Civilian Workforce Planning in the Department of Defense: Different Levels, Different Roles

by Susan M. Gates, Christine Eibner, Edward G. Keating

Overview

Reviews workforce-planning and requirements-determination literature, analyzes data sources, and interviews individuals in workforce-planning activities at various Department of Defense (DoD) levels, to explore workforce planning and requirements determination at specific installations and identify potential planning-process roles for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and data sources for DoD-wide workforce planning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780833039019
Publisher:	Rand Publishing
Publication date:	05/25/2006

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Civilian Workforce Planning in the Department of Defense

Different Levels, Different Roles

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By Susan M. Gates Christine Eibner Edward G. Keating

Rand Corporation

Copyright © 2006 RAND Corporation
All right reserved.

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Chapter One

Introduction

In response to more than a decade of downsizing and restructuring, the Department of Defense (DoD) is engaged in a strategic planning effort to address resulting imbalances in both skills and experience levels in many parts of DoD. Strategic workforce planning is particularly important because the DoD must compete with other government agencies, as well as with the private sector, for staff possessing a variety of critical skills (U.S. Department of Defense, 2003b). In fiscal year (FY) 2002, the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy (CPP) developed a set of strategic goals for the management of the DoD civilian workforce. This goal setting was done in conjunction with the Human Resources Directors of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Washington Headquarters Services, and Defense Logistics Agency. DoD's civilian human resources strategic plan emphasizes the importance of workforce planning for the civil service workforce (DoD, 2003b, p. 9). Goal 5 of the strategic plan is to "Provide Management Systems and Tools that Support Total Force Planning and Informed Decision Making" (p. 23).

Attention to Department-wide civilian workforce planning stems in part from the President's Management Agenda of 2001 and the continuing assessments ofDepartment-level progress on the major initiatives, including workforce planning and forecasting. Although DoD is being evaluated on a Department-wide basis, most civilian workforce-planning efforts are centered at lower organizational levels.

DoD is in the process of rolling out the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) in 2006. The NSPS will replace the traditional personnel management system in DoD. A primary guiding principle of the NSPS is to put mission first-in other words, to ensure that the personnel system acts in support of DoD's mission. The implementation of NSPS will have unknown but important implications for workforce planning in DoD and provides DoD with an opportunity to revise long-standing workforce-planning and management processes.

Objectives

The primary aim of this study is to consider DoD civilian workforce planning from a Department-wide perspective. We do this by conducting case studies of local (installation-level) workforce-planning efforts, assessing the challenges that such efforts encounter, and considering the ways in which a Department-wide perspective might support or enhance local activities. The objectives of this research are to

describe the workforce-planning process at six purposefully selected military bases, including the sources of data and methods used for workforce planning

identify challenges to workforce planning at these sites

consider the options for DoD-wide workforce-planning efforts or OSD-level support for local efforts.

In the process of examining installation-level efforts, we learned about workforce-planning efforts at the service, agency, and command levels. Although we do not provide a comprehensive, or systematic, look at such higher-level efforts across DoD, we do report information on such efforts that relates to our six sites.

Methodology

In addressing the overall objective of this project, we applied a bottom-up research approach, which reflects the fact that civilian workforce planning in DoD has traditionally been decentralized. The centerpiece of our research effort was site visits at six purposefully selected installations. The site visits were designed to gather information on local workforce-planning efforts. Data collection at the sites was informed by a simple, generic workforce-planning model. In this monograph, we provide a structured description of these local efforts, assess the information on local workforce planning with an eye to identifying opportunities for Department-wide planning efforts, either in support of or as a supplement to local efforts. Additionally, we examine the information available to support Department-wide planning efforts. Finally, we develop recommendations for potential roles for OSD in Department-wide workforce planning.

The Workforce-Planning Framework

Workforce-planning efforts share a common goal of getting "the right number of people with the right skills, experiences, and competencies in the right jobs at the right time" (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). Such efforts have proliferated in public- and private-sector organizations in recent years (Crawford, 2001; Emmerichs, Marcum and Robbert, 2004a, 2004b; Ripley, 1995; Sullivan, 2002; Washington State Department of Personnel, 2000). Although specific workforce-planning approaches differ by organization, the workforce-planning process typically involves four steps, as shown in Figure 1.1.

