to six eighty three the government accountability office act of two thousand and eight without objection the chair and ranking minority member will have five minutes to make a statement and  act will allowed to regain its footing as an agency that not only that its employees are the best and the brightest but treat them as if they are the best and the brightest yesterday after  thank you mr chairman the government accountability office act of two thousand and eight brings forward some of the changes the g a o has articulated to this committee that it believes would increase its effectiveness as a resource that is of great value the taxpayers and citizens that i represent exist to help support our congressional oversight obligations ensures the accountability of the federal government my main concern with the legislation is and we are at market now on thursday this legislation is a complex bill featuring many proposed changes that deserve adequate scrutiny by both sides i will not oppose the legislation at today's markup but rather i hope that when the subcommittee markup in consideration by the full committee minority members will have ample opportunity to weigh in on any possible problems that might be detected in the legislation once we have had the opportunity to fully remind all concerned that the issue that brought the colors to light most was the difference between the way people of color and others were treated with respect especially you mr chairman who have been in the forefront of pressing for equal opportunity for federal employees including all employees my bill and i'm willing i'm open to  whatever we decide is the most appropriate way but my bill deals with the issue as it hit us in this committee and to deal with that issue alone added i've been made aware this is very old and the changes that we now rely on such as the office of compliance more recent as i recall the office of compliance with some of us may recall came out of the notion that the same laws that apply to congress apply to everybody else or to apply to congress as i recall this was a an issue that came through a democratic congress but it was a believe in a republican congress and we got the office  of compliance what my amendment does or i would i will call it the bill and we'll see how it will be incorporated as the meetings progress simply pattern itself on the office well if it's good enough for the speaker of the house and members of congress it seems to me it ought to be good enough for the controller general and therefore what this bill does that we will work from and  sure that no one feels beholden and receiving complaints from employees and systems have worked close to for ever and there's never been a complaint about how they explain why people who had been there as employees were getting less pay and why this proportionately they were the ones who didn't get called there is no way to settle the issue of paying cause while ignoring what brought the matter before us in the first place it wasn't just that the whole agencies came agency came and said we don't like this system gotta be wrong with our pay system where the only people don't get callers are the people disproportionately don't get colored are people who have satisfactory and better work performance and yet are not getting the call is that two million federal workers get that is what the bill before us today as a matter of fairness to them just to get their comment bill to them as a matter of fantasy and i do want to quote from part of it because the union  concerned before we reach the full committee we can reach agreement on a way to make this entire matter whole and deal with the with the entire matter as it was brought before us thank you thank you very much and let me just  say that i think that a very rational and coherent premise and i certainly agree with you that anyone with investigatory power and authority should have as much freedom and flexibility to do their work without any sense of inhibition and i also appreciate the fact that we will have an opportunity to authority to make sure that no one is left out of the discussion and also i want to thank all of those i want to thank the ranking member all of the members of this committee and all of those in attendance welcome to the subcommittee on the federal workforce service and the subcommittee on oversight of government management federal workforce and the district of columbia join hearing on manage and diversity of senior leadership postal service and the district of columbia purpose of the hearing is to continue the subcommittees oversight  give an opening statement and ask questions and also a ranking member and the subcommittee members will each have five minutes to make statements and all members will have three days to submit statements senator akaka ranking member marchant members of the subcommittee hearing witnesses welcome to the subcommittee hearing on managing diversity of senior leadership in the federal workforce and postal service today's hearing is to examine h r thirty seven seventy four and the senate companions senate twenty one the senior executive service diversity assurance act of two thousand and seven three previous hearings i have held requested on the subject expected to testify that while doing research for the most recent diversity report one report that i a senator conquer requested it found that between two thousand and two thousand and seven that was a decrease in our american men in the i believe that h r thirty seven seventy is the first step in tackling several of the issues that have come to light regarding the lack of diversity in the it should be enacted as soon as possible to prevent further completed the subcommittee will determine whether legislative action is necessary to address diversity in the postal workforce the department of homeland security has been asked to testify because last month the committee on homeland security issued a report in the department of homeland security minority and gender diversity in the work and career senior executive service hearing today managing diversity of senior leadership in the federal workforce and postal service i commend your efforts to improve the operations of the federal government as well as your vigorous promotion of ingre diversity in the workplace i look forward to this and continue discussions of how we can make the federal government a better place to work obviously the american business landscape is changing much faster than federal agencies in this and in a sense this creates a giant laboratory for policymakers to observe and learn what is working in the private sector and what might not be best for the government setting if done correctly this oversight process can improve workings of the federal government and make it in the even better place to work however implementing policy changes without full consideration of the consequences both intended and unintended  end up adding additional bureaucracy to a system already beleaguered by low application numbers and relatively uncompetitive compensation packages thank you again mr chairman for giving us a chance to study this issue and i look forward to the testimony from our witnesses for the many i hope we can all work together to determine the best ways to reach our diversity goals while avoiding creating a bureau bureaucratic morass where everyone is on satisfied and mr chairman cultural understanding that can lead to new creative directions or unintended problems they