Defense Logistics Agency Headquarters Human Resources staff shared the agency’s HR processes with five Republic of Georgia defense ministry representatives June 7 at the McNamara Headquarters Complex.
“These folks are from the Republic of Georgia’s Ministry of Defense, J-1 staff and human resources department,” said Henry Leonard, a senior defense research analyst working with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. “They’re here as part of a program called Georgia Fresh Look, which is run out of our office. The program is designed to help partner countries transform their defense institutions in [modernization] processes.”
Vasil Garsevanishvil, deputy head of the personnel department on the Republic of Georgia’s joint staff, said the briefing provided a lot of information that will help him and his colleagues as they revitalize their country’s HR systems.
“We are expanding our information processes in the Georgia armed forces,” Garsevanishvil said. “Learning from U.S. agencies about how they process HR information is very useful for us, because most of the HR models we use are U.S. HR models.”
Karen Webb, DLA’s deputy director of HR, said this was the first time she had interacted with foreign HR specialists.
“We had very positive interaction during the brief,” she said. “They had great questions, some in areas I wasn’t expecting, such as questions on culture and multisource feedback. They were also very interested in our automated human resources system.”
The Georgian representatives spent a week in the Washington area, visiting several HR offices including the Office of Personnel Management, all four military services’ HR offices and the Defense Manpower Data Center.
In addition to other duties, OUSD Policy personnel educate, train and inform those responsible for managing parallel programs in other countries, Leonard said.
“This visit gave them a full-rounded look on how the U.S. military manages its civilian and military personnel work forces,” he said.