Step 1 is to forecast demand-i.e., to estimate the staffing levels and competencies required in the future workforce. The term workforce requirements is often used to describe the output of the demand forecast. These requirements reflect the required number of positions and characteristics that the workers who fill those positions must have in order for the organization to meet its strategic intent. Employee characteristics that are measurable and potentially relevant to the identification of personnel requirements include skills or competencies, occupation/job series, and education. Ideally, an organization will have a model that translates expected workload into workforce requirements (Emmerichs, Marcum, and Robbert, 2004b). The demand forecast should identify the factors that affect workforce requirements and consider how those factors will change in the future. The demand forecast should also consider the impact of technology on workforce demand.

Step 2 (which may be performed in tandem with Step 1) is to project workforce supply. This step involves projecting current staffing levels and competency profiles into the future, based on current trends in hiring, attrition, and retention.

Step 3 brings together the results of Steps 1 and 2 to identify any gaps between supply and demand (recognizing that the supply estimates are a straightforward projection into the future that assumes no changes in workforce policy). The gap analysis may reveal important differences between the supply projection and demand forecast for particular organizational subunits, particular occupations, or specific competencies.

Step 4 is to develop strategies that address the key gaps.

The model described here captures the key elements of the workforce-planning process, but it is a dramatic simplification of the actual process used in real organizations. One simplification that has important implications for a large, hierarchical organization such as DoD is the omission of issues related to the organizational level at which workforce planning occurs. That level may influence the types of gaps that are identified, as well as the strategies available for addressing those gaps.

Workforce Planning in Large Organizations

Large, complex organizations grapple with the issue of the level at which various workforce-planning tasks should occur2 (see Crawford, 2001; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001; South Carolina Budget and Control Board, 2000; Virginia Department of Human Resource Management, 2003; Washington State Department of Personnel, 2000; U.S. Department of Transportation, 2000; Emmerichs, Marcum, and Robbert, 2004a). The workforce-planning literature indicates that the substantive workforce-planning activities illustrated in Figure 1.1 often occur at the local, or business-unit, level and that business-unit managers should be fully engaged in the process.

Nevertheless, the literature also suggests that "corporate" entities or executives who have oversight over multiple lines of business have a role to play in workforce planning. Emmerichs, Marcum, and Robbert (2004a) argue that senior-level executives should play key roles in the workforce-planning process, including ensuring that workforce planning is a key part of an organization's overall strategic planning efforts; leading the effort; and monitoring results of the process.

The possibility of leveraging resources across local organizational boundaries to address gaps provides an argument for corporate-level visibility and review of local efforts. For example, at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), workforce-planning efforts began at the business-unit level in 1991, and an agencywide process was established in 1993 (Ripley, 1995). Corporatewide scrutiny of workforce-planning information allowed the TVA to identify the need for and implement corporatewide responses to shifts in the workforce needs of individual units. "Skill-gap and surplus information projected during the work-force planning process helped Tennessee Valley Authority implement cross-organizational placement and retraining as alternatives to job cutbacks in individual business units" (Ripley, 1995, p. 5).

Another argument for a corporate-level role in workforce planning stems from a recognition that workforce-planning tools are often expensive to develop and maintain. An organization may be better off coordinating the development of such tools across the entire organization. Such coordination can also promote corporate efforts to leverage resources across organizational boundaries by creating data resources required for corporate-level visibility of local efforts. Several state governments have a statewide workforce-planning office or human resources office that plays three key roles: developing and maintaining a data warehouse with information on all state employees; developing and disseminating to state agencies a general workforce-planning methodology; and encouraging and supporting agency workforce-planning efforts as a center of excellence (see Crawford, 2001; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001; South Carolina Budget and Control Board, 2000; Virginia Department of Human Resource Management, 2003; Washington State Department of Personnel, 2000).

Because DoD is a large and hierarchical organization, we expect these considerations of organizational level to factor into and influence the workforce-planning process.