arise unfortunately the number of minorities in two thousand and three the government accountability office evaluated data from two thousand and at that time the report showed sixty seven percent of senior executives were white using two thousand and six data they were small improvements made in the overall representation of women and minorities over the past six years but gains were inconsistent among the part of the and how to improve that shortfall with an estimated ninety percent of federal executives eligible to retire in the next ten years agencies must appointments and passing them along for review to many executive candidates are accepted without a woman or minority ever looking at the vailable pool of applicants all bill requires the diverse to be incorporated in to the process of review but not in the standards of the review the standards are high for entry into there and we need to continue to ensure that the merit system principles are supported in the process of candidate review however diversity is not at odds with merit system principles and we believe  minorities we are seeing a senior executive service that is less and less diverse the heinie infamous change really means that it is going down that as retirements come replacement are of action you're going to see this kind of reduction throughout for two reasons one minority applicants today do not have the same incentive  work in the federal government that they had in my generation and in my parents generation the private sector is out there looking for them reaching for them giving them the kind of benefits and pay that frankly we do not give them that we should be focusing on two things require recruitment to be sure beginning at the levels where people can move  and retention yes there is every incentive to get out of the federal workforce now you've been in the workforce all the benefits and framing of the work of the federal workforce you look at the private sector has it does seem to me that economically there is every incentive to leave early retirement certainly for retirement itself i have a special interest and concern frankly for n sector who were able to work in the federal sector frankly when they couldn't work anywhere else albeit in the bowels of the federal sector and then have found themselves for a long time stuck and now  cafeteria of federal agencies still there were federal employees working in the lower levels long history of work in the federal government so that there would be very special disappointment to see thank you very much chairman davis and center members of the subcommittee thank you for allowing me to participate on behalf of the congressional hispanic caucus i appreciate your efforts to address the under representation of minorities that the executive level in the federal work force legislation that both of you have introduce h r three seven seven four on the house side the senior executive service diversity assurance act is a step in the right direction to address the severe problems of under representation of minorities at the senior executive service level i support this legislation because it will do one thing that a number of hispanic employed groups have requested for a number of years it will introduce accountability into the process of hiring and promoting candidates for senior positions in the federal government let us look at the numbers and i know that we've gone over these but they bear repeating in the pathway positions for the g s thirteen to fifteen is span expiring h dropped by two point eight percent the latest o p m report cites a reduction from five point eight percent to three point two percent of latinos in management positions entering the s e s the majority of hispanic ours in the federal workforce are concentrated at the g s one through eight categories now we receive a great deal of information about the outreach conducted by agencies in a spanish and other minority communities and the guidance o p m has provided to help recruit for those various positions yet there is very little in the way of data that tells us about the effectiveness of those outreach efforts the current agency initiated process moving along candidates has failed to produce the results we should be seeing despite the outreach and federal requirements agencies just haven't been up to the task of promoting diversity in the senior ranks in a way that is convincing the results of their efforts thus far speak volumes to that point members of our communities can no longer wait for agencies to wake up to the fact that they have to consider diversity in their succession planning the bottom line is they have not done a good job of this despite the requirement to do so therefore something different is in order it is no mystery the federal government will begin to see a mass exodus of employees due to retirement in the coming decade this provides an incredible opportunity for o p m to work with the agencies to develop the future workforce agencies by themselves cannot and will not do it and frankly you will not succeed at least when it deals with considering diversity in that equation therefore it is up to o p m to demonstrate leadership this legislation puts the responsibility of promoting versity with the agency that recruits the candidates for public service the office of personnel and management it will require a hands on approach genuine engagement and active direction and not the mere issu of passive directives to do the right thing which are rarely enforced it is a first step in for riding o p m with the tools it will need to affect the problem and requiring that once and for all that they get engaged however this was not stop here for we will tackle the issue at the agency level and bring more accountability to the process so we develop a workforce that actually looks like america when congress passes this legislation which i believe it will and it becomes law i know that the members here today and many of my colleagues who support this issue will be eagerly looking for results there for expectations or indeed high for o p m to produce notable and positive outcomes again i want to thank  really ok ok thank you for the invitation to discuss our efforts to create a diverse senior executive service and improve the overall diversity of the federal workforce i also welcome the opportunity to review the senior executive service diversity assurance act with you and update you on our efforts to build the most effective federal civilian workforce possible we have long recognized that reaching the broadest possible pool of applicants for federal jobs is essential to achieve the goal of having an effect of civilian workforce our efforts in this regard are conducted within the framework of merit system principle we must ensure that all americans have equal access to federal employment opportunities at all levels of the workforce and that their knowledge skills and abilities are evaluated fairly the office of personnel management promotes federal employment expans including in areas where the potential applicant pool is very diverse one of the techniques we use is conducting job fairs and federal career days at colleges and universities including community colleges that are likely to help us establish a pipeline of diverse and highly qualified individuals our efforts to build the most effective corps of senior executives depend in part on ensuring an effective pipeline into the senior executive service many of our efforts are aimed at