.
So, ultimately, when it comes to actually defining a
position description, and issuing a job announcement, there is
significant flexibility at the agency level, and, ultimately,
the decision about what goes in there and how that is defined
is really up to the HR specialist and the hiring manager.
Senator Lankford. Right. So how is it working in the
agencies at this point, for establishing that, between the HR
folks and actually coming to the managers and such that are
going to oversee them?
Mr. Mahoney. It works well, when both the manager and the
hiring specialist can collaborate with each other.
Senator Lankford. Are they?
Mr. Mahoney. They do and we are getting better at doing
that. It is one of my goals to connect the HR specialist to be
closer to the business. I think, if I look at my experience in
the private sector and I contrast it to my experience in
government, as an HR person in the private sector if I did not
know the business of my customers then I was not going to be
successful.
And so we are working toward that to get our specialists
more involved in meetings with the Bureaus, to understand the
pressure that are coming if Bureaus are getting requirements
from Congress to hire more people or to move in a certain
direction or to reorganize. We are spending more and more of
our time understanding that so that we can better, then, when
it comes to hiring, write a position description that makes
sense and write, more importantly, the job assessment we use so
that when we do a vacancy announcement we begin to get the kind
of quality candidates that are going to be helpful to the
manager.
Senator Lankford. Right. How is that working in DHS?
Ms. Bailey. I think it is kind of like a mixed bag, right?
We do have--absolutely--not just pockets of success, I think we
have by and large success across the board. Because it is one
of these things where what we have discovered is that when the
hiring managers are not involved in this they end up with folks
that, on their, what is called a certificate for selection,
they end up with folks that they just believe are not qualified
at all.
And so one of the things that we have said is, why do you
not come on in, let us sit down together, let us actually talk
about what is it that you are really trying to get
accomplished. What are the capabilities that you need? What are
some of the soft skills, meaning do you need critical thinking?
Do you need decisiveness? I mean, what are some of the things
that you actually need, and then let us just work together to
actually put out a job announcement that collectively we think
will get the right kinds of folks to apply for those positions.
It also, I think, has to do with some of the recruiting
that we have going on as well, getting the managers more
involved in the recruiting up front so that they can actually
see some of these resumes that are coming in and get a feel for
the kind of talent that is out there.
So we successfully used that when we did our joint hiring
event last summer, and, actually, it might have been two
summers ago. But, anyhow, we successfully used that. We
literally had a table like this of HR specialists and CIO
folks, and together they sat down and they looked at 2,500
resumes that walked in that door, and together they decided on
who met the qualifications that they were looking for, and then
they got referred to actually get interviewed. And we made
close to 350 tentative job offers that day, by having that kind
of relationship.
So what we need to do, though, since DHS is a huge agency,
is just replicate that, that kind of back-and-forth and that
kind of partnership across the components, and across the
different occupations.
Senator Lankford. That is great. So, Mr. Reinhold, let me
follow up on something we talked about in April 2016. You have
been here multiple times. We have had lots of conversations
here. We talked to you, at that time, about the frustration
that applicants feel when they are not getting feedback on the
process. You and I have both expressed that and understood it
well, and said that something has to change in how people are
getting feedback and they are going through the job process.
Otherwise they take other jobs in other places, just because
they have not heard or they just get frustrated and think if it
is going to be like this then I am not going to bother to be
able to jump in.
How is that going, getting feedback to the applicants?
Mr. Reinhold. So we have tried to come at it from a couple
of different ways. One way is through USA Jobs, where we have
created some new functionality that provides, what I will call
a little bit of a dashboard, if you will, for the applicants,
so they can see at critical points of the hiring process where
is it now? Is it the job announcement has closed? Has a
referral been issued? Has a selection been made?
There is also functionality in USA Jobs that can draw from
agency inputs that will give the individual specific feedback.
So, for example, beyond kind of the little timeline thing I
mentioned, there are data points that agencies can feed into
USA Jobs so that an applicant can go check on the status at any
given time. So it is kind of both a broad, here is a general
dashboard so you know where----
Senator Lankford. For that job opening or for them, in
particular?
Mr. Reinhold. For that specific job opening, yes.
And then, in addition to that, one of the things we have
continued to emphasize through the Hiring Excellence campaign
and other engagements with agencies is really the importance of
keeping applicants apprised of what is going on. And we
emphasize that with the HR folks and the managers. Because one
of the things we have found is that, even once a selection is
made and the person is waiting, perhaps, for security vetting,
it is a great practice for a manager to periodically check in
with the person, just to kind of make sure that, how are things
going, we are still working on it, we are still interested in
you, just to kind of have that reassurance that it is not just
in some black hole.
