Human Capital Management

What Really Works in Government

Federal Management Partners, Inc.

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781567264296
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

Many federal agencies have made huge strides to develop, fully utilize, and enhance the effectiveness of their most valuable resource: their workforce. This book captures those successes and relates the stories behind them. Innovative recruitment and retention strategies, dynamic employee onboarding programs, leading-edge HR technology—these are some of the stories that offer valuable lessons for anyone dealing with human resources issues in government, business, or any other organizational environment. The authors highlight not only the successful outcomes of various agency programs, but also consider the bumps and hurdles encountered and overcome along the way. Rather than a theoretical presentation of what might, or should, work, Human Capital Management: What Really Works in Government provides thought-provoking and practical examples detailing what federal agencies are doing that is working.

1 Developing New Leaders

Department of Transportation, Office of the Inspector General

Tim Barnhart

Lisa Sper

Jessica Dzieweczynski

The more than 70 Offices of Inspector General (OIG) in the federal government all have a similar mission: to conduct independent audits and investigations for their respective department’s programs and operations to promote economy, effectiveness, and efficiency and to prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse. OIGs keep Congress, department heads, and the American taxpayer fully informed about deficiencies related to the administration of programs and operations and offer corrective actions that help protect and strengthen departmental results. In short, they are agency watchdogs and stewards of taxpayer dollars.

Late in 2006, Calvin L. Scovel III became the sixth Inspector General (IG) at the Department of Transportation (DOT). By all measures, the DOT OIG was a successful organization when Cal arrived. It had earned the respect of Congress, the department, and the IG community. But Cal soon recognized that to sustain this level of performance, the office needed to do more. Cal’s 29 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he retired as Brigadier General, helped influence his vision.

Cal describes his vision for leadership at OIG this way: “A common Marine Corps slogan is ‘Mission First; People Always.’ To achieve our mission, we needed to continually develop a high-performing group of people. It was the people part of the slogan I felt we needed to focus on at OIG. I am a firm believer that if senior leaders pay more attention to staff, mission performance will be elevated. I often refer to the three T’s: training, tools, and time. Staff need training to perform and grow, tools to perform efficiently, and time to apply the training and tools effectively. I knew we had a lot of work ahead, but we also needed to show patience to allow our actions to have effect.”

DOT Office of Inspector General

The Department of Transportation’s OIG is committed to fulfilling its statutory responsibilities and supporting members of Congress, the secretary, senior department officials, and the public in achieving a safe, efficient, and effective transportation system. In fiscal year 2012, OIG issued 188 audit reports with 589 recommendations, including financial recommendations totaling $1.8 billion, and testified eight times before Congress. OIG’s investigative work resulted in 145 indictments, 95 convictions, and more than $32 million in fines, restitutions, and recoveries. Ultimately, for every dollar appropriated to DOT OIG in fiscal year 2012, the office returned more than $23.

A critical indicator of OIG’s organizational culture was the federal human capital survey (now the federal employee viewpoint survey), which measures employees’ perceptions of conditions characterizing successful organizations and which the Partnership for Public Service uses to calculate its index of best places to work. Dissatisfied with OIG’s 2006 survey scores, Cal made it a visible priority for his leadership team to address the issues highlighted by the survey, specifically leadership, performance culture, and employee satisfaction. By 2011, OIG had improved its scores dramatically, with trends continuing in 2012. The office landed in the top 25 percent on the best places to work index, making it the second most improved subcomponent organization in the federal government. Figure 1-1 highlights the transformation.

FIGURE 1-1 DOT OIG Employee Viewpoint Survey Trends

The story of how OIG accomplished these results abounds with useful best practices and strategies for change.

Focus on Developing Leaders

While Cal didn’t have a step-by-step plan to achieve his vision for change, he knew where he wanted to end up and he was comfortable with figuring out the route along the way. To help plot this route, Cal enlisted Ilona Birenbaum as a consultant in 2007. “One of the reasons this worked,” according to Ilona, “was that Cal was so flexible. Nothing was locked in but the end vision. He would try something, learn from that, improve it, and try again. Cal had a humble approach, and I think that demonstrated a lot of integrity to the staff. He showed a clear determination to change things, and he invited everyone to help him get there.”