supporting agencies development of future leaders through leadership training and succession planning programs federal agencies often include as candidate development programs in the leadership succession strategies they are required to implement data clearly show these programs are proving to be an excellent vehicle for minority entry into the candidates placed into the s e s from these programs represent higher percentages of both minorities and women than are in the s e s today o p m reports to congress on minority representation in the federal government in relation to the over all civilian labor force our most recent report was submitted to the congress and to your subcommittee in january the report shows that the federal government continues to compare favorably to the civilian labor force and employing minorities with the exception of hispanics the federal government also employs a slightly lower percentage of women than the nonfederal sector the proposed bill thirty seven seventy four and twenty one forty eight are designed to enhance diversity and make other improvements within the i appreciate the attention and commitment you have devoted to this issue however although the administration has not yet taken an official position on the legislation i want to share with you some initial concerns first these bills what establish a new office within o p m which would assume all functions relating to the senior executive service today there are several offices within o p m supporting the s e s we believe the current structure allows the agency to bring a higher level of expertise to evaluation panels that would be inserted into each agency between the recommending official and the executive resources board their task would be to review the qualifications of each candidate for career s e s appointments and to certify the names of candidates the panel believes to be best qualified each s t s evaluation panel would have three members at least one of whom would have to be a woman and one of whom would have to be a member of a racial or ethnic minority the department of justice has advised that these race and gender based requirements are very likely unconstitutional under governing and equal protection precedents i assure you that o p m shares your goal of a federal workforce that is affective in large part because it draws on the strengths of a broad and diverse applicant pool this will continue to be our goal with respect to developing and recruiting senior executives as well as the rest of the federal civilian workforce i would be happy to answer any question good afternoon jim and david and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to highlight our efforts to develop and recruit a diverse talent pipeline ready to accept the challenges of leadership tomorrow our recruitment and development efforts have been extremely successful resulting in many prestigious awards and other recognition for the postal service we have the second largest employer in the nation with almost seven hundred thousand employees key to the postal services business objective is the development of talented individuals who are prepared to assume leadership positions quickly and successfully the postal service recognizes the business imperatives of creating a pool of talented employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences employees are developed throughout their careers to take on new roles new assignments and new challenges we have created a number of process programs that assess and identify high potential employees we train develop and ultimately foster their career advancement our developmental programs include those designed to prepare employees to become initial level supervisors mid level managers and executives the postal service is identifying tomorrow's leaders today succession planning is a systematic process to ensure that our organization has a steady reliable pool of talented individuals who will be ready and able to meet the postal service future leadership needs the postal services corporate succession planning office a structured corporate wide and transparent process for identifying those employees with the potential to become executives in our organization the self nomination process puts employees in control of their koreas by allowing them to express their interest in career advancement and leadership roles are multi tiered review process and approval process ensures objective and fair treatment of all applications finally corporate succession planning allows ongoing development for programs to supplant we're proud to reflect the diversity of america over thirty eight percent of our total workforce is minority and almost forty percent female minority and female representation continues to be strong in our management executive and officer ranks in two thousand and seven thirty two percent of our managers were female while thirty percent were minorities the number of employees occupying executive positions is fairly small compared to our entire workforce these individuals are responsible for operating our plant district and headquarters function in two thousand and seven there were seven hundred forty eight executives and all of these twenty six percent were minorities only twenty nine percent were female we understand that developing our talented employees does not guarantee  viable future in our organization we recruit talented individuals from outside the postal service who have knowledge and expertise that may not be available and how the postal service requires leaders with a broad range of knowledge and experiences excellent business and an understanding of the market drives that influence our business last year the postal service created an office dedicated to recruiting the best and the brightest we recruit talented individuals at colleges and universities through professional organizations and at career the postal service participates on panels sponsors events and conferences targeting women and minorities and promotes the postal service as an employer of choice in addition we are leveraging technology to reach new generation interested in postal careers are job postings appear on a variety of specialized website in the increasing competition for talent we must continue to attract and retain the right people we believe that our new recruitment office and our diversity professionals continuous community outreach will succeed  attracting talent and diverse individuals with the skills and expertise we need for ongoing business success in conclusion the postal service has a long and proud history of employing a diverse minority representation exists today in the rest of the federal government we believe that the best way to bring people into the us is to train them and development them and bring them along and if you look at the pipeline of people currently in the federal government in the thirteen to fifteen level and in the senior payer lovell it's number one it's definitely increasing for both in two thousand and seven about three hundred thirty i think it is and so out of a seven thousand person service when you only bring in about five percent a year it definitely just takes time for the numbers to we're evaluating and reviewing what's going on in that program we've had some difficulties in its operation and we're reviewing that we've told the candidates in the agencies that were currently on hold while we individual self nominate and have an opportunity for development in the mid level ranks or a