So I think, like I said, we are trying to come at this from
different ways, and, certainly we are continuing to look for
solutions.
Senator Lankford. So the question is, what you just
described to me on USA Jobs and such, and the hiring process,
and the online look at that dashboard, as you described it, if
I were to go look at that right now and go across multiple
agencies, are all agencies putting their information in there,
and so you can see that, or some doing it and some are not?
What do you think?
Mr. Reinhold. So I will say it is a mixed bag. Sometimes
what we see is that agencies are so focused on just getting
through the process that they do not necessarily hit the right
triggers to feed data into USA Jobs. And it is not that nothing
is happening. It is just that they are working on other things
and they are not timely in feeding the information to USA Jobs.
So in those cases, yes, it is very reliant on agencies----
Senator Lankford. So give me a ballpark of what the guess
is of how many people are putting information in, and I can
tell you, as a parent, for instance, looking at my child's
grades online, some teachers do a great job of putting their
grades in the grade book online and some of them, 9 weeks later
it is not there yet.
Mr. Reinhold. True.
Senator Lankford. So I get that, but----
Mr. Reinhold. Yes. Honestly, I do not even know if I could
take a swag at it. It is 50-50, maybe.
Senator Lankford. OK. I would encourage you to be able to
follow up and just get a quick look at that and see, for us to
be able to have the tools, a great tool to be able to have, to
be able to know how it is used, or if it is a usable format, or
if it is a pain to be able to use, to be able to input the
data, the data is not going into it because it is such an
additional hurdle that is slowing people down and just saying
``never mind, I am not going to do it.'' But let us see, if we
have a good tool like that, let us just see if it is actually
usable and how it is being used.
Senator Heitkamp. I think it is important, Mark, too that,
you let them know that we are asking. I mean, I think sometimes
people think if it is not--I mean, there is no accountability,
then why do it? I mean, it is just another step. But they need
to know that we are asking, and that we expect that we are
going to have this tool available to us to evaluate.
And we just have to elevate this work beyond, leave us
alone and let us do what we are doing, because what we are
doing is
not achieving the results that we think we need, and it is
creating--it is frustrating, and it is only going to get worse
as the job market get more competitive. We are not in a spot
where we are a preferred employer anymore. I mean, the days of
my dad saying, ``Oh, well, it would be great, get a government
job.'' No one says that anymore, that I know of. They look at
it as a way to get skills that you can then get a real job
someplace else.
And so we have to change how people look at employment
within these agencies and it has to begin with the folks in
your role
impressing upon the supervisors and pressing upon the managers
that this is a priority, and, we are not in this for the long
term--or the short term. We are in this for the long term.
I cannot, Angela, let you leave without talking about the
5-year contract that Customs and Border Protection signed with,
I think it is Accenture. I am really disturbed by this, because
it seems to me that a $40,000 payment, kind of bounty per new
hire may not be the best way to recruit the best people. And I
am concerned that what we are doing is simply a revolving door,
I mean, because we do not seem to be able to retain.
I mean, the last time--I forget who was in front of us--
they said that they had 100 transfers or departures from
Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol a month. I mean,
so you add that up and you add $40,000 to replace, at the same
time that there is a lot of pressure here to add more
personnel, I mean, this is something that needs to get fixed.
And so I am curious about what role DHS played in Customs
and Border Protection's contract. I am curious about whether
you were disappointed or whether you played a role in that, and
if you did, maybe you can enlighten me on why this was a good
deal.
Ms. Bailey. OK. So with regard to the contract, we had an
opportunity to sit down with CBP the other day and that
includes with our----
Senator Heitkamp. Were you involved in the beginning,
Angela?
Ms. Bailey. No. Not in the beginning. But we sat down with
the Under Secretary, the Deputy Under Secretary, myself, we sat
down with CBP, and we actually sat down with CBP and ICE, to
understand both of their contracts, what is different about
both of them so that we could really get a real feel for it,
and to dig into the numbers a little bit more.
So CBP, I would say that what they are really trying to
accomplish here is go at things a little bit differently, and
one could say that when you go after high innovation sometimes
there is high risk with that, right? So one of the first things
that they are doing is they know--they get thousands and
thousands of applications. What their issue is, is getting
folks the whole way through, and, in particular, that extensive
security background investigation. They have drug testing,
physicals, medicals, and then the background investigation, and
polygraphs. So people start dropping out throughout that
process.