Site Visits

We conducted site visits at six installations to gather information on local workforce-planning and requirements-determination efforts in DoD. In conjunction with these six site visits, we also met with representatives from three higher-level DoD organizations. The six sites we visited were Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center, Virginia; Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma; the Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia (DSCP); Patuxent River Naval Air Warfare Center, Maryland; Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY), Virginia; and Fort Lewis, Washington. In addition to meeting local-level planners, at Dahlgren and Patuxent River, we were able to meet with workforce planners whose purview was workforce planning for the entire Naval Sea Systems (NAVSEA) and Naval Air Systems (NAVAIR) commands. Before conducting our visit at NNSY, we met with a Washington, D.C.-based workforce-planning office with oversight over all DoD naval shipyards.

Our aim in selecting these six sites for in-depth analysis was to visit a variety of installations with different organizational missions and workforce characteristics. The sites were drawn from a variety of services/agencies, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), and accommodated OSD's specific interest in shipyards and depots as providing an example of more-structured civilian workforce planning. The sites were diverse in the age distribution and occupational characteristics represented in the civilian workforce. Finally, the sites were geographically diverse, located in the Northwest, Midwest, South, and Northeast. The final sample reflects our best efforts to achieve a diverse sample according to the characteristics just discussed. Ultimately, we were limited by the willingness of installations to host a time-intensive site visit. One limitation of our final sample is that a disproportionate number of the sites were Navy installations.

Site-visit research and interviews were guided by the generic workforce-planning framework in Figure 1.1. However, in the data-gathering process, we were sensitive to the limitations of this framework. We sought input from individuals involved in the four key steps of the process. At each site, we asked to speak to representatives from manpower, civilian personnel, resource management, specific functional areas, and other business units involved in workforce planning. In most cases, doing so involved finding a contact at the installation, suggesting to this contact the type of personnel to whom we were interested in talking, and asking the contact to develop an agenda for our visit. Table 1.1 summarizes the types of officials with whom we sought interviews and the general topics to be addressed in each interview. At each site, we were able to meet with at least one individual knowledgeable about each topic, and at most installations, we met with several individuals.

At the time of our visits, several installations were undertaking workforce-planning initiatives. When possible, we met with individuals who played a role in these activities, even if they were not representatives of the offices described in Table 1.1. Special circumstances or programs at specific locations led us to conduct additional interviews with individuals involved in commandwide or activitywide planning efforts, or the program directors for education, training, and development programs.

Our interviews were guided by a semi-structured protocol. We also gave respondents the opportunity to raise important issues that were not addressed in our protocol. All of our discussions were conducted on a nonattributional basis, so that interviewees could be assured that specific statements would not be tied to them. Nevertheless, interviewees welcomed the opportunity to be acknowledged by name in the Acknowledgments section of the monograph. A summary of our interview protocol is shown in Table 1.2. The complete interview protocol is provided in Appendix A.

The basic workforce-planning model also provided a guide for the write-up of the interview results. Insights from the site visits are summarized topically in Chapter Two.

Review of Data Sources to Support Department-Wide Efforts

To evaluate the feasibility of a Department-wide role in workforce planning, we reviewed several potential sources of data that could support different stages of DoD-wide workforce planning. We examined data on DoD's civil service workforce from the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) to assess the potential usefulness of these data for workforce planning and for examining workforce trends. We obtained data from two separate DMDC files: the Civilian Personnel Master File and the Transaction File. The master file provides snapshots of the DoD civilian workforce taken at the end of each fiscal year. The transaction file provides updates on personnel transactions, such as promotions, transfers, and separations. Individuals are identified by a unique record number in each file and each year. We used this unique identifier to link files, creating a rich longitudinal database of career histories. Data were available for the years 1987 through 2003. We also examined whether Manpower Estimates Reports (MERs), submitted as part of the review process for major acquisition programs, might provide a useful source of data for workforce-planning efforts. To obtain additional background information on the way in which personnel-requirements estimates are developed for those reports, we reviewed the documentation for current major acquisition programs and interviewed officials involved in developing those reports.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Civilian Workforce Planning in the Department of Defense by Susan M. Gates Christine Eibner Edward G. Keating Copyright © 2006 by RAND Corporation. Excerpted by permission.
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