managerial rank we have put in place what we call an leadership development program two thousand and four there was a slight increase but if you look at two thousand and four and two thousand and seven even given the nature of your fact we had have had and continue to have a large african american population both are relatively large in comparison with the federal government in our executive as well as in our  supervisory managerial ranks we have seen as the population has decreased overall for us we have seen retirements in our men in general and we have seen white decreases in white men as well as african american men and there has only been a slight increase in our hispanic population those areas are areas that we are working very closely with our internal employee affinity groups with because we recognize that some individuals are not putting themselves out there to actually make application and self nominate to our program so we're asking for working very closely with our affinity groups encouraging individuals to self nominate giving them the courage to make application and see that there are there are opportunities from an african american women five point three to seven point zero when i look at the years between zero four and zero seven and i see a significant and that is what leads me to ask  about filling jobs and promotions but rather about developing individuals for leadership what has been what we have looked towards is identifying people and giving them opportunity if we look towards of change we did have one office prior to our reorganization in two thousand and three which was not that long ago and so those of us with long career at o p m remember that i really believe the service and the quality of service community is better today because instead of having a small office devoted to one topic we bring together experts in various aspects of personnel management such as how you recruit how you evaluate how you service how you how you rank applications and things like that and so working with us there are more applicants and it requires a leadership element that evaluates whether folks have been effective leaders in encouraging diversity so our in our interest is there we have the human capital  appropriations committee and is interested in promoting diversity cited a two thousand and seven survey that the o p m had conducted of its own employees about twenty five percent of the o p m employees chose to neither agree nor disagree on whether p m policies and programs to promote diversity in the agency an additional twelve percent selected do not know as their response an additional nine point four percent disagree that the o p s effort to promote diversity in the agency that was what was reported in the paper today so you probably have about half of those within o p m that were surveyed that either have a negative opinion or no opinion or don't know that is even internally that that would be unacceptable and when you think in terms of what you're doing basically sets the course died and such you have to look at it and and question internally what you all are doing so that's what gets our attention and then if you spread that throughout the agencies and departments that are not meeting any of the mandates your goals or recommendations set out by executive orders and such now you really got as worried and it seems like the frustration only grows from year to year because the numbers don't seem to be improving now i understand that a certain agency or department may have a better record of diversity in in hiring at all levels and at the senior executive levels and it's always amazing to see which ones are more successful than others and in our discussions with directors springer we were trying to say well do you identify those programs that are more successful  and such one of the recommendations this legislation and again i just want to this is from a memorandum that is prepared by staff for the benefit of members of the committee it is the bills divide into primary sections of first section would recreate the senior executive resources are at o p m which was dissolved a number of years ago according to senior executive executives association and i think they have their representative  in most of the existence of the senior executive service there existed at o p m a single office of the executive resource which is responsible for thinking about and overseeing the specialized corps of senior executives and related classifications constituting the career leadership of the united states government ever since the division of this office responsibility a number of years ago concerns on issues relating to the career leadership corps has been parcelled out among many different and sometimes hard to identify alone parts of o p m and your position would be in opposition to that particular aspect of this legislation i think i think we're serving that community better by giving them access to all the experts that touch on all all facets of the c s and my particular office will take any call from that to make sure it gets to the right right place we are committed to serving that population we just don't think this is the way to do it i think it's been our experience that we like to see th institutionalized within departments and so on that have certain duties and responsibilities that address the issues that are before us and i think that's the approach of this legislation i don't speak for the author or anyone at this point but that would be my understanding that we had something that was in place truly dedicated to the proposition looking of course senior executive levels and how you promote what you do to retain and even outside hires as you were saying which are minimal when you understand even congress doesn't like sometimes when people are telling us that we have to do something differently and maybe have something within our own body that certain members but nevertheless sometimes  identify individuals give them opportunity give them coaching over time and that's the best practice in private industry and in fact thousand and five as having a best practice with our programs as well while challenges associated with long term fiscal constraint changing demographics and other factors senior leadership across government including the postal service is essential to providing accountable committed consistent and sustained attention to human capital and related organizational transformation a diverse executive core can be an organizational strength by bringing a wider variety of perspectives and approaches to policy development and implementation strategic planning problem solving and decision making in two thousand and three we issued a report that looked at diversity in the as of october two thousand we estimated by race ethnicity and gender the number who would leave government service by october of two thousand and seven and projected what the profile of the would be at the end of two thousand and seven if a point did not change we made similar estimates for the g s fifteen increase overall among both women and minorities as well as in most categories although the amount of those increases the only decrease in representation among minorities occurred in african american men representation typically on an issue like that we would look to o p m to provide that information and we would then work with your team in your office in analyzing those responses because i think it's very important especially as we find  unimpressive