<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:92409.wais]
HUMAN CAPITAL SUCCESSION PLANNING: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN GET A
WORKFORCE TO ACHIEVE RESULTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE
AND AGENCY ORGANIZATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 1, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-116
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia, Chairwoman
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
ADAH H. PUTNAM, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Columbia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Ronald Martinson, Staff Director
B. Chad Bungard, Deputy Staff Director and Senior Counsel
Chris Barkley, Clerk
Tania Shand, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 1, 2003.................................. 1
Statement of:
Messner, Howard M., president, National Academy of Public
Administration; and Robert P. Gandossy, global practice
leader, talent and organization consulting, Hewitt
Associates................................................. 38
Mihm, J. Christopher, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S.
General Accounting Office; and Dan G. Blair, Deputy
Director, Office of Personnel Management................... 4
O'Connor, David J., Deputy Assistant Administrator for
Administration and Resources Management, Environmental
Protection Agency; Vicki A. Novak, Assistant Administrator
for Human Resources and Chief Human Capital Officer,
National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and William
H. Campbell, Acting Assistant Secretary for Human Resources
and Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs......... 73
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Blair, Dan G., Deputy Director, Office of Personnel
Management, prepared statement of.......................... 19
Campbell, William H., Acting Assistant Secretary for Human
Resources and Administration, Department of Veterans
Affairs, prepared statement of............................. 91
Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, prepared statement of................... 28
Davis, Hon. Jo Ann, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 3
Gandossy, Robert P., global practice leader, talent and
organization consulting, Hewitt Associates, prepared
statement of............................................... 60
Messner, Howard M., president, National Academy of Public
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 40
Mihm, J. Christopher, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S.
General Accounting Office, prepared statement of........... 7
Novak, Vicki A., Assistant Administrator for Human Resources
and Chief Human Capital Officer, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, prepared statement of................ 82
O'Connor, David J., Deputy Assistant Administrator for
Administration and Resources Management, Environmental
Protection Agency, prepared statement of................... 76
HUMAN CAPITAL SUCCESSION PLANNING: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN GET A
WORKFORCE TO ACHIEVE RESULTS
----------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency
Organization,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in
room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jo Ann Davis of
Virginia (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Jo Ann Davis of Virginia,
Blackburn, Davis of Illinois, and Norton.
Staff present: Ronald Martinson, staff director; B. Chad
Bungard, deputy staff director and senior counsel; Vaughn
Murphy, legislative counsel; Robert White, director of
communications; John Landers, OPM detailee; Chris Barkley,
legislative assistant/clerk; Tania Shand, minority professional
staff member; and Teresa Coufal, minority assistant clerk.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. The Subcommittee on Civil Service
and Agency Organization will come to order. We are going to go
ahead and start. We would hope we will have a few more
subcommittee members joining us here shortly. There is probably
at least three other subcommittees of Government Reform going
on at the present time, not to mention all of our other
committees, so we are spread a little thin today.
I want to thank you all for joining us here today. In
Congress we are constantly confronted with very immediate
problems, the here and now, and we don't always have the time
to step back and take a look at the bigger picture, and that is
what we are going to do here today, to take a longer-term look
at the Federal work force and some of the challenges
confronting it.
Leadership succession in the public sector is a continuing
concern among human resources managers at all levels of
government, and in democracies across the globe. Today we will
receive a General Accounting Office study detailing efforts in
four nations: United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand.
And let me just stop here and say a welcome to a member of
the Parliament of New South Wales who is with us today, Mr.
Matt Brown. Matt, we welcome you and hope you will enjoy seeing
how we do it on this side of the water.
Today, when we hear about these four nations, we will hear
how they address the issue and some of the successful methods
managers there have developed.
The GAO recommendations include making sure top level
leadership is actively engaged in succession planning, linking
succession planning to your strategic plan, identifying and
grooming talented individuals early in their careers, and
concentrating on development and training.
That seems like a good recipe to me, and I will
particularly note the emphasis on staff development.
And I certainly hope that is not a vote that we are having
just as we start. If we have to have a vote you will have to
excuse us for a little bit if we take off. It seems to happen
every time this subcommittee meets.
One of the tools that we as a Government have been sorely
lacking is staff development and training, and that must change
if we are to meet the challenges of the coming years.
We have heard for years now that the Federal Government
faces a potential crisis in its top leadership. For example, as
many as half of the Senior Executive Service could retire by
2005. Whether those worse case scenarios come true or not
remains to be seen, but, regardless, we must do a better job of
preparing the next generation of leaders.
I want to again thank our distinguished guests for being
here, and it is nothing personal that we have to leave in the
middle of votes every time you guys come, or someone from your
office, but it tends to be happening here lately. I look
forward to hearing your remarks.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jo Ann Davis follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2409.001
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Our ranking member, Mr. Davis,
isn't here yet, and if you will allow me, when he does come in,
I will break in between your testimonies to allow him to give
his opening remarks, if he would like to.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative
days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing
record, and that any answers to written questions provided by
the witnesses also be included in the record. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents, and
other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be
included in the hearing record, and that all Members be
permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
One item in particular I would like to insert into the
record is the testimony of the Department of Transportation
regarding its plans for human capital succession planning.
Unfortunately, they were not able to attend today, and, as
such, the testimony will be submitted. Without objection, it is
so ordered.
It is the practice of this committee to administer the oath
to all witnesses, and if our witnesses could stand, I will
administer the oath. And, actually, if all the witnesses would
like to stand at one time, we can just do it all at once.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
And if you will please be seated.
Our first witness today is here from the General Accounting
Office. Chris Mihm is the Director of Strategic Issues at GAO.
Following him will be another friend of this subcommittee, Dan
Blair, the Deputy Director of the Office of Personnel
Management. And we are very glad to have everyone who is here
to testify before us today to discuss this issue.
Mr. Mihm, we will begin with you, and you are recognized
for roughly 5 minutes. We don't have a timer, so be my guest.
STATEMENTS OF J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES,
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; AND DAN G. BLAIR, DEPUTY
DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
Mr. Mihm. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It is indeed
an honor and a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss
the need for increased attention to succession planning and
management in the Federal Government. And I will take your
guidance and use my oral statement and keep it just to around 5
minutes.
Consistent with the point that you made in your opening
statement, my major point today is that the experiences of
other countries provide insights to agencies here in the United
States on how to engage on broad, integrated, that is, long-
term views of succession planning and management; and that
these efforts are central to identifying and developing the
leaders, the managers, and the work force necessary to meet the
governance challenges of the 21st century, that is that
succession planning and management, when done right, can help
an agency become what it needs to be rather than simply
recreating an existing organization that may no longer be
appropriate for emerging needs. In other words, succession
planning is not so much focused on filling a specific position
or refilling a specific position, but is, rather, more
concerned with what are the competencies that we need to be
successful and what is the best way that we are going to get
those competencies in the future.
As you noted in your opening statement, the demographic
facts are that the Federal Government faces a retirement wave
in the coming years, at some point it is coming. Fortunately,
and partially in response to these demographic realities,
succession planning and management is starting to receive
increased attention by Congress, as evidenced obviously by the
hearing that you are holding today, by OPM under the leadership
of Director James and Deputy Director Blair, by OMB, and by the
agencies.
As you also mentioned in your opening statement, today you
are releasing a report that we prepared at your request and
Senator Voinovich's request that shows some of the specific
practices that leading public sector organizations in
Australia, including New South Wales, Canada, New Zealand, and
the United Kingdom are implementing.
We learned first, and not surprisingly, that succession
planning and management in leading organizations has the
support of top management; and this is evident in at least
three ways. First, top leadership actively participates in
succession planning initiatives; it is not something that they
allow to happen or that they staff out to others, rather, it is
something that they actively engage in. Second, they use the
results of the succession planning efforts in order to actually
staff new positions as a basis of decisionmaking. And, third,
they make sure that succession planning efforts have the
resources they need in order to be successful.
We are in obviously an exceedingly difficult budget time,
but a lot of these things aren't budget neutral in the short
term; that is, there are difficult tradeoffs that need to be
made, and if we are serious about developing our people, we
have to be willing to devote the resources and the commitment
and the time to do that.
Second, successful efforts link to strategic planning. We
found that leading organizations use their succession planning
and management as a strategic planning tool that focuses on
current and future needs and develops pools of high potential
staff in order to meet the organization's mission over the
long-term.
Third, leading efforts identify talent from multiple
organizational levels, early in employees' careers, and those
with critical skills; that is, succession planning is not just
who is next in line, but let us make sure that we have career
development and career training in place so that we are
preparing an entire generation for the leadership roles in the
future.
Fourth, successful efforts emphasize development
assignments; that is, that these efforts have developmental or
stretch assignments for high potential employees in addition to
the very important formal training components of the succession
planning programs.
Fifth, succession planning is understood as being
instrumental to addressing other human capital challenges such
as diversity, leadership capacity, and retention. Consistent
with the importance of this practice, I understand the
subcommittee will be holding a hearing in the near future on
SES diversity issues and the candidate development program.
Sixth, and finally, we learned from leading organizations
that succession planning and management is used to facilitate
broader transformation efforts; that is, effective succession
planning and management initiatives provide a powerful tool for
fostering agency transformation by selecting and developing
leaders and managers who support and champion change. I know
this is a personal signature issue of yours of trying to get a
handle on the overlap and duplication of programs here at the
Federal level. If we are going to be serious about attacking
that, we need to have people, change managers, in place that
are capable of looking across organizational boundaries and
making that change take place.
In summary, governmental agencies around the world are
anticipating the need for leaders and other key employees with
the necessary competencies to successfully meet the complex
challenges of the 21st century. As a result, they are choosing
succession planning and management initiatives that go beyond
simply replacing individuals, to initiatives that strategically
position the organization for the future. While of course there
is no one right way for organizations to manage the succession
of their leadership and other key employees, the experiences of
the countries that we looked at, we believe, provide insights
for executive agencies here in the United States that they
could use to ensure that they have the succession planning
practices in place to protect and even enhance organizational
capacity.
That concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihm follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Mihm.
Mr. Blair, we are happy to recognize you for whatever 5
minutes is on your watch.
Mr. Blair. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate that
very much. I have a rather lengthy written statement. I ask
that it be included for the record, and I will shorten that in
my oral testimony.
I am pleased to be here today, Congresswoman Blackburn. It
is good to be back. And it is also good to be in this panel
with my good friend Chris Mihm. I have worked with Chris for
quite a long time on many of these shared issues, and I find it
a great opportunity to be here on the same panel today.
Let me briefly detail some of the work that we have done at
OPM to ensure that we have a good framework in place for
agencies to access in order to engage in good succession
planning. Back in 2001, OPM began working closely with the
agencies, learning about them, learning about their specific
human capital problems in order to help them develop plans and
make commitments to move toward more strategic management of
their most important asset, the work forces. In 2002, OPM, the
Office of Management and Budget, and GAO collaborated to issue
a shared document, ``Human Capital Standards for Success,''
which provided a clear set of outcomes for agencies to use
engaging their efforts. As a need for more guidance became
apparent, OPM developed a human capital assessment and
accountability framework. This is a model to guide agencies
toward achieving these standards. Succession planning is woven
throughout these six standards of success, and the framework
also focuses attention on agencies engaging in this practice.