So one of the things that CBP is also investing in, with
regard to this contract, which I think is a fabulous idea, is
we are taking this whole idea of instead of just doing the
dashboard where people have to go in and look to see where they
are in the process, they are actually creating an Applicant
Care Center. And what we are doing now is we are going to have
people dedicated solely to doing--to literally hand-hold----
Senator Heitkamp. But why do we need to sign a contract
with someone else to do something that we would expect you guys
were doing, in terms of recruitment?
Ms. Bailey. Well, with regard, you can have your own staff
do it or you can kind of augment it or supplement it a little
bit with some contractors. So I think what CBP is trying to do
is say, ``I have a lot here on my plate that I am trying to do.
How about if we at least go at this two different ways and see
if we cannot get better results.'' Because we all agree that
they need to increase their results and get these positions
filled. That is why----
Senator Heitkamp. I think they need to look at why people
are leaving----
Ms. Bailey. I agree.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Border Patrol.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp. So, I look at 100 and say, OK, $40,000
for 100 people a month, that is $40 million, or $4 million. So
what are we doing here?
Ms. Bailey. Right. So with regard to the Border Patrol in
particular, what we have really started doing with Border
Patrol is looking at where are they moving to and why are they
leaving. Because we have to get to the root cause of what is
really going on. And, in particular, for some of the border
locations, which I am sure----
Senator Heitkamp. Right.
Ms. Bailey [continuing]. That you are familiar with this,
and with regard to some of those, they are in very desolate
locations where their families----
Senator Heitkamp. Yes, I do not mean to be argumentative,
but maybe you ought to take that $40,000 and incentivize
somebody to move there. I mean, so you have somebody who is
already a great employee, you are spending $40,000 per recruit
in this system, and you are losing 100 a month. So, would that
not tell you that maybe instead of investing in this system,
investing in trying to figure out why people are leaving----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. And retain them would be a
much bigger bang for the buck.
Ms. Bailey. Yes. So we actually are putting money into,
with regard to the retention incidents. We agree with that.
Also, recruitment incentives. We just met with OPM, I think it
was last week or maybe it was 2 weeks ago, to talk about some
legislative proposals, as well, that we would like to put in
place to actually increase the percentage of retention and
recruitment bonuses that we can actually give these folks to
keep them.
But we were also thinking about an idea that has to do
with, like, treating these as almost like a hardship tour, like
the military does. And so if you agree to take one of these
locations for 3 years----
Senator Heitkamp. I do not disagree with any of that.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp. What I disagree with is, or what I fail
to understand, is why we need to hire a firm and spend $40,000
per hire to that firm. That is what is very troubling to me,
because if you multiply that out by the number of additional
hires, this is not inconsequential in terms of dollars to the
budget. And, we have a lot of faith in you, Angela, that you
can create a system that will, in fact, respond. But, this is
not being well received on this Committee, as you know. And I
am deeply troubled that you say you just sat down with them to
talk about this contract. It is obvious to me you did not know
about this contract until it got exposed here.
Ms. Bailey. Well, no. I knew about the contract. Once we
had the proposals had come back in and we have, actually, how
Accenture is going to perform the work----
Senator Heitkamp. Did you negotiate the contract?
Ms. Bailey. No.
Senator Heitkamp. Why not? Would not you think that would
be your role?
Ms. Bailey. Yes, I mean, but for the components, the
components actually have the authority to negotiate their own
contracts, and to understand what their needs are.
I need to be clear, though, in this $42,000, it does
actually include doing the background investigations, the
medical, the drug testing, the physicals, and everything. So I
just want to make sure that we are clear that it covers
everything. It is not just covering recruiting.
And so, as you know, background investigations can be very
expensive, as well as the medicals, physicals, and etc. And
then the investment, they are also investing in business
process re-engineering to see whether or not their processes
are really making sense. For example, their entrance exams,
does it make sense where they have it?
So this contract is intended, by CBP, to cover how----
Senator Heitkamp. How long has it been since they signed
the contract? When was the contract signed?
Ms. Bailey. I think November.
Senator Heitkamp. November.
Ms. Bailey. I think November. And it is for a small
portion. It is not for all of their hires. It is only for about
a quarter of their hires. The rest of their hires will continue
on under their current system.
Senator Heitkamp. Yes. I mean, the jury is out on this,
and, obviously, a lot of concern about the inability to
retain----
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp [continuing]. Against, in a very expensive
hiring process. I do not disagree with that.