point six percent for african american women of course a decrease for african american men point nine percent for men point two percent six point four percent yes that's what that's what leads me to question but the numbers yes employees went up that's correct not all you do you have vacancies that can be filled for employees and you had then was very enlightening there are many different conditions that may i guess mitigate why an agency or department may not be meeting certain numbers that are out there or they're encouraged to say that's interesting i guess what i learned was that many times you can tell us what but not necessarily the why's and today i think again i'm getting that that sense that you can give us the raw numbers you can go in there and you can analyze this and say this is what you have in the way of of women african american women asian american women hispanics and so on but you can't really tell us what might be the best practices or why one agency does better than another and my experience from your previous assistan you provided us that in the final analysis it really is going to be zero p m and of course the equal employment opportunity commission they actually in everything  that's what we end up with at the end of this whole process and i don't know if he's ever going to go in there and analyze all the different departments and agencies and figure out why they have greater success at  attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce i i don't know that it's that would ever be your charge if we told you go out there and we want you to analyze all the different departments and agencies not just the senior executive levels across the board who does a better job and why do they do the better job is that it would that be a legitimate request would you be able to ever do anything like that well i would be a major undertaking  really the accountability or consequences of failing to be aggressive and effective in the efforts of any agency and department and that's why we ended up with o p m and e e o c as really probably be in the entities that you would look for as far as maybe exercising some sort of decision making in policy implementation that would result in the accountability and responsibility of all those agencies and departments that maybe are doing that good a job as we  believe that they should but i know that there's many you know cause and effect is an important thing here and the numbers i think are really important but i do believe they just provide us with some raw data and unless what is attempting to be accomplished by this piece of legislation if we don't move aggressively ourselves and try to institutionalize within o p m are an agency or department some sort of again either a body end up having questions so let me thank you so much for being here and we'll begin with you thank you it's a privilege to be here thank rest of the members of the subcommittee for also being here promote the commission is a micro agency as defined by o p m its term for an agency with fewer than one hundred employees commission has fifty five it has been almost sixteen months under the fosters recruitment development and retention of a talented and skilled workforce and recognize our workforce is a valuable asset a state in the planning commission has committed to merit human resources program within poser form and a shifting responsibility to the commission benefit from a thorough review of its workforce needs over the past year the commission allies workforce in terms of demographics position characteristics workforce trends competencies as noted the commission plan articulate short term and ongoing operational strategies that include recruiting developing and implementing a succession planning system and sustaining capital plan to encourage diversity as noted the commission has fifty five employees i expect to grow to approximately seventy of those currently employed forty nine percent are twenty seven are female and fifty one percent are twenty eight are male women have assumed leadership roles as directors assistant directors and policy advisors additional women to our successor pools increases our opportunity to improve the representation of women in higher leadership positions as we turnover in the coming thirty percent of those were hired into senior leadership positions the commission office heads are committed to broadening our outreach actually as wanted economics at howard university in order to assist in our recruitment  thank you mr chairman members of the subcommittee i appreciate the opportunity to discuss diversity in the office of the inspector general focusing in particular on the diversity of our senior executive staff in our developmental fourteen and fifteen will i will also discuss our programs that assure we continue to get into diversity in the factors that affect the office of the inspector general is committed to diversity we understand that diversity is important in developing and maintaining a high quality and high performing workforce overall thirty five percent of our employees are minorities as compared to thirty three percent of the federal workforce forty percent are women as compared to forty four percent in the federal workforce the makeup of our senior executive staff in our development also reflects our commitment to diversity currently thirty three percent of our senior executives are minorities as compared to sixteen percent of the federal government and forty two percent are women compared to twenty nine percent turning now to our executive developmental pool minorities are twenty six percent of our pool compared to twenty one percent in government and women are thirty five percent as compared to thirty two percent  each year we look at our our retirement may affect our diversity we expect that a third of our women and minorities who are senior executives and one of our minorities and women in our executive development will likely retire by twenty thousand and eleven undersecretary for management elaine do are committed to increasing diversity within a department particularly within a department career senior executive service for example under secretaries cheered us leadership the number of career senior executives who are persons with disabilities has increased dramatically as my polish to serve as a department acting chief human capital officer a position which i was just appointed to just last month and also as its director of workforce relations and performance culture a position that i held since  department in may two thousand and seven my service to the department has furthered my understanding of the importance and benefits of maintaining a qualified and diverse workforce the department has continued its efforts to develop such a workforce particularly with regards to its core career senior executives to date that effort has enjoyed achievements that v h s will continue to build upon the h s will continue to address the challenges that remain indeed we are making an effort to develop a qualified and diverse pool of applicants for s c s positions by preparing current g s fourteen and g s fifteen employees through new programs such as mentoring and coaching programs rotational assignments the d h s s fellows program and the s b s candidate development program of which of the twenty three d h s employees just selected for the next s c s candidate development program twenty two percent are african american thirteen percent are hispanic and thirty percent