[Senate Hearing 117-252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-252
CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICERS AT 20:
WHAT IS NEEDED TO EMPOWER CHCOs TO
ENSURE HR PRACTICES SUPPORT AGENCIES' MISSION SUCCESS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS AND BORDER MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 2, 2022
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-457 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS AND BORDER MANAGEMENT
KRYSTEN SINEMA, Arizona, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
JON OSSOFF, Georgia MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
Eric A. Bursch, Staff Director
Robert B. Seidner, Office of Management and Budget Detail
James D. Mann, Minority Staff Director and Regulatory Policy Counsel
Clark A. Hedrick, Minority Counsel
Mallory B. Nersesian, Archivist and Subcommittee Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Sinema............................................... 1
Senator Lankford............................................. 11
Senator Carper............................................... 21
Prepared statements:
Senator Sinema............................................... 33
Senator Lankford............................................. 36
WITNESSES
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Hon. Michael J. Rigas, Former Acting Director (2020-2021) Office
of Personnel Management........................................ 3
Angela Bailey, Former Chief Human Capital Officer (2016-2022)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security........................... 5
Teresa W. Gerton, President and Chief Executive Officer, National
Academy of Public Administration............................... 7
Steven V. Lenkart, Executive Director, National Federation of
Federal Employees.............................................. 9
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Bailey, Angela:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 47
Gerton, Teresa W.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 54
Lenkart, Steven V.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Rigas, Hon. Michael J.:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 42
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
Mr. Rigas.................................................... 68
Ms. Bailey................................................... 71
Ms. Gerton................................................... 73
Mr. Lenkart.................................................. 75
CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICERS AT 20:
WHAT IS NEEDED TO EMPOWER CHCOs TO
ENSURE HR PRACTICES SUPPORT AGENCIES' MISSION SUCCESS
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Government Operations
and Border Management,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m., via
Webex and in room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon.
Kyrsten Sinema, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Sinema, Carper, Ossoff, Lankford,
Johnson, and Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SINEMA\1\
Senator Sinema. I call today's hearing to order.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Sinema appears in the
Appendix on page 33.
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I look forward to welcoming Ranking Member Lankford and
other Members of the Subcommittee, who are on their way, and I
welcome all of our witnesses to today's discussion about the
role of the Federal Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs). It is
kind of a fun name.
A more effective and efficient Federal Government starts
with a better Federal workforce. It does not matter how much we
spend or how many laws we pass; if we do not have the right
people in the right jobs, our Federal Government will not be
successful in providing the services that my constituents in
Arizona count on every day. CHCOs play a critical role in this
effort. They oversee day-to-day workforce management to ensure
the right employees are hired, trained, managed, promoted, and
retained.
The Chief Human Capital Officer role was created in the
Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002 to elevate human capital
efforts within agencies. After 20 years, it is important to
explore what works about the CHCO role, what additional
authorities they need to be successful and innovative, what
gets in the way of their success, and how Congress can set up
CHCOs for success. It is especially critical that Congress
tackle the last part. The Government Accountability Office
(GAO) has included Federal human capital management on its
high-risk list for more than 20 years. Numerous recent reports
have highlighted the immediate need to address Federal
workforce innovation. Even the National Commission on Military
and Public Service, the brainchild of Senator John McCain of
Arizona, spent significant time discussing how to fix Federal
human resources regulations and statutes.
Our Committee is starting to make progress. We recently
passed my bipartisan Chance to Compete Act, which I partnered
with Ranking Member Lankford to pass. That bill makes important
improvements to how agencies assess applicants and has strong
stakeholder support from manager and employee groups. We also
hope to advance Senator Lankford's Trust in Public Service Act
soon. Today's hearing will build on that momentum.
The merit system, which is the foundation of our Federal
workforce policy, remains the ideal and should never be
weakened. However, it is wrong to say that the merit system is
the same thing as the existing personnel system. We have a
personnel system from the 1940s that uses assessment criteria
often from as far back as the 1970s and a hodgepodge of recent
piecemeal changes that make the whole system more complex. We
need to do better, both for Federal workers and the American
people who rely on them.
I want to thank our witnesses for the testimony they have
submitted today. You four represent an incredible cross section
of experience, and I thank you for taking the time to attend.
I know that Senator Lankford is on his way to the hearing,
and so I will have him complete his opening statement when he
arrives.
It is the practice of this committee to swear in witnesses,
so if you will all please stand and raise your right hand. Do
you swear that the testimony you will give before this
committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Rigas. Yes.
Ms. Bailey. Yes.
Mr. Lenkart. Yes.
Ms. Gerton. Yes.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. You may be seated.
Now I will introduce each of our witnesses so they may
present their opening statements. I ask each of our witnesses
to keep their opening statements to 5 minutes, but your full
written statements will be submitted for the record.
Our first witness today is the Hon. Mike Rigas. Mr. Rigas
was confirmed as the Deputy Director of the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) and then served simultaneously in that role as
well as the Acting Director of OPM and the Acting Deputy
Director of Management of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB).
Mr. Rigas, thank you for joining us here today. You are now
recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL J. RIGAS,\1\ FORMER ACTING
DIRECTOR (2020-2021), OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
Mr. Rigas. Thank you, Chairman Sinema, Ranking Member
Lankford, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you today on this important
topic.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Rigas appears in the Appendix on
page 42.
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My name is Michael Rigas, and I served as both the Acting
Director of OPM and the Acting Deputy Director for Management
at OMB. In those capacities, I had the privilege of serving as
both the Chair and the Vice Chair of the CHCO Council.
People are the most important resource of any organization.
I have worked in the private sector, the non-profit sector, and
in State and Federal Government, and that principle holds true
no matter what the organization. The Federal Government has
some of the most dedicated public servants Americans could ask
for, providing diligent and competent service to the American
people every day. But as we are here to discuss, we still fall
short as a Federal Government when it comes to attracting and
retaining the best and brightest to Federal service and
ensuring that poor performance and misconduct are effectively
addressed.
From my experience working with the CHCO Council, I can say
they are a valuable resource and advisor to the OPM Director.
They provide important feedback and suggestions for
improvements to personnel policy. While they advise on and
implement personnel policy, there are also limits to what they
or OPM can do, and here is why.
First, there must be a realization that OPM does not
oversee the entire Federal workforce. Congress has created
numerous carve-outs and exceptions to Title V, placing entire
categories of employees and agencies outside the purview of
OPM.
Second, because of those exceptions and continued creation
of new authorities, the landscape for managing Federal
personnel has become overly complex and bureaucratic.
Third, over time, the level of seniority of individuals
designated by their agency heads as CHCOs has become less
senior. For example, if you look at the composition of the CHCO
Council from its first annual report in fiscal year (FY) 2004,
you will see the CHCO Council comprised largely of
Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed officials, such as
the Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness of the
Department of Defense (DOD) and Assistant Secretaries for
Management and Administration from other cabinet agencies. That
is no longer the case.
But, even in the current environment, with all its
complexities and limitations, real progress can be made with
respect to improving how the Federal Government manages its
most important resource, its people. Here are a few examples of
recent actions that yielded positive results and can be built
upon to continue to improve how we manage personnel and Federal
agencies that serve the American people. With the right
leadership from Congress, OPM and the White House, substantial
progress and reform can continue to be made.
In my roles both at OPM and OMB, I oversaw multiple efforts
to address the underlying issues inhibiting the Federal
workforce from being viewed as a first-in-class employer while
advancing Merit Systems Principles and strengthening the State
of the Civil Service. When our team came to OPM, we faced the
largest background investigation backlog in history, with an
inventory of 725,000 cases and timeliness that exceeded a year
to receive a top secret clearance. This situation made it
difficult for agencies to carry out their missions and recruit
qualified employees in a timely manner. Because of the tireless
efforts of both our career and non-career leadership, we were
able to eliminate the backlog and safely reduce the amount of
time it takes to conduct and adjudicate a background
investigation.
We also innovated to improve the hiring process, promoting
skills-based assessments over applicant self-assessments,
demonstrating how to successfully reduce candidate selection
time from 45 days to 16 days, while vastly improving the number
of qualified candidates to hire. This methodology should be
more widely used as hiring efforts which rely on self
assessments often yield lists of candidates hiring managers do
not deem qualified for the job, resulting in cancellation of a
posting, frustrating both candidates and hiring managers.
As Acting Director of OPM, I advocated the expanded use of
shared certificates, to make them available governmentwide,
which allow qualified candidates who are not hired at one
agency to be hired immediately by another agency looking for
qualified candidates for that same type of position. This pilot
has been in place at the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) and should be expanded across the government.
Use of skills-based assessments and shared certificates are
things CHCOs can do today at their own agencies and would
greatly reduce the amount of time to hire, save money for
agencies, improve the experience of job applicants, and
demonstrate merit systems principles hiring can be effective
and efficient.
While at OPM, I also made clear that our mission was to
support other agencies and do everything we could to help them
execute on their mission. One great example of that was our
work with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
as we responded to the global pandemic. In 2020 alone, the VA
was able to hire over 50,000 employees, including doctors,
nurses, and front line responders to the pandemic, because of
actions we took at OPM to provide VA the flexibilities and
authorities it needed to move quickly.