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Heitkamp. I think it is expensive no matter how you
do it. But, I look at $40,000 and think, if I bonused somebody
$5,000 a year, that might do more in retention. I get to keep
four of those guys for what it costs you to recruit a new one.
Ms. Bailey. Right. We are absolutely doing that. We are
also even pursuing, like, special salary rates as well. We did
that for the polygraph examiners and also for our agriculture
specialists and for our officers, like, up on the Northern
Border, to try to combat some of this. So we are with you on
that, with regard to putting money into the retention
incentives, the relocation.
We also, so speaking of that, when they do relocate, we
need to put money aside, as well, to help them pay for those
moves, to go to the next place, which would be an
encouragement, I think, for them. We are also thinking--and I
think it is part of our proposals that we want to put forward
now--is this idea--I worked on this whenever I was at OPM with
the Department of Defense (DOD), a spousal preference for the
military spouses. And we were thinking perhaps we could come up
with a DHS spousal preference that would at least give them, in
these different areas an idea.
Senator Heitkamp I do not want to belabor this and I am
sure we are going to have ongoing discussions, but I trust you
to do your job. I just do not know why we need to spend this
kind of money, outside a system, when this is going to be a
recurring problem. We need to have capability within the
organization. I do not like off-sourcing this. I want you to be
in charge of it. I want this to be a systematic, system-wide
discussion without taking the short cut and hiring someone for
which we have no idea whether that is going to improve
retention rates at all.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Senator Heitkamp. And so, you are going to get them through
the door. Is there any guarantee that they are going to stay?
Ms. Bailey. Right. So we need--yes, right. I understand,
ma'am.
Senator Lankford. Before I recognize Senator Hassan, can I
ask a quick question on that as well? Do we know the costs of
hiring when it is done through the Federal agencies? Because
you talked about it includes drug testing, it includes the
background check, it includes all the onboarding. Do we have a
ballpark now, if we do it through Federal entities, what is the
cumulative cost to hire versus what this outside contract is?
Ms. Bailey. Yes. We have actually looked at data, and I
have seen some of the studies and I have seen anywhere from
$35,000 to, you have the $42,000. I have seen it higher than
that. So I think what I would need to do is actually get back
to you on that, so that I am just, at least telling you exactly
the facts, versus just trying to kind of guess.
Senator Lankford. That would be great. That would be very
helpful. Yes, if that figure exists, because if it is an all-
encompassing contract----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Lankford [continuing]. It is not just you, it is
other entities as well----
Ms. Bailey. Right.
Senator Lankford [continuing]. That are a part of that, and
it would be good to get an apples-to-apples comparison of that.
Ms. Bailey. Yes, and I think it would be smart to break it
down by the process, because not everybody has to do a
polygraph, for example----
Senator Lankford. Right.
Ms. Bailey [continuing]. And different parts.
Senator Lankford. It would be helpful. Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the
witnesses for being here. And I have been at other hearings so
I have a couple of questions. They may cover a little bit of
territory that you have already covered, and I apologize, but I
did want to get back and ask them.
And I wanted to start, Mr. Mahoney, with you, because you
have worked at several agencies in similar capacities, as I
understand it. So the question I have is, in your experience,
would you say that most of the hiring issues at the agencies
you have worked at have been specific to that agency or have
the problems been governmentwide, and can you provide some
examples.
Mr. Mahoney. Thank you for the question, Senator. The
hiring process is the same across all agencies. It is the way
the government does it.
Senator Hassan. Yes.
Mr. Mahoney. It does vary from place to place. When I was
at Small Business Administration, our focus was usually on the
field jobs, and those were different----
Senator Hassan. Yes.
Mr. Mahoney [continuing]. Than they are, let us say, at
Census, where I am now.
So the specific jobs that we are hiring for change. The
process stays the same. But we still can look at each job
series or hiring series as an individual event, and if we have
the opportunity to use a specific hiring authority, like, for
example, something to attract people who have just left the
Peace Corps----
Senator Hassan. Right.
Mr. Mahoney [continuing]. And bring them on board quickly,
we will do that. So we can take hiring flexibilities and apply
them to the jobs while still using a process that is universal
across the institution.
Senator Hassan. So you find, in different agencies, they
are able to find those flexibilities, those particular fits,
for instance?
Mr. Mahoney. I think when there is a good working
relationship between the hiring specialist and the hiring
manager, where you could actually sit down and kind of noodle
through some of these things at the beginning, then you can
accomplish a great deal.
Senator Hassan. OK. That is helpful.