are women we believe it is imperative to explore a variety of means to ensure a more diverse applicant pools for all of our jobs for the present and future years to come starting with recruitment efforts we have implemented department  component recruiting strategies designed to improve the diversity of the h s talent pool including creating an s p s level director of recruiting in diversity within our chief human capital office who is responsible for implementing strategic programs to recruit a larger diversity talent pool for all jobs with india including the s e s establishing a formal partnership with urban leeds black executive programme b whereby one hundred fifty v h s employees have volunteered with managerial endorsement to serve as presenter does and speakers at the prevents at historically black colleges and universities pursuing similar partnerships with the national association of hispanic federal executives and the african american federal executive association and exploring the assistance of an executive search for a firm with a proven record in enhancing diversity in my previous role as director of workforce relations and performance culture i initiated plans to create a labor management council with india h s as acting chief human capital officer i will ensure that diversity is a focus of these councils in order to demonstrate the department wide commitment to diversity d h s has designed our management coun to be a diversity council this council is composed of top level officials from every component and is chaired by deputy undersecretary for management among the council's most pressing actions will be to issue d h as corporate diversity strategy and to implement a diversity action plan for the remainder f y two thousand and eight through two thousand and ten in the coming year will pursue a number of other avenues aimed at increasing diversity as a first step we have begun to identify requirements for a consultant to conduct a cultural audit of the department we are reviewing our s e s hiring procedures to identify potential practices and procedures that would integrate attention to diversity in our process our plans include establishing external diversity outreach advisory form of interested stakeholders ensuring accuracy of current racial and gender information prototyping diversity management training for managers and executives and issuing specific guidance to executives holding diversity advocate competencies in their performance plan these efforts are critical given the twenty six percent of our career executives are eligible to retire in two thousand and eight thirty four percent in two thousand and nine and forty one percent in two thousand and ten the department of homeland security is only five years old when the president congress called for the integration of twenty two disparate agencies we answered the call and stood up the agency that is today nearly two hundred ten thousand strong by reflecting on what america's diversity our employee workforce will provide a wide range of ideas and solutions to protect america and we are committed to achieving a diverse workforce including our executive cadre we are pleased with your interest and support in ensuring that continues to increase the diversity in its workforce and we do look forward to working with you further to ensure continued develop development programs the local development program our career leadership program individual self nominate our manager individuals into our career leadership program detail recruitment activities on a quarterly basis after action reports are evaluated from a diversity an operational perspective and information concerning t thank you mr chairman senior executives association the professional association representing the interests of career senior executive service members and those holding level in positions appreciate the opportunity to testify about the senior executive service diversity act we applaud your leadership on this important issue of achieving diversity in the career senior executive service and we assure you that i want to work with you and others who care about this issue after all the success of sound government and the strength of our democracy depend on it believes that because of our close association with career senior executives we can offer ideas based on practical experience that will help attain a diverse executive core we do believe we have some suggestions outlined below that can strengthen the bills several areas where the government could dramatically improve diversity first we believe improve accessible clear data needs to be developed specifically work needs to be done to build pipelines for career development to ensure that minorities and women are actually placed in a place to be promoted to the senior executive finally and necessary for the other factors to work agencies must adopt a culture of leadership that emphasizes being fair to and inclusive of all employees the first step in this is to obtain a centralized o p m senior executive service office which we believe should provide effective oversight and management to assure that those parts of the desert diversity goal become a reality in the past o p m has had an office for the senior executive service and it worked effectively to monitor and manage the government while currently different offices within o p m share the responsibility for managing the s e s with policy and one office and implementation of that policy in another office in our opinion the effect has been a diminishment in the effectiveness of the management of the government wide corps with respect to diversity this means that agencies use different systems  promoting general schedule employees to the s e s and could further complicate and hinder overall the overall selection process suggest that the current legislation be improved by allowing agencies to choose between diversity selection panels as stated in the bills for effective oversight and management of the selection process by diversity subcommittee of executive resources boards with authority and responsibility to oversee the s election process including the development of pipeline the subcommittees would consist entirely of s e s a majority of whom must be minorities or women and they would have veto or oversight power over  selection this would provide a strong mechanism to encourage diversity while not adding any bureaucratic hurdles to an already difficult selection process recommends this alternative because it has proven to diversity in the and had a major impact on changing the culture to encourage the consideration of diversity in the selection process lastly we believe that diversity will be further helped along with congress and the administration constantly strive to assure that the us is attractive as a clear goal to all general schedule employees quality gen schedule employees are content to stay at the g s fourteen or fifteen levels because of  sense that the pay system is not being fairly administered diversity may be harder to achieve re obtaining a senior executive service services former stature and prestige will ensure that the most qualified candidates apply including minority and women candidates with impressive credentials i thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee looks forward to continuing to work with the subcommittee on what our organization sees as one of the most important matters facing our members and our future members we hope to continue to be an