With leadership that is willing to focus on addressing
these challenges, there is much that can be done. We know what
works, and we have demonstrated how concrete improvements can
be achieved for taxpayers, agencies, and Federal employees. I
am encouraged by the bipartisan legislation you have sponsored
in the Chance to Compete Act, which codifies many of these
reforms to improve Federal hiring and personnel practices.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I look forward to answering your questions and working with you
to strengthen the efforts I was proud to help lead during my
time as Chairman of the CHCO Council. Thank you.
Senator Sinema. Our second witness is Angela Bailey. I
would first like to congratulate Angie on her retirement last
month after 40 years of service to our country, and I hope that
you enjoyed your trip to Sedona last week. It is a wonderful
place to reflect and recharge, and you are always welcome back
in Arizona. I am sure your former team on the border misses
you.
Ms. Bailey testified before this Committee a few months ago
in her role as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chief
Human Capital Officer, where she was widely credited with
bringing order and modernizing DHS's human resources (HR)
programs. Before that, Ms. Bailey was the highest ranking civil
servant at OPM, leading their Policy Division and serving as
the Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Ms. Bailey, thank you for your work and thank you for
joining us today. You are recognized for your opening
statement.
TESTIMONY OF ANGELA BAILEY,\1\ FORMER CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL
OFFICER (2016-2022), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Bailey. Thank you. I must say I love Sedona. It was
absolutely beautiful.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Bailey appears in the Appendix on
page 47.
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Good afternoon, Chairwoman Sinema and Ranking Member
Lankford and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for the opportunity to appear here today. I appreciate you
inviting me to speak about what is needed to empower CHCOs, to
ensure HR practices support agencies.
As you just mentioned, I have recently retired from the
Federal Government after a career that spanned 40 years. Almost
35 of those 40 years has been spent in human capital. Over half
of my career was spent at the Department of Defense, and in
2007, I was appointed to the Senior Executive Service (SES) at
the Office of Personnel Management in several different roles.
Then finally, my position in 2016 until I retired at the end of
2021 was as the DHS Chief Human Capital Officer.
But just as important as the positions that I have held in
the agencies that I have served is the experience that I have
lived over those four decades, witnessing events that have
touched the lives of our Federal workforce, myself and my
family included. These events, some historic and some that
never actually touched the headlines, have shaped so much of
who I am, what I think, and how I believe that the CHCOs have
the ability to have a positive impact on their agencies'
mission.
It is important to understand that there is more to being a
CHCO than simply providing human resource policy as the CHCO
Act implies. It certainly takes more than the CHCO Council to
address all of the issues impacting the Federal workforce and
their families. So, yes, not only does the CHCO Act need
modernization but so does how we approach the entire ecosystem
which the Federal workforce accomplishes--in which the Federal
workforce accomplishes their agencies' mission. I have several
recommendations that I would like to speak to.
One, humans are not capital, and they are not resources. We
need to ensure that we start investing in our employees and
their families. Investing their mind, their body, and their
spirit is not ``woo-woo''; it is actually a mission imperative.
Two, timely budgets are critical. Almost every single year,
agencies are faced with a continuing resolution (CR). Most
drastic of all are shutdowns. If agencies are to deliver all
that is expected of them each year, then a budget must be
passed and ready to begin on October 1st of each fiscal year.
Three, alternative futures planning is essential. For the
most part, agencies struggle to plan for the future. The lack
of doing so has a ripple effect across the entire agency, and
nowhere is it felt more so than within the human resource
needs.
Four, it takes the entire C-Suite. Nothing is accomplished
by the CHCO alone. There is an interplay between the Chief
Financial Officer (CFO), the Chief Information Officer (CIO),
the Chief Acquisition Officer (CAO), the Chief Security Officer
(CSO). The list goes on and on. The point is that we cannot
underestimate the value that it takes an entire team in order
to deliver and pull together to ensure that our agencies'
missions are accomplished.
Five, we need simplification and flexibility. There are
over 100 different hiring authorities on the books. Some are
for specific agencies; some are for across the entire Federal
Government. No one can keep up with, manage, or use this many
hiring authorities nor are they necessary. Agencies should be
able to seek highly qualified applicants from all available
sources. The DHS Enhanced Hiring Act proposal is an excellent
example of how the simplified hiring process could become
available for all agencies to be able to use.
Six, we need to modernize classifications, qualifications,
and awards. The Federal classification system is outdated, and
it exasperates the pay and compensation disparity. One thing
Congress could do is modify Title VI, which is DHS's Cyber
Talent Management System (CTMS), to include all agencies and
all positions for Civil Service reform to become a reality
across the Federal Government.
Seven, is that we have billion-dollar operations and we
have this. To put this into perspective, DHS's budget this
fiscal year is over $122 billion, it employs close to 250,000
employees, and it has 22 different components and a mind-
boggling 90 committees and subcommittees overseeing its
operation. Yet, despite all that tremendous responsibility and
accountability, we still must go to OPM to get permission to
hire one rehired annuitant, to get awards over $10,000, to do
Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA)/Voluntary
Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP), and a whole host of other
things including direct hire authority. There is no business
anywhere else in the entire world that would accept this kind
of practice or even find this micromanagement sane.
And even more surreal or perplexing is the fact that there
is a belief that all of this requires legislation, that those
regulations within OPM's purview cannot be changed without
congressional support, which leads me to the last point, which
is congressional partnership. Everything calls for a strong
partnership, collaborative partnership between the
subcommittees and other interested congressional parties,
including the unions and veterans servicing organizations and
good government groups, if we are going to see any type of
change and modernization.
I thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you
today. I appreciate your willingness to listen and to entertain
the idea of helping us help you make a difference. Thank you.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. Our third witness is Terry
Gerton, the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the
congressionally chartered National Academy of Public
Administration (NAPA) and, before that, a career member of the
Senior Executive Service. Ms. Gerton is well known for her
bipartisan efforts to bring together executives and academics
with different political philosophies to discuss good
government practices and solutions.
Ms. Gerton, thank you for joining us today. You are
recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF TERESA W. GERTON,\1\ PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Ms. Gerton. Chair Sinema, Ranking Member Lankford, and
members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to
testify today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Gerton appears in the Appendix on
page 54.
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I am a fellow of the National Academy of Public
Administration and have served as its President since January
2017. In addition to my experience leading the Academy, I spent
3\1/2\ years as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S.
Department of Labor (DOL) and 8\1/2\ years as a senior
executive in the Department of Defense. I have personal
experience with the topic of today's hearing.
I have been a hiring manager, a subject matter expert
reviewer of applicant files, a member of senior executive
hiring interview panels, and a member of the Army Senior
Executive Policy Board. While serving as the Executive Deputy
to the Commanding General of Army Materiel Command, I was
responsible for the strategic management of over 80 senior
executives, one third of the Army's total allocation, and the
oversight of nearly 70,000 civilians in nearly every career
field stationed around the world. I know how challenging it can
be to make the Federal personnel processes work.
The National Academy of Public Administration also has deep
expertise in Federal human resource management topics. Over 50
of our fellows claim experience in Federal HR, and of those,
many themselves were Federal Chief Human Capital Officers.
Across our history, many agencies have directly engaged the
Academy and our fellows for support in managing and modernizing
their own HR systems.
The Academy agrees with GAO in its determination that
strategic human capital management is an area of high risk in
the Federal Government. In 2019, we identified the need to
modernize and reinvigorate the public service as one of 12
grand challenges in public administration, and our work in this
area over the past 5 years has been extensive. We delivered
last March our congressionally directed assessment of the
Office of Personnel Management, and just last month we provided
our assessment of the National Cybersecurity Training System,
also at Congress's direction. Our fellows provided an action
plan to the Biden administration on administrative steps it
could take in its first year to actually modernize and
reinvigorate the public service. In 2017 and 2018, we completed
two papers outlining a fundamentally new vision for the future
of Federal service, No Time to Wait, Parts 1 and 2.
Taken collectively, our research communicates a vision of a
federated Civil Service system based on talent management and
driven by mission accomplishment and merit systems principles.
But we have made little progress in achieving this vision, and
the pandemic has only made systemic reform more difficult.
Significant spending programs to support national recovery,
combined with nationwide reimagining by individual workers of
their employment preferences, have created even greater numbers
of vacancies across the Federal workforce. The urgent need to
hire new employees to manage these new programs, the perpetual
shortage of individuals with technical skills in cybersecurity,
data analytics, and other Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Math (STEM) fields, and the growing attention on developing
government programs with a focus on customer experience and
expectations have created a perfect storm.
The role of the CHCO is more important now than ever, but
we cannot modernize that role and then leave them in the
antiquated system we currently have and expect different
results. We must undertake a systemic renovation of the entire
Federal personnel system, and the Academy's assessment of OPM
is the place to start. That study provides a road map of
actions needed to raise the attention on, and the value of,
human capital for addressing critical workforce issues, by
reframing OPM's mission and affording the Agency the foundation
required to lead strategic human capital management
governmentwide. Within such a system, CHCOs can be empowered to
be the strategic personnel leaders within their agencies that
the Chief Human Capital Officer's Act envisioned 20 years ago.
