April 23, 2008
A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.
- Former Comptroller General David Walker to Join Partnership for Public Service Board
- Fuzzy Picture Hinders DoD Efforts to Beef Up Acquisition Work Force
- Panelists: Telework Can Improve Management
- Federal Diary Live
Former Comptroller General David Walker to Join Partnership for Public Service Board
The Partnership for Public Service
The Partnership for Public Service today announced that David Walker is joining its Board of Directors. Walker served as Comptroller General
of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office for nearly 10 years prior to his recent appointment to be President and
Chief Executive Officer of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
In welcoming Walker to the board, Max Stier, Partnership for Public Service president said, "David Walker represents public
service at its best. He's intelligent, tenacious, honest and 100 percent committed to doing right by the American people. I know he will do great
things in his new position as the head of the Peter Peterson Foundation, and I am proud to welcome him to the Partnership's board."
For more information, visit www.ourpublicservice.org.
Fuzzy Picture Hinders DoD Efforts to Beef Up Acquisition Work Force
Federal Times
By Elise
Castelli
The Defense Department has such a muddled view of who makes up its contracting work force that it can't begin hiring to
address what many perceive as a work force shortage, a senior department official said.
But others say the department cannot afford to delay hiring.
With contracting shops already overwhelmed by the workload and a retirement wave looming, hiring will be important to keep the
work force at a steady state, Steve Schooner, law professor at The George Washington University, said at a conference by the National Contract
Management Association. "We cannot hire enough people to do anything other than keep up with the people we're about to start losing," Schooner
said.
Frank Anderson, president of the Defense Acquisition University, argued for more study, however.
"I've been counting the DoD acquisition work force for two years, and I still don't know the size of the DoD acquisition work
force," Anderson told conferees. "And the reason is that we have not had a process for how we do it."
The acquisition work force is so fragmented and ill-defined that it's nearly impossible to determine who is part of it, he
said. Even those who are part of the government's most clearly defined contracting series, 1102 contracting specialists, aren't all involved with
contracting, he said. In other cases, engineers and military personnel involved in contracting aren't counted and, as a result, aren't getting the
training they need to do their jobs right.
All told, Defense has 12 functional areas spread across 20 agencies and three armed services that are involved in contracting,
Anderson said. Until Defense can get a clear picture of who makes up the work force, it can't tell how many people it needs to hire or where it needs
to hire, Anderson said. Steven Kelman, former Office of Management and Budget procurement policy administrator, disagreed.
"I don't agree with the people who say, 'Let's study this a little bit more,'" Kelman said. "If you go to a contracting
workplace, what's on everyone's lips is we don't have enough people." Congress needs to add more money to hire acquisition workers across
government, but it has been slow to act because it is politically unpopular to add more federal jobs to the budget, Kelman said in an interview with
Federal Times during the conference.
Acquisition hiring is a problem across both the public and private sectors because the hiring pool for this area is limited,
Schooner said.
If agencies are going to compete effectively for the limited acquisition talent, Congress needs not only enable agencies to
hire more acquisition officers but also to change its attitude toward acquisition, Kelman said.
"We also need to do something about the environment of fear and lack of appreciation Congress itself is helping to create by
its very punitive and discouraging attitude toward civil servants and contractors and the contracting system," Kelman said. "That attitude by Congress
is making government contracting jobs extremely unattractive for people."
The attitude is not just preventing the government from hiring, it is also driving current workers to the private sector, he
said.
Recruiting and training
In 2008, Congress created a fund under the National Defense Authorization Act to help Defense train and augment its
acquisition work force. The fund, however, is not appropriated. Instead, Defense agencies add money to the fund based on a percentage of what they
spend on contract support services.
The fund supplies $300 million in 2008, $400 million in 2009, $500 million in 2010 and $600 million for every year after that.
"We're in the middle of getting this worked out, but it does provide the resources so we can start to manage differently,"
Anderson said.
The rough game plan calls for 60 percent of the funding to be spent on recruiting and hiring, 9 percent on recognition and
retention and 31 percent on training.
The money dedicated toward hiring will be only for a short-term or immediate personnel need. It will be up to the Defense
agencies to get permanent, appropriated funding for the position from Congress, Anderson said.
But the department has to know where the money is needed in order to spend it properly, Anderson said.
Adding to
the problem, "our bosses and our leaders don't really understand contracting, and that may be our top problem," said David Berteau, director of
defense industries at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Senior leaders don't know what the Defense Department gets for what it buys, and, if they don't know what they get, they can't
assess how well the acquisition process is working, Berteau said.
"The Defense Department is more dependent on contracts than anyone in the leadership wants to admit," said Berteau, who was a
member of the Gansler Commission, which identified shortfalls in the Army's expeditionary acquisition structure and manning.
"Because
they don't want to admit this, it makes it difficult to plan, to set requirements, to procure, to use that which we are buying. If you don't want to
admit how dependent you are, you won't do the upfront things you need to get done."
When Defense leaders don't admit their dependence on contractors, they don't do enough training on contractor support for
missions, Berteau said.
Many of the key Gansler Commission recommendations get to the heart of the issue and have application beyond the Army, Berteau
said.
Among the top recommendations the Army is now implementing:
- Adding more civilian and military acquisition personnel.
- Creating better training for acquisition personnel.
- Setting better requirements on contracts.
- Training and planning the military as a contracts customer.
- Preparing for contracting support of expeditionary operations.
Panelists: Telework Can Improve Management
Government
Executive
By Alyssa Rosenberg
The right ambiance can elevate a mediocre restaurant, but it doesn't do much for poor job performance, according to federal managers during a
Monday discussion on telework.
It's no secret that supervisors are skittish about their employees working outside the office. But convincing them that productivity isn't tied to
physical setting is key to boosting the reputation of telecommuting in government, said participants in the Telework Exchange's town hall meeting
earlier this week in Washington. The group is a public-private partnership focused on promoting the benefits of telework.
"Somehow I think we have to get away from this view that you have a different way of measuring people when they're teleworking than when they're
at a work site," said Jack Penkoske, director of manpower, personnel and security at the Defense Information Systems Agency. "Your superstars are
going to be superstars no matter what environment you put them in."
Lurita A. Doan, head of the General Services Administration, agreed. "Telework gives government a chance to prove that performance matters, and
it's not the physical presence of an employee in the workplace that matters," she said.
According to Penkoske, managers have to shift their focus from demanding an employee's physical presence to the more important task of ensuring
accountability. "In a lot of cases, [managers] say they don't feel comfortable not knowing what the employee is doing," he said. "So we say, how do
you know what they're doing in their office all day? It really focuses on, what are the responsibilities of holding people accountable."
Vice Adm. Thomas Barrett, deputy secretary of the Transportation Department, said he puts the onus on managers to make the practice more
accessible and to justify why an employee isn't eligible to telework.
Penkoske, however, said managers shouldn't be blamed for being skeptical of telework. It's important for agencies to train their employees to
understand what's expected of them whether they work at home or at telework centers, he noted.
Danette Campbell, senior adviser for telework at the Patent and Trademark Office, reminded participants that telework was not the solution for all
employees or all jobs, and agencies should set realistic goals.
"While I think telework is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's not for everybody," she said. "To establish a goal of
100 percent telework -- that's unrealistic."
Federal Diary Live
The Washington Post
Stephen Barr will discuss federal employee and retiree issues at noon today on Federal Diary Live at washingtonpost.com. The
Federal Diary column will resume tomorrow.