OPM is charged with scoring agencies on the President's
executive branch score card, and we witnessed agencies moving
from red to yellow status. What this shows is that agencies are
not only developing a good work force plan and strategies, but
beginning to implement them as well. Green scores will only be
accorded when the plans are implemented and we start to see
real results, and, honestly, we are not there yet, but we have
seen progress, and that is good news.
Further, work force planning and succession planning are
not a one-time event. Rather, we rate agencies on an ongoing
quarterly basis and, as the expression goes, what gets measured
is what gets done; and there is no more compelling way of
attracting senior level attention to an issue than by scoring
it.
While the score card attracts senior level leadership
attention to improving HR management, there are also other
ways. For instance, the recently constituted Chief Human
Capital Officers Council will provide a venue for senior agency
leaders to focus on human resources needs. The Council, which
was authorized by the homeland security legislation, has formed
a subcommittee specifically devoted to leadership development
and succession planning, and this will help institutionalize
these efforts as agencies and departments face changing work
force needs.
We also need to build capacity in the HR field across
Government. We have featured trading and guidance on the new HR
flexibilities which were recently made available, and also
OPM's human capital officers, and these are our desk officers
who are devoted to specific agencies and departments, are
available to advise agencies on the host of human resource
questions and needs which arise on a daily basis. To do this,
OPM had to undergo a significant restructuring, which we
completed last March. To many insiders, this proved to be the
most significant realignment of the agency since its inception.
We de-stovepiped 12 separate offices and services, and formed 3
new externally oriented divisions intended to provide our
customers, the agencies, with the most contemporary and up to
date HR advice counsel and the services available.
OPM's mission has changed. Indeed, our responsibilities in
evaluating and assessing agencies' progress on the human
capital front, ensuring employee safety and security, and
ensuring compliance with merit system principles throughout
Government have grown, and our new organizational structure
will allow us to better deliver on these missions and goals.
We also engaged on our own extensive succession planning.
We developed a new human capital plan, identified mission
critical occupations and key competencies, and recently hired
18 new senior executives under a streamlined approach. Our
hiring of these executives, 14 of them in 49 days, shows that
quality hiring can be accomplished quickly when top agency
leadership, in this case Director James, place a high emphasis
and high priority on it.
These efforts are grounded on making sure that we have the
future talent available to carry out our mission. We have all
heard of the impending retirement wave. While actual
retirements are less than those originally predicted, we still
must be prepared to address the turnover which will eventually
come. That is why today's hearing is so important, because it
continues to focus on what OPM and the Federal Government is
doing to prepare for and ensure a sound and secure future of
America.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of the committee. I
am happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blair follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Blair. It is always
a pleasure to have you here to testify before this committee,
and you too, Mr. Mihm.
I would like to now yield to our ranking member, Mr. Danny
Davis. Thank you, Danny, for being here. If you would like to
give an opening statement.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Well, I think I will. Thank you very
much. This is indeed a very busy day, Madam Chairwoman, and I
want to thank you for your indulgence, and also let me thank
you for holding this hearing.
And as we begin, I want to indicate appreciation to
Director James and her staff for the close working
relationships that have developed and the kind of relationships
that we have had with them during this period of time.
We have heard of all the predictions that there is going to
be a wave of retirements in the Federal Civil Service, and more
specifically within the Senior Executive Service. GAO has
released two reports that document the importance of succession
planning and the need to incorporate diversity as a management
initiative in the Senior Executive Service.
The first report, which was released in 2000 and was
entitled ``Senior Executive Service Retirement Trends
Underscore the Importance of Succession Planning'' found that
of the 6,000 SESes employed in September 1998, 71 percent will
be eligible to retire by 2005. The report also found that SES
succession planning is not being done in the Federal
Government, and that OPM could do more to help agencies with
their succession plans and to monitor their progress.
The second report, which was requested by myself and other
members of the Government Reform Committee, found that if
current promotion and hiring trends continue, the proportions
of minority men and women among senior executives will likely
remain unchanged over the next 4 years. The report, titled
``Senior Executive Service: Enhanced Agency Efforts Needed to
Improve Diversity at the Senior Corps,'' which was released
earlier this year, will be the focus of a hearing the
chairwoman has agreed to hold during the coming weeks.
It is my understanding that at today's hearing GAO will
release a report that will examine the succession planning
efforts of other countries. The report, which was requested by
Chairwoman Davis and Senator Voinovich, will help Federal
agencies develop their own succession planning and management
initiatives.
This hearing will help the subcommittee to understand
better the current status of retirements in the Federal
Government, how the agencies are planning for the loss in
leadership continuity and expertise, and what roles agency
chief human capital officers and the Office of Personnel
Management can play in assisting agencies in succession
planning, and what impact retirements will have on the
diversity of the Senior Executive Service.
Of course, I look forward to the testimony and exchange of
all the witnesses, and again want to thank you, Chairwoman
Davis, for holding this hearing and for the work that you
continue to do as we explore human capital needs.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2409.020
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
I would like to turn now to Mrs. Blackburn and ask do you
have an opening statement?
Mrs. Blackburn. No.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Davis, if you would like to begin with the questioning,
I will yield to you.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Well, thank you very much. And let
me again thank the witnesses for appearing.
Mr. Blair, why don't I start with you? You heard my opening
statement, and you heard the request that had been made and the
expression of concern relative to diversity within the SES
ranks. Could you share with us what the Office of Personnel
Management is currently doing and attempting to do that will
help reverse those trends?
Mr. Blair. I think, first and foremost, we have been
working closely with you, as you know, Congressman, in
developing a Candidate Development Program for the SES, which
has an eye toward increasing the diversity in its ranks. I
understand that is going to be the subject of a hearing in the
next couple weeks, and I don't want to take any thunder away
from that hearing, but I think this CDP is very important for
meeting the goals that we share. I think that there isn't an
agency head in this Government that is more committed to
achieving diversity than Director James, and I think that
conversations that you have had with her exemplify her
commitment toward working to that goal.
While we don't have the CDP in place quite yet, let me just
give you a brief skeletal outline of what that will do. What we
are looking at doing is allowing people to apply to the CDP,
work at agencies, and once they graduate from the CDP program
of instruction over 12 to 14 months, they will be eligible to
non-competitive appointment in the Senior Executive Service,
subject to the QRB, Qualifications Review Board, review. I
think this will be a good way of bringing people into the
pipeline; it will be a good way of staffing quickly. As we
know, SES hiring takes far too long as it stands right now, and
if we are in a war for talent, that talent is quickly snatched
up by competitors.
One example of our efforts at diversity I think would be
the recent 14 new hires or 18 new hires that we have at OPM in
our SES ranks. We cast a very, very broad net when we
advertised for that. We did 14 of them with one vacancy
announcement. We did it to all sources; we brought people from
inside the Government, outside the Government, from inside OPM,
outside OPM; and we brought forth a very diverse rank of senior
executives. I think that is an example of what can be done when
you have senior agency leadership attention to a problem. And
it is also a way of bringing about a solution.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mihm, in GAO's 2000 report on retirement trends in the
SES, GAO recommended that OPM improve its efforts to identify
and monitor agency succession planning efforts. Has OPM taken
sufficient steps since 2000 to assist agencies with their
overall succession planning efforts?
Mr. Mihm. Mr. Davis, we are following up on that now both
because it was a recommendation in that report and also as part
of a separate request from the chairwoman to look at the
succession planning program that is in place across the Federal
Government. I had the opportunity to be at the kickoff meeting
for the Candidate Development Program, I know that you spoke
there, as well as Director James, and so we are all looking
forward to as the details of that roll out and as the program
gets stood up.
One thing I would underscore, and Mr. Blair mentioned this,
is that diversity just doesn't happen, it has to be planned for
and you have to work hard at it. That was the central message
of the report that we did in 2000, as you mentioned in your
statement, that if we don't do anything, that is, if we keep
with the program that we have in place, we will, at best, keep
with the current levels, which are not viewed by many as being
acceptable. So if we are serious about having a more diverse
Federal work force, we need to augment that with stronger and
better programs. The work we did overseas showed examples of
agencies in other countries, in the U.K. and Canada and
elsewhere, that do instill as a central part of their
succession planning efforts a desire to have a more diverse
work force. That is part of the lens that we are going to be
taking as we begin to look at succession planning programs
across Government.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. As we look at across the board, and
we can leave the diversification out at the moment, let me just
ask do either one of you or both of you see the level of
succession planning meeting the need that has been predicted? I
know we predicted that lots of people were reaching the age
where their beards turn gray or their hair gets a little
thinner and, you know, they move on to other things. Overall,
are we doing enough to prepare when those individuals leave,
that we are going to have the personnel with the expertise and
experience that is needed to operate the highest levels of our
Government?
Mr. Blair. Let me start on that. I don't know if you can
ever do enough to prepare, but, indeed, light is being shown
and heat is being focused on this potential problem. Let us
remember how we got to where we are today. I think that the
whole issue of work force planning, in my view, is kind of an
outgrowth of the GPRA, the Results Act. When we first started
asking agencies to define their missions and goals and what
they were supposed to be doing, the next logical question was
do they have the assets and the resources to accomplish this. I
think a great amount of credit goes to GAO, to David Walker and
his staff for highlighting what was a very serious problem in
that the Federal work force, should we stay where we were at 5
years ago, wasn't going to be prepared to deliver on the
results for the American people.
But in the past few years you have seen a number of reports
issued, a high emphasis on this. When I came over to OPM, we
have been engaged for the last 2 years focusing highly on what
we were going to do to prepare agencies for not only today or
the immediate future, but for the changing needs as we face the
future; and I think that while more needs to be done, a lot has
been accomplished already. As I said in my opening statement,
this isn't a one-time event, this is an ongoing process,
because we can prepare for tomorrow, but tomorrow may not bring
what we thought it was going to. And so agencies, departments
are going to have to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate where
they see themselves going not only in the short-term and the
long-term, but re-evaluate what they need to have in order to
accomplish those goals.
Mr. Mihm. I would agree with Mr. Blair, that much has been
done already, but needs to be done. In fact, that is often a
joke about a GAO report titled progress has been made, but more
needs to be done. The baseline, though, from which we are
developing, we have to keep in mind, is very low, and that is,
as probably Mr. Messner from the National Academy of Public
Administration will be able to testify, when NAPA did a study
in 1997, only 2 of 27 agencies responding said that they had a
succession planning program in place. In 1999, a joint survey
done by OPM and the Senior Executive Association found that 50
percent of all career members of the SES said they didn't have
a formal succession program in their agency for SES, and 75
percent said they didn't have a succession planning program for
other important managers in those agencies.
Often when we go into agencies and we find succession
planning that isn't working well, what the problem is it is a
focus on replacing individual positions; that is, if Dan
leaves, who is going to replace him, or if I leave, who is
going to replace me. And that is important, but more important
is a focus on where does this organization need to be in the
future. What do we want it to look like, what sort of
competencies do we want to have in the future, and what are the
strategies that we are going to put in place to get us there?