The CHCOs I know recognize that the government's
effectiveness is the product of its people. They understand the
potential impact on the daily functions of government, and they
relish their position on the front lines of mission
accomplishment. But making this construct real will require
commitment and support both from the Administration and
Congress. It will also require a concerted effort to improve
the capacity of the human resource community governmentwide.
Recruiting, developing, and retaining the right talent
should be a priority, nonpartisan concern. Whether you believe
government should be smaller or larger, we should all agree
that the government needs a highly skilled workforce to serve
the American people.
In this case, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
pandemic may have a silver lining. It has already forced myriad
changes in what we believe possible and driven adaptation and
distributed work arrangements, technology, and hiring
flexibilities. We dare not waste the opportunity that this
tragedy has created. There simply is no more time to wait.
Chair Sinema, that concludes my statement. I look forward
to your questions.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. Our final witness is Steve
Lenkart. Mr. Lenkart is currently the Executive Director of the
National Federation of Federal Employees, the third largest and
the oldest Federal labor union. Previously, he served as a
career member of the Senior Executive Service, including as the
Executive Director of the Merit Systems Protection Board
(MSPB).
I would also like to thank Mr. Lenkart for his tireless
work on trying to help Federal wildland firefighters. He has
worked closely with my staff on this issue that is of vital
importance to our nation as fires have become more deadly and
our heroes risk their lives to protect us.
Mr. Lenkart, thank you for joining us today. You are
recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF STEVEN V. LENKART,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
FEDERATION OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
Mr. Lenkart. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member
Lankford. It is a pleasure to see you. Thank you for that warm
intro. Your staff has been absolutely fantastic, as you have as
well, looking out for our wildland firefighters as they begin
another year out in the forest for longer and more dangerous
seasons every year.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Lenkart appears in the Appendix
on page 63.
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I am Steve Lenkart. I am the Executive Director of the
National Federation of Federal Employees. I am a career member
of the Senior Executive Service. During my Federal executive
time, I served in leadership positions at the Department of
Homeland Security, also worked with the Federal Salary Council,
Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee (FPRAC), and also
served on the Executive Committee of the Small Agency Council.
But as the Chairman mentioned, I was also Executive
Director of the Merit Systems Protection Board. As we all know
in this room, that agency is an independent agency responsible
for safeguarding a fair, effective, and efficient workforce for
2 million Federal employees.
I am very happy to say that as of last night, with the
consent of the Senate, we finally have our nominees passed out
and they are ready to get to work over at the MSPB, to start
working on a 5-year backlog. They have been without a quorum
there for 1,880 days. I wish them luck as they try to chip away
at that backlog.
My overarching message today is to preserve the merit
system principles codified in law in 5 U.S. Code (USC) 2301.
The merit system principles are there to inform policies
regarding recruitment, selection, development, and maintaining
an efficient and effective workforce. The merit principles are
timeless. They were written 30 years ago, 40 years ago. Even
though they are based on things that happened in the past, they
were actually written for the future, and they were written
because of the mistakes that we made over the past 245 years
trying to run a government.
Somewhere within the confines of the merit principles is a
relationship between OPM and the Chief Human Capital Officers
of the Executive Branch. This is a complex relationship with
overlapping definitions. They both are facilitators and
enforcers of human capital for the government. So we ask
ourselves questions: How much leash do you give to CHCOs to
administer the workforce under their charge? How much autonomy
should a CHCO have to ensure that they are still adhering to
the merit systems principles?
There is also structural improvements that we can explore
as well, too. A more proactive use of the CHCO Council. We can
create a robust OPM Advisory Council consisting of members of
the public and private sectors, labor and management, academia,
and other groups to bring innovation to HR. I personally am in
favor of installing more career reserve leadership at OPM and
for CHCOs and Chief Administrative Officers across the
government.
There is also policy improvements to explore. I am not a
huge fan of direct hire authority although I think it does have
its place. I am not a huge fan of the excepted service although
I think it does have its place. But I do think that there is a
right way and a wrong way to do both of those things, and the
wrong way is to do it without protecting merit.
But if we learned nothing else from the last part of the
last decade is that we need to get a grip on the mighty river
of non-career political appointees across the Executive Branch.
Most Americans do not know about the thousands of political
appointees that come and go, non-career executives, and
Schedule C appointees.
I am not against political appointees. I was one. But these
jobs are wildly in violation of anything resembling anything
merit-based. It is a type of secret workforce inside the
Federal workforce. Some are hired with questionable skills and
experience. Some come from fake think tanks that are covers for
dark money. The career managers and staff cannot hold them
accountable for their performance or for their conduct.
Madam Chair, I never bring a problem without bringing a
solution. One solution is to simply allow career managers and
executives to supervise political appointees, those that are
not confirmed by the Senate. Political appointees serve at the
pleasure of a President, but they are subject to the same
accountability, transparency, and performance laws that apply
to everyone else. If you are worried about career employees
blocking appointees' agendas, you should not be because if
those agendas are legitimate merit principles will protect
those missions, too.
Now very servingly, in the last part of the last decade,
again not now, in the last part of the last decade, we saw an
unparalleled uptick in dark money investments to move
operatives into the government under the cloak of political
hiring exemptions. On the way out, these same operatives test-
drove a new authority, Schedule F, created by Executive Order
(EO), that authorized the permanent hiring of political
appointees under an unchecked special classification of
employee that is above accountability and transparency. Unless
you are wildly corrupt in mind, you will understand how
offensive and dangerous this idea is to an open and free
democracy.
However, I think these dark forces like what they saw. I
think we are going to see a return of Schedule F type tactics
in the future. It is all going to be pushing secret agenda on
taxpayers' dime.
In conclusion, I thank the Subcommittee for prioritizing
the relationship between OPM and CHCOs and starting the
conversations to make OPM and CHCOs the most effective they can
be in the interest of a fair, effective, and efficient and
honest government. I look forward to working with the
Subcommittee on these issues. Thank you.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. I would like to recognize our
Subcommittee Ranking Member, Senator James Lankford, for his
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD\1\
Senator Lankford. Thank you very much. The four of you,
thank you for being here. It is incredibly important to be able
to be in this conversation, and I really appreciate you getting
this out, getting it on the record, and so we can continue to
be able to build on the conversations we have had in past
hearings and work toward actual solutions.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Lankford appears in the
Appendix on page 36.
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The Chairwoman and I have talked about these issues often.
We bring these issues up, and we are working toward actually
getting to pragmatic solutions. Some of them have even been
mentioned today in some of your opening testimony. I appreciate
that very much, and we will look forward to ongoing dialog with
that.
We are at a critical point. We have quite a few Federal
employees that are eligible for retirement. It continues to
drag on and on with the hiring and the length of time it takes
to hire. The latest numbers that we have is now 92 days to be
able to get to a hire. That is actually better than it has been
by a few days but still embarrassing for anything that is in
the private sector. I have yet to run into a single company
that goes to a job fair, interviews someone at the job fair,
and says ``I will get back to you in 3 months'' in the process.
We are at a very difficult spot to be able to get through
the hiring time. We have to be able to make some decisive steps
to be able to get to the future, and that is going to begin
with improving our hiring process. Hopefully, we will begin
with some of the conversations we have today.
The best and brightest candidates really are not going to
wait 3 months to be able to go through the process. As I have
talked to several folks, the folks that work in Federal
warehouses and others that have other options for other jobs
they could literally start on this afternoon, they are
certainly not going to wait 3 months to be able to go through
that process.
In 2019, the Commission on National Military and Public
Service made recommendations to increase our ability to hire,
train, and retain Federal employees. The Commission noted that
the Federal human capital policies often focus on short-term
fixes which add more complexity to the Federal hiring system,
as has already been mentioned today, with over 100 different
hiring authorities there.
Whenever we have a hearing on this topic, that always comes
up, is the number of hiring authorities. And just about
everyone brings up at some point direct hire, expedited hiring,
noncompetitive hiring, every time, and to say: We have 100
different authorities. We do not like any of them, or we only
use a fraction of those.
Our hiring system is definitely broken, and it shows every
time we get to one of these hearings and someone else asks for
another way to be able to get around it. We have to be able to
resolve that.
The COVID pandemic I also declare to be the largest pilot
program ever done by the Federal Government on innovation and
managing people and hiring and basic oversight. We should take
the lessons learned from that and start implementing them
quickly.
My fear is that after a 2-year, large-scale pilot that we
are now going to start studying what we studied during that
time period and spend another decade trying to evaluate, and
the status quo will just remain. That will be disappointing if
that actually occurs.
At this point, we have to be able to resolve some things.
Let me lay a couple things on the table that I want to be able
to talk about as well.
We have highly qualified spouses of our active duty
military, who move with their family every 3 years, often to
very remote locations and bases and posts around the country
and around the world. They struggle to be able to find
employment when they move every 2 or 3 years.
Why not allow those spouses of our active duty military to
be able to work in a remote position in any agency they choose
to? We have clearly shown that remote work is possible. I do
not mean telework where they are expected to be in one day a
week. I mean truly remote work where they are never expected to
be in unless there is a large-scale conference that they need
to be able to attend.
This would also dramatically open up opportunities for
highly qualified individuals in rural America that struggle to
be able to find good jobs. This would help those in rural
America and would help rural America having stable income into
some of those communities, where highly qualified individuals
could remain in rural America but still be able to work in
different jobs in our Federal Government as they are doing
remote work.
