Driving Change - Driving Results

TURNING GREAT IDEAS INTO BETTER MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE
Improving the Way the Federal Government Serves the American People

Address by
THE HON. DAN G. BLAIR
Acting Director
U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Delivered at the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program's 34th Annual Conference and Award Ceremony
Washington D.C.

March 10, 2005

---

Good afternoon everyone. I'm delighted to be here both to participate in the awards presentation as well as share some thoughts with you.

One of the great pleasures of my job is the opportunity I have to recognize achievement and reward success.

I certainly want to congratulate each of you on the progress you have made to date turning the President's Management Agenda into a well-recognized success. It's already becoming a legacy of achievement for President Bush.

You accepted the challenge to improve the management and performance of our government and in a short time, you have made tremendous accomplishments in improving both the timeliness and the quality of the financial information you provide.

The principles that have guided you in achieving this progress are principles that are applicable to all of government. I want to reflect on that for a few minutes as we focus on the people side of government. As you well know, it takes people to run the numbers and oversee the systems that are so critical to your job.

The Federal civil service is in the midst of a great transformation. We're discovering new and better ways to provide the services that our nation needs and expects. Just as the financial community has been doing, we are engaged in the pursuit of excellence.

The cornerstone of our efforts, and our successes, is the President's Management Agenda, which has served as both a guide and an inspiration in streamlining the management and performance of our government. I would guess that most of you are all too familiar with the scorecard requirements in financial management and with the red, yellow and green status scores that each of our agencies are assigned.

There is no ambiguity in the President's challenge to us. The Federal Government needs to adapt to a rapidly changing world by becoming more citizen-centered, results-oriented and market-based. As a result, we will provide a higher level of service to the taxpayer.

OPM, as the President's chief advisor in human capital, has been the driver for the first item on the PMA - the strategic management of human capital. Again, we have to be sure that we have the right people in the right job, at the right time - and not only performing but performing well.

Focusing on the workforce also means focusing on the often-times outdated personnel systems which govern the workplace. Fortunately significant changes have taken place over the last three years to update our civil service laws and more are in the works.

Let me briefly mention some of the significant changes in recent years.

We now have a senior official in every agency serving as the Chief Human Capital Officer and participating in regular CHCO council meetings.

Congress has granted additional hiring flexibilities including a targeted, direct-hire authority for a several shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need.

OPM has provided leadership in streamlining the hiring process by developing hiring models for both General Schedule and SES positions. We're pushing for more timely hires - but without sacrificing quality.

We realize that we must address the internal issue of reducing the time it takes to hire excellent candidates so that the people we recruit are not turned off by entering a cumbersome and unresponsive system.

When we began our efforts to streamline the hiring process, it traditionally took six months or longer to hire someone into the Federal Government. We simply cannot expect exceptional applicants for Federal positions to wait that long to find out if they have a job or not. That's unacceptable and a waste of both good will and public resources.

The good news, though, is that people want to work for the Federal government. There is no difficulty in attracting candidates to join the Federal Team. Let me say that again - attracting people is not the issue.

Tens of thousands of Americans answered the call of public service after 9/11 - and the interest continues.

OPM is continuing to look for ways to streamline the process. We've made numerous recruitment tools available and now we have to work Federal agencies - and you as managers - to make sure you take advantage of them.

Once we have people on board, we have to make sure exceptional people have exceptional recognition and reward. New employee benefits like long term care insurance and flexible spending accounts will help keep us competitive in the labor market.

But that's not enough. We must make sure that our top-performing workers are appropriately compensated. We've already implemented a pay for performance plan for senior executives. We've recently finalized regulations implementing a new personnel system in place for the Department of Homeland Security. We've worked with the Department of Defense to develop proposed regulations for the National Security Personnel System. And, we are, even now, beginning to work to make these same benefits and flexibilities available to all Federal agencies.

We must be certain that no agency is left behind - or disadvantaged by a system that provides flexibilities to some agencies and not others. What we must never compromise, however, are the core values - the merit principles - on which our civil service is based.

The goal is to ensure that our civil service system keeps pace with, and perhaps even surpasses, the best of our private employers, in the years ahead.

Let me also mention progress that has been made on five e-Government initiatives which impact you. There were many who said it could not be done, but we were able to silence the skeptics and implement these projects in a manner that is efficient and contains cost.

GoLearn.gov is the number one most visited on-line training site in the world and provides one-stop access to high quality training products and services for hundreds of thousands of users.

Our USAJOBS web site [http://www.usajobs.gov] has been visited over 115 million times, for an average of over 300,000 times per day, since its launch last summer. More than one million new resumes have been created on the site which currently advertises over 15 thousand jobs.

E-Clearance has improved the efficiency, speed and accuracy of security clearances and investigations.

E-Payroll replaces 22 current providers of payroll and related services with two providers and saves $1.2 billion dollars over 10 years; and

Enterprise Human Resources Integration will enable the electronic transfer of Human Resources data throughout the Government, and eliminate the need for paper employee records.

In April of 2004, OPM was named the managing partner for the Human Resources Line of Business (HR LOB). OPM led this ground breaking effort for the Federal Government to rethink its approach to human resources management.

The vision of the Human Resources Line of Business (HR LOB) is to create government-wide, modern, cost effective, standardized, and interoperable Human Resource (HR) solutions providing common core functionality to support the strategic management of Human Capital.

These common solutions will enable departments and agencies to work more effectively to meet the human capital goals of the President's Management Agenda.
They will provide managers and executives across Government with improved tools to help agencies meet their strategic objectives. The solutions will provide more efficient management of the automated information systems that support human resource activities.

They will allow agencies to transform their internal human resource focus from an emphasis on administrative processing to strategic planning support for agency leadership and increased customer service and counseling for managers and employees.

We're proud of our successes - but we recognize that more can and should be done. The OPM of 2005 is better positioned to provide technical assistance to our customers but we're continuing to look for ways to be better serve our clients - Federal agencies. We continue to work to enable agencies to take ownership of the President's Management Agenda and make lasting management and performance improvements.

All of this is wonderful news for citizens, who benefit from huge savings and the knowledge that we have become better stewards of their money, and better managers of a smarter, more productive workforce.

Every day we have to stand up the challenge to simplify and unify, to take advantage of economies of scale, and to reduce redundancies. In the end, as public servants, we have but one job - to preserve our cherished freedoms and protect our Nation, and keep our families safe at home - now - and in the future.
Each generation in American history has had its own defining moments - The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, President Kennedy's assassination.

Clearly, the event that defines our world today happened just three and a half years ago with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. In looking back over the course of the last three years, who could have imaged the challenges we face today?

I have tremendous pride in our civil service. We've risen to the challenge in defending our borders, our transportation infrastructure and freedom of mobility, our information technology and financial systems, our food supplies and fuel distribution networks, our culture, and our very way of life.

The Federal government must do all this and more while continuing to provide for the smooth and uninterrupted operation and delivery of government services to a population of nearly 300 million.

Yes, the world is still threatened by terrorists and the nations which support them, but I believe America is safer today than it was on the day before September 11, 2001. And, that's due to the diligence and commitment of our public servants.

You are doing your job and doing it well. And yet, there still remains plenty of room for improvement by all of us.

So here is my challenge to you.

Do not lose momentum now. Go back to your agencies and confront more challenges. Identify more inefficiencies. Save more taxpayer dollars. Raise the bar on your own efforts a little bit higher. Make the President's Management Agenda a successful reality for future generations and future presidents.

Turn a red score into a yellow score. Turn a yellow score into a green score.

Our President has encouraged us:

"Some of us," he said, "will serve in Government for a season; others will spend an entire career here. But all of us should dedicate ourselves to great goals: We are not here to mark time, but to make progress, to achieve results, and to leave a record of excellence."

The progress, the results and the record of excellence we have seen, could not have been made possible without you who serve in the civil service. For that, I thank you.

In my mind, there can be no finer calling than to drive change and results for our Nation. Thank you, and keep up the good work, and my best wishes for another successful conference.

# # #

Current Speeches