And that is not just looking at who is next in line for a slot,
it is looking early in people's career; what sort of training
and development and exposure do we need to give them so that we
are positioning an entire generation for leadership when they
are ready.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Well, let me thank both of you
gentlemen, and thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and just close by
suggestion that not only do I appreciate the comments of the
witnesses, but I also appreciate the integration with which the
thinking seems to be, because I am pretty convinced that as we
do succession planning, if we don't plan diversification in
that thinking and in that process, it means that I am going to
keep coming to hearings and look in the room and see a room
that looks pretty much like this one, as opposed to looking
different. I am a very simple person, and I have often been
told that what you see is what you get, and so many of the
hearings that I attend, quite frankly, many of them there are
no minority members at all; and there are others they come like
an old man's teeth, that is, few and far between. And I think
it is just high time that we actually practice what we preach,
I am saying, and if we don't do the hard-nosed planning and
really do it, it is kind of like my mother used to tell us, you
know, what you do speaks so loudly until I can't hear what you
are saying. And so I am appreciative of the direction that both
the agencies seem to be headed, and I really appreciate your
testimony.
Mr. Blair. Thank you, sir.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
And, Mr. Blair, I don't think you ever can prepare enough,
as I think my district will tell you since Hurricane Isabel hit
and we thought we were all prepared, but surely we were not.
Mrs. Blackburn, I will yield to you for questions.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you so much. And I hope you all can
hear me. I am kind of spread out with my collection of stuff I
take with me, and between two microphones here.
I thank you all for your comments on this, and also thank
you to you and your staffs for your work. I think that it is
incredibly important that the Federal Government, as an
employer, create an environment in which people feel as if they
can succeed and they can improve their quality of life. As one
who enjoys mentoring individuals, especially women, I have
always thought it was important to communicate, when you are
talking about leadership and leadership skills that are used in
the marketplace, to have people come to an understanding that
leadership is a transferable commodity, and a skill developed
is a skill retained and improved upon. And I would like to know
what you all are doing, or if in your systems you have a plan
that allows individuals, especially new hires, younger hires,
mid-career folks, to look at possibilities in other agencies
where their skills may be better placed or better used.
Mr. Mihm, I will go to you first with that.
Mr. Mihm. One of the most intriguing proposals and, in our
view, important proposals that is coming out of OPM is to
augment and perhaps even revitalize the Presidential Management
Intern Program, which is an entry-level program for certain
exceedingly high quality individuals and then to supplement
that with, I am not sure of the right acronym, but basically a
mid-career program as well. What we have often found in the
past, and the complaint of many people in the PMI program,
would be while they love the program and the opportunity to
move around agencies or even within a single agency, the
problem had been that after a 2-year period, when the
internship ends, then it just ends, and the next time they may
be picked up or cared about in a very direct way would be if
they qualify 10, 15 years later for a Candidate Development
Program for the Executive Service.
The proposal, as we understand it, that OPM is making is
consistent with one of the better features that we saw in our
discussions with our counterparts in the United Kingdom. They
have a program called Fast Stream, which identifies high
quality individuals when they come in, recruits them into the
service, and then sticks with them, in a sense, giving them a
set of developmental, training opportunities, exactly, ma'am,
what you are talking about, moving them systematically around
agencies so that they get exposure to different situations and
the government gets exposure to them, and so that it is a win-
win situation. So that is one of the things we have liked best
about the OPM proposal.
Mrs. Blackburn. Right.
Mr. Blair, before I come to you, let me ask you all this.
With the Employee Human Resource Info System and the Human
Capital Assessment and Accountability Workshop, how many
different agencies have that in place at this point?
Mr. Blair. I am not sure I understand your question. The
EHRI is one of the E-Government initiatives that we are working
on right now, and what that is going to be is an electronic
repository of employee information that will cover their entire
career life span.
Mrs. Blackburn. So it is not in place.
Mr. Blair. It is not in place. It is in various phases of
implementation.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. And the total cost of that will be
what?
Mr. Blair. I would have to get back with you. I know that
the Director testified last week that there will be significant
savings produced by all five of the E-Government initiatives,
but I don't have that at the tip of my tongue right now.
Mrs. Blackburn. I would love to know that, I certainly
would.
The Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework
[HCAAF], how many agencies is that in place in?
Mr. Blair. Well, that will cover all 24 of the major
agencies.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK.
Mr. Blair. What that framework is, it takes the six
standards for success, which if an agency is doing well and it
is managing its work force, it will meet those six standards,
and what that framework does, it says how do you get there; it
is what cascades it down and has critical factors and elements
for success and a checklist of whether or not you are
performing well.
Mrs. Blackburn. But are they currently using that system,
or is that in the process of being implemented?
Mr. Blair. We are currently using that system in helping
agencies assess themselves and in assessing the agencies.
Mrs. Blackburn. In 24 agencies?
Mr. Blair. Yes.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Great.
Now, as you look at these initiatives, human capital
initiatives, how do you see general Government reform
initiatives tying into those with your human capital planning,
your reshaping and reorganizing Government, redefining jobs,
redefining expectations from specific jobs?
Mr. Mihm, you are shaking your head. Are you all working
toward a systematic reorganization of different departments,
expected outcomes, and is there a timeframe for this?
Mr. Mihm. Well, as you know, the Comptroller General has
often been talking about, for a variety of reasons, there is a
need for Government to fundamentally transform what it does and
how it does business, and in some cases even who does the
Government's business. We think a central part of those change
management initiatives must be, obviously, attention to the
people element of that. When we looked at senior executive, the
top cadre of career executive perform plans 2 years ago, we
found that, in our view, they didn't give sufficient attention
to exactly the types of issues that you are suggesting: change
management, looking at the ability to look across
organizational boundaries and form alliances or partnerships
with people in different organizations. They were real good on
a lot of basic business acumen, but they weren't as good, and
this is the contracts, in what we need to do to really change
Government. That is something that we are working with Mr.
Blair's staff on, to think about how we can better embed those
within the SES contracts, and I know that they have a very
serious initiative on that underway.
Mr. Blair. Let me just add to that, that it is very
important that not only a senior executive knows what his or
her contribution is expected to be to the organization's
success, but you also need to drive that down into the line
employees as well. Individual employees need to know how their
work is valued and what that value is to the organization,
because without that you don't have the continuity or the kinds
of expectations that you expect in helping employees reach
overall mission goals and results. And so it is very, very
important that not only the senior executives, but line
employees down to the lowest general schedule levels understand
what their job is and how that jobs relates to the mission of
the agency.
Mr. Mihm. In our case, we call that creating a line of
sight between individual performance and individual activities
and organizational goals, and I completely agree that it is
absolutely critical.
Mrs. Blackburn. As you all move forward on this, are you
searching for appropriate ways to incentivize or reward the
different divisions and agencies and individuals that meet
their goals and expected outcomes and provide superior
performance?
Mr. Blair. Absolutely.
Mrs. Blackburn. Did I just ask the question you had really
wanted to answer?
Mr. Blair. Well, no. Actually, I think that the chairman
and I had quite a discussion about this back in the spring. The
President did propose a pay-for-performance proposal in the
budget that we have been working to enact. Let me just say that
our compensation as it now stands does very little to reward or
differentiate in performance, and that we need to change that;
that we give large across-the-board pay raises to good
performers, poor performers, bad performers, no performers,
great performers, every kind of performer, and that is not the
way to run a railroad or a Government.
Mrs. Blackburn. Or a business.
Mr. Blair. Exactly.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you.
Mr. Mihm. I would completely agree. We do need to create
incentives, and pay needs to be part of that for increased
performance. In our own case in GAO, that is clearly the way
that we have been moving under the leadership of the
Comptroller General. The key part of that we are finding is to
make sure that you have a performance management system in
place that is credible, reliable, modern, and includes a set of
safeguards; and once that is there, then you can easily move to
a pay-for-performance scheme.
Mrs. Blackburn. Madam Chairwoman, thank you.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mrs. Blackburn.
You know, obviously there is a large number of senior level
Federal employees who are eligible for retirement in the near
future, and we keep hearing how it is a human capital crisis,
but is it really a human capital crisis? Since people have been
coming and going from Government service for as long as we have
had a Government, why is that a greater issue or problem today
than it was in the past?
Mr. Blair. Well, I think today you see greater numbers of
people eligible, and I think the key word there is eligible,
for retiring than we have seen in the past. And while we have
made some projections, it has turned out that we haven't seen
quite the retirement wave that we thought it was going to be,
it has been more of a high tide, so to speak. But we expect
that tide to continue to come in, and we need to be prepared
for that. And so I think some people have described this as a
human capital crisis. Well, I am one to say that I don't know
if I describe it as a crisis, but it certainly has focused
attention, and this is the kind of needed attention that this
area has needed for a long time. And so call it what you might,
but we need the kind of attention, we need to continue to come
up with solutions to many of the impending problems that we are
going to see not only in the next 5 years, but 10, 15 years
down the line.
Mr. Mihm. I would agree with Dan in terms of the numbers of
eligibility, and then just add to that what makes this time
unique and particularly an opportunity is that the need for
change is so great, and that is that the risk and the danger of
a succession planning approach that simply recreates the
existing organization, it was never the right thing to do and
now it is completely intolerable. The fiscal situation just
doesn't allow us that luxury.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. This may be more to you, Mr. Mihm,
but, Dan, if you have an answer, you can certainly give it.
What do you think are the factors that led to the graying of
the Government work force and how did we get here? How did we
get to this bubble where we have the problem today and we
didn't have it in the past?
Mr. Mihm. Well, I think that as Dan was pointing out, it is
not so much that it is more gray now, taking Mr. Davis' note,
that it is more gray now than perhaps it had been in the past.
We are, to some extent, at a historical moment in that a lot of
the generation that came in when the Federal Government was
more activist in nature, in the 1960's, is now entering or
nearing retirement age, and so there was a bubble there that is
moving its way through. For example, the agency, with my
understanding, that has the highest number of retirement
eligibility, HUD, had a huge influx in staff and dollars about
this period 20, 25, 30 years ago, and so there is a bubble that
is working its way through there. I think fundamentally,
though, as I mentioned, the issue is that the opportunity for
using succession planning in a way that allows us to rethink
missions and roles of Government, and how we want to do
business, is greater than perhaps it has been in the past, and
that is the issue that we need to take advantage of.
Mr. Blair. I would only add that it is demographics. We see
this nationwide, it is not a phenomena of the Federal
Government, it is a phenomena of the private sector as well.
The baby boom generation is aging, we are reaching that bubble,
and so we are going to see an increasing number of retirements.
Also, over the last 10 years we saw the Government downsize,
and in that downsizing a number of agencies just shut down
their hiring practices. So you didn't have people coming into
the pipeline, and so as people progressed and grew in their
Government positions and roles, and progressed through their
grades, you didn't have anyone backing them up. And so that is
what makes this problem particularly troublesome, is that we
didn't have the pipeline in place, the backfill, so to speak,
that when people do retire, that you have people there to
immediately take their places. And that is why succession and
workplace planning is so important, is because, as Chris said
earlier, you will know not only that you need to fill the
position, but the question is do you even need that position
anymore, because you may not need that position anymore, you
may need five positions over here and none over there. And that
is what these exercises are all about, to look into a crystal
ball and project down the road not only who you are going to
need in place, but what those places should be.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Don't we have quite a few GS-14s
and 15s that are there now that have the experience and they
have learned, that could just step into the places of the
SESes?
Mr. Blair. We have them in place, but I think that you will
see that demographically they are reaching retirement
eligibility as well. I think the average Federal worker is age
47.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. That is pretty young, Dan.
Mr. Blair. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. But that puts some
within 8 years of retirement. And so that is why even at 14 or
15, and 14 or 15 is oftentimes where people end their careers,
most don't make it into the SES. And so we just didn't see the
entry level hires over the past 10 years that we may have seen
otherwise had Government not closed the doors on many of its
hiring efforts.