It would also help folks that are already in the Federal
family that may work with DHS and work in remote border
stations and that spouse of that individual that is serving our
nation would like to have the option to also be able to work in
the Federal family.
These are pragmatic issues that we need to be able to learn
from the pandemic and to be able to determine how can we
actually turn what was really a painful season into new
opportunities to be able to reach out to additional, new,
highly qualified individuals, to make our government even run
more efficiently in the days ahead.
So there will be quite a few different issues that I want
to be able to discuss on this, including the relationship with
the CHCO Council and OPM, and to figure out who has what in
what lane and how do we actually simplify that process. I look
forward to the ongoing dialog as we go through this and getting
a lot of your testimony on the record for work in future days.
Madam Chairwoman, thank you.
Senator Sinema. Thanks. We are going to begin the question
portion of the hearing. Each Senator who wishes to speak will
have 7 minutes for questions. I will start by recognizing
myself for 7 minutes.
My first question is for Ms. Bailey. By law, CHCOs are
accountable for recruiting, retaining, and managing a
nonpartisan and professional workforce. That is the same basic
mandate that OPM holds. Congress, in previous administrations,
has created entities such as the CHCO Council to improve
coordination between OPM and CHCOs, but challenges persist.
We want our human resources departments to be run by
experts. What steps should Congress take to ensure that all
CHCOs are human capital experts and are apolitical, and what
needs to be done differently to allow CHCOs to thrive?
Ms. Bailey. Thank you, Chairwoman, for your question. I do
agree that CHCOs should be apolitical and they should be
career.
Senator Sinema. Go ahead.
Ms. Bailey. All right. Yes, so I do think that the CHCOs
should be career employees and, if not the CHCOs, then at least
the Deputy CHCOs. But there needs to be within the CHCO
leadership a recognition that career experts should be in those
positions.
One of the main reasons is because Federal--as everybody
has testified and as this hearing is all about, is that Federal
hiring is so incredibly complex and difficult to understand and
to be able to implement and to do it within the merit system
principles. And so having a very strong background in that,
whether you come out of DOD or you come out of the Office of
Personnel Management and you go into an agency, I think that
that is really an incredible first step.
The second thing I would recommend is that the CHCO
Council, to the best of my knowledge, is the only council that
is co-chaired by OPM and OMB. It is not actually co-chaired by
the very CHCOs who run the agencies. Whereas, the CIO Council,
the CFO Council, the Chief Acquisition Council, all of them are
actually co-chaired by the very experts in those positions
within the agencies. I do think that it would be extremely
helpful if the CHCO Council was actually chaired by CHCOs and
co-chaired by CHCOs on a rotational kind of basis, with OPM
providing support and, of course, OMB providing its support as
well.
So those are two basic steps that I think would be
extremely helpful for the CHCOs and the Council at large.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. My next question is for Ms.
Gerton. Your testimony discussed the concern from GAO and other
researchers that we are actually going backwards in human
capital. If the CHCO Act was amended to provide more autonomy
and provide CHCOs a larger voice in the development of
regulations, would that alone be enough to reverse this
backwards slide? Or, are other actions needed, and if so, what
are they?
Ms. Gerton. Chair Sinema, thank you for that question. I
would refer to our recent report on the OPM assessment. We made
some specific recommendations there for the role of CHCOs in
policy and regulation development. We certainly agree that they
are the subject matter experts and they need to be consulted.
One of the specific recommendations, to Ms. Bailey's point,
was that we recommended Congress amend the CHCO Act to
specifically create a rotating co-chair for the CHCO Council
from the members of the CHCO Council themselves. That will give
representation and attention to the concerns of the CHCOs and
create some stability in terms of their representation.
We also recommended that OPM needs to establish a Strategic
Planning and Policy Office within the organization, that is, a
well-defined policy development process leads to more
effective, responsive, and transparent policy development. That
will explicitly then include stakeholders, including the CHCO
Council, the Small Agency Human Resources Council, and other
stakeholders in policy development.
Then again to Ms. Bailey's point, the OPM Director needs to
specifically include the CHCO Council and consider them as
partners, strategic partners and expert advisors. Rather than
simply using them as a communications tool, they need to have
the standing that the other Chief Experience Officer (CXO)
councils have within their professional fields.
We think those three things together may not completely
solve the problem, but they certainly will communicate
leadership attention and put the CHCOs back in the center of
policy and regulation development.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. My next question is for Mr.
Rigas. Over the years, Congress has heard from CHCOs about
challenges communicating with OPM. There are concerns about not
allowing feedback on high-profile matters such as the Schedule
F initiative at the end of the last administration, but the
communications challenge has stretched to smaller items as
well. Since OPM can usually override the CHCO Council on policy
matters, what changes need to be made to the CHCO Council setup
in order to improve the ability of individual CHCOs to be
successful?
Mr. Rigas. Thank you, Chairman. At least during my tenure,
I was not aware of any communication challenges with the CHCO
Council. In fact, the CHCO Council interacted more with OPM
during my tenure probably than any other OPM Director in the
history of the Agency. And that was largely because we were
having weekly and biweekly calls with the CHCO Council to
navigate our way through the pandemic, to make sure agencies
had the flexibilities and authorities they needed and that we
could answer some basic and some fundamental questions about
what it was they could do as we were going through uncharted
territory with respect to the pandemic.
I totally agree; I think communication is very important.
One of the roles that the CHCO Council is there to establish is
to provide cross-cutting feedback to the OPM Director on issues
that are affecting the various agencies that the CHCOs
represent, who have missions and workforces that are as broad
and diverse as the country they serve. I think we need more
communication, and I certainly did not, I think, suffer from a
lack of communication from the CHCOs when I was Chair. Thank
you.
Senator Sinema. Thanks. A follow-up: Were there times when
you did not take recommendations or seek feedback from the CHCO
Council when it came to key OPM decisions, like Schedule F,
that had widespread impact on the workforce? Looking back, do
you think there is anything that should have, or could have,
been done differently?
Mr. Rigas. We were communicating with the CHCO Council on a
weekly and biweekly basis, like twice a week when I say
biweekly, not every 2 weeks. There were regularly scheduled, I
believe, quarterly meetings, the formal ones that are noticed
in the Federal Register for the CHCO Council, when I was there.
Schedule F was an Executive Order. I think that was
apparent to everyone, that that was something that had to be
implemented, but it was implemented through the career CHCOs.
They were tasked with identifying position descriptions for
policymaking individuals. That was actually really a career-led
effort across the Executive Branch.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. My time is expired, so I
recognize Senator Lankford for his questions.
Senator Lankford. I will try to get my questions down to
less than 25 minutes, and then we will see where we can go from
there. Let me open this up for some dialog here as well, and I
appreciate all your input and what you have written in this.
Ms. Bailey, I hope you publish what you put out at some
point because your biography that you have at the beginning of
your written testimony, of kind of walking through that
journey, is very insightful, to be able to go through all that.
But I would like to throw a question on the table and have
us interact on this. This seems like a tremendous amount of
bureaucracy to be able to manage people and if I can go back to
Ms. Bailey's conversation on her saying this is a multi
billion-dollar organization. You are coordinating human capital
for 200,000 people. Yet, you have people above you trying to
instruct you on how to be able to do your job.
You made the comment, saying, ``I have got this.'' I would
define it better of ``If you do not trust me, do not hire me.''
What it really feels like at this point much of what OPM's job
seems to be is ``I do not trust the people under me, and so I
am going to micromanage them.''
The CHCO Council is trying to be able to swap ideas and to
be able to figure out who is doing a better idea, who has
figured out how to get around one of these 100 hiring
authorities and figure out how to be able to make it work, who
has figured out how to be able to manage people remotely and in
telework and other things. OPM's main job seems to be that they
say, ``No. We are going to think about this, and we will get
back to you in a year or two.''
There is a lot of interplay that is happening here, a lot
of conversation and dialog. What I am trying to figure out is
where is there redundancy and there could be authority put down
to be able to make decisions. We do not need 104 hiring
authorities. We do not need 105. We need to figure out how to
be able to hire, have a specific set of requirements on that
and oversight for individuals that are not doing it well, that
are not hitting their targets on it.
How do we deal with this balance between OPM and the CHCOs?
I would love to throw some things on the table and actually get
out there what you really want to say. Can we do that?
Ms. Bailey. Absolutely.
Senator Lankford. Ms. Bailey, can I have you start first
since you kind of opened this conversation with ``We have got
this''?
Ms. Bailey. Yes. Thank you, Senator Lankford. I think one
of the bottom lines is that so many of our laws and rules and
regulations and everything are actually written, quite frankly,
for the 3 percent of the workforce or the 3 percent really of
society that are not going to follow them anyhow. What we have
done is we have built an entire system based on distrust.
Everything is about whether or not we think an agency is going
to do something nefarious.
I think for OPM--and I was there for 7 years, and I loved
my colleagues. They are incredibly bright. They are incredibly
talented, and they know what they are doing. But their customer
is Title V. It is not the agencies. It is to protect Title V at
all cost. When you are protecting a law and you are not
actually dealing with the realism or the practicality of what
an agency is actually trying to struggle do to, there is going
to, I think, be just a situation where we are banging heads
with each other.