And I wanted to touch a little bit more, Mr. Reinhold, on
the issue of background checks. We were just talking about some
of it with regard to Senator Heitkamp's line of questioning.
But as I understand it, as of several weeks ago, the Office of
Personnel Management had over 700,000 Federal job applicants
waiting for a completed background check or security clearance,
and the GAO has recently added the background check effort to
its annual list of high-risk programs.
I appreciate the hard work that civil servants are doing
every day to process these forms, but it is really critical
that we do everything we can to improve the efficiency of this
process for the sake of the whole Federal workforce, while also
making sure we are giving security clearances to people who
have been fully vetted.
Could you talk about the impact that this backlog is having
on the length of the hiring process and what steps your agency
is taking to reduce them?
Mr. Reinhold. Yes. Thank you for that question. So we could
not agree more that ensuring the integrity of the Federal
workforce is a critical priority. Certainly there are various
levels of sensitivity of positions across the Federal
Government, and some are deemed non-sensitive, which, in those
cases a security check could involve something as minimal as,
things like a fingerprint check.
Senator Hassan. Right.
Mr. Reinhold. Certainly for higher levels of sensitivity,
the investigation is much more robust, and in those situations
those can certainly take more time, and in cases where there
are large inventories, certainly that can have an impact on the
hiring process.
Senator Hassan. Right.
Mr. Reinhold. I think one of the things that I would note--
and this is not a program that is within my portfolio, so I
will probably limit how much I speak about it--but one of the
things I would note is that a large percentage of that
inventory is reinvestigations of individuals who are already on
board.
Senator Hassan. OK.
Mr. Reinhold. There are requirements for periodic
reinvestigation.
Senator Hassan. Yes, OK.
Mr. Reinhold. So that kind of contributes to the inventory.
But those are not necessarily related to new hires.
But I guess I will close by saying it is certainly an area
that OPM is very focused on, and I know we are very committed
to working through that inventory.
Senator Hassan. Do we have--is it is a lack of people to do
the background checks? Is it that the system could be leaned
up, so to speak? I mean, is it the process for background
checks? Do we need more technology? What is creating the
backlog?
Mr. Reinhold. Yes. In candor, I do not have a lot of
visibility into that----
Senator Hassan. OK.
Mr. Reinhold [continuing]. But I think it is certainly
something we would be happy to gather information and circle
back with you.
Senator Hassan. Well, I would very much like to follow up
on it, because in my experience, there are times when people
really have not drilled down on the process itself, and whether
it can be sped up with some new techniques, whether things
always have to happen sequentially or whether they can happen
simultaneously. All of those kind of questions are important
for us to look at, so I would look forward to working with you
on that.
Mr. Reinhold. Absolutely.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. That is all I had, Mr. Chair.
Senator Lankford. OK. So I have a couple of quick questions
and then we are going to wrap it up here. And I know you are
excited about wrapping it all up here, and I appreciate your
input on this.
Thirty-one percent of our Federal employees across Federal
workforce are eligible to retire, at this point. So what we are
trying to figure out, in this panel, is how is the hiring
process going to be improved. We have had numerous
conversations about how do we pick up a day here, a day here, a
day there in the hiring process, knowing that we have the
potential of having so many openings coming so quickly soon.
Give me one idea of how to improve the speed of the hiring
process. Go for it.
Mr. Mahoney. I think Senator Daines expressed it correctly,
although I would say recruit, recruit, recruit. Managers who
are successful in the hiring process are the managers who are
always looking for talent, understanding where the talent is,
knowing the skills that they are looking for. When they do that
and a hiring opening occurs, it always moves a lot quicker when
they have a group of candidates that they have asked to apply
for a position. It does not take away from the competitive
nature of what we do, but it always helps the process move
forward.
So I would say, and this is not something that you have to
do, as a committee. It is really a mindset that the manager has
to have, to always be looking for candidates and talent.
Senator Lankford. OK. Ms. Bailey.
Ms. Bailey. I would recommend that we--I think it would be
helpful if we could get out of this laborious rating and
ranking process that we are in, because when we get in all of
these resumes we have to go through a whole lot of different
rules and regulations to try to make sure that we get them in
the right order, to put them on all these different
certificates that some are for non-competitives, some are for
competitives, some are for veterans, some are for Schedule A,
and it just gets overwhelming, I think, for everybody.