Mr. Mihm. We worked with OPM data and found something like
70 percent of the executive corps is retirement eligible over
the next couple of years; about half of the GS-15s, or
traditional feeder pool, is retirement eligible; a little bit
under half of the GS-14s would be retirement eligible. It gets
to exactly the point that Mr. Davis was mentioning, is that if
we don't augment, in the case of diversity programs, those
programs by just reproducing or going to the next level back,
we are buying ourselves very small time.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Dan, as you know, succession
planning requires top level management. Is OPM doing its best
to ensure that the agency's leaders know what they are doing
and that they are committed to work force planning? What is OPM
doing to make sure that all agencies are going to be ready?
Mr. Blair. Well, I think what is leading that effort is the
President's executive branch score card and how we are rating
and ranking the agencies. You don't really get anyone's
attention until you start measuring what they are doing, and
rating a department secretary or agency head on how well they
are managing their work force certainly gets their attention.
And so we have seen progress being made. As of the end of the
third quarter in this fiscal year, I believe 12 agencies were
at yellow in terms of status on human capital. We will be
releasing the fourth quarter scores within the near term.
Hopefully we will see some more improvements. I don't think we
will see anyone at green yet, but it is too early to tell. But
we are seeing improvements. And we have also required that
agencies have work force planning and succession plans in
place. We have seen most agencies comply with that. I think
maybe there are five or six that don't at this point, but we
are working with all of them.
This has been a challenge. I think Chris mentioned earlier
that as of 1997, which was 6 years ago, only one, was it you
said?
Mr. Mihm. Two of 27.
Mr. Blair. Two of 27 agencies had any kind of work force
planning in place. And so this is a relatively young and new
concept for the Government to be engaging in, but something
that seems to have been grasped quite quickly, and it is due to
hearings such as this that brings high level attention and
shines light on a problem that really needs that attention.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. And I would assume OPM is going to
stay on these agencies on a regular basis so that they don't
slip?
Mr. Blair. Absolutely.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, I want to thank both of you
gentlemen. We have a lot more questions, but we do have two
more panels.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Can I ask one?
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Yes, sir, you certainly may. You
may ask two if you would like.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Just one, actually.
Mr. Mihm intrigued me with something that you said in terms
of the numbers of people who came into the Government during
the 1960's as a result of its activist perception. So you are
saying that if people believe that the Government is doing
something, then recruitment won't be a problem?
Mr. Mihm. It certainly helps. You know, one of the great
things about marketing or recruiting, one of GAO's recruiters
recruiting for the Federal Government is our mission, and being
able to recruit based on what we do.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. I thought that was interesting,
because I thought of myself, and I actually started to come to
work for the Federal Government during that period, and that is
exactly the reason that I almost became a bureaucrat.
Mr. Mihm. The one that got away, sir.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. It was in the late 1960's for me,
Danny, not the early 1960's. The late 1960's, all I ever heard
about was go to work for Civil Service, great benefits, great
retirement, but it was really tough to get in.
I want to thank both of you gentlemen, and I am sure we
will have other questions, and we may submit questions to you
in writing to have you reply back for the record. And thank you
again for being willing to come up.
Mr. Blair. Thank you.
Mr. Mihm. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I would now like to invite our
second panel of witnesses to please come forward to the witness
table. On this panel we have Howard Messner, president of the
National Academy of Public Administration. Next we have Robert
Gandossy, global practice leader for talent and organization
consulting at Hewitt Associates.
And I would like to thank you gentlemen for being patient,
and the record will show that we have already administered the
oath, and I will remind you that you are under oath when you
testify.
The panel will now be recognized for an opening statement,
and we will ask you to summarize your testimony in 5 minutes,
and any more complete statement that you have may be included
in the record.
I want to welcome you, Mr. Messner, and thank you for being
with us today, and thank you for your patience, and you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF HOWARD M. MESSNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION; AND ROBERT P. GANDOSSY, GLOBAL PRACTICE
LEADER, TALENT AND ORGANIZATION CONSULTING, HEWITT ASSOCIATES
Mr. Messner. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of
this subcommittee. I will leave a longer statement because the
National Academy of Public Administration has a longstanding
interest in this subject of succession planning. We have been
working in the field since 1992 and have turned out a number of
reports, one of which Chris Mihm kindly referred to and has
been used as a reference. Our latest report, which I am going
to turn over to the committee, is really a series of reports
with 21st century managers series, and in that we revisit this
whole question of succession planning, and I would like to make
it available to the committee, if that is all right.
The Academy is an independent non-profit organization; it
has been chartered by the Congress; it is composed of some 550
people we refer to as fellows; it is very much like the
National Academy of Sciences, only its focus and its mandate
from the Congress is to look at management issues, and we do
studies of Government agencies. The people who are fellows in
the Academy have headed agencies, have worked in Federal
agencies and also worked State, local, and internationally.
The reason that we are so interested in the question of
succession planning is because it speaks to the resources that
are available to the National Government. We spend hundreds of
millions of dollars on the human resources of the Federal
Government, and if we do it right, if we spend the money
usefully, we end up with people who provide outstanding
services to the people of America, and that is what it all
about, get the programs out that the Congress empowers the
President to administer.
In order to make this investment pay off, we really need to
be careful to look forward and not just at the present time. I
spent 26 years in the Government, both in the executive branch
and in the legislative branch, and I know what most managers
know: we are concerned with today. You have a lot of mandates,
a lot of questions, a lot of jobs require you to pay attention
to what is going on around you, and the future is that dim
prospect that you might get to if you can get through today's
workload.
Succession planning argues for thinking ahead, and that is
a hard argument to win. It takes political leadership. The
political leadership of agencies that comes in doesn't stay
very long. Our studies show that most assistant secretaries
stay about 21 months, and you don't do much succession planning
in 21 months. What you can do is inspire the career service,
particularly the middle of the career service, to think about
succession planning and start processes that encourage
employees to look to the future.
Where the Academy has found good succession planning, and
there isn't that much of it, we think about 28 percent of the
agencies actually have programs for succession planning
underway. Where you do find good succession planning, you
usually find other attributes of a healthy personnel system:
mobility, job training, diversity, upward mobility. Those are
ingredients in the planning process, and you usually find some
kind of linkage between the strategic goals of the agency and
the development of the employees of that agency. Private
sector, not always well, not uniformly well; General Electric,
IBM come to mind that are places where succession planning is a
kind of way of life. The Federal Government, the Social
Security Administration I would call your attention to, which
has had a longstanding history of trying to develop strategies
for the future.
We agree very much with the GAO and others that there is a
potential for losing a lot of our senior talent in the next
decade; partly because of the demographics, partly because of
economics, partly because we have created a personnel system
that encourages mobility. And the Congress made the pension
programs of the Government portable. You have enabled people to
think in terms of coming in and out of the Government with much
more flexibility. So at the top of the system you have
developed and trained people who are attractive in the private
sector and the university system, in the not-for-profit sector.
People have options and choices, and take them.
At the bottom of the system you are bringing in young
people with very different expectations than I had when I
started in the early 1960's with the NASA and the space
program. I came in with the thought that a minimum of 30 years
was acceptable and happy thought, and I was, first, happy to
have the job and, second, very happy to be part of such an
exciting career path. Today you will find, among the younger
employees, attitudes that say I can come in and go out of the
Government at will; there are talents that are portable; I
don't lose my pension rights, I can retain those, they are
vested in me. And so you have created a very competitive
marketplace in a shrinking market, and that shrinking market
requires us to think smarter and be more strategic in our
thinking of how we deal with human resources.
The National Academy has a continuing interest in this
field. We work with agencies everyday to try to encourage the
thought of long-term service to the public, and we would be
very happy to help this committee in any way possible. I thank
you for the opportunity to speak to you, and if I can answer
questions after my colleague's remarks, I would be glad to do
it.
[Note.--The Hewitt report entitled, ``How Companies Grow
Great Leaders, Top Companies for Leaders 2003, Research
Highlights,'' may be found in subcommittee files.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Messner follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much, Mr. Messner.
Mr. Gandossy? Am I pronouncing it correctly?
Mr. Gandossy. Gandossy.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Gandossy.
Mr. Gandossy. Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee,
thank you for having me here. I have presented to boards of
directors and senior management teams of some of the world's
largest corporations, but this is my first time before a
subcommittee, so I am honored to be here.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, we are glad to have you.
Mr. Gandossy. I also want to say that I am not an expert on
the Federal Government, but I am an expert on succession
planning and management practices and leadership practices of
the world's largest corporations.
I want to begin by echoing what some of my colleagues have
already said, and that is that succession management is a
system; it is a process; it is a set of practices; it is a way
of operating and managing an enterprise; and it can't be done
well by adopting someone else's best practices.
For decades, leaders of all walks of life have understood
that people are the source of lasting competitive advantage for
any organization. The late, great Alfred Sloan, one of the
leaders of General Motors, once said, take my assets and leave
my people, and I will have it all back in 5 years. Bill Gates
of Microsoft said, take 20 of our best people and overnight we
become a mediocre company. And more recently Jim Collins wrote
a terrific book called ``Good to Great'' in which he said that
first finding the best people, then you determine the strategy
and the priorities for the enterprise, and that is the way to
operate.
But in spite of this knowledge and deep-seated
understanding, many organizations do not operate with these
principles in mind. They are characterized by tenure-based
systems rather than those based on contribution; they hire and
develop B players, as opposed to seeking and identifying the
best; and they have a high tolerance for mediocrity and
substandard performance. But driven by fierce competition and
demographics, as we have talked about, and the prevalence of
better models to follow, the last decade has brought with it
much more rigor and more sophistication in terms of how
organizations throughout the world manage their talent.
In spite of this, in both the public and the private
sector, we face a leadership crisis. The demographic challenges
alone are daunting. As was said already this afternoon, aging
boomers are beginning to retire, or at least begin to think
about it. And as this boomer bubble bursts, the biggest
challenge is the drop in the number of people between the ages
of 35 and 44. Over the next 15 years there will be a 15 percent
drop in that key population that is the category of people that
is so critical to developing future leaders. Since peaking in
the late 1990's, the numbers for this group have decreased
markedly, and will continue to fall until 2015, when again they
will begin to slope upwards.
But the leadership crisis exists for more than demographic
reasons. Confidence in leaders has declined everywhere. The
lack of integrity by a few have tainted all. Temptations
abound, uncertainty is great, and too many institutions have
under-invested in identifying and developing talented leaders.
And what does this mean for the future, and where will leaders
come from, and what are the best organizations around the world
doing to develop leaders? And in parallel to your study of
institutions around the world, public institutions, we have
done a study of private institutions around the world.
In 2001, Hewitt Associates, which is one of the largest
human resources consulting firms in the world, undertook what
we called a top companies for leaders study, and in that we
wanted to understand with empirical data what is it that the
best companies do to develop future leaders, and we embarked on
surveying CEOs and human resources executives at 240 of the
largest 500 companies in the world. We interviewed, in-depth,
leaders at those companies, and in 2003 we cast a global net in
which we looked at over 320 companies in the United States and
hundreds more in Europe and in Asia Pacific.
Based on that experience, we found that there were three
fundamentals that exist in all of these companies that do this
well, and we identified the best of the best. And of those
three fundamentals, we refer to them as the three truths of
what these organizations do, and you have heard a little bit
already this afternoon from public institutions as well. The
first that is required is top executive leadership and
inspiration. And let me say that without the passionate and
visible commitment of the top executive, developing great
leaders is not possible.
It seems intuitive that top executive involvement would be
a critical success factor, but involvement in developing people
takes on a whole new dimension. It is imperative that the
senior executives not only are involved, but they actively
participate; that they provide the inspiration, the commitment,
and the time and focus on developing people. For example, CEOs
at the best companies in the world are intimately involved in
succession planning; they participate in talent reviews, they
coach and mentor their direct reports. They are involved in a
process to make sure that the key people fill the best
positions.
Leadership development workshops at many companies have a
guest appearance from the top executives, but at the top
companies the leadership development initiatives are developed
and owned by the top executives. They are not only present,
they are teaching, they are learning, they are observing, they
are interacting first-hand with the very best people. They own
it. This is not head-nodding passive support, this is often an
in-your-gut belief, and that is how you run the enterprise, and
it is the way to get better results.
For CEOs of top companies, that means spending as much a
quarter of their time on people and developing people. Jack
Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, used to say
that he would spend 50 percent of his time developing people
and managing talent. His successor, Jeff Immelt, spends 15 to
16 full days during the months of April and May, when GE
conducts its famed Session C, which is their succession
planning process. When things were running well, Larry Bossidy,
the former chairman of AlliedSignal and Honeywell, would spend
20 percent of his time on people; when things were not going
well, he would double that investment. And at times Roger
Enrich, the former CEO of PepsiCo, would spent 25 to 30 percent
of his time just coaching and developing emerging leaders. They
spend the time because there is a direct link to business
results, and running an effective organization, to them, is
developing leadership capability.
The second fundamental that we found is a maniacal focus on
high potentials, and it begins with who comes in the door. They
are ruthless and fanatical in searching for the best talent;
not the best talent out there, but the best talent for them,
for their particular agency, for their enterprise. And once
that talent is in the door, they spend the same time and care
in identifying high potentials and developing those high
potentials. They are careful about evaluating that talent, and
they focus a lot of attention on matching leaders with key
jobs, and providing global and regional assignments that
promote strong development, and they invest in discovering what
matters in preparing people for certain roles. Some companies
go so far as not only know the key capabilities and
competencies required for certain jobs, but the sequence in
which someone has to go through certain jobs to acquire those
jobs.
The third fundamental is the right leadership practices
done right. Many institutions have common elements of
leadership development, and talent and succession management
programs, but what sets apart the best is a careful design and
a lean design of programs, but a relentless dedication to
executing on these programs flawlessly. They do not separate
and set apart these programs from running the enterprise; they
are integral to running the enterprise. All of the top
companies that we have identified have formal succession
planning processes, as compared to only 68 percent of all other
companies.
Succession management at top companies usually includes
elements of assessing potential talent, developing high
potentials, lists of successors for key jobs, and a structured
talent review process. As we look into the future, the
challenges are daunting and the opportunities are great for
public and private institutions. Top companies are well on
their way to preparing themselves and their people to meet
these challenges head-on; they are a step ahead of the rest,
and they are not complacent.
That concludes my formal remarks. I would be happy to take
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gandossy follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Gandossy and Mr.
Messner.
We will begin the questioning with my ranking member, Mr.
Davis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Madam
Chairwoman.
Mr. Messner, you indicate in your testimony that by 2007 we
can expect about 50 percent of the SES personnel to retire. Do
you see us having in place a system or systems that will
produce or generate the kind of replacement personnel that we
need?
Mr. Messner. Well, in some cases, in the minority of cases.
I think less than half the agencies have a system that I could
point to now and feel comfortable as a taxpayer that they are
going to produce the products that we need. I think the
emphasis that is being placed on this subject now is going to
help us. I think your committee's attention is going to help
us. And I think making this program a part of the President's
initiatives for management improvement would help us even more.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. I know that we could develop
leadership development programs or we could develop systems
that we don't have, but given the fact that we are talking
about a relatively short period of time, are there things that
you could see happening or see us doing that we don't
necessarily have on the scope right now?
Mr. Messner. I do. I think that we have to work agency by
agency. The cultures of these agencies are so different; the
histories of them, the kinds of problems they are dealing with,
and, therefore, the kinds of people they recruit. I have been
part of agencies that had basically a scientific and
engineering cast to them; the employees came from a set of
engineering and scientific trainings that made them interested
in certain development programs that are different than others
that I have been with where they come out of the social
sciences and human resource areas.
I really believe the Academy finds it better to, one,
highlight the need and then, two, work with individual agencies
on tailoring and designing programs that fit that particular
culture and that particular leadership group. There is no
simple way to do it, it seems to me, or at least we haven't
found it. There are some principles, and I think you have heard
some of those today by some of the witnesses.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. How do you respond to those
individuals in other kinds of discussions who suggest that we
need across-the-board approaches and systems, as opposed to
looking at and tailoring activity toward individual agencies? I
know that as we discussed A-4 performance and some other
things, we have had individuals who suggest that across-the-
board might be a better approach than the agency-by-agency
attack.
Mr. Messner. Let me just say I believe in standards. I
mean, I think you can set some standards, you can set some
goals, you can set some principles in place and urge people to
participate across the board; and I think this President has
done a pretty good job in trying to simplify management
attainment symbols through the different colors that he gives
if you achieve something. That helps, and I think saying
universally we want to have succession planning in every one of
our agencies, as my colleague just says happens in 100 percent
of the great companies in this country, helps you. But,
finally, you have to get in there and see the culture and work
with the people in a particular situation. Many of our agencies
are insular, don't have a lot of comings and goings of people;
the people come in at the bottom of the system, stay for 30
years and end up at the top of the system; and you really have
to work with that kind of a system on an individual basis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Mr. Gandossy, I was intrigued by
your approach to developing top-flight leadership for the best
of companies and companies that have indeed excelled and
continue to do so. Do you think that the structure of the
Federal Government lends itself to that kind of leadership
development?
Mr. Gandossy. First of all, it would be presumptuous for me
to suggest much about the Federal Government, given I am not an
expert, but what I do know and what I do know about
organizations throughout the world is that I think that there
are common frameworks and common elements that apply to all
enterprises, regardless of whether they are public institutions
or private. There are characteristics about the Federal
Government that I do think make it much more problematic. One
of the things that I said is most important in the private
sector is the inspiration of senior executives and the
leadership of senior executives, and the role of the board of
directors, I might add. In the Federal Government, where there
are political appointees that, as you indicated, turn over
every 21 months I believe you said, Mr. Messner, I think it
makes it much more challenging, but not impossible by any
stretch.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. That was precisely what I was
thinking as I tried to follow and as I did follow, you know,
the cost of the turnover. I mean, can we separate sort of the
political leadership and the actual operational management so
that individuals within would in fact be in a position to
provide the kind of visionary approaches that will stimulate,
motivate, and activate other personnel to internalize what it
is that you are trying to convey?
Mr. Gandossy. I would defer to Mr. Messner on that, but on
the face of it I would say absolutely yes.
Mr. Messner. You know, succession planning for the
political level is provided by elections. In the case of the
career service, I have always believed that the career service
needs to take ownership and some pride of ownership in the
Governmental enterprise; they are the people who come and stay,
are especially cared for and have the privilege of serving for
long periods of time, and they are very capable of leadership
and the formation of ideas. The Senior Executive Service is an
excellent vehicle into which we move the best and the finest,
as someone once said, and I think they are capable of
leadership.
I do think the political leadership has to say we want this
to happen, we will give you time to make this happen, and then
we are going to ask you questions to see if it is happening in
a proper way.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. I find both your positions
intriguing, of course. I think that is a sticking point; I
mean, I couldn't see a lot of people actually running for
elective office if they didn't think they were going to be in
charge, as opposed to somebody else, but I think that is a
line.
Mr. Messner. Yes, it is.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. And I think that will have a great
deal to do with implementation of the kind of approach that you
laid out.
Thank you both very much.
Mr. Messner. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
I am not going to jump to the Republican side, I am going
to yield to Ms. Holmes-Norton, who has joined us, and see if
you have any questions.
Ms. Norton. I do, Madam Chair. I rushed up, with apologies,
from a homeland security hearing, which is still going on,
because I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I regard
it as a very important hearing. I remember just a couple years
ago when Mr. Voinovich had a joint hearing of our subcommittee
and his own committee because of the notion that so many of the
Civil Service were in fact going to retire, and I would like to
ask the question in that regard.
Yes, they are retiring. These folks who are leaving the
Federal Government now came perhaps at the golden age of the
Civil Service, when in fact working as a civil servant was the
functional equivalent of working for your country, was one of
the best jobs in the United States, with its benefits, which
now lag behind, for example, in health care, well behind the
Fortune 500 and Fortune 1,000.
You spoke, Mr. Gandossy, about turnover at the political
level. Well, these days, turnover of CFOs may be even more
rapid. I am not sure that very top level is what matters to the
civil servant, because the civil servant knows that we have a
merit service, and that the Chair and I may go, and the
President may go, but the civil servant is protected from that
political turnover. So the civil servant may well look to the
SES and how it is treated to decide whether to go to the
private sector, which, if I may say so, is a whole lot more,
forgive the expression, sexy to many young people today than
coming to Government. And so we find it far harder, it seems to
me, than our parents did to get the best and the brightest to
automatically decide the Federal Government is where we ought
to go.
And I don't believe this problem is confined to the
obvious, to science, where you might expect it, to engineering,
to places where talent is rationed. I am concerned with what I
will call, even though there is disagreement in the Congress
with the core functions of Government. Because there has been
so much contracting out in Democratic and Republican
administrations, there is a lot of disagreement on what is it
that Government must do; and we will have to fight those
battles out and there is a big FAA problem up here now, and
that battle is being fought out. Quite aside from that kind of
problem, I am wondering whether or not we could get to the
point, given the scarcity of talent, I am talking about
management talent, not simply technical talent, whether we
could get to the point that we would be contracting out
functions that the Chair and I might agree were indeed core
functions just because of the lack of competent leadership to
manage those functions. That would be my concern about the SES,
and I want to know whether you think that we could get to that
point because of talent problems, recruitment problems,
succession problems, and competition with the private sector.
Mr. Messner. I will take a crack at that, Congresswoman,
and it is nice to see you.
Ms. Norton. My pleasure, Mr. Messner. We go back many
years. He and I both will keep to ourselves how many.
Mr. Messner. We will, indeed. I will keep that
confidential.
I think the irresistible impulse of public service lies in
the nature of that service. The Government never could compete
for financial rewards; it can't compete for many of the things
that the private sector can do. And I had 26 years of
Government service and 15 in the private sector, so I had a
great chance to contrast the two. The Government will always
lose if it is a question of salary, if it is a question of
benefits, if it is a question of perks, if it is a question of
travel, and if it is a question of privacy, because in the
public sector you are transparent and you have to be on display
at all times; in the private sector that isn't true. So we go
into the game, so to speak, of competition for talent knowing
that set of facts.
On the other side of ledger, however, is the mission of the
Federal Government. I came into the Government in 1962 to work
for the space program, and it was a new idea and a fresh idea,
and there was no place else in this country you could go for
that kind of excitement. And in the 26 years I moved 10 or 12
times from agency to agency, program by program, and met
thousands and thousands of employees who were in the work for
the fun of it, the excitement of it, and the service of it; and
that is a pretty good deal. If I have to compete for talent, I
used to recruit for OMB up at the Maxwell School and Stanford,
and all these great learning institutions, and I did quite well
talking about the substance of the program you would get to
participate in.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Messner, would you do as well today?