effective voice of the federal government career executive leadership on this and other matters about about the civil service thank you thank you very much and we  and staff were introduced in this landmark legislation this legislation will go a long way in correcting the under representation of minorities and women in the s e s on the representation was validated by testimony before this committee made attempt two thousand and seven with regards to african americans testified that only eight point six percent of the approximately sixty three hundred korea members of the s e s were african americans between october two thousand and october two thousand and six the percentage of african american men dropped from five point five to five point one percent doing the same percentage of african american women and the s e s increase from two point nine to three point five percent looking at the total percentages in october two thousand african americans represented eight point four percent of the s e s and six years later they represented eight point six percent and increase this is at the current trends ten years from now over ninety two percent of the s e s will not be african americans the s e s diversity act will correct this situation by and showing that as agencies go about the business of filling vacancies the selection process will be consistent among federal agencies and minorities and women are considered and evaluate it against the same objective criteria as this of our organizations two hundred twenty five african american senior leaders have written today members of congress urging passage of this legislation in it requirement of the use of a diverse selection panel does not support such viewpoints federal agencies have had years to voluntarily diversified and failed to do so as the government's own statistics point out we see voluntary implementation as an effort to slow roll the diversity mandate the problem nation of the talent it desperately needs to maintain its position of leadership in the world and the problem nation of the opportunity to vert and i approach a workforce crisis since two thousand and three organization has conducted three training workshops where we diversity training which is annually given at our national regional and chapter training program with respect to the team and its members have been extremely active first we have handle a bird individualized packet to every house and senate member that enclosed a fact sheet on these bills included was a letter requesting that the legislator co sponsor or support these measures we also enclosed employment statistics detailing the number of federal employees working in each congressional district and state within a couple of days several staffers contacted our washington representative to announce that their bosses were adding their names to the co sponsors our members also had been extremely busy sending letters directly to their legislators urging them to co sponsor so far these letters have successfully resulted in two more  sponsors which we are very proud of and finally i want to talk about i also met with o p m on two different occasions because federally employed women is very concerned about the statistics and the status of women in the government and we want  to pull this district and do a federal survey i met with linda springer and i also met with o p m counsel they both discouraged this survey to be sent out by at the w however i'm glad to report that on march the camp at the w did indeed send out this survey to twenty two federal agencies the survey asked a variety of questions regarding alternative work schedules training opportunities career development programs upward mobility programs formal mentoring programs and training dollars which are targeted towards women this survey will be used to assess the areas needing support and the direction for women to advance in their careers it will be piled into a report presented to the various agencies responding as well as to congress our goal is to establish and it's a tool to direct focus identify barriers and plan for the future needs to ensure that the federal workforce is receiving the support and direction that it deserves in summary at the w would like to suggest that in order to improve the representation of women in the management and other senior alleged  positions we must and i emphasize must increase the development of those pools that everybody keeps talking about and with that in mind we must ensure that managers and supervisors are held accountable for diversity we must ensure that women have meaningful and decisive roles on committees task forces and other decision making entities and we must ensure that the assignments given to women are not purely task oriented but rather include decision making and strategic thinking roles we must provide networking training on issues that affect women in the workforce and this is a big one by far the lack of training and cross training has been cited as a major impediment for women moving in the top levels of the federal government women need to have leaders to whom they can ask questions of painted by about their careers suggestions recruitment will not happen if you will not develop the pool again very much appreciates a subcommittee and chairman interest in the increasing diversity on increasing the diversity in the senior executive service and all the support that you have given the federal work force in the past and on and over the one million ways to ensure that more was offered to help in any way to ensure that more women and minorities can aspire and sixty two entering the senior executive we proudly join our fellow federal executive associations to support his landmark legislation our issues simply mirror the central concerns of this committee first asian pacific americans are significantly under represented in the s e s second progress in s a s diversity has been slow uneven and inconsistent third yes yes diversity surance act is long overdue when asian previewing testified on the subject before you knock over two thousand and three made the following observations according to the g a o representation of a p as a career and c s was the most significant disparity among all of the women and racial ethnic group study by the g a o the g a o reports confirm has not sufficiently improved while the g o p jacksons may not have been perfect in every age to our knowledge there is no agencies with s e s ranks matches or exceeds the a p ratio of five point eight nine percent of the entire federal executive branch the number of asian pacific american s e s in the entire federal government only totals two point four percent in two thousand and seven with the potential retirement of many if not most of the caress yes over the next five years ensuring diversity in our senior ranks of the even more important as we grow the next generation of senior executives while administration officials continue to urge progress in making a federal civil service and its top leadership look like america this progress has been slow and even and inconsistent the federal government should have a diverse workforce not only to demonstrate that it represents the american population but also because diversity enhanced is the effectiveness of government for example our various law enforcement agencies at all levels and across the country must begin to mirror our nation's of versity if they are to maintain domestic peace and equitably enforce all laws within an across the social strata failure to have diversity in the law enforcement may lead to misunderstanding and assumptions of prejudice by communities that are not represented our the department of justice report that their a p a percentage was only zero point seven percent which was half of what it was in the year two thousand there's wide to parity in the degree of workforce adversity across the federal government with little concrete evidence on why some agencies have consistently been one representative the nation as a whole while others have made measured if only partial progress during the same time frame unfortunately has been too little study of recent executive branch diversity effort while it is easy to measure the changes in demographics it is more difficult to understand the causes is important the executive branch and the congress and address the various factors that promote and inhibit workforce diversity such as minority recruitment building talent pipeline succession planning management development and most importantly sustained commitment of agency senior leaders to diversity the s e s diversity assurance act is a long overdue and welcome correction to pass policies and practices that have not been adequate to expand executive versity across our government without this legislation it is unlikely the s e s will adapt quickly enough to meet enormous global and domestic challenges the twenty first century this legislation will require the federal government to institute policies practices and reporting processes that will clearly advance our common goals of equal opportunity and diversity inclusion we encourage both committees to continue to exercise vigorous oversight over the evolution of the s e s we recommend th regular studies by the g o p conducted to assess the degrees and rates of progress an executive or city across all federal agency where particular challenges and obstacles for specific minorities such as a pacific americas identified executive branch in collaboration with the congress should formulate an implementor appropriate grammys and solutions to ensure that our senior executives service is truly reflective of all parts of american society thank you for providing this opportunity to share all of you thank you very much and we possibly the chairman davis thank you for the opportunity to be a before you today i recently retired from federal service and i am a true witness of the difficulties percent that is a hispanic under representation gap of six point one percent that's represents one hundred twenty thousand jobs or approximately five point five billion is halley's to launch with the hispanic community and mr chairman it is the view of the senior executives association and the career senior executives that we've talked to this talked about this issue with that that creating a requirement that these panels be created with one minority one one woman and one other would actually delay the process would would create eventual e a a mentality of check the box among  the bureaucracy that would be a bureaucratic requirement which you know our view might not be effective in the long run and it was the belief of of our association that an alternative would be to create effective leadership and we've we've submitted that proposal in detail with our written testimony and it is our position not that it be of voluntary selection panel but that agencies be required to use the selection panels as as outlined in the bill unless they implement one of these affective diversity subcommittees which actually has the power the authority to veto s e s elections and they're responsible already to create a pipeline it is only then that we think that the agency would be demonstrating the type of leadership necessary to then relieve it of the of the requirement to have a panel and so we're not suggesting that anything be voluntary we're not suggesting business as usual we're selecting either suggesting that either they do business as is in the bill currently or they demonstrate effective shape in the legislation and relative to look at historical effort is the notion that absolute subjectivity is probably a great is absolute objectivity and that to arrive at this notion of objectivity that much of it is like beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that different people different based upon their experience based upon what they've been told based on what they've been made to believe based upon what they've been helped to believe and my fear is that as we go down the road there are certain things that people will just never see unless they get the opportunity but nevertheless in any case this is not in addition it's not to create an additional layer this is a substitute for the process that is ongoing right now that is not working by the government's own statistics so that is what we see as key in in the bill here it provides a diverse panel and it is a better way if you would of doing business we have talked to our members and man of the members and there are certain agencies that have a very informal process that they're using right now we know of a particular agency where one individual has selected everyone from g s fourteen up through to s c s and there is no one of kala at the g s fourteen or bob level and that agency because of the confidentiality that we share with our members i can't mention the agency but i'd say to do it different not to add anything on but to substitute a process that will give us better results you very very comfortable with the bill as written and i'm not sure what kind of whatever we're trying to play here but i came over for two or three sessions and gave up my time quer membership on many many levels to ask about various words and various phrases in my membership is behind this one hundred percent during the various meetings that we had when we were pending  legislation it was suggested that perhaps the word or a woman would not be appropriate on the panel that it might be easier to pass without a woman on the panel and i know the facts do not lie understand concerned about additional delays and bureaucracy however i have every confidence that agency management will put sufficient resources and time to select their senior executives in appropriate timely way because it's that great this country is and those words can reside with me where struggle and as you mention the fact that we are on the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of dr martin luther king and of course tomorrow is that day and we commemorate his life and his legacy that it has taken a long time to get to the point where different populations of feeling in a sense of equity of opportunity as we go through even the process of electing a president of the united states of america that there seemed to be a tremendous amount of interest in where we are now and i wouldn't be opposed to thinkin that much of that interest has to do with the first of the candidates and that diversity just made their way to a new chapter in the history of the development of our country in our government and i believe that we owe it to every single person in this country to help them believe deep down within their heart that they have the opportunity to rise to the highest level of opportunity relative to the work t to do everything in its power to try and make sure the people can experience the realization of not only the dream of martin luther king but the dreams that they have if they are talented willing to prepare themselves