My recommendation would be that the agencies be given the
authority, especially whenever they are at these recruiting
events, that they have the authority that when they get the
resumes in that they can actually look at these folks, they can
qualify them on the spot, they can interview them on the spot,
and they can make tentative job offers on the spot. And I think
you would cut out at least 6 weeks of all of this back-and-
forth that goes on with regard to the hiring process if we
could just have the authority to actually interview people and
make decisions.
Senator Lankford. Why does that not happen now?
Ms. Bailey. Because of the way Title 5 in the competitive
process is actually regulated. Right now we cannot. You might
call it direct hire authority, right, but I want to be careful
just calling it direct hire authority, because I think that
that kind of gets away--if we call it just direct hire
authority then you have to meet all these rules with regard to
that the folks--there is either a severe shortage or a critical
need, or whatever, and you have to prove mountains worth of
paperwork just to prove that.
We were so successful at our joint hiring events because,
yes, we did have direct hire authority, but we could bring
people together, not only our HR specialists and our hiring
managers but we brought security in there too. We lost the vast
majority of our people whenever they have to go to the
Electronic Quesionnaires for Investigations Processing (e-QIP)
system and start filling out the background investigation
paperwork. They give up.
And so having somebody there, at that time, to say not only
do we like you, we have interviewed you, now we are going to
walk you down, we are going to fingerprint you, we are going to
help you get into the background investigation system, we are
going to help you set up your medicals and your physicals and
everything else that you need to do. We cut out, literally, 6
weeks out of that process by doing that.
So that is the one thing that I think would be hugely
advantageous to the agencies if we had the ability to do that.
Senator Lankford. Mr. Reinhold, why can we not do that?
Mr. Reinhold. Well, so, I would like to make a half a dozen
points but I will just pick one. I think there are huge gains
to be made if we invest in tools and technology, and a prime
example here is in the area of assessments. If we focus on
applying good, robust assessments that hone in on the kinds of
skills and competencies we are looking for, and facilitate it,
enabled through technology, a lot of this can be done, it can
help us cull through large numbers of applicants. And there are
cases where we have thousands of people applying, and if you
are using a manual process to look at those, or an
unsophisticated assessment, it is really hard to make
distinctions and really sort out who are the best from the
rest.
So I would say assessments enabled by tools and technology.
Senator Lankford. OK. What about the direct hire question?
What would prohibit--we have had this conversation before
between agencies given the ability to be able to hire, and a
standard to say, at the end of the year, we are going to ask
you, have you met this criteria, for whatever that criteria may
be for your hiring, to be able to make sure that you are within
range for every set of criteria that you have, but you have
direct hire authority to be able to expedite that process.
Mr. Reinhold. So I guess I would say direct hire authority
is really important flexibility, and I think there is certainly
a willingness to engage in dialogue to see how we can take a
fresh look at the rules.
When it comes to things like direct hire authority, as you
know there are many equities in the Federal hiring process and
there are long-standing principles that we honor, things like
honoring the service of our military veterans. And when it
comes to things like direct hire authority, some of those
principles apply to different extents. So we just have to make
sure that we are taking all those things into consideration,
that we are really taking a holistic look at, not just creating
a flexibility at the expense of something else, but making sure
that we are looking at it holistically and, responding to many
different interests and equities.
Senator Lankford. So here is my request. There are things
that all of you are doing currently to be able to help in this
process, and I appreciate the partnership very much and we are
glad to be able to partner with you. Anything that we can do to
be able to help.
We need to know what we need to do to help. You see it, and
to think we would be able to do this faster, better, have a
better employee, have a better process on probation, have a
better process on oversight and training. All of those things,
you see it but you also see we would do this but here is the
part that prevents us from this, here is something else that
prevents us from this. We need to know that so we can have that
dialogues.
So legislative proposals or questions that you have, if you
know of solutions already to say this, we believe, would be a
good process except for this, we need to hear it. And so as
much as we can get specific ideas and proposals back from you
to allow us to be able to have this ongoing debate here, we are
glad to have it, and we are glad to be able to sit down and be
able to work through the process. We probably cannot get
through everything but I bet we can get through several things.
But we have to be able to hear it from you.
So I want you to hear from us. We want your legislative
proposals and ideas, because you see where the barriers are
more than we do, because you have to live with it day to day.
Any other final questions? I know we are running close on
time. Any thoughts that you all have that you want to be able
to share?
[No response.]
OK. Let me make a quick closing statement. I will let you
all get out of here and actually get lunch or something.
I do want to thank the witnesses for their testimony. I do
appreciate you coming very much and your preparation for this.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until the close
of business on March 16, for the submission of statements and
questions for the record.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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