Mr. Messner. It would be hard to say that the excitement is
easier, but then I am older, so who knows, if I was 25 again,
it would be as exciting.
Ms. Norton. No, I am talking about what you are recruiting
to, not your own vigor, which I do not doubt.
Mr. Messner. Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Ms. Norton. I am talking about the Government you are
recruiting to, where the same person from Yale Management
School, for example, is recruited by Fortune 500 companies as
well as the Federal Government. It was very intriguing in 1962.
What do you do to replace that, or at least to compete with the
private sector, which, I hate to tell you, may be just as
intriguing as the Federal Government these days.
Mr. Messner. Yes, your point is obviously well taken. It
seems to me that we have to make a very good case today to get
the attention of the best and the brightest in young people,
and with the problems of homeland security and the threats to
this country, with the opportunities in public health and
science and engineering, I think that case could be made, and I
think we will do well if we make the case soundly.
Mr. Gandossy. I think you have made an excellent
observation, and I won't speak to the issue of what the Federal
Government can do or should do to recruit top talent, but I
will say that the observation that you made about having to
rethink what is core to the Federal Government, and what
perhaps is acquired on the outside, there are certainly
parallels with the private sector of either alliances or
outsourcing or acquisitions that are often done because of the
shortage of talent; they are not done necessarily for strategic
or business reasons, they are done because we do not have the
talent to grow and maintain operations, and that is quite
widespread. In the 1990's there were over 60,000 joint ventures
and alliances in the private sector. We would expect in the
next 10 years for those to increase substantially, and they are
often done for the reasons that you cited.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Ms. Norton.
I have just a few questions, because I do want to move on
to the third panel.
Mr. Messner, this one is to you. Do you think there are any
problems or challenges in succession planning that you believe
are unique just to Government agencies, as opposed to the
private sector?
Mr. Messner. That is a really wonderful question. There are
functions of the Government which are inherently governmental,
in my opinion, things having to do with national security and
the integrity of the financial systems of the Government and
the public. I think there are some things that are unique,
challenges which aren't replicated either in the private sector
or in the not-for-profit sector, and that requires extra
thought and longevity. Certainly work in national security
areas of intelligence and defense have unique aspects that
require everything from personal secrecy of behavior to
standards of work that aren't found anywhere else, and that
then requires extra thought when it comes to planning for the
succession of such individuals. And I have never not thought
the Government was a very serious place and required serious
thought, so we have an extra burden in the public sector that
isn't found in the private sector, it is an undercurrent that
requires each person who comes into the Government to have a
sense of extra responsibility, and that is reflected in
succession planning.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. In your opinion, what are the most
important, say, two or three things that OPM or individual
agencies could be doing to strategically manage their
succession planning?
Mr. Messner. Well, first of all, you have to ask the
question. If you are in OPM, you have to say to the agency, let
us talk about succession planning for an afternoon. I think the
Office of Management and Budget should be involved in that. I
spent 13 years of my career in the Office of Management and
Budget, and I know when we asked a question, it got a lot of
attention in the agencies. And I think if the Congress will
ask, in their oversight of OMB and the Office of Personnel
Management, what they are doing to ensure that each agency is
coming up with a sound plan, I think that would really spur
some pretty good attention.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Gandossy, I guess I understand
that you haven't been involved with the Federal Government, but
do you have any practices or lessons learned from the private
sector that you think might benefit the Government?
Mr. Gandossy. I think many of the things that go on in the
private sector are applicable. There are various talent review
processes, ways to identify emerging talent, ways to accelerate
the development of that talent by movement of people through
key jobs, research that is done to identify what are the
capabilities and competencies that people need and how they go
about getting them. All those things are applicable to any
institution.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. When you talk about, and I think it
was in your statement, that right programs done right, could
you expound on that a little bit and tell me exactly what you
meant?
Mr. Gandossy. There is a tendency in the consulting field,
and I would say in the human resources field, to be enamored
with the design or the sophistication of programmatic things;
they tend to be over-built, instead of being practical and fit
the needs of an organization and be embedded in what their
mission is. And I think what you find in the best companies is
that there is a lean design in whatever they do, they don't
over-build, they tend to have very solid metrics about whether
they are being effective or not, and they are integral to
running the business. Everything else is extraneous, and drags
on the organization and becomes a bureaucracy. So I think when
we say right programs done right, that is what we are referring
to.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. We certainly don't have any
bureaucracies in any of our agencies, so that shouldn't hurt
us.
Mr. Gandossy. Good.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. And I would say, Mr. Messner, that
maybe our political appointees may stay longer than 21 months
if they could be confirmed a little quicker.
Mr. Messner. That is a very good point.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I do want to thank both of you
gentleman for coming today, and we do have other questions that
we probably would like to submit to you in writing to have your
answer in the record, and then we will make sure that the
committee members have a chance to review them, but I don't
want to keep the other witnesses waiting much longer. And I do
thank both of you gentlemen for coming, and, Mr. Gandossy, you
did very good. It might have been your first time, but I am
sure you will be asked back.
Mr. Gandossy. Thank you.
Mr. Messner. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I would now like to invite our
third panel of witnesses to please come forward, and I thank
you for your patience.
On this panel we have representatives of various Federal
agencies that are putting the things we are talking about today
into practice. From the Environmental Protection Agency we have
David O'Connor, the Deputy Assistant Administrator for
Administration and Resources Management; next we will hear from
Vicki Novak, the Assistant Administrator for Human Resources
and Chief Human Capital Officer for NASA; and finally we are
pleased to have William Campbell, the Acting Assistant
Secretary for Human Resources and Administration at the
Department of Veterans Affairs.
I want to thank you all again for coming today, and I do
apologize for the wait, but I am glad you all were willing to
hang around for a little bit. And I have already sworn all
three of you in, so we will begin with Mr. O'Connor.
Mr. O'Connor, you are recognized for roughly 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF DAVID J. O'CONNOR, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR
FOR ADMINISTRATION AND RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY; VICKI A. NOVAK, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR
HUMAN RESOURCES AND CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER, NATIONAL
AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION; AND WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL,
ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND
ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. O'Connor. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman and
members of the subcommittee. I am very pleased to be here today
to discuss our agency's approach to work force development and
succession planning.
I will start off by saying that it was in the mid to late
1990's that these issues of the aging work force first began to
surface at EPA, and at that same time we began dealing with
some serious concerns about diversity of our work force and
skill needs at the agency. And back in about 1997, in response
to those concerns, we developed an EPA Workforce Development
Strategy. We began this strategy by conducting a serious
assessment of the skills and the competencies that the agency
would need over the next 20 years to successfully fulfill its
mission. Then, based on this assessment, we created a series of
programs to address the developmental needs of employees at all
levels across EPA. So today at the agency you will find
developmental programs targeted are clerical and support staff,
our non-supervisory and middle grade staff, our supervisors and
managers, and our senior executives. There is not time today to
discuss all of those, but I would like to highlight three
particular initiatives under our Workforce Development Strategy
that are important to the issue of succession planning.
When we took a look at our age demographics a few years
ago, as you have already heard several people state, we
realized that 60 percent of our SES corps will be eligible to
retire by 2008. I think about half of them are probably
eligible right now. We also noted that the overwhelming
majority of all of our employees were already in the age
bracket of 45 to 55 years. So we were concerned that not only
might we potentially lose a lot of talent in the SES, but those
people that you would typically look to be coming up behind
them are also in essentially the same retirement situation;
and, in fact, less than 5 percent of the employees at EPA were
under the age of 30.
As we focused on the impending retirements of our senior
management ranks, we also realized that many of our SES
employees had been in their very same positions for many years,
some of them even for decades. In November 2001, the agency
formally initiated an SES Mobility Program that was designed to
revitalize and strengthen our programs and our SES corps. The
primary purpose of the Mobility Program is to ensure that the
agency's senior leaders have a wide-ranging set of skills and
the expertise to react to continuous change. This program
reflects our belief that our senior executives and, indeed,
much of our work force will require increasingly broad-based,
rather than narrow, experiences if EPA is to be successful in
meeting the challenges of the future. In the first year and a
half of this program, 71 of our 245 SESers were assigned into
new SES positions. We have now made mobility consideration a
part of filling every SES vacancy that comes up, and we are
working very hard to instill the expectation and the value of
mobility and broad-based experience throughout our work force.
To help prepare EPA for an expected loss of SESers to
retirement, we also developed an SES Candidate Development
Program last year. This is intended to create a cadre of
managers who will be ready to step in behind retiring SESers.
It has been more than 10 years since we had such a program.
Last year we selected 51 candidates through a very highly
competitive process. Those candidates will be completing their
program, for the most part, this winter. Several have already
received SES certification from OPM, and a few others have
actually been selected into the SES in recent months. And we
are now discussing when to start a second Candidate Development
Program either later this year or by 2004.
One of the most successful efforts in attracting new talent
to the agency has been our EPA professional interim program.
This is a program that is designed to be a model for attracting
the highest quality and diverse applicants to EPA with the hope
that they will be among our future leaders. It is a 2-year
program, and unlike the PMI program that was mentioned earlier,
when we hire people into this program, they are permanent
employees of EPA and they do have a job at the end of 2 years.
But in the first 2 years we give them broad experiences in
developmental activities, rotational assignments all across the
agency. They have experience in headquarters and in our regions
in a variety of jobs all before they are officially assigned to
a final position at the end of the 2-years.
We have hired an intern class each of the last 6 years; our
sixth one just came on this month. It is an extremely
competitive program; this year we had about 2,000 applicants
for 39 positions. Most of them are selected as outstanding
scholars; they have a wide range of degrees and are assigned to
all offices and regions across EPA. I am very proud that today
we have hired 191 interns. Forty-five percent of these are
minorities or people with disabilities, and our retention rate
so far is 90 percent. This is the highest profile and most
visible hiring program in the agency, it gets a lot of
attention right in the Administrator's office, and we are
extremely proud of it.
We recognized, in our efforts to deal with diversity over
the last several years, that with an agency that is no longer
growing, to change the profile significantly is going to be a
very difficult task, but we also recognized that we have a
monumental opportunity in future years with these retirements
that are coming up. This EPA Intern Program is a model that we
created to kind of set the stage for taking advantage of that
opportunity to really ensure that we are bringing in the best
people and diverse people into this agency. I would love it if
you could see our assembled interns, it gives you quite a bit
of confidence in the future of the Federal work force.
Now, while we are pleased with the implementation and
success of these initiatives, we still face challenges in
achieving the President's management agenda. We have devoted,
even in times of tough budgets, some optimal resources and
attention to this initiative. It does have the close attention
of the administrator and all of our senior leadership. We have
appointed a senior level human capital strategy implementation
group; we are now developing a Human Capital Accountability
Plan for all of our initiatives and for tying our
accomplishments in the human capital arena to our overall
mission results; and we are finally working to better integrate
EPA's human resource systems with the budget and planning
process, and we believe this will position the agency to
effectively achieve our human capital goals.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today. I
would be happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Connor follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. O'Connor.
Ms. Novak, we are going to try and get your statement in.
We have three votes right now, and we probably have about 12
minutes before we have to be over there.
Ms. Novak. Let me see if I can shorten this up.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. If you could do a quick summary, it
would be great, and then we will come back after the three
votes.
Ms. Novak. Let me just say good afternoon, and I am Vicki
Novak from NASA, and I am the Chief Human Capital Officer
there. I am very pleased to be here today, and would just like
to take a quick opportunity to express our appreciation for the
cooperation that NASA has received from this committee, as well
as from the House Science and Senate Governmental Affairs
Committees on the human capital legislation that we are
seeking. We are remaining optimistic on that.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. We are too.
Ms. Novak. Good.
Our Administrator, Sean O'Keefe, has testified on a number
of occasions, particularly in hearings related to the NASA
human capital legislative provisions. Our agency faces a number
of internal and external challenges to our ability to manage
our human capital. Some of these, such as the aging work force,
the wave of pending retirements, and skills imbalances, we
share with many other agencies. We do feel that our challenge
is exacerbated some because we have primarily scientists and
engineers at our agency, approximately 60 percent of our work
force, and we are competing for scientist and engineering
talent in a labor market that faces declining numbers of young
folks graduating from college with science and engineering
degrees, while the demand for such talent in the public and the
private sector is increasing significantly. We have many
different programs and initiatives at NASA to help us manage
our human capital more strategically. They are in the written
testimony, so rather than go into any of those, let me skip to
some comments that I would like to make directly related to
leadership development and succession planning.
To ensure that we have a well developed leadership pool for
the future, and to respond to our demographics, our leadership
has made leadership development and succession planning a very
high priority, and we are very committed to doing this well.
Our leadership strategy is aligned with the President's
management agenda, our NASA strategic plan, and it is the
foundation of our agency's Strategic Human Capital Plan. It
starts with recruiting people who demonstrate the values and
the qualities that we want, and then, in a very deliberate kind
of way, training and developing them so that they will be able
to step into our future leadership positions.
We have a leadership model that is pivotal in our
succession planning strategy, and it is actually the umbrella
for our leadership development programs; it was developed
internally after talking to over 600 NASA managers and senior
leaders about what it is that we really need in the agency for
the future, as well as for today, and it identifies
competencies that we need as well as it guides the
developmental programs that we have in place today and are
planning for the future.
To ensure that our folks, our employees are trained in a
consistent manner, we have formal leadership development
programs. We have a fellowship program that provides
opportunities for our best and brightest employees to go to
well recognized colleges and universities and Federal training
institutions; we have a leadership development program that
targets mid-level employees for future leadership
opportunities; and we have a very robust Senior Executive
Candidate Development Program which I would like to mention we
have had five classes. We have selected over 200 people who
have gone through the program, and about 73 percent of those
who have graduated have been selected into SES positions at
NASA, approximately 50 percent of which have been women and
minorities. So we are very proud of that program. We are
getting ready to announce another one, and we are also going to
be partnering with OPM on their program.
We have a number of informal succession planning and
leadership development programs as well. We put great focus on
coaching and mentoring; we have done a number of things in that
area recently which are contained in my testimony to enhance
that. We also are spending a lot of time and effort on
knowledge sharing so that we can make sure that we capture our
best practices, both the good things we do as well as those
areas where we have had problems; we are going to learn from
those and make sure that they are incorporated in a big way
into our leadership development programs.
Let me stop at that. I know I am rushing a bit, but I would
like to give my colleague a chance.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Novak follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I appreciate that, Ms. Novak, and I
appreciate your being short, but we are going to have to wait
for Mr. Campbell when we get back. If you all can wait, we will
probably be gone 30 minutes. Is that OK with all the witnesses?
The committee will stand in recess.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I want to thank you all for your
patience. We had some very important votes to vote on, so it
took us a little while.
Ms. Novak, we finished with you, so we will go on to Mr.
Campbell. And I do really appreciate your patience for waiting,
and we are anxious to hear what you have to say.
Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Mr. Davis. It is
really a pleasure for me to be here as a person who has been a
Federal employee for 29 years, a member of the Senior Executive
Service for 18, and holding down two appointed positions. At
this point I am truly interested in what is going to happen
with succession planning because I am much closer to the end of
my career than the beginning.
My written testimony is submitted for the record, and I
will keep my remarks rather abbreviated.
Our focus has been on establishing a process to ensure that
work force and succession planning efforts take place at all
organizational levels, with a clear delineation of roles and
responsibilities. This is very difficult in an organization as
large as the Department of Veterans Affairs. We deliver our
services to our Nation's heros through our 162 medical centers,
our more than 850 outpatient clinics, our 43 domiciliaries, 206
vet centers, 57 regional offices, and 120 national cemeteries.
We are a very complex business.
A recent significant accomplishment for VA is the
publication of our Strategic Human Capital Plan. This plan
ensures that consistent and comprehensive work force and
succession planning efforts are now taking place across VA. I
would like to acknowledge the five human resource interns that
are attending this hearing and are sitting in the back of the
room. Our plan contains past and projected work force trends
and present strategies to ensure that VA recruits, retains, and
develops a quality and diverse work force. This lan is
available to all of our employees on our VA Web site.
Between 1998 and 2002, VA's average total employment was
220,000 FTE. The average age of our employees is 47 years of
age, and approximately 15 percent of those people who are
eligible to retire during that time did so. The average age of
our retirees was 62 years of age. We also had another 10
percent of our employees who left for reasons other than
retirement. The average age of our new hires is 38 years old.
VA's historic turnover has been relatively constant, and if
historic turnover trends continue, the department may not be
facing the human capital crisis that some in Federal Government
may expect; however, I am not very sanguine about this.
We are concerned over our retirement eligibility figures.
Let me share a few statistics with you. Retirement eligibility
is rising precipitously. Today, 40,000 employees, or 18 percent
of our work force, are eligible to retire. By 2007, that will
jump to 80,000 employees, or 37 percent of our work force; and
by 2010, 135,000 of our employees, or 60 percent of our work
force. Over 70 percent of VA's senior executives can retire by
2005, including myself.
If the turnover continues at these historic rates, the
challenges ahead will be manageable. The potential for crisis
does exist, however, if many employees retire in addition to
those who have done so historically. Our plans address this
worst case scenario. The VA Strategic Plan for 2003-2008
contains detailed objectives, performance targets, and outcome
measurements focused on both immediate priorities, as well as
long-term goals. VA is among the first of Federal agencies to
institute the use of online entrance and exit surveys for newly
appointed and separating employees. The data can be accessed at
both the national and local levels to determine why employees
choose VA and why they leave. Our first national summary is
going to be published this month.
Today, October 1, 2003, VA will convert a significant
portion of its work force from the current pass/fail system to
a five-tier performance system. This new system addresses the
President's management agenda requirement to differentiate
between high and low performers.
VA has placed a major emphasis on recruitment and marketing
initiatives. We have redesigned our job information Web site to
make it more user-friendly and interactive. We have developed
brochures aimed at both college students and veterans promoting
careers within the Department of Veterans Affairs. We are
engaged in a concerted effort to increase VA's participation at
college job fairs and are making targeted recruitment to
address diversity as a key part of our planning process.
I am particularly proud of VA's accomplishments in the area
of leadership development and diversity. VA has instituted a
national Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program
after a period of many years since the last one. We have
initiated programs to educate managers and employees on the
importance of diversity management and how to analyze and build
effective diversity strategies.
The Secretary's Task Force on the Employment and
Advancement of Women in the Department of Veterans Affairs
recently completed its report, and the Secretary has approved
the committee's recommendations that include a comprehensive
plan to increase the number of women in leadership positions.
In summary, I am proud of VA's achievements. We have
enhanced coordination and collaboration, and the sharing of
best practices within the entire Department of Veterans
Affairs. VA faces an extremely high retirement eligibility over
the next few years. We must prepare for the possibility of
higher rates of turnover in mission-critical occupations. If
these rates increase significantly, we will need the capability
to hire quickly and at competitive pay rates, and as part of
that, one of the first efforts we have made, is a legislative
proposal on physician pay that we have sent up to the Hill. We
must address the question of whether the current hiring and pay
systems in the Federal Government provide the flexibility
needed to compete in today's job environment.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]
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Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Campbell.
I want to thank all three of you again. I can't say enough
how much I appreciate your patience.
And I am going to yield now to our ranking member, Mr.
Davis, for questions.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Madam
Chairwoman.
Let me ask each of you how much interaction is there
between your agency and the Office of Personnel Management
relative to succession planning and/or planning for
diversification. Each of you indicated that you had your own
program activities going.
Mr. O'Connor. I will be happy to answer your question
first, Mr. Davis. We have actually, in the last few years, been
pleased, perhaps more pleased than we had been before, about
our interaction with OPM, particularly as we developed and
designed our Candidate Development Program and our, what I
consider very successful, EPA Interim Program class. Our staff
has spent quite a bit of time there; we have actually sent some
of our staff on detail to OPM and have had quite a bit of
interaction, and I know that our folks in our human resource
office are very pleased with the interaction that we have had
with them.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. So you worked jointly on goals,
objectives, and approaches?
Mr. O'Connor. We have, indeed. And my boss, who couldn't be
here today, himself has been over to OPM with folks over there
on a number of issues, and would also tell you that he is very
pleased with the interaction that we have been experiencing.
Ms. Novak. If I may, I would like to say that we at NASA
are enjoying a very good relationship with OPM in terms of our
Leadership Development Programs. When we need their help, they
are there to help us. We do some things independently, but now
there is a much closer scrutiny and look at what we are doing
in this area as a result of the President's management agenda
in this Human Capital Scorecards. Leadership development is one
of the five pillars and main areas that OPM is focusing on when
it evaluates agencies, so that makes us all a little more
attentive to it, I think, and causes us to interface more
often.
Mr. Campbell. Likewise, we at VA enjoy a very good
relationship with the Office of Personnel Management. We have
used some of their criteria in developing our plans. I am the
chief human capital officer for VA, and I have not yet had an
opportunity to attend more than one of the chief human capital
officer meetings, but it looks like a very good venue to get
not only productive discussions with OPM, but with the other
large agencies also, to find out what everybody is doing, what
is working and what is not working; kind of use somebody else's
effort to see if something is worthwhile doing or not.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Now, they have their Candidate
Development Program. Each one of you has your own Candidate
Development Program. What I am trying to determine is how
significant would the difference be, or would the goals be the
same, in terms of the individual agency programs, as well as
the program that has been developed by OPM. And maybe you
wouldn't be able to know that.
Mr. O'Connor. I think the first thing I would say is we put
our program in place before theirs was in place. I think as all
agencies, ours is open to employees at other agencies to apply
to, and we did have a fair response from other agencies.
I guess I am not all that familiar with OPM's program, the
details of it, but I suspect that there will probably be more
interaction and activity among Federal agencies of the
candidates in that program, perhaps, than in our own. We do
provide some opportunities to go outside the agency, but I
suspect if we looked at OPM's program, there are probably more
of those types of opportunities.
Ms. Novak. My understanding is that OPM is rolling this out
almost as we speak, and I think there are more details to come.
We have certainly told them that we were anxious to
participate, but we will continue to run our own program. But I
believe that there will be more governmentwide participation in
their program than we typically see in our NASA program, for
instance.
Mr. Campbell. Two or 3 weeks ago members of the Office of
Personnel Management staff came and briefed me on their
program, trying to see if there was interested within the
Department of Veterans Affairs. I would say that they are
complimentary. I would look at their program as an adjunct to
ours. The Government is not monolithic, it is different
everywhere you go, and I think for the smaller agencies, of
which there are many that cannot afford to have their own
programs, I think the OPM program is going to be a lifeline.
For somebody like us, where we have large benefit offices that
are headed by senior executives and we have large health care
delivery systems of many hospitals, let us say between 4 and 10
medical centers, I think that we would try to key in on people
that we knew were going to be successful in those jobs. So I
would think that, at VA, we would use theirs as an adjunct,
maybe for areas like finance, human resources, and general
administration, and try to concentrate on our core business
with our own program.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. I will try and get more into that
with them, because I would assume that their program is more
focused on development for succession as well as diversity. And
I don't know whether or not there is more emphasis on diversity
in their program than there might be on the programs that you
already have going. I could see that being a difference that
might exist between the two.
Mr. Campbell. Mr. Davis, I don't know what their program is
going to do, but of the 15 participants, we limited it to a
small number to begin with because we wanted to keep the
quality of our program up; and several of the candidates that
we have are very well qualified to be SES at present, and three
have already been selected for SES positions before finishing,
all three women, one Hispanic and two majority females. We have
15 participants; 53 percent are female, 13 percent are African-
American, and 27 percent are Hispanic. So we have really tried
to look at having a more diverse work force. I can't speak for
OPM's program.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. OK. Let me just ask one additional
question, and that is you heard the discussion that we just had
with the last panel relative to whether or not the structure of
the Federal Government would lend itself to some of the
leadership development ideas that were articulated especially
relative to what goes on or what is going on in private
industry. Do you see any impediments to leadership development
because of this structure? And what I am really getting at is
kind of where we end it off, talking about the line that exists
between the responsibilities, let us say, of political
appointees and members of the SES corps. I am saying kind of
like where do you stop, or is there a stopping place? And if
that in some ways may prevent or could prevent certain kinds of
visionary long-range planning and development activity to
occur, because it certainly could be aborted, it could
certainly be stifled. I mean, I could certainly see the
possibility of it not being supported when the next change
comes, and that kind of thing. That is where I am really going.
Mr. O'Connor. I guess since my boss is a political
appointee, I will be very careful in how I answer the question,
Mr. Davis, if I could. I think it probably cuts both ways to
some extent, depending on the individuals. Sometimes there is a
lot of inertia amongst the career people that can be broken
through by the change of political appointees, and there are
instances in EPA's recent past where we have made some
aggressive steps because of direction from the political
appointees. On the other hand, there are often the frustrations
of launching a program, only to have a new political team come
in and want to put their own look on it, and having to abandon
it and be set back. So I think it can cut both ways.
Ms. Novak. I would like to say that one of the things that
Mr. Gandossy said was that top executive leadership and
commitment is critical to this whole discussion. For instance,
in our situation at NASA, we have a political leader as well,
but what we are trying to do there is to institutionalize some
things so that all of this will live well beyond his days at
NASA; and I think that is very, very possible to do. I mean, it
doesn't just end with top management, we have to make sure that
folks at all levels in management are committed to this, more
diversity in the senior leadership ranks; and then the
politicals can come and go, and I think good things will
continue to happen.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. I guess I could see it going either
way, depending upon the players. I mean, certainly I can see
the person who gets appointed to one of these saying I really
only intend to be here for 4 years or 3 years, depending on how
long it takes to be confirmed, and I am going to try to make my
mark during this period; I mean, I have only got 2 years, I am
going back wherever I came from, and I am going to try and put
a stamp on this while I am here. So, yes, I guess it can go
either way.
Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I am finished.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Ms. Novak, NASA Langley Research Center is in my district,
and I hear from them quite often that there is a real concern
out there about aging talent and that the organization is not
investing in its future. And earlier this year, GAO reported
that NASA's work force profile, particularly for scientists and
engineers, points to the need for effective succession
planning, and I guess my question is has the agency made any
progress in identifying its critical skills and competencies
that are at risk across the agency? I mean, are we in dire
straits? I hear that from my constituents a lot.
Ms. Novak. I don't believe we are in dire straits, but
clearly we need to be very aggressive and proactive about what
we are doing. About a year and a half ago, recognizing that the
demographics did not look good, we developed--and it has taken
us a while, but we have it--a competency management system and
some work force planning and analysis tools that we didn't have
before, which have in fact given us the capability, for the
first time at an agency level, as well as going down to the
center levels, to identify competencies where we either are at
risk or gaps. We look at attrition models and we see where
large numbers of folks are retirement eligible or we predict
will be going in the future, and what we are doing now is we
are targeting training and development programs, as well as
recruitment programs around those areas that we have developed.
For instance, systems engineering, human factors engineering,
business management is another one; but we are trying to
integrate this and tie it all together so that we have a plan
that makes sense and we are going after the right people in
terms of developing and we are instituting the right kinds of
programs. So I don't see it as badly as some of your
constituents.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I think the ones that I have spoken
to, and a lot of my friends work out at NASA Langley, and there
is a big concern that they could end up being privatized or
something of that nature because you just don't have the
skills, you don't have the people in there. I would like to be
able to tell them they are OK, but I don't know that I can
right now.
Ms. Novak. I think that the situation is much better now
than it was several years ago, and we are in a very deliberate
kind of way stepping back and looking at our attrition models
and our work force analysis tools that we have that we didn't
have before, and trying to come in a preemptive kind of way
avoid the kind of thing that they are concerned is going to
happen.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Because, quite frankly, you walk
out to NASA Langley and there is a lot of gray bearded guys out
there.
Ms. Novak. I know. I know a lot of them.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. The women aren't gray haired
because we can get ours in a bottle.
But there is some concern, so I would certainly hope we are
taking a good close look at scientists, especially. That is not
something that I would want to be outsourcing our scientists;
that would make me a little bit nervous.
Mr. O'Connor, I have heard great things about EPA. I know
you started out red and are now up to yellow and doing great,
and GAO has said some good things about what you all are doing,
and I hope you will continue on the right track.
And Mr. Campbell, I have an area of concerns of yours as
well. I have a lot of veterans in my district, 100,000 or so.
Just a couple. And healthcare is one of their big issues, as we
all know, and I noticed that there is a possible shortage of
nurses and something that you may have a little problem with.
Has the nursing shortage adversely affected you all to this
date? And if so, what steps are you using to address it?
Mr. Campbell. Well, the nursing shortage is a national
nursing shortage, and it is far greater than VA. And I would
not want to leave you the impression that everything is fine
with us; it has been manageable so far, but there are some real
structural problems in the nursing profession that make it very
difficult to attract and keep people; it is a very high stress
profession. We have many opportunities for nurses, even nurse
executives that are paid at the executive level, with VA, and
we would hope that we can get nurses who no longer want to be
caregivers into other professions. As a matter of fact, the
Veterans Health Administration has an executive career field,
and it is targeted for key leaders below the senior executive
level such as chiefs of staff at medical centers, associate
directors, and nurse executives. We have just selected people
for our third class. The demographics for that class, we have
138 participants; 61 percent are female, 13 percent are
African-American, 3 percent are Hispanic, and 5 percent are
Asian-American. So we are trying not only to fill these key
medical delivery positions, but we also have other areas.
A few years ago we had the national performance review, and
it targeted four series, four disciplines: accounting and
finance, procurement and contracting, EEO, and human resources.
And because of that we had a hemorrhaging of our senior talent;
many people took early retirements and buyouts, some others
just chose to retire because they were eligible, and young
people chose not to come into those fields because they looked
like they were not going to be around for their career. And so
we have huge problems. When you are trying to hire people, your
human resource staff is the one that you go to for help, and
that was, quite frankly, decimated. Then you look at the ages.
I don't know about the age for human resource staffs, but I
know in other areas like financial management, 83 percent of
our senior financial mangers, GS-13 and above, will be eligible
to retire in 2005. All of them won't retire, but even if a
significant number do, we have a real problem.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. What steps are you taking there?
Because that is a real problem, 83 percent.
Mr. Campbell. We have the same problem in some of our other
business areas. We are trying to live within the work force
that we believe we can get. We are fortunate in that we have a
lot of redundancy. Each medical center has its own accounting
staff and does its own bill paying and does its own
contracting, and Secretary Principi, this summer, approved a
reorganization of those contracting, accounting and finance,
and logistics so that we can live within what we think will be
a smaller work force that will come to us. The chief financial
officers for our Veterans Integrated Service Networks have been
complaining almost non-stop; they can't hire people on a one-
for-one basis, we just cannot attract enough people.
So in this case we are fortunate that we believe that we
can reorganize for that, but I don't know what we are going to
do in the area of health care providers, because you can't
automate health care.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, you not only have the problem
with the nurses; do you have the problem with physicians as
well?
Mr. Campbell. We have a turnover rate of almost 11 percent
annually with doctors.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Now, are they leaving for higher
pay or are they leaving because they don't like the conditions,
or what?
Mr. Campbell. That is the conventional wisdom. I don't know
enough about the physicians and what they would get externally.
I have been a Federal employee for 29 years, and I am not
really that conversant. I know that my wife works for
physicians, and they make a lot more than we pay. And although
Title 38 gives us special pay for the physicians, and I think
it is quite generous, obviously some of them don't.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, if it makes you feel any
better, it is the same problem in the private sector; the
physicians are dropping out like flies and dropping Medicare
patients like flies.
Mr. Campbell. But it is not universal. We find it in some
specialities, and we have to contract out at what I think of as
huge rates for specialty care, particularly things like
cardiology.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, you certainly have your work
cut out for you, because there is, of course, a shortage of
nurses in the private sector, and with the veterans, the number
of veterans that we have that are wanting the health care right
now, and that is one of their biggest cries. And probably one
of the biggest complaints that I hear in the district is that
they wait a year for an appointment at the VA, at the medical
center, and now with the conflicts that we have had here
recently, we are going to have even more veterans coming in who
are going to need health care, so I think your problem is going
to be compounded more so than these two folks sitting with you
at the table. And I hope you don't retire in the next year,
because then we are going to have to train somebody else to
come and do what you do.
Mr. Campbell. I may not, but it won't be much longer than
that.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Do you have anybody coming up
behind you?
Mr. Campbell. Yes, I do. I have been able to hire some
younger people who are going to be around.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, I am pleased to hear. You are
the one who said you had five interns in here?
Mr. Campbell. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Well, I don't want to keep you all
any longer because already you are going to hit all the
traffic. And we probably will have, I know I have more
questions to ask you, and if I could submit them to you in
writing and have you respond for the record; and other members
of the committee may want to do that as well. So I would
appreciate your prompt replies to them.
And, again, I would like to sit here; you guys are the ones
I really wanted to talk to, and I really could sit here and
talk to you for the rest of the evening, but I am sure you have
other things to do.
Mr. O'Connor. We would enjoy that.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. You might enjoy it; you might not.
Ms. Novak. We think we would.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I think you would.
But I certainly appreciate your jobs and what you are
doing, and your willingness to come and testify today. My hat
is off to you, and just make sure you protect America out there
and get the right people in there working, and let the work
force know how much we appreciate them. I think that is one of
the biggest things, we just don't thank our Federal work force
enough for the job that they do.
Ms. Novak. If I may just add, we have a new center
director, Roy Bridges, down at the Langley Research Center. I
don't know if you have had the chance to meet Roy yet.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. I haven't had the opportunity to
meet him, but I was just talking to my staff this week that we
need to get it set up.
Ms. Novak. I will have a discussion with him and let him
know that he needs to meet you and assure you and reassure the
employees that everything is OK.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. All right. Thank you so much.
And with that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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