Every single day as a CHCO--and, yes, over my 40 years and
in particular as a DHS CHCO, every single day was about hiring
high-quality individuals.
I do not think we need 100 hiring authorities. I have
always argued we need two. One, we need one that I think
protects or at least gives veterans, our veterans, an
opportunity to get employment within the Federal Government in
recognition of their service to the United States. That is No.
1.
No. 2, we need a hiring authority for all others, and it
should be from all sources. There is nothing in the law that
says that we have to use USAJOBS. That is done through a
regulation that was passed many moons ago, and it is incredibly
outdated. When we go to a hiring event, I should be able to
have the ability to have a conversation with someone, be able
to collect their resume, have that conversation, match them up
to what skills or what positions I have, and then be able to
offer them a position. Those are the kinds of things.
Now, I think your Chance to Compete Act that Chairwoman
Sinema has put in place, or is working to get passed, is
actually something that would be beneficial to us because in
that regard we would be able to at least have really good
assessments to be able to get those high-quality folks.
We can actually hire people within one day. I have proven
that in DHS. We had a cybersecurity hiring event. We made job
offers in one day. It is possible to do this, but it takes
having subject matter experts involved. It takes having the
ability to use the right appointing authorities and making sure
that HR and the managers work together to accomplish that.
But again, I hope I am answering your question.
Senator Lankford. You are.
Ms. Bailey. I will yield here, so others have an
opportunity.
Senator Lankford. Let me ask, Mr. Rigas, what is the
problem with that? Why do we get this interplay back and forth
between OPM and the CHCOs? They have personal good
relationships, but there seems to be overlapping
responsibilities.
Mr. Rigas. Yes, I completely agree with almost everything
Angie said there.
One of the things that when they say they have to come to
OPM for a mother-may-I, like we want permission to do a VERA/
VISP to offer bonuses for folks to retire early or approving
bonuses for employees over $10,000, those are in statute,
required by agencies to go to the OPM Director for approval. I
remember signing off on these, saying, what do I know about
this employee at U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that I
am approving a bonus over $10,000? Nothing, other than the
glowing write-up about what they did and they achieved. That is
something that Congress should look at and put back into the
purview----
Senator Lankford. How do we get that list? How do we get
the list of all those things? This goes back to if I go to DOD
and they say: Is anyone reading these reports? We send you
5,000 reports. Does anyone read all these?
Mr. Rigas. Yes.
Senator Lankford. We have this monster staff, that that is
all they do, these reports, and we do not think anyone reads
it.
How do we get the list of those items? Because in all
likelihood most of those pieces of legislation were someone did
something dumb, to go back to Ms. Bailey's comment, at some
point.
Mr. Rigas. Yes.
Senator Lankford. It made the news, and Congress passed
something and said this is never going to happen again.
Mr. Rigas. Right. It is literally right in Title V. The
$10,000 bonus is right in Title V. The VERA/VISP is in Title V.
I think Congress is correct in wanting some kind of check
or watchdog to make sure that there are not abuses when these
things happen. But that could also be done by the agency's own
Inspector General (IG), can take a look at these items rather
than going to OPM.
Senator Lankford. OK. Thank you. Ms. Gerton, do you have
anything you want to add to that?
Ms. Gerton. Yes, sir. Thank you. A couple of
recommendations that we have made in the OPM assessment: One is
that OPM really needs to be refocused beyond Title V. If you
think about the CHCOs as their Strategic Human Capital Officer
within agencies, you want OPM to be the President's Strategic
Human Capital Advisor.
We need to refocus it so that we have a comprehensive but
strategic organization there at the center of human capital so
that they are thinking about data analytics, they are thinking
about lessons learned, they are thinking about training, they
are thinking about the future, but that the actual
responsibilities to manage the HR community and the workforce
in those agencies is delegated to the experts in that agency.
First, we actually do make a recommendation in that report
about the specific revision to authorities for OPM in Title V.
The second thing I would say is that in association with
that reframing so that OPM becomes a more strategic
organization, we need to take them out of the compliance mode,
which again, as Mr. Rigas has said, many of those are
articulated in law, and put them into the modern form of risk
management so that where the data shows that there is
opportunity or risks OPM can take a strategic focus there but
they can leave the majority of compliance to the executing
agencies. That empowers the CHCOs to do what they need to do
within the framework that is established and moves OPM into
that strategic management role for the entire Federal workforce
so that CHCOs can do what they are already empowered and able
to do but in a system that actually matches those authorities.
Senator Lankford. OPM moves from a compliance organization
and mother-may-I, to use your term on that as well, to more of
a conversation from the Executive Branch, to say: We have 45
percent of all Federal employees suddenly eligible for
retirement. What are we doing about this? How are we helping
protect the Federal workforce in the days ahead and then trying
to initiate initiatives to be able to help offset that?
Correct?
Ms. Gerton. Exactly. Right now, OPM cannot even see that
data because it is not integrated across the enterprise.
Senator Lankford. OK. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. I am going to start a second
round of questions and then--if you are interested, we will do
a second round. Great. Wonderful.
I am going to turn to Mr. Lenkart. Your union, the National
Federation of Federal Employees, represents many of the
wildland firefighter heroes at both Departments of Interior and
Agriculture. The Union has partnered with the agencies to try
to make firefighting safer and pay an appropriate and fair
salary.
As Congress is currently reviewing several different
proposed bills, including one from Senator Carper called the
Tim Hart Act, it appears much can be resolved within existing
laws. If CHCOs had more authority to make changes within
existing laws, what would be the day-to-day impact on
firefighters in my State of Arizona and across the Nation, and
what would be the downside, if any, of more CHCO authority?
Mr. Lenkart. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, there is a
disconnect. As there is between OPM and CHCO, there is also a
disconnect between CHCO and some of the workforce that they
represent.
The first part of that answer I think is between OPM and
CHCOs. Allowing them to move ahead with some of the things they
know are within the law and within you know, supported by merit
principles. They can go ahead and--I think they need a
flexibility to go ahead and do some things. OPM can always
audit. The MSPB can always review actions and make corrections
if necessary. Congress can always appropriate or authorize.
There is a chance that you could service those wildland
firefighters quicker and better and also answering things like,
market pay and so forth, the things that we are struggling with
the keep firefighters within the Federal service without losing
them to State and local fire services.
There is also the relationship. The second part is the
relationship between the CHCO and the agencies. A lot of
firefighters that I talk to do not believe that the CHCOs in
their agencies actually have a full understanding of their
needs, what the day-to-day job is like, problems with
certifications, the burden, the financial burden. Sometimes
they pay for certification training out of pocket because
training money does not filter down.
Part of this I think is also taking the CHCOs' staff out of
their offices and then putting them out in the field with
employees. I think that would be, first of all, fun for CHCO
staff to get out and experience some of the real world. Stick
them with a fire crew in a forest for a couple weeks. Stick
them with a VA nurse and make some rounds on a floor. Have them
sit on the border.
There is a myriad of things that the government does that
they can participate in to better understand the needs of those
jobs very specifically. While they are there talking to people,
they can also take notes on what that workforce specifically
needs. They can take that back to the CHCO of that agency, and
likewise, the CHCO can take it back to OPM if that is
necessary.
Some of the cons of that is, the further we get away from a
centralized authority there is always the possibility that
managers or political appointees can push a CHCO in a direction
they do not want to go, whether it is illegal or it is
unethical or it is pushing the edges of the law, that the CHCO
is not prepared to do or comfortable with. So that has to be
carefully observed and corrected, and those CHCOs need the
support if the answer is no to somebody much more powerful than
them. They need to be able to have that ability to say no and
know that they are not going to get fired or demoted or
transferred somewhere in the middle of nowhere as punishment.
The final thought is as we decentralize some efforts which
I think we can certainly do. We have to be mindful of about
fair pay and equal pay across government. We cannot lose sight
again of those merit principles I keep talking about. Those
merit principles are not there to be obstructionist. They are
there to remind us that we do have responsibilities greater
than us as we are dealing with taxpayers' money, not private
money, not shareholder money. We accelerated the level of
responsibility, what we do with those funds and those
authorities.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. My next question is for Ms.
Gerton. Human resources specialists are often overworked,
receive less training, and have fewer standards than in
contracting and technology positions. How would you recommend
that Congress strengthen HR specialist skills and abilities,
and do you think OPM should set more ongoing certification and
testing akin to the requirements for contracting officers?
Ms. Gerton. One of the things we have consistently heard in
our work around the personnel system is that the HR specialists
are not prepared to do the work that we propose in a reimagined
HR system. I certainly think that a more strategically focused
OPM should be the proponent for the workforce and training
development for the HR staff.
OPM has been working on a human capital competency model
for years. We certainly think that they should finish that up,
but you do not want to describe a competency model for the
system that you hope will be reengineered. We want to
reengineer that system and describe the kinds of HR
competencies that we want the workforce to have for a system
that will work for the future.
