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S. Hrg. 114–548 

UNDERSTANDING THE MILLENNIAL PERSPECTIVE 

IN DECIDING TO PURSUE AND REMAIN IN 

FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL 

MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 

Available via http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

CHRISTOPHER R. HIXON, Staff Director 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL 

MANAGEMENT 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma, Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

JON TESTER, Montana 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

JOHN CUADERESS, Staff Director 

ERIC BURSCH, Minority Staff Director 

RACHEL MAIRELLA, Chief Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 1 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 2 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 18 

Prepared statement: 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 39 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 41 

Senator Tester .................................................................................................. 43 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 

Mark Reinhold, Associate Director for Employee Services and Chief Human 

Capital Officer, U.S. Office of Personnel Management ..................................... 5 

Angela Bailey, Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 6 

Lauren Leo, Assistant Administrator, Office of Human Capital Management, 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration .............................................. 8 

Robert Goldenkoff, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability 

Office ..................................................................................................................... 10 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bailey, Angela: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49 

Goldenkoff, Robert: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 62 

Leo, Lauren: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 57 

Reinhold, Mark: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

APPENDIX 

Statement submitted for the Record from the National Treasury Employees 

Union ..................................................................................................................... 92 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Reinhold ..................................................................................................... 96 

Ms. Bailey ......................................................................................................... 105 

Ms. Leo .............................................................................................................. 112 

Mr. Goldenkoff .................................................................................................. 118 

(1) 

UNDERSTANDING THE MILLENNIAL 

PERSPECTIVE IN DECIDING TO 

PURSUE AND REMAIN IN FEDERAL 

EMPLOYMENT 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY,

AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in 

room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. James 

Lankford, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lankford, Ernst, Heitkamp, and Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today’s 

Subcommittee hearing, Connecting with Millennials: Strategies for 

the Federal Government to Attract and Utilize Younger Workers. 

The Federal Government currently employs more than 2.5 million 

Executive Branch civilians. However, according to the Government 

Accountability Office (GAO), 600,000 Federal employees will be eligible to retire by September 2017. That is a staggering 31 percent 

of the current workforce. 

Unfortunately, those under 35 years of age make up only 16 percent of the government employees, meaning that in order to make 

up for the anticipated retirements, we must recruit and hire a new 

generation of Federal employees. While the need for effective government recruitment is apparent, especially with the amount of anticipated retirements, it is particularly important to show younger 

applicants that a government career can be fulfilling and a worthwhile endeavor to be able to serve their fellow citizens. 

Unfortunately, there are many obstacles we must overcome in 

order to attract the key demographic millennials into the Federal 

workforce. When it comes to obstacles in hiring millennials in the 

Federal workforce, the two problems I hear about most often are 

the lengthy and cumbersome hiring process and the fact that many 

millennials believe government service is not a rewarding or fulfilling job. 

According to some studies, the millennial generation is leery of 

Federal service because of the rigidity of the General Schedule (GS) 

system, which often treats everyone the same regardless of skill 
2 

level. They feel that job assignments and rewards for achievements 

are arbitrary and that incentives to excel are rare and recognition 

for exceeding expectations are mostly non-existent. Whether or not 

this is true, it is the perception that Federal agencies must overcome or address in order to attract millennials into the workforce. 

The Federal hiring process is another obstacle we must address. 

The new generation of Federal workers has grown up in a world 

where decisions are made quickly and efficiently. Recruiting and 

hiring in the private sector is accomplished in days and weeks, not 

in months. On average, it takes 100 days to fill an open position 

in the Federal Government. One hundred days. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM’s) Acting Director has testified that she 

wants to bring that down to 60 days. We will never attract the 

first-rate workers that we seek if the current rate of hiring continues to be 100 days or 60 days or any of these other goals. We 

have to get to a faster process. Whether they are forklift drivers 

at military facilities or analysts at the National Security Agency 

(NSA), the brightest and the skilled will not wait 100 or 60 days. 

I doubt they will even settle for 45 days, and it is tougher because 

many places they go into, they can be hired within days or a week 

or two. 

I frequently hear from Oklahomans about their attempts to work 

for the government, which they too often abandon when it takes 

three months or more to hear back about their USAJOBS application. Workers should not be torn between providing for themselves 

and their families during a season-long application process or taking a job in the private sector that hires more quickly. 

To recruit the best employees and attract the millennial generation to civil service, we must make the government a viable competitor with the private sector. This begins with seeking out and 

hiring the best employees in a timely fashion and providing them 

with an atmosphere that maximizes their skills and rewarding 

them based on expectations. 

I look forward to talking with our witnesses today about ways to 

make the hiring process faster, to reward employees based on 

merit, and to engage the next generation in fulfilling civil work 

service. 

With that, I now recognize Ranking Member Heitkamp for her 

opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Chairman Lankford. 

I am very pleased that finally, after a lot of planning and a lot 

of discussion, we are holding this hearing entitled ‘‘Understanding 

the Millennial Perspective in Deciding to Pursue and Remain in 

Federal Employment.’’ We did a lot of negotiating to get to that 

title. 

I would first like to say that I can appreciate that millennials are 

by no means an easy generation to quantify and to generalize. 

In fact, I had a whole discussion with my staff one morning 

about the difference between an older and a younger millennial, 

and I am not sure we came to a consensus. But I knew most of 

them were millennials. 
3 

It is important to say that I have been looking forward to this 

hearing for some time because I think that it is only the beginning 

of the conversation. And when you look at the statistics that Chairman Lankford just gave us, 31 percent, and one of the things that 

we learned during the Bakken boom was that when we did not 

have Federal employees on the ground, permits were not issued, 

frustrating many of the companies that wanted to build infrastructure. We did not see our grassland grazing associations be able to 

get grassland plans approved. And so it is not just about filling a 

bureaucratic slot. Many times these jobs are critically important to 

moving commerce forward in our State. 

So when we look at our hearing today, we are very fortunate to 

have OPM, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and GAO 

testifying from their perspectives, but you are obviously not the 

only one, only perspective, and I think at some point we desperately need to hear from the people that we are talking about, 

which are people who fall in this age category. 

So I appreciate that both OPM and the Federal agencies have 

made tremendous strides in their recruitment and retention efforts. 

I am looking forward to a spirited discussion today on how the following challenges affect millennial generations: compensation and 

benefits, career growth within Federal agencies, the job application 

process in the Federal Government, and the intersection between 

engagement, creativity, and work culture. 

Most importantly, I feel it is important that the Federal Government connect with the millennial generation in a way that speaks 

to their needs and their desire to pursue mission-oriented careers, 

while also demonstrating what all the careers in the Federal Government have to offer. 

So I am looking forward, and I am reminded of a story that is 

often told about someone walking through the halls of NASA, asking someone who was cleaning up from a day’s work what he did, 

and he said, ‘‘I help put men on the Moon.’’ And that is what we 

need. We need that kind of connectivity to the mission that will 

make sure that everybody does not feel just like a cog but part of 

a team. 

And so I really look forward to this hearing. Thank you so much 

for agreeing to attend. And, Chairman Lankford, I know that, having completed the Senate business yesterday, you would love to be 

home with your family but stayed so that we could do this hearing. 

So my personal thank you to you. 

Senator LANKFORD. The right thing to do. This is a big issue for 

us as well, and I appreciate that. At this time we will proceed with 

testimony from witnesses. 

Mark Reinhold is the Associate Director for Employee Services 

and Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) for the U.S. Office of 

Personnel Management. At OPM Mr. Reinhold is responsible for 

designing, developing, and implementing governmentwide human 

resource policy and programs for strategic workforce planning. He 

has worked in human resources at OPM under four different Directors. You have been before this Committee before, and we appreciate you coming back again. 
4 

Angie Bailey is the Chief Human Capital Officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where she has served since January 2016. Prior to DHS, Ms. Bailey worked at OPM as the Chief 

Operating Officer (COO), Deputy Associate Director for Recruitment and Hiring, and the Chief Human Capital Officer. We appreciate you being here. 

Lauren Leo is the Assistant Administrator at the Office of 

Human Capital Management for the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration. Ms. Leo sets the workforce development 

strategy, assesses future needs, and aligns human resource policies 

with NASA’s goals. She is a member of the Human Capital Officers 

Council. 

Robert Goldenkoff is the Director of Strategic Issues at the U.S. 

Government Accountability Office. At GAO Mr. Goldenkoff leads 

reviews of governmentwide civil service reforms and looks for ways 

to improve the cost-effectiveness of the Federal statistical system. 

He also serves on the Advisory Board of the George Washington 

University Trachtenberg School of Public Affairs and Public Administration. 

I would like to thank each of the witnesses for appearing before 

us today. It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses before they testify, so if you would please stand and raise 

your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you are about give 

before this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 

but the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. REINHOLD. I do. 

Ms. BAILEY. I do. 

Ms. LEO. I do. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. I do. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the 

record reflect the witnesses all answered in the affirmative. 

I do appreciate your testimony today. Not only will your written 

testimony be a part of the permanent record, but also your oral testimony coming up. You have all done this before. You know the 

timing system there in front of you. I would like you to be able to 

stay as close to 5 minutes as possible as we go through the countdown. 

I do want to give one quick statement. I have already mentioned 

this to the witnesses as well. I have actually been asked to speak 

on the floor here at about 10:45, on the Senate floor, Senator Alexander and I, so I will have to slip away at about 10:40, and then 

I will come right back. I will leave this Subcommittee in the very 

capable hands of our Ranking Member, Senator Heitkamp, during 

that time period. So we will continue on with the hearing during 

that time period, but I will have to slip away for a moment and 

be able to come back. 

Mr. Reinhold, you are up to bat first. 
5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Reinhold appears in the Appendix on page 44. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK REINHOLD,1 ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR 

EMPLOYEE SERVICES AND CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER, U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

Mr. REINHOLD. Thank you. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Heitkamp, and Senator Ernst, thank you for the opportunity to 

be here today to discuss the OPM’s role in helping agencies build 

and support the Federal workforce. As the Associate Director of 

Employee Services and the Chief Human Capital Officer of OPM, 

I appreciate the opportunity to give you an overview of our efforts 

to ensure Federal agencies have the guidance, tools, and support 

they need to build and sustain talent. 

This Subcommittee has explored several important Federal workforce matters in a hearing and a roundtable over the course of the 

past year. 

As OPM has testified previously, each agency is responsible for 

strategically managing its workforce to deliver on its mission and 

goals. OPM understands that these responsibilities are varied and 

at times challenging, and we recognize that the Federal system of 

employment is grounded in core statutory principles and ideals 

that make it different than many other employment sectors. As 

such, we strive to assist and support agencies in building and sustaining the Federal workforce they need, in a way that is consistent with the core foundational precepts of our merit system of 

employment. 

One way we support agencies is through administering the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Through this survey, we are able 

to examine and report on key drivers of employee engagement and 

satisfaction with important aspects related to work. 

Following heightened focus on employee engagement and satisfaction over the past few years, for the second year in a row the 

governmentwide employee engagement and global satisfaction indices have risen, breaking the prior four-year decline. 

OPM encourages agencies to support diversity and inclusion in 

the workplace and ensure that their recruitment reaches all segments of society. As the U.S. workforce continues to experience demographic shifts, Federal agencies must continue their focus on attracting diverse talent. The Federal Government continues to be a 

leader in providing employment opportunities to minorities; as of 

2015, minorities represented almost 36 percent of the Federal 

workforce, which is greater than the percentage of minorities within the U.S. civilian labor force. The Senior Executive Service (SES) 

is more diverse than ever before, with women and minorities continuing to increase in representation. And the impact of the millennial generation is increasingly being reflected in the demographics 

of the Federal workforce, as people under 35 represented about 44 

percent of full-time permanent new hires into Federal service in 

fiscal year (FY) 2015. 

OPM is working with agencies to examine their existing human 

capital management programs, understand their challenges, provide technical assistance, tools, and support, advance sound policy 

solutions, and encourage agency operational enhancements. For example, OPM, in partnership with the Office of Management and 
6 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Bailey appears in the Appendix on page 49. 

Budget (OMB) and the Presidential Personnel Office, has launched 

a Hiring Excellence Campaign as part of the President’s Management Agenda. The campaign enables OPM to reach Federal hiring 

managers and human resources professionals in headquarters and 

field locations nationwide. Through the campaign, human resources 

staff and hiring managers learn about best practices, tools, tips, 

and techniques that can help improve the hiring process and, more 

importantly, hiring outcomes. 

To date, OPM has conducted 32 in-person workshops across the 

Nation, and virtual presentations are further expanding on this 

reach. So far, the Hiring Excellence Campaign has reached nearly 

1,200 hiring managers and human resources professionals from 25 

agencies. 

OPM has also undertaken recent work to enhance the USAJOBS 

website for the benefit of both job seekers and agencies. USAJOBS 

now provides new tools agencies can use to find and recruit talent 

and offers applicants an improved user experience aimed at easing 

common pain points. These enhancements are yielding real dividends in improving user satisfaction, which increased from 72 percent to an all-time high of 79 percent over the past year. 

Research tells us that students and recent graduates about to 

enter the workforce believe in public service and want to make a 

difference, and the Student Internship and Recent Graduates Pathways Programs are designed to help tap this important talent pool. 

Our data show that more than 35,000 people have been hired 

through the Pathways Programs as of the end of fiscal year 2015, 

and 93 percent of Pathways Programs participants who responded 

in a recent study conducted by OPM either plan to remain at their 

current agencies or want to stay with the Federal Government in 

the immediate future. 

OPM is working diligently to assist the Federal Government in 

recruiting and retaining a workforce that is drawn from the American public it serves and fulfills the commitment each agency holds 

to delivering on its important mission. 

Thank you again for having me here today, and I am happy to 

respond to any questions. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. Ms. Bailey. 

TESTIMONY OF ANGELA BAILEY,1 CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL 

OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. BAILEY. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Heitkamp, 

and Senator Ernst, thank you for the opportunity to appear before 

you here today to address recruitment and retention of millennials 

in the Federal Government. 

I joined DHS in January of this year as the Chief Human Capital 

Officer. I am a career executive with nearly 35 years of Federal 

service, including almost 30 years in human resources. I actually 

started at the age of 17, so while I may not necessarily be considered a millennial, I think I kind of—at one point—maybe was, 

right? 

I look forward to discussing with you the challenges in hiring 

millennials to the Federal workforce and the challenges in retain-
7 

ing them once they are hired, such as compensation and benefits, 

career growth within DHS, and the process of applying for a Federal job, and the intersection between engagement, creativity, and 

workplace culture. 

Like my colleagues here today, I have some examples of where 

we are quite successful and also some ideas on ways we can partner with you and OPM to address our challenges. 

One idea that you may be familiar with is the idea to create a 

passport where talented folks, including millennials, can more easily move in and out of government with an eye toward capitalizing 

on their gained experience and education in a more realistic manner. Today this talent has to compete for jobs with higher responsibility and pay if they leave the Federal Government and wish to 

come back. The passport idea would ultimately eliminate the need 

for further competition when rejoining the Federal Government, 

making it far easier to move talent in and out of government at the 

levels in which we need their expertise. 

The catch is that this would require legislative change because 

we would need an appointing authority to make this happen. In 

this regard, DHS is more than willing to work with you and Members of this Subcommittee and OPM to craft legislative language 

that makes sense for both the talent we seek and the agencies 

whose mission we support. 

Another idea we successfully implemented was having our components within DHS pull together and bring to life the principles 

of unity of effort in recruiting and hiring over 370 cybersecurity 

professionals during and immediately following a 2-day hiring 

event. We literally turned the idea of time to hire on its head by 

focusing instead on what we could creatively do with the authorities already granted to us by OPM and do so in a far more collaborative way within DHS. We received over 14,000 applications for 

our jobs. We interviewed close to 1,000 people. And our demographics to date show that of those that we have hired, 45 percent 

are millennials. By bringing together the DHS human resource, information technology (IT) and cyber, and personnel security communities over a course of two days, we proved to ourselves—and, 

quite frankly, the rest of the Federal Government—the art of the 

possible in hiring some of the best talent inside and outside of the 

Federal Government. 

We plan to replicate this successful event in December, but this 

time we are going to do it virtually. We are going to focus in on 

interns and recent grads, and we are going to use again the authorities that OPM has given us using the Pathways authorities. 

The bottom line for us is that when we step out smartly, we act 

in a collaborative manner, we take calculated risk, and we do not 

fear failure, we can and we do have success. The cyber technology 

hiring event is just one example. Within DHS, we are also applying 

these same principles to how we are tackling our other tough challenges, such as employee engagement, career growth for our employees, employee retention, and addressing pay and compensation 

for our critical mission and business operation positions. 

I look forward to exploring these important recruitment and retention issues with you today and, in particular, addressing how 

those ideas can be applied to our next generations of talent. 
8 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Leo appears in the Appendix on page 57. 

Thank you. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. Ms. Leo. 

TESTIMONY OF LAUREN LEO,1 ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, 

OFFICE OF HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 

Ms. LEO. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Heitkamp, and 

Senator Ernst, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify 

about NASA’s efforts to recruit and retain millennials. 

As NASA’s Chief Human Capital Officer, my job is to care for 

and support the agency’s most valuable assets: our amazing 

multigenerational workforce of brilliant rocket scientists, innovation engineers, and dedicated support and administrative personnel, and every employee and contractor who makes up the 

NASA family. These are the people who work together daily to 

overcome huge challenges of exploring space and improving life on 

Earth. 

The health of our workforce is a top priority for NASA leadership. Our leadership pays attention to the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results and other indicators to monitor the state of 

the agency and to develop strategies for continually improving employee engagement, connection, and effectiveness. 

At NASA, we strive to create an environment where all employees feel valued and have opportunities to contribute to the NASA 

mission. This requires understanding and respecting the different 

styles, values, and expectations of everyone in our workforce. 

Personally, I am privileged to have regular conversations with 

NASA employees. We talk about what inspires them to show up at 

work, what commits them to stay engaged throughout their career, 

and what new challenges they are up against. 

Today I would like to share with you what makes NASA such a 

great place to work, and I would also like to share what we have 

learned along the way about employee engagement, leadership development, and incentivizing innovation—all topics of importance 

to our younger workforce who are often described as the ‘‘millennial 

generation.’’ 

NASA recognizes the tremendous value and impact provided by 

our millennial workforce, and we will continue to look at ways to 

better engage and develop them. While there is no standard definition of the age group known as the millennials, for purposes of this 

hearing NASA is speaking about millennials as employees under 

the age of 40 since that is an age bracket used in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. 

NASA currently has more than 4,100 of these employees, which 

is about 23 percent of our workforce. That number will continue to 

grow as more millennials enter the workforce. And NASA’s attrition rate for millennials is very low, at 2.8 percent, and overall 

agency attrition rate is 4.7 percent. 

Research shows that millennials generally expect to work for 

multiple organizations throughout their careers. They care about 

having a positive work experience. They value learning and development. And they want to work for an organization that makes a 
9 

positive impact on society. These are foundational elements to our 

approach of employee engagement at NASA. 

According to our 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results, 80 percent of our millennials said that they felt engaged at 

NASA. Our millennials also had a higher response rate and global 

satisfaction scores than employees over 40 years old. We believe 

these higher scores are reflective of NASA’s intentional focus on 

creating a positive work environment in which employees feel included, valued, and connected to something bigger than themselves. 

Given that NASA is strongly mission and project focused, our 

employees believe in the importance of the mission, and they are 

heavily engaged in their work. They come to work at NASA because they want to be part of something bigger than themselves, 

not just because it is a job. Every NASA employee impacts the 

agency’s mission daily, no matter his or her age, pay grade, or area 

of expertise. 

NASA employees consistently cite shared values, shared commitment to the mission, and loyalty to the agency as reasons why they 

feel positively engaged in their jobs. This sense of belonging fuels 

a deep sense of community at NASA, and this begins at the top. 

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden fundamentally believes that 

communication is the cornerstone of his connection to employees, 

and he never missed an opportunity to tell employees directly that 

their work is important. 

NASA believes that agency leaders, and particularly supervisors, 

play a unique role in creating a positive work environment for employees. Therefore, NASA invests in a number of leadership development programs and activities across the agency, from early career to executive, that are designed to better equip current and future agency leaders to carry out our mission. 

Additionally, as part of the broader Federal Government community, NASA believes that we really need to work together to leverage what is working well across all Federal Government agencies, 

including lessons learned about best hiring practices. 

In conclusion, NASA’s multigenerational workforce raises the bar 

of human achievement every day. These dedicated men and women 

are passionate about ushering in the future of our Nation, including new technologies, with the goal of one day landing humans on 

Mars. 

Personally, I am very proud of NASA’s robust strategy to engage 

our workforce and to create a culture of inclusion and innovation. 

When I am asked about why NASA is such a great place to work, 

I say: ‘‘It is our people. Without them, nothing would be achieved.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before 

you today to share the story of NASA’s workforce. I would be 

pleased to answer any questions you have. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you. Mr. Goldenkoff. 
10 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Goldenkoff appears in the Appendix on page 62. 

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT GOLDENKOFF,1 DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member 

Heitkamp, Senator Ernst, thank you for the opportunity to be here 

today to discuss recruiting and retaining millennials and other age 

groups in the Federal workforce. 

Across Government, skill gaps and critical occupations, along 

with large numbers of employees eligible for retirement, are threatening the ability of agencies to carry out their vital missions. To 

help ensure agencies have the capacity to address complex national 

challenges, agencies need to be competitive for top talent, including 

millennials. Simply attracting and hiring quality candidates is not 

enough. Agencies need a robust talent management strategy that 

covers the full life cycle of Federal employment. 

In my remarks today, I will focus on a key component of such 

a strategy, building a culture of employee engagement. High levels 

of engagement, which is generally defined as the sense of purpose 

and commitment employees feel toward their employer and its mission, can make an agency more attractive to job seekers, reduce 

turnover, and, most importantly, improve organizational performance. 

For purposes of data comparability, my statement defines 

millennials as those employees up to and including 39 years old. 

Governmentwide, millennials represented around 30 percent of the 

civilian Federal workforce. However, that number varied by agency, and those agencies with high rates of retirement eligibility also 

tend to have fewer millennials in their workforce. 

In fiscal year 2014, for example, the Department of Homeland 

Security had the highest proportion of millennials at 39 percent 

while the Small Business Administration (SBA) had the lowest at 

around 19 percent. Governmentwide, around 31 percent of those 

Federal employees on board at the end of fiscal year 2014 will be 

eligible to retire by 2019. 

The large percentage of Federal employees eligible for retirement 

creates both an opportunity and a challenge for Federal agencies. 

On the one hand, if accompanied with appropriate strategic and 

workforce planning, it allows agencies to realign their workforce 

with needed skills and leadership levels to better meet their existing and any newly emerging mission requirements. 

On the other hand, it means that agencies will need to double 

down on succession planning efforts and focus on sources and 

methods for recruiting and retaining candidates in order to avoid 

a brain drain. 

As retirements of Federal employees continue, agencies with few 

millennials may face future gaps in leadership, expertise, and critical skills because millennials represent the next generation of 

workers. Developing a culture of engagement can help agencies’ recruiting and retention efforts. Overall, millennial engagement levels were similar to other age groups in 2015, which was around 

63.8 percent for millennials compared to 64.2 percent for nonmillennials, according to the results of the governmentwide Federal 

Employee Viewpoint Survey. 
11 

Across individual agencies, however, there was substantial variation in engagement levels, ranging from a high of 80 percent for 

millennials at NASA and 78 percent for non-millennials, to a low 

of around 51 percent for millennials at DHS and 55 percent for 

non-millennials. 

Overall, we found that the drivers of engagement were similar 

for millennials and non-millennials and include support for constructive performance conversations, career development and training, work-life balance, inclusive work environments, employee involvement in decisions affecting their work, and communication 

from management. 

Building a culture of engagement also requires effective management practices such as top leadership involvement and creating a 

line of sight between an agency’s mission and the work of each employee, using a range of different data sources to better understand 

agency engagement levels, and a recognition that the effects of engagement efforts occur over multiple years as cultural change takes 

time. 

In summary, these engagement efforts, combined with other components of a sound talent management strategy, provide an ample 

toolkit that should position agencies to be more competitive in the 

labor market for top talent. 

Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Heitkamp, this concludes 

my prepared remarks, and I would be pleased to respond to any 

questions that you may have. 

Senator LANKFORD. Great. Thank you. I thank all of you for your 

testimony today. 

We are going to open this up to questions, and as we typically 

do on this panel, we have more open dialogue. We will go back and 

forth and be able to have a less structured question time. But we 

want to have open conversation on how we solve some of the issues 

that we have. 

Mr. Reinhold, let me chat with you first on this. You have been 

with us before, in April I believe was the last time that you were 

with us. There was a lot of conversation about USAJOBS. There 

was a lot of conversation about some of the hiring practices. As we 

met at that time, you made this statement: ‘‘OPM recognizes it is 

a frustration for applicants when they do not receive up-to-date 

feedback from hiring agencies. To address this, we are working to 

help agencies streamline processes and cut down on the time it 

takes to fill Federal positions.’’ How is it going since April? Give 

us an update. What has changed? 

Mr. REINHOLD. Thank you for the question, Senator. So since 

April, we have rolled out in earnest our Hiring Excellence Campaign, and one of the components of that campaign is to ensure 

that agencies understand the importance of communicating with 

job applicants and provide regular status updates. Other aspects of 

the Hiring Excellence Campaign include bringing together hiring 

managers and H.R. specialists for better collaboration. We know 

that the best hiring outcomes can be achieved when the manager 

who is filling the position and the H.R. office are in close communication and have mutual understanding of what the manager is 

really interested in in terms of skill set and targeted areas of focus. 
12 

Another key area is ensuring that we have good assessment 

strategies in place so that we have tools that we can use to distinguish the very best candidates from the rest. And we also talk a 

lot about hiring flexibilities and hiring authorities which can be 

used to help facilitate and streamline the hiring process, as well as 

a focus on the use of data and evidence to inform things like strategic recruiting, understanding where the applicant pools are and 

how to tap into them. 

Senator LANKFORD. So can I ask a question? What is the key 

metric you are looking for? Because we talk a lot about time and 

just length of time. I know it is an OPM goal as well to try to reduce the amount of time that it takes to do a hire. When you look 

at it and trying to evaluate, obviously we all want the best staff, 

we all want the best individuals to be able to be the employees 

there. No question about that in trying to get excellence. How do 

you track as the primary metric we are improving because this 

number is getting better? 

Mr. REINHOLD. So there are actually a group of metrics that we 

are using, and one of those is time to hire, because we understand 

that continues to be of critical importance. 

In addition to that, we look at things like applicant satisfaction 

with the process. We have a fairly extensive set of surveys that are 

used for folks who are applying for jobs. 

In addition to that, we look at management satisfaction. We 

want to make sure that managers are actually satisfied with the 

outcome of the process, which tells us that we are hitting the mark. 

So those are some examples of what we are using. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. So let me run through a list, because as 

I talk to some of the human capital folks, this is the kind of thing 

that I get and be able to walk through. In 2008, OPM and the 

Chief Human Capital Officers Council created the End-to-End Hiring Roadmap Initiative to try to improve the Federal hiring process 

for applicants. That was in 2008. 

In 2010, the White House launched the President’s Hiring Reform Initiative to help with recruiting and finding the most qualified employees for the Government. 

In 2010, OPM launched an initiative to help veterans find Federal jobs. 

In 2011, OPM established a Veterans Employment Program and 

the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to further the efforts to hire 

veterans. 

Also in 2011, OPM started an initiative to help students find 

Federal jobs. 

In 2015, OPM created the Recruitment, Engagement, Diversity, 

and Inclusion Strategy to improve the hiring process by guiding 

H.R. employees and managers. 

In 2016, OPM and OMB started the Hiring Excellence Campaign 

to improve hiring by raising awareness of available hiring authorities. 

It seems like every year or two there is a new initiative. I understand some of those are for different people groups as well, and 

those are all strategic areas. My challenge is that when we come 

back to the data, 60 days is the target, but in 2013, it took about 

90 days on average to do a hiring. In 2014, it took 94.4 days to do 
13 

a Federal hire. In 2015, it now takes 99.6 days. Our length of time 

to actually get there is getting longer. 

Now, some agencies have made improvement, DHS being one of 

those. DHS, as you know, still takes way too long to be able to do 

a hire. It is about 124 days or so on average. But it is getting better on that. There are some improvements happening. 

The challenge is we are trying to figure out—there are some good 

initiatives that are going on, and there is attention to this. What 

is the barrier? What can we do to be able to break through that? 

Because we want to be able to get good people, and part of that 

is getting to the hire at an appropriate time or we lose good people; 

they get hired by somebody else. 

Mr. REINHOLD. So I will say, obviously there are quite a number 

of initiatives, and they all have, a specific purpose and intent behind them. One of the things that I believe distinguishes what we 

are attempting to do with the Hiring Excellence Campaign is kind 

of bring all those things together. So, for example, many of those 

were initiatives that were focused on facilitating recruitment of certain groups or—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Right, veterans or students. 

Mr. REINHOLD. Veterans and students. Some of those were specifically focused on aspects of the hiring process like get time to 

hire down, perhaps not as much of a focus on quality, just shortening the timeline. And what we are trying to do under Hiring Excellence is really emphasize the fact that all of those pieces fit together. And what I mean by that is there is a place for hiring flexibilities, leveraging those to reach certain groups, or to streamline 

the process. There is great importance, again, focused on things 

like assessments if we are going to go through this process, let us 

make sure that we are assessing people in smart ways so that the 

people who end up at the top of the list are the right ones and the 

best qualified for the job. 

Here, again, we are emphasizing the importance of manager and 

H.R. specialist collaboration. Some of our survey results show that 

managers are not always satisfied with the support that they are 

getting from their H.R. offices. They are not H.R. people. They do 

not understand the process. And we believe it is incumbent upon 

H.R. specialists to engage with their managers to achieve a good 

outcome. 

So these are all things that, again, we are attempting to take a 

more holistic approach so that we do not overemphasize any of 

those important aspects of hiring. 

Senator LANKFORD. Do we have a sense of how long it takes to 

do a hire in private industry? Have you seen a number out there, 

whether that be a Fortune 500 company or whether that be a middle or small business? Do we have a good feel for how long it takes 

to typically fill a position in any of those areas in the private sector? Obviously, it is not the same. It is region to region. I get all 

that. But have you seen a general number? 

Mr. REINHOLD. Candidly, the numbers are really all over the 

place. I mean, there is a great difference between, hiring someone 

at Home Depot versus hiring somebody at a top consulting firm. 

Senator LANKFORD. But there is not in the Federal workforce. 

When I talk to some of the folks in some of our facilities, they will 
14 

tell me stories about hiring someone in the warehouse in our of our 

Federal facilities still takes three months. Again, that is a specific 

story that I have heard. One of the facilities in my State trying to 

hire someone who is a qualified forklift operator, and that forklift 

operator has to wait three months to get an answer. They can go 

to Home Depot, apply right there in-store, interview with someone 

in-store, and within about 72 hours, know if they are hired or not. 

They are waiting three months—they have already been hired and 

working for Home Depot for three months before they get the call 

back from one of our facilities. 

Mr. REINHOLD. I understand. I think it is important to recognize 

that there are certain features of our system that make it different, 

for better or worse, for example, our principles of fair and open 

competition, which really means that we should give an opportunity to the American public to know if there are Federal jobs that 

exist that might be of interest to them. And what that translates 

to often is that we have to put a job announcement out on the 

street. We have to leave it open for a certain amount of time so 

people have access to seeing it and having an opportunity to apply. 

And then even beyond that, there are other features like our background investigations, quite honestly. That is, somewhat unique to 

our system, and we certainly do not want to short-shrift that process, but it is another part of the process that can take some time. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. I have to run to the floor, and I am 

going to turn this over to the capacity hands of Senator Heitkamp, 

and then I will be back. And the Ranking Member of the full Committee, Senator Carper, has also joined us as well. But I will be 

able to circle back around, and we will be able to finish up the 

questioning that I have still have as well. 

Senator HEITKAMP [Presiding.] There are folks who are sitting in 

the back, and there is a lot of interest. You are not supposed to sit 

at these press tables, but go ahead. Over there. Sorry, press. There 

is no one over there. 

Senator LANKFORD. You can pull out a laptop and fake it. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. Everybody is a member of the press today. 

Mr. Goldenkoff, you have all these people here. Obviously, GAO 

has taken, very lengthy, detailed, almost scientific analysis of kind 

of where we are at here, taking a look at data, crunching the data. 

But you have three folks here who are part of that implementation, 

and should read your report. I think your report is fascinating. 

What three things do you want them to understand from this report? And if you were going to do this in five years, how would you 

judge their—because that is what GAO does. They look at review. 

How would you judge their performance? 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. That is a great question, and I want to start 

by answering it with the story that you told at the very beginning 

about the custodian at the NASA facility who, when asked what 

his job was, he said he is putting a man on the Moon. The person 

who asked that question was John Kennedy, and I think that 

speaks so much to what we are trying to illustrate here today, 

which is the tone starts from the top. And whether it is at the 

Presidential level or the heads of agencies—and we heard some of 

that today: Charlie Bolden at NASA communicating with employ-
15 

ees, connecting that mission, that line of sight between what they 

do every day on their job and the bigger picture. It is going on at 

DHS as well. So that is important. 

I also want to commend everybody for the steps that are being 

taken today, and there is a lot more focus now on recruiting and 

retaining employees. OPM is taking some important steps in the 

right direction. 

But, in doing so, data is important. At GAO, we are data geeks, 

so we love this stuff. But these are important metrics of how you 

are doing. And so, for example, when we talk about things like 

time to hire, whatever metrics we use, it is important to use outcome metrics; and it is also important to use a whole suite of 

metrics. Time to hire, that is one important measure, but there are 

others. The quality of the candidate was also mentioned—managers satisfaction with applicants, applicant satisfaction, and the 

diversity of the workforce. Who are we getting? That is important 

as well. So a second thing to say, is the importance of data. 

And so those are two things right there, and I will stop and just 

open it up for further questions. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Obviously, this is a complicated issue with a 

large workforce, and there has to be—as you explained to Senator 

Lankford, we have additional obligations that may not be consistent with comparisons to Home Depot. Plus we know that there 

are additional requirements that we have to make sure that an employee is successful. 

But with that said, I am still frustrated when you look at 

USAJOBS, because it seems like we are engaging in a lot of study, 

but the USAJOBS platform coming out is still burdensome, it is 

still cumbersome. It still is a turnoff. If that is the first impression 

that we make in the Federal Government with employment to a potential employee, it is not a really good first impression. 

And so where are we at with revamping that? Where are we at 

with better communication to the agencies in terms of what they 

need and want and, just not simply passing along that list of people who applied but actually performing a service for the agencies 

so that they are in a better position when it comes time to make 

offers to do that more quickly? 

Mr. REINHOLD. So, first off, we could not agree more that if 

USAJOBS is the face of Federal hiring, it is important that we 

have an easy-to-use website that does not turn potential applicants 

off. 

Over about the past year, OPM has been very focused on 

iteratively transforming USAJOBS into a much more user-friendly 

and attractive site that supports a better job seeker experience. We 

have rolled out already a series of enhancements using an agile approach where we roll out new enhancements about every six weeks. 

And then we look at our user satisfaction data and other metrics 

to determine whether those were the right things and whether we 

are on the right track. 

We have spent a great amount of effort talking to people, talking 

to millennials and other groups about what they would want to see 

in USAJOBS and have really focused intently on creating—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. And what have you learned, Mark? 
16 

Mr. REINHOLD. So what we have learned is that—so I will mention a couple of enhancements that I think are important. 

One of these is we have created a mobile-friendly website, so, we 

know increasingly folks are interested in being able to pick up their 

phone or their digital device and do things on that. So we have created a website that enables them to do that. 

In addition to that, we have created a new profile dashboard 

where an individual, the first thing they are asked to do when they 

get to USAJOBS is to create a profile, and it includes things like, 

tell us a little bit about yourself, things like—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Kind of like Match.com. 

Mr. REINHOLD. So what it actually does is by doing some of that 

work on the front end—— 

Senator CARPER. How would you know that? 

Mr. REINHOLD. That just sunk in now. [Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. I could not resist. 

Mr. REINHOLD. So unlike Match.com—no. So, again, one of the 

other things we have is the creation of this profile, and it includes 

things like uploading certain documents, like your resume. So if 

you reach a point where you have now found a job that you want 

to apply for, you have already got your resume in there and, bingo, 

you can press a button and apply. Previously, folks would find, 

wow, I am really interested in this job, now what do I do? And then 

they would have to go to the trouble of figuring out, oh, is this 

where I load my resume and other documents? 

Senator HEITKAMP. One of the suggestions that I would have is 

do you engage with guidance counselors in high schools and in college to train them on using this product, so if somebody is uncomfortable, it is not done in a vacuum, a young person who is a civil 

engineer says I am interested in what opportunities are there, goes 

into the counseling office at a university, and the university is prepared to sit down and help them fill out that profile and upload the 

resume and do that review. Where are we at communicating with 

universities and high schools? 

Mr. REINHOLD. Yes, absolutely, and that is a critical compliance 

of our outreach strategy. In a typical year, we will meet with 

roughly 150 colleges and universities to do workshops such as find 

and apply. How do you use USAJOBS as a tool to find a Federal 

job? 

Senator HEITKAMP. And when you look at this, going back to Mr. 

Goldenkoff’s point, that it has to be data driven, when you do that, 

do you notice that those places where universities and institutions 

of learning really engage, that you get better applicants, you get 

more applicants? Have you noticed that with your engagement with 

schools? 

Mr. REINHOLD. So what I will say is historically there have not 

been good measures to determine where are the applicants coming 

from. And one of the enhancements that we are creating in 

USAJOBS is to enable us to better track the source of applicants. 

We have created what we call the Agency Talent Portal, which is 

a place where an agency can go and specifically look at where applicants are coming from, whether it be people linking from 

Facebook or from certain job sites or folks who hit USAJOBS from 

the get-go. 
17 

Senator HEITKAMP. One of the things, thinking about this and 

understanding kind of how people engage in what they think, a lot 

of recruitment happens through friends and family. ‘‘This is my job, 

I really like it. I think Joe would like it,’’ or at least there might 

be an opportunity there. 

One of the things that I was thinking is if, let us say, I see an 

opportunity at NASA and I think this is great, I get a hold of my 

sister and say, ‘‘I think you would love this job.’’ She may be reluctant to think about making the change, but if there was some way 

based on that recommendation USAJOBS could send her some 

kind of outreach saying, ‘‘Hey, I heard you might be a great person.’’ I mean, I think we wait around for it to come to us, is my 

point, and we do not do enough to reach out. And if you talk to college recruiters, what they will tell you is their students frequently 

sign up in colleges that may not have, U.S. News and World Report 

ranking, but because someone did outreach, this very top-notch student is in an institution because they felt like, hey, they really 

wanted me, they really made it possible for me to come. And that 

is one of the things I think when I hear this, it is all about incoming and not about outgoing and reaching out. 

I know that would be hard to measure, but I think it is something you might want to add to a potential kind of recruitment tool. 

Mr. REINHOLD. That is a great suggestion. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes, I mean, think, if you are sitting there 

and all of a sudden out of the blue you are trying to decide what 

to do, and you get an email from someone saying, ‘‘Hey, I heard 

you are an aerospace graduate at UND. NASA has some openings. 

You might want to consider looking at us. We would love to have 

a visit with you about what that opportunity looks like.’’ And, ‘‘Go 

to your guidance counselor whom we have trained, fill out this profile, and let us have a conversation.’’ 

But I think, because the numbers are so large in Federal service, 

that kind of strategic recruitment that you would see in a major 

law firm, that you would see in an elite kind of service, we do not 

see. But I think we should treat it that way. 

Mr. REINHOLD. I could not agