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Strategic Management of Human Capital
The Challenge
The decade of the 1990's was marked by aggressive downsizing and
cost-cutting in administrative functions across the federal government.
From 1992 to 2000, USAID's direct hire workforce was cut by nearly
40 percent. The administrative support functions of procurement and
human resources management were particularly hard hit. At the same
time, world events produced new demands for foreign assistance in
the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other areas. USAID's
program budgets grew to respond to new challenges, but the Agency
did not receive additional operating expense (OE) funds to pay for
the extra administrative costs associated with these emerging priorities.
To meet new demands, the Agency rationed its OE shortages by reassigning
employees and shifting OE funds from less critical activities to more
urgent ones. Human resources functions like staffing and training
were eliminated or significantly cut back.
 The
USAID inherited by Administrator Natsios in early 2001 was faced with
serious resource shortages. Since 9/11, new demands of rebuilding
Afghanistan and Iraq and fighting the global war on HIV/AIDS have
compounded USAID's challenges. From fiscal year 2001 to 2003, the
Agency's programmatic responsibilities and spending nearly doubled,
while its direct hire workforce and OE budget have remained essentially
flat.As a consequence, USAID today faces growing human capital gaps,
as identified by the BTEC and the Administrator's annual all-employee
survey, including:
- A lack of surge capacity to meet emerging needs
- A workforce that is rapidly aging, has a void in the midmanagement
ranks, and is losing skills and "institutional memory"
- Chronically vacant or under-staffed positions and accumulating
backlogs of work
- A bureaucratic and cumbersome performance appraisal
process that is perceived to lack fairness, honesty, transparency,
and linkages between results and rewards
- Morale and "burn out" problems and perceptions that
USAID is not an employee-friendly work environment
- Perceived barriers to equal employment opportunity
- Insufficient capacity in human resources (HR) functions to
recruit and develop an effective 21st century workforce
The Response
To address the Agency's most critical workforce and competency gaps,
the BTEC led the development of a five year USAID Human Capital (HC)
Strategic Plan.The plan describes the human resources capabilities
necessary to implement the overall Joint State Department-USAID Strategic
Plan, while directly addressing the human capital goals of the President's
Management Agenda (PMA). The plan addresses five strategic objectives:
- A high-performing workforce achieved;
- Staff strategically aligned with Agency priorities;
- A more flexible workforce established;
- A diverse workforce created; and
- Increased human resources capacity to support USAID's mission
Achievements
Activities for each of the Agency's human capital strategic
objectives are highlighted below.
1. A High Performing Workforce Achieved
Development Readiness - Filling Critical Talent Gaps
The Development Readiness Initiative (DRI), modeled after the Department of State's successful Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, was launched by Administrator Natsios in fiscal year 2004. The DRI is the most aggressive recruitment effort to rebuild and revitalize the Agency's workforce in more than a decade. This initiative, the cornerstone of the Agency's succession planning efforts, provides surge capacity to respond quickly to emerging program priorities. Through DRI budget authorities, USAID hopes to increase the direct hire workforce by hiring 150 additional employees by fiscal year 2006 (assuming full funding). These new employees are being recruited through several hiring mechanisms. Entry-level Foreign Service Officers are being recruited and trained through the International Development Intern (IDI) program. The Agency reinstated a Contract Specialist intern program (CSIP) and is expanding the use of Presidential Management Fellows (PMFs) to fill critical skill gaps in its procurement staff and other Washington-based Civil Service positions. The additional human resources provided by DRI enable USAID to:
- Immediately fill important, longstanding vacant positions
- Increase the levels of oversight and accountability of organizations
receiving taxpayer funds by US direct hire employees
- Allow more employees to attend training without creating coverage
gaps
- Respond to new and emerging program requirements without
reassigning employees from other Agency programs
Performance Management Reforms - Creating a High Performance
Workforce
New performance management policies approved by the BTEC will streamline
the cumbersome annual employee evaluation process. The new procedures
will reduce the amount of paperwork previously required. Greater
emphasis will be placed on meaningful inter-personal communications
about organizational goals, expectations, performance, results, and
career development needs. The revised process will provide clearer
connections between performance ratings, results and rewards, and
thereby provide a stronger incentive for employees to improve job
performance and achieve expected results.
Training - Sharpening Skills and Developing New Leaders
Administrator Natsios has made a strong commitment to rebuilding
the Agency's depleted training capacity to make sure that employees'
skills match the challenges of their jobs. The training curriculum
has been overhauled to create a career progression of courses for
employees at entry, mid-level and senior levels, and significant funding
levels have been requested. This approach envisions a training pyramid
for Agency employees that includes leadership,
management, technical and job skills training available to employees
during the course of their careers.
Entry and mid-career training will focus on improving technical
and job skills. Project and contract management training have been
identified as skills
requiring particular emphasis. The Agency's Cognizant Technical Officer
(CTO) Certification Program is expanding to meet the need for highly
trained project managers of large, complex projects.This program teaches
employees how to select the appropriate assistance or acquisition
instrument (i.e., contract, grant or cooperative agreement) and manage
the project from award through administration, monitoring, evaluation
and close-out.
An aggressive leadership development program has been developed.
The Agency reviewed leadership skills at the Senior Foreign Service
and Senior Executive Service levels to determine appropriate curricula.
As part of this program USAID has expanded the training partnership
with the Federal Executive Institute to include mentoring and coaching
courses.
| An
Emerging Leadership course for mid-career employees uses a "blended"
training approach that includes traditional instructor-led classroom
training and self-taught training through access to online courses
on the Internet. Courses are tailored to topics of leadership
and management identified by the student and his or her mentor,
a senior manager who has been assigned as a coach. |
A large number of courses are now available to employees through
the Agency's "e-Learning Institute," launched in 2002. Accounting,
marketing, management, communications, and other subjects are taught
through text
presentations, simulations, and chat rooms.The self-paced, selftaught
courses are a cost efficient alternative to more expensive instructor-led
courses and have resulted in a significant cost-savings for USAID.
These savings will continue to grow rapidly as more advanced level
Agency courses require distance learning courses as prerequisites,
and as more and more employees learn to access this relatively new
training medium.
The pyramid shows the types of training an
employee will take
over the course of a career at USAID
2. Staff Strategically Aligned with Agency Priorities
Workforce Analysis and Planning
A key part of the Human Capital Strategy is the establishment of a modern workforce planning capability that integrates with the Agency's overall strategic planning and budgeting processes. USAID is currently conducting the first comprehensive workforce analysis in the Agency's history. This analysis will help to determine staffing levels needed to meet program demands, identify gaps in skills and staffing levels, and create a plan to close the gaps.
Right-Sizing the Overseas Presence - Two New Models
USAID has developed an Overseas Staffing Template, a consistent, transparent method for allocating overseas staff that is integrated with the Agency's strategic planning and budgeting process. Applying this template, Agency management is repositioning the overseas Foreign Service workforce -700 full-time staff-to address critical staffing gaps in the Asia and Near East region. Annual reviews of the overseas staffing template will be conducted based on new mandates and priorities as well as new workforce
planning levels.
The findings from a study of the Agency's Overseas Business Model contain recommendations for consolidating administrative functions in regional service centers to further rationalize staffing and to streamline overseas operations. Plans for implementing decisions are in development.
The Agency's comprehensive workforce planning effort, when completed,
together with the findings from the Agency's Overseas Business Model
study, will establish a strategic process for the overseas staffing
of both U.S. direct hires and non-U.S. direct hires.
3. A More Flexible Workforce Established
Non-Career Limited Term Foreign Service Appointments-Rapid Placement of Staff to Respond to Emerging Program Priorities
In the 2003 legislative session, Congress provided USAID with a new flexible hiring authority that permits hiring of up to 85 new limited-term Foreign Service (FS) employees per year for three years (fiscal years 2004 through 2006) for overseas assignments. This new authority (expanded in FY 2005 to permit hiring up to 175 FS limited employees) will help fill the approximately 40 overseas positions that typically remain unfilled at the end of each Foreign Service assignment cycle due to a lack of human resources. The new authority will also assist in providing a surge capacity to respond to global emergencies and new strategic priorities, such as those associated with recently opened or re-opened missions in Pakistan, Thailand, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Djibouti.