But once that is done, we absolutely agree that there
should be a certificate and credentialing program for the HR
staff, that OPM needs to coordinate with agencies to identify
those skills and competencies that are needed, to understand
how agencies are already training for those skills and
competencies, and which of those programs might be able to be
credentialed as part of that professional development program,
and create both a development program and a progression program
that ensures that our HR specialists have the problem solving
and management skills to really be partners with hiring
managers, again taking them out of the compliance mode and
really helping them solve the problems of the hiring manager
and making sure that they get the right people into the right
jobs.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. Mr. Lenkart, based on your
experience with the Merit System Protection Board, what can be
done to prevent Schedule F or a similar action that would
fundamentally undermine the independence of the workforce, and
is there any role for CHCOs in that effort?
Mr. Lenkart. There is, Madam Chair. Concerning the Schedule
F itself, it was just a ridiculous Executive Order with no
legitimate business purpose. Why you would consent to hiring
somebody through a special process under the cloak of secrecy--
they do not report to anybody. There is no accountability.
There is no transparency. There is no duty to report
performance.
I mean, private business does not even do that. I cannot
imagine a CEO hiring, ``Yes. I am going to hire 10 people that
are going to mill about around the office. They are not going
to do anything or report to anybody.'' That guy would be fired
in a heartbeat.
When we are talking about the level of scrutiny and, again,
the trust that the public places in us, I do not think we
should be hiring people with a license to do whatever they want
and wander around the government and look for things to do,
especially if they are doing it at the behest of somebody else
outside of government and they are doing it on the taxpayers'
dime. The whole thing, from beginning to end, does not have any
legitimate business purpose as far as I am concerned.
Some of the things that we can do to prevent that from ever
happening again is we can, first of all, as I mentioned before
in my opening, we can have career executives and career
managers supervise political appointees just like they
supervise anybody else. There is absolutely nothing wrong with
somebody who comes in at a policy level to report to somebody
who has been here for a very long time.
In addition to that, there needs to be some kind of
requirements. I understand that political appointees are direct
hires and it is a lot of wink-and-nod stuff. Now, I do want to
clarify; a lot of political appointees--again, I was one--are
very good at what they do. They serve a very good purpose, and
having them not completely connected to a bureaucratic process
is helpful if you want to get some things done. But it is
really an extreme position of trust, and that can be violated
very easily. I do not know if the good outweighs the bad.
But in terms of political appointees, I have seen some
really bad appointees come in. I mean people who were office
assistants and then for political reasons are suddenly general
schedule (GS)-14s and GS-15s, making 100 extra thousand dollars
a year that they have never earned before, and this is a true
story.
You go around the government, and you can ask anybody, is
there consistency in political appointees with how they work,
how they operate, who they report to, what are they doing here.
I mean, I would be shocked if anyone tells you from the career
side that, yes, no, they have their act together and everything
is fine. Everyone is going to tell you that, they come in all
shapes, sizes, and forms.
We have to do something to regulate or at least some kind
of determination on experience and skills when the political
appointees come in the door if there is not going to be any
other process to regulate at what level they come in, where
they work, and what they do.
I think we can do better with reporting conflicts of
interest. We can do better with reporting if someone gets a big
bonus on the way out from the industry and now they are coming
in as a watchdog and they got three times their annual salary
and now they are going to be a watchdog over this industry for
the next 3 years. You know, that is trouble there.
I think that we can also do a little bit better on removal
processes for appointees when they are accused of bad conduct
or a repetitive bad performance. There has to be an entity
other than a purely political one that can remove them.
I think that is where CHCOs can come in and help quite a
bit, in all these areas, and make sure that these things are
regulated and adhered to.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. I would now like to recognize
Senator Carper for his 7 minutes of questions.
Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thank you so much. My thanks to you and
Senator Lankford for hosting this hearing, calling this
hearing, and for inviting our witnesses. This is something that
I care about a lot.
My guess is, Chair, you and our other colleagues have
vibrant constituent services operations in your offices. We
have them in Delaware. We only have three counties, but we have
offices in all three counties. We have constituent services
people in all three counties and very proud of the work that we
do.
We actually do a survey on a regular basis, on a monthly
basis, to see how we are doing with respect to serving people
and when they call on a particular issue. We ask for feedback
on how our Federal agencies are doing in terms of responding to
concerns of constituents.
As it turns out, for the last 21 years we have been doing
this, my offices up and down the State, all taken together,
they are evaluating these monthly surveys: 96 percent excellent
or good in terms of feedback from the people we serve, about 3
percent fair, and 1 percent poor. The ones that are fair gave
us a fair evaluation when we called them.
In the same surveys, we asked people to evaluate the
service that they are receiving from Federal agencies, and one
of those Federal agencies that we get a lot of feedback on--you
probably do, too, Madam Chair--is the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS), which we underfund. We unduly have too few people
working there. We do not have people necessarily with the right
skills. It is something that repeats itself. I do not care what
administration. Some of our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle especially are, I think, more interested maybe in
starving the IRS than making sure that they have the kind of
resources they need.
But with that sort of as a background, the Federal
Government is here--I think we are here--to serve people, serve
the American people. Now, there is a wide range of ways we can
do that sort of service.
The Chief Human Capital Officers serve in one of the most
critical roles in our Federal agencies. They are the experts
who oversee the hiring and retention policies for the agencies.
Their work directly impacts how well the IRS or the Social
Security Administration (SSA), which are two agencies that get
a lot of attention from constituents who contact us because
they are not getting the service they want or need from either
the IRS, or in many cases Social Security. But the work of
these folks at these agencies can serve everyday Americans who
need their tax refunds in some cases or a disability payment.
My first question is--and this is for Ms. Bailey. You have
a unique perspective as you have worked both at the Office of
Personnel Management in various roles and you have worked as a
Chief Human Capital Officer at the Department of Homeland
Security. What can the Congress do now, like right now, what
can we do to ensure Chief Human Capital Officers have the
authority and the tools that they need to address workforce
shortages in the Federal Government? Please go ahead, Ms.
Bailey.
Ms. Bailey. Thank you, Senator Carper. I appreciate your
question. One of the first things we could do--and actually,
Madam Chairwoman asked this question as well, which is, where
are all of the authorities and things that you could do to make
changes?
The CHCO Council in the last 6 years, but primarily the
last 4 years, we actually created an entire list of every
single authority which we believe should be delegated to the
CHCOs as well as the specific language that we think needs to
be changed within Title V. We not only provided that list to
the Office of Personnel Management; we actually wrote the
legislation to go with it. I am sure that the CHCO Council--I
am not there anymore, but I am sure Traci DiMartini and a few
of the others would be more than happy to share with you all of
the work that was done.
Senator Carper, I really think that the number one place to
start is to have a meeting with the CHCO Council, have them
pull out the list of every single thing that they have asked to
have done, ask them to provide you with the legislation that
they wrote and provided to OPM, and see if there is a way to
have middle ground between yourselves and the CHCO Council in
coming up with changes that are absolutely necessary.
Senator Carper. That is a very helpful answer. Thank you
for that.
Ms. Gerton, the National Academy of Public Administration
recommended that to modernize and to reinvigorate public
service, something necessary to ensure Federal agencies can
better serve our customers is--I always think of the American
public as our customers. But agencies need more flexibilities
to tailor their methods to meet their needs, and the Office of
Personnel Management needs to evolve from compliance-oriented
to customer-focused. I always like to say, ask your customer,
whoever the customer might be.
But this is a big task and one that has been studied and
studied and discussed for years. Where does the Congress begin?
That was for Ms. Gerton.
Ms. Gerton. It is a great question, Senator Carper, and
finding the starting point is always the key to solutions. So
we first suggest that Congress consider restating the purpose
of OPM to make it a strategic governmentwide advisor to the
President. But, more importantly, not only in the OPM
assessment, but I would refer us to our No Time to Wait study,
where we said the key measure of HR success is agency mission
accomplishment.
To your point about the difficulties that the IRS and the
Social Security agency are having serving their constituents,
we have to agree on what the mission is. If the mission for
those agencies is customer service and customer satisfaction,
then collectively we need to make sure that we staff and
resource those agencies to accomplish that mission.
So making OPM a strategic advisor for the entire Federal
Civil Service, delegating to the CHCOs in the agencies in a
federated model the responsibilities that they need to make
sure that their agencies have the workforce necessary to
accomplish their mission, and then as Mr. Lenkart has said in
his comments, making sure that all of those authorities and
flexibilities are bounded by compliance with merit systems
principles is our fundamental recommendation for change.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. One last quick
question, Mr. Lenkart. When I was privileged to chair this
Committee a number of years ago, we were having actually very
similar conversations around Federal workforce reform. Since
then, there has been some changes but not enough. Everyday
Americans still run into obstacles when interacting with
agencies, and these obstacles are in part the result of
workforce shortages.
A question would be: How can Congress further improve its
communication with Federal agencies and unions to build
stakeholder consensus, so we can finally implement broader
reforms in hiring and retention of the Federal workforce rather
than just talk about them? That is to Mr. Lenkart, please.
Mr. Lenkart. Thank you, Senator. It is a fantastic question
and one that certainly is not an easy one to answer. We do silo
in government, as all private business siloes. Everyone siloes.
It is our natural tendency as human beings, to surround
ourselves and deal with the world from that perspective.