Cal started with his immediate team of senior executives. Ilona describes their approach and success factors:

We conducted a 360 degree assessment of each of the senior executives, including Cal. It was a pretty traditional 360 approach. We created a leadership competency model that reflected Cal’s vision and we used those competencies as the basis of the assessment. We did a few things that made the process work especially well. First, we spent a lot of time before the assessment communicating the purpose of the assessment and orienting the raters to their role and what we were asking from them—why we needed honest feedback, how it would be used, and how anonymity would be preserved. We also spent time with the executives, coaching them on how to receive and assess the feedback. I think that investment paid off handsomely.

Another thing we did that worked well was a facilitated debrief of the assessment results with the executives and their supervisors. This was part of the accountability piece. We wanted both the executive and the executive’s supervisor to understand the issues and agree to them. We wanted both individuals to commit to a development plan and milestones for addressing the feedback. In other words, we wanted the executives to take the feedback seriously. In addition, we tied completion of the development plan to the executive’s performance plan. Their performance ratings would be based in part on their diligence in addressing the weaknesses identified through the 360. These decisions definitely got the executives’ attention.

Coaching was the central element of each executive’s development plan. “We really emphasized coaching,” Ilona says. “Our coaching model focused almost entirely on the results of the 360. If one executive needed to work on communication, that was the coach’s focus. If another needed to delegate and empower, we worked on that. Our method as coaches was to develop a relationship with the executive, set clear and measurable coaching goals, and through regular meetings, work to leverage their leadership strengths and address their gaps. We assigned executives homework, which included reflection, practice, and reading to create opportunities to strengthen the skills they actively were working on. For example, executives who struggled with difficult conversations were asked to hold these conversations and reflect on what went well and what didn’t go well. Then the next coaching session would focus on that experience.”

OIG began to see immediate impacts of the assessment and coaching. Internal survey scores began to go up and coaching participants relayed extremely positive feedback on the coaching experience.

Leadership Transformation – Keys to Success

1) Executive Commitment

• Vision

• Flexibility

• Inclusiveness

• Patience

2) Competency-based Leadership Assessment

• Clear purpose

• Understanding of process

• Assistance with receiving feedback

3) Accountability

• Debrief with executive and supervisor

• Development plan tied to performance

• Individual coaching

• Focus on behavior change

The emphasis on strengthening leadership continued with the arrival of Ann Calvaresi Barr in 2009. Ann, who is currently the Deputy Inspector General, spearheaded many new initiatives aimed at enhancing OIG’s work processes and motivating its workforce. Ann describes the beginnings of culture change at OIG:

Once everyone saw we were committed to changing the organizational culture, people came to expect good leadership and to demand it. We actively sought employee input, and we kept getting great suggestions and ideas for what we could accomplish. Coaching was key to our efforts, but it was just the beginning. The dramatic change we saw is attributable more to an infectious spirit that impacted our people and our work. That was the real change. And that change came straight from Cal. He modeled and expected good leadership, and everyone followed naturally.

We’ve also been highly data-based in our approach. The key metric we watched was OPM’s employee viewpoint survey scores. We wanted those scores to keep going up, and they have. In addition to OPM’s survey, we developed a supplemental survey that we administer regularly. Our survey allowed us to delve deeper into leadership and organizational performance to make sure we were progressing according to Cal’s vision. We also conducted numerous employee focus groups to get behind the data and identify what specifically triggered certain survey responses, especially those that changed significantly or still needed attention. The focus group input helped us identify what was needed to maintain and further build a motivated workforce and a high-performing organization.