4. Creating a Diverse Workforce
To promote and sustain a diverse and efficient workforce, USAID
is conducting a study of workforce diversity issues and developing
an action plan that will incorporate meaningful affirmative employment
goals into recruitment and training strategies. Current recruitment
outreach activities include participation in national job fairs and
visits to college campuses. USAID recruiters also coordinate with
the Department of State Diplomats in Residence (DIR) to attract a
diverse pool of applicants for the Agency’s
Foreign Service. Many DIRs are located at minority serving institutions.
5. Increasing HR Capacity to Support USAID's Mission
Based on comments from the Administrator's annual employee survey, the Agency is developing a strategy to improve personnel services and streamline HR processes. To enhance services, an automated recruitment tool was introduced to accelerate processing of HR transactions. This tool reduces the amount of time required to fill vacancies, streamlines the job application process, and provides timely information to applicants. As a result, the Agency has reduced the average hiring cycle time - from the close of a job announcement to a job offer - below the OPM standard of 45 days. The web-based and automated features enable completing and submitting applications on-line, notifying applicants of the status of their application by email and automating the rating and ranking process. These increased efficiencies enable the Agency's human resources professionals to devote more time to serving as consultants to USAID customers.
Next Steps
USAID has developed a human resources accountability system that
includes performance metrics to monitor, evaluate, and track achievement
of priorities and goals in USAID’s Human Capital Strategy. Plans
to implement the system are currently being developed.
The Agency is exploring plans to develop an automated HR information
management system (HRIMS). An HRIMS will provide quick and easy access
to centralized information such as an internal skills database that
will assist managers in identifying needed staff when making key decisions
related to unexpected international crises and global emergencies.
In parallel to these efforts, USAID is participating in the cross-agency
OPM HR Line of Business e-Government initiative.This initiative envisions
improving the delivery of HR services through consolidation of common
HR functions that are shared throughout the federal government.
| Human
Capital Milestones |
| Hire 50 employees under DRI. 4th
Quarter FY 2004 |
4th Quarter FY 2004 |
| Appoint 85 non-career FS to fill vacancies overseas. |
4th Quarter FY 2004 |
Construct initial staffing models based on workforce
data collection and initiate
recruitment and assignment actions to address staffing gaps. |
1st Quarter FY 2005 |
| HR accountability system with metrics initiated.
|
2nd Quarter FY 2005 |
| Implement final workforce planning system to
address Agency skills/staffing gaps. |
2nd Quarter FY 2005 |
Summary of Human Capital Achievements
& Benefits
FY 2001 - Present
| Initiative |
USAID Employee Benefits |
U.S. Taxpayer Benefits |
| Development Readiness Initiative (DRI) |
Allows more employees to attend training without creating job coverage gaps |
New talent is in place for current and future succession to ensure continuity of Agency
program operations. |
| FY '04 legislation authorizes USAID to hire
85 Foreign Service Limited positions per year through FY 2006. (Increased to 175 positions per year in FY '05 legislation.) |
Responds to new and emerging program requirements without reassigning employees from other Agency programs. |
USAID is able to quickly respond to high profile, often politically sensitive, and quick response situations that can be critical to national security. |
Since 2001, USAID's training has doubled from the levels of the 1990s.
New certification training programs for technical staff to address skills gaps and to develop new skills.
E-Learning Institute launched.
|
Nearly 1000 employees have received executive and senior leadership training;
Over 500 employees have received supervisory training;
Over 900 employees have received CTO certification training;
Improves employee morale in critical, but under-staffed functions, such as procurement; Employees have completed nearly 2000 courses on-line with reduced disruptions to work responsibilities due to time away from office. (May '03 - July '04).
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Enhanced employee performance results in taxpayer funded Agency programs being carried out as effectively as possible.
USAID's distance learning courses have saved approx. $836K for the Agency for the period 5/03 - 6/04 when compared to traditional instructor led training. In addition, enormous savings are achieved due to reduced travel, hotel and per diem costs.
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| New performance management policies approved by the BTEC streamline annual evaluation procedures, and focus on training, awards and accountability. |
Reduces the amount of time supervisors spend preparing annual evaluation forms; places more emphasis on counseling, career development and results. |
Reduces the amount of time supervisors spend preparing annual evaluation forms; places more emphasis on counseling, career development and results. |
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