But we definitely need more interaction between Congress,
between government agencies and stakeholders that are out
there. The unions are only one part of that. There is a ton of
affinity groups out there that deal with all matter of Federal
employee interests. There are groups that watch over pay and
benefits. There are groups that are there for advancements and
opportunities and so forth. All of them have a seat at the
table at some level.
For someone who has had strong and deep relationships with
Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, and both Republican
and Democrat White Houses over the past 20 years, I am very
comfortable in my own skin up here and speaking with all of
you. But to the average employee, and to the average citizen
for that matter, it is a very intimidating thing to come up
here and talk with all of you, to talk to somebody from the
White House, to talk with anybody from Congress. I think taking
some of the mystery out of those relationships would certainly
help, by just pulling people together more often. Whether that
means that we are physically all in one room together several
times a year or quarterly, I think that is something to
investigate.
I think between the Congress and the Executive Branch I
would love to see more congressional staffers spend time in the
Executive Branch, much like I would like to see CHCO staff
spend more time with the people they administer in their
workforce. I would love to see more congressional people come
over and hang out in the Executive Branch in different areas
and go out in the field and do things. Now there is no better
way to understand the people that you are responsible for than
to actually witness them firsthand.
I think there is a lot of work we can do in that respect,
bringing people together, taking a little bit of the mystery
out of the process, a little bit of the intimidation away. And
through that, I think we will have much better conversations
and find better solutions.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks, Mr.
Lenkart.
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Senator Carper.
I move back to Senator Lankford for his second round of
questions.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Lenkart, let me continue
this conversation I started earlier on remote work, just from
your own perspective here. I know there are multiple members of
the Federal unions that a remote working or they telework. What
is your initial concern on a higher number, or a higher
percentage I guess I should say, of Federal workers, not
necessarily increase the number of Federal workers but a higher
percentage of those Federal workers that are doing work
literally all over the country, military spouses, spouses of
people that have other Federal jobs that are in this Federal
family working in a remote area, people that work in very--or
that live in very remote areas, in rural areas, having access?
Do you have any concerns on that from the union side?
Mr. Lenkart. No concerns. It is an excellent question, and
I think the idea of remote work opens up a world of
possibilities. It solves a lot of our problems with hiring in
terms of people having to move to a certain location to do a
job that they could do somewhere else. I think it is absolutely
the gold standard for a lot of our military spouses that keep
moving around with their spouses. They get deployed in
different places, even overseas. You can absolutely log on from
overseas and continue working and doing your job in some number
of Federal agencies.
Senator Lankford. Good.
Mr. Lenkart. I think it is an excellent--that is an
excellent perspective to have, and I think we have a lot to
work on doing that.
Now the good news is with COVID. If anything good came out
of COVID, the one thing is we were forced to learn how to
remote work----
Senator Lankford. Right.
Mr. Lenkart [continuing]. We were forced to learn how to
telework. No way would we have gotten this far or had this kind
of data and interaction if we were not forced to do this.
We are at a place right now where I think that we are much
more accepting of the idea of a remote workforce, the benefits
of it, in terms of managing and, ensuring performance and so
forth. I think it is a huge opportunity for the Federal
Government to open up hiring to a lot of people that ordinarily
would not be able to hold these jobs.
Senator Lankford. Yes, I would agree.
Ms. Bailey, how does this actually get implemented? What
legislative authority is needed, or do right now agencies and
CHCOs right now have the ability to be able to start listing
jobs as an assumed remote work?
Or, I guess it could be listed either way. It could be
either someone that is hired in to be able to come into work in
the agency, or they could be actually full-time remote and
really give them either option on that. Is there any barrier
right now legislatively to doing that?
Ms. Bailey. There is not a single barrier. We have always
had the ability to offer remote work. It is all based on where
the duty location. Wherever you want to define a duty location,
that is where it will be. If it is someone's home, if it is
working out of the YMCA, if it is working in a military
installation or at a border patrol station, anywhere you
identify that being the duty location is where the person can
work. There has never been a barrier to remote work.
Senator Lankford. All right, so two big issues then. One is
supervision, and the other one is culture because some people
are going to say I need to see all of the chicks in my nest
every single day to know that I can lay eyes on them or I
cannot manage them, others are going to say you never see them
anyway. What is the difference here on it?
Let us talk about culture, and let us talk about
supervision on that. What are the two barriers that we have?
Ms. Bailey. All right. So both of those are--I would say
culture is probably the biggest barrier. It is this belief that
just what you just said. Right? That everyone has to be sitting
all around me.
But what I used to say to my supervisors or my executives
all the time is you do not know what people are doing today
anyhow. Right? Because you are not leaving your office.
Even take myself as the CHCO. I had 350 employees who
worked for me. I had to trust that they were doing their job,
whether they were in the office, whether they were across the
country, whether they were at the beach. I had to trust that
they were actually getting the job done. It is about results.
It is about holding people accountable and making sure that you
stay in constant touch with them.
When you are in these kinds of environments, what you
really need to do is concentrate on, again, the accountability,
making sure that we get results from folks, and if not, take
appropriate action for their inability either that they cannot
do the job or they will not do the job.
The second thing is that you should have opportunities for
people to come together, whether it is to celebrate, to
collaborate, to create. There is always going to be
opportunities in which you should bring people together because
human connection is still important. Right?
Senator Lankford. Right.
Ms. Bailey. And so that is the one thing.
From a supervisory standpoint, it is no different honestly
than if they are across the hall because half the time you have
no idea where they are or what they are doing anyhow because,
again, most of the time you are not leaving your office.
The second thing is, though, that you talked about is
culture. You cannot legislate culture, just like you cannot
legislate good management practices. Right?
Senator Lankford. Right.
Ms. Bailey. One of the things that we really have to do--I
do believe that the pandemic has helped us at least understand
from a culture standpoint. But I will tell you from a DHS
standpoint, when I was there I had to also think about the fact
that I have employees who are also still on the front lines.
Right? I could not be so D.C.-centric, office centric, and only
think about remote work without thinking about what it is like
for the man or women who is on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) or
a horse or, doing any of the other things that our folks, our
men and women, had to do.
And so it is being able to like, I think, wrap your arms
around all this and culturally drive for excellence, culturally
drive for hiring high-quality employees, culturally drive for
engaging with them and starting from a basis of trust. Again,
that cannot be legislated. It is a leadership issue. It begins
with leadership setting that kind of culture and that kind of
environment and then absolutely driving that, not just from the
top-down but from the bottom-up. It takes everybody if you are
going to actually, I think, really be able to have this kind of
environment that you are seeking.
Senator Lankford. Yes. Mr. Rigas, one of the things that I
hear often from different agencies and different CHCOs is they
want a good list of highly qualified individuals to be able to
choose from. I hear it all the time, to say: OPM provided XYZ
or whoever it is provided XYZ list. I look at the list. I look
at the opportunities. I do not have highly qualified
individuals here. Where do I go get more?
This is a way to be able to say: There is 300 million-plus
Americans here. You could literally hire for this job from
anywhere in the country. You got to be able to list it,
advertise it, engage with it. You have to be able to have the
ability to be able to actually hire people on a timely basis to
be able to do it, but they could be from anywhere.
What are the barriers to this that you see with OPM, and
how do we move into let us hire more highly qualified
individuals regardless of where they are in the country?
Mr. Rigas. Yes, I think so. Some of the initiatives we
pioneered when I was Acting Director was moving more toward
skill-based assessments rather than candidate self-assessments.
Senator Lankford. Right. Where I get to check the box and
say, yes, I am very qualified.
Mr. Rigas. Right.
Senator Lankford. OK.
Mr. Rigas. What happens there is because embedded in our
merit systems principles is veterans preference everyone who
checks off that they are most qualified, including veterans,
you end up with a cert which has veterans as the top three
individuals, and people say, ``Well, all I get are unqualified
veterans. We need to get rid of veterans preference.'' That is
completely wrong.
What is wrong is you have everyone self-selecting
themselves as highly qualified. What you need are skills based
assessments. In that environment you will get and as I
demonstrated in my opening statement--very highly qualified
candidates and oftentimes more qualified candidates than you
have positions for which you can hire at your agency, which
brings my second point in, which is shared certificates. You
can take that shared certificate and say, ``Hey, I got eight
qualified candidates for this position. I only needed two. Does
DHS or another agency need this HR specialist or an information
technology (IT) specialist that we have already determined is
highly qualified?'' They could then hire off of that cert,
drastically reducing hiring time for the Federal Government.
Senator Lankford. Right. But we are back to Ms. Gerton's
statement earlier that that is a shift and a focus for OPM to
say I am a facilitator to these individuals that are actually
doing it rather than a permission, compliance-based group. You
are really trying to facilitate that.
Ms. Bailey mentioned earlier there is really just two
hiring authorities that are needed, one for veterans and one
for everybody else. What is wrong with that?
Mr. Rigas. Yes, I have not seen that proposal. I think we
certainly need to reduce the number of hiring authorities. The
shared certification initiative I mentioned, HHS is already
doing that within the many agencies under their umbrella. It
does not require permission from OPM to do that. Other agencies
can do that, CHCO-led at their agencies, on their own, right
now today.
That was something I was pushing for at OPM in 2020--we ran
out of time--to make it a governmentwide initiative so that
when you apply for something on USAJOBS you can either click a
box, either opt in or maybe we could make it that you have to
opt out if you do not want it shared, but that you are
immediately--if you are deemed qualified for this job, you are
hired--and if you are not hired, that any other agency in the
Federal Government would then be able to hire you.
Senator Lankford. Madam Chairwoman, can I ask a couple more
questions?
Senator Sinema. Yes.
Senator Lankford. So, shorter resumes. Opportunities to not
have the long written statement for certain levels that you
have this basically fake paragraph or fake piece that someone
else actually you hired wrote for you to be able to then turn
in, which has become common in the process. The self-
certification. What we are trying to figure out is how do we
cleanup this whole hiring process or to be able to say if they
are listed in some other platform, as some other job platform
or search platform out there, that also they could be then
picked up by the Federal Government as well based on the resume
they have there and the skill set be able to fit. What is wrong
with any of those?
Mr. Rigas. Yes, I think that all of the above approaches is
exactly what we need. You need short, clear job descriptions
which are easy to understand. You need to have the HR folks
working in conjunction with subject matter experts who can then
the hiring managers are ultimately the ones who determine
whether an individual is qualified or not. So that interaction
needs to happen early in the process so that the job posting
that the hiring manager wants, and the HR specialists are
working together to ensure that the assessment correctly
reflects what is needed in the job. Then you can have either
interviews or writing samples or one final step to ensure that
you have the most qualified individuals, and you can move right
to hiring.
Senator Lankford. Yes, as long as their writing sample is
actually that person writing.
Mr. Rigas. Right.
Senator Lankford. Right now, we assume quite a few of the
writing samples are actually someone else writing it.
Mr. Rigas. Right. Yes. So if you have a multistep process,
that mitigates against any one of those sort of being faulty.
Senator Lankford. What about the opportunity if they have
their resume listed on LinkedIn and it matches what somebody is
looking for at DHS, that DHS is able to go pursue them and say,
hey, this matches up?
Mr. Rigas. You could certainly do that, but you also have
to be careful with the merit systems principles. You have to
make sure that a position is publically announced and----
Senator Lankford. Oh, I get it. It is publically announced
that it is out there, but if their qualifications match what
has actually been listed, those folks are not being--they are
being pursued by private companies. They are just not being
pursued by the Federal Government. They may have never
considered working in IT in the Federal Government but would be
very interested in that if only they heard about it, but they
have never considered it.
Mr. Rigas. Yes, I think----
Senator Lankford. Again, if you are in rural Oklahoma, you
have not met someone who has worked for the Federal Government
before. You have never considered that until suddenly it pings
up and says, I have the qualifications to do this. And they
think, I am going to consider something I have never considered
before.
Now we are actually recruiting into areas where people
would do remote work or possibly even relocate to be able to do
it, but the authorities have to be there for the agencies to
actually go pursue people----
Mr. Rigas. Yes.
Senator Lankford [continuing]. Then to be able to get them
in the process.
Mr. Rigas. Yes, no, I think that would be totally fine. You
get to reach out to them and invite them to apply, absolutely.
Senator Lankford. Right.
Mr. Rigas. Yes.
Senator Lankford. But it has to take less than 90 days to
go through the process.
Mr. Rigas. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Lankford. Or 92 and a half, as it is currently.
Mr. Rigas. You ought to be able to hire someone and get
them in a seat in under 30 days. I think that is possible, and
I think it can be done if we do the right thing.
Senator Lankford. Ms. Bailey has hired people in one day
before.
Mr. Rigas. Right.
Senator Lankford. It is doable. Any other comments on this?
I know I have gone way over on time, but I want to be able to
make sure we get as much as we can on the record.
Ms. Bailey. Senator, if I can just mention one other thing.
DHS's Title VI, which I wish--I do not know if Senator Carper
is still on, but I do want to thank him for actually
introducing that and giving us that authority.
Our cybertalent management system is Civil Service reform.
We completely reinvented everything with regard to recruiting,
hiring, pay, compensation, has market-sensitive pay, has the
ability to hire somebody that just comes out of high school and
has been able to win a national hackathon as a qualifying
factor. Right?
It is really thinking about not just today but into the
future. OPM supported that. OMB supported it. It actually has
become a reality. It was implemented November 15, 2021.
It is my recommendation that your Subcommittee take the
time to sit down with DHS and have them walk you through all of
the benefits of that because what you will find is that--and
one of the things that we have agreed to is that--we would give
that playbook to everybody, to every Federal agency. If you
were to take Title VI and amend it from just being for DHS and
amend it to all Federal agencies for all Federal positions, you
would have Civil Service reform.
It took us 7 years to do it. Right? It took a tremendous
amount of time to peel back the onion on everything because
when you throw away OPM's classifications and qualifications
you have to actually know what the heck you are doing in order
to then be able to build a system for the 21st Century.
Senator Lankford. Thank you.
Ms. Gerton. Senator Lankford, if I might make one point
toward----
Senator Lankford. Go ahead, if you are OK with that.
Senator Sinema. Go ahead.
Ms. Gerton. Your point about military spouses. When I was
at Department of Labor in the Veterans Employment and Training
Service, we worked diligently with the private sector on
military spouse hiring. As an example, United Services
Automobile Association (USAA), who of course is a very focused
veteran employer, was anxious to bring military spouses on,
recognizing the value of that hiring pool. They started a
program where military spouses, regardless of where they work,
could be trained as insurance adjusters and call center
operators. So they could be anywhere and support USAA.
That grew into strategic career development paths for
military spouses, recognizing that they were highly qualified,
could move around the world, be USAA's hands and feet basically
in all kinds of places. USAA's model expanded further in the
private sector.
To Senator Carper's point about the need to staff up IRS
and SSA, especially in the call center and customer-facing
responsibilities, I offer that the Veterans Employment Training
Service at DOL is a place to go for that. They have the
specific responsibility to support military spouse hiring, and
they have a network across the country through the workforce
system that helps establish those kinds of relationships.
To the last point about how do we make the more flexible
system work--and of course, I am an advocate, as I have said
many times, for the strategic reorientation of OPM--we have
talked a lot about authorities that already exist but that
people do not take advantage of. I want to make sure that we
consider the role of the oversight community, the IGs, the
auditors, the lawyers. In many cases, there is a culture inside
organizations about what is and is not acceptable, what was or
was not allowed, but that is separate from what actually is
permissible. If we are going to reimagine the human capital
system at the Federal Government, we need to make sure that the
oversight community is engaged because in many cases they are
the tacit setters of the permission framework within
organizations.
Senator Lankford. OK. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Senator Lankford. In the
interest of time, I am going to ask one final question and then
we will close the hearing. I know that at least one person has
a travel issue we want to be careful about today.
My final question is for Ms. Bailey. In recent years, we
have seen outdated classification standards and rules, making
it harder to hire people in emerging STEM fields as well as
preventing us from reskilling employees in obsolete fields.
Some classification standards have not been updated since John
F. Kennedy (JFK) was President, and the current system does not
account for the multidisciplinary knowledge needed for many
senior positions.
Based on your experience overseeing classification policy
at OPM and in creating a new cyber personnel system at DHS, is
there a way to empower CHCOs so they have more ability to
design jobs and credentials that still uphold merit principles?
Ms. Bailey. Yes, absolutely, and thank you for that
question. It is absolutely possible to do this. This is one of
the reasons why we walked away from the classification system
for our cybertalent management system is because we recognized
that it just cannot keep up with where we are.
But I want to stress it is not just about the CHCOs, and
this is where I said it takes the whole C-Suite but it also
takes leadership. It was because of my partnership with the CIO
as well as
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), our
cyberagency within DHS, that we were able to create what we did
under CTMS. That is where we were able to identify what are the
current skills and things that you actually need in order to be
able to fill the--not just fill the positions but actually meet
the mission needs.
We have walked away from positions. You will not see
anywhere on USAJOBS that we are hiring a position. We will say
instead we are looking for folks that have a technical
background or know forensic network and, have been able to do
some other things or maybe worked in a nonprofit with regard to
human trafficking and all because what we are really trying to
do is find the people. Once we get the people in, we can then
work out where it is that they are going to work, what kind of
jobs that they are going to have, and then how we are going to
actually pay them.
It is a very private sector way of looking at this versus
trying to box everybody into a position description (PD), that
does not really cover what it is that they do anywhere and then
box them into a job description that nobody really understands,
and then they put in a bunch of buzzwords and check one through
five that they can walk, talk, and chew bubblegum, and we never
get the right, qualified people.
It all kind of goes together. The point that I am trying to
make here is that what we really need to do is we need to
reexamine all of this.
Again, from a DHS perspective, we have the playbook, the
entire playbook on how to do this. It was through every
attorney. It is through OPM, through OMB. Every single agency
concurred with DHS's cybertalent management system.
I really encourage that you take a look at that because,
again, I think it is the answer to where we need to go with
regard to seeking out and qualifying potential applicants into
our positions.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. With that, we have reached the
end of today's hearing. I appreciate all of our witnesses for
your time and testimony and thank our colleagues for their
participation. This is an important subject, and I look forward
to working with my colleagues to improve security for the Civil
Service human resources function.
Today's hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks, until
March 16, 2022. That is when questions for the record are also
due.
Thank you all again. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:14 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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