After the initial 360 assessment and coaching, OIG initiated a number of specific efforts:

• Training. The 360 assessments identified consistent learning needs across OIG’s leadership and management team. To augment the coaching, OIG developed a three-part supervisor training series. Supervision I focuses on human resource management, performance management, and providing feedback. Supervision II focuses on conflict management, team development, and collaboration. Supervision III focuses on emotional intelligence, vision, leading change, and managing stress. OIG began offering this training in 2010 to all managers and supervisors in the organization. In addition, OIG offered targeted training focused on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator^® (MBTI^®) workshops were also offered to help teams understand individual differences and improve communication, teamwork, and collaboration.
  Ann describes the momentum generated by these activities:
  Once we got rolling, the ideas for various types of training and workshops just exploded. With Cal’s full support, we started a speaker series and organized communities of practice, where staff share knowledge and lessons learned to broaden perspectives and encourage greater coordination and partnering on OIG’s work. We also started monthly leadership brownbags that bring OIG managers and executives together to focus on topics of mutual interest. Topics have included managing diversity and inclusivity, traits of an effective leader, performance management, and motivating and engaging staff. What I love about the brownbags is that they allow me to connect with all the managers in the organization, to hear how they see things and what they struggle with. We’ve had strong participation in the leadership brownbags. In fact, they became so popular that staff asked us to do something similar for employees at all levels of the organization, which we called leadership development exchanges. Since October 2011, we have held leadership development exchanges on topics such as adaptability and communication strategies, cultivating trust, managing conflict, and leading across organizational units.

  Other opportunities for training came in the form of organizational self-assessment. Calling on best practices from his military days, Cal instituted the “hot wash,” a type of learning debrief where Cal meets with teams immediately after a congressional hearing and other major work accomplishments to discuss what worked, what didn’t, what they learned, and what they would change. We also instituted return on investment meetings, led by Lou Dixon, Principal Assistant Inspector General for Auditing and Evaluation, to look critically at the returns we were able to achieve through a particular audit or evaluation.

  The enthusiasm for learning is pretty strong around here. When staff see that self-assessment and learning are important to the leadership, they find dozens of ways to accomplish them.
• Mentoring. OIG began a comprehensive employee mentoring program to create a one-of-a-kind opportunity for individual or group collaboration, goal achievement, and problem-solving. Consistent with OIG’s motto, “Mission First, People Always,” the mentoring program provides staff with a developmental partnership where knowledge, skills, information, and perspectives are shared to foster personal and professional growth. All employees are eligible to participate, and many do. Mentors serve as role models or coaches as they share career information and insight from their own work and life experience. Mentees take a brief survey to help match them with an appropriate mentor. Both mentors and mentees receive training to help them structure the process and clarify expectations.
• Leadership planning and collaboration. One of Cal’s first steps as IG was to engage his senior staff in a discussion on how to achieve his vision. OPM’s viewpoint survey and other data informed this discussion. A human capital council was formed to identify critical people needs and issues OIG faced and what was needed to further strengthen its capabilities. Senior staff were empowered to monitor their progress toward Cal’s leadership vision and to identify the need for changes in the plans and tactics for getting there. The leadership team also came together to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for OIG; that plan has since been updated, with a focus on clearly...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Developing New Leaders: Department of Transportation, Office of the Inspector General
• Chapter 2. A Model for Workforce Planning: U.S. Agency for International Development
• Chapter 3. Meeting a Major Staffing Challenge: Customs and Border Protection
• Chapter 4. Strategically Integrating New Employees: National Science Foundation Center for Veterinary Medicine
• Chapter 5. Innovative Recruitment and Retention: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• Chapter 6. Telework: Rethinking the Process of Work: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Chapter 7. Building a Knowledge Management Infrastructure: Social Security Administration
• Chapter 8. Career Paths That Work: MyCareer@VA: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• Chapter 9. An HR System That Helped Make an Agency: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• Chapter 10. Contribution-Based Compensation: Air Force Research Laboratory
• Chapter 11. Transforming HR Service Delivery: National Archives and Records Administration
• Chapter 12. HR Technology’s Gold Standard: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Chapter 13. HR Customer and Strategic Services: National Institutes of Health
• Chapter 14. What It All Means
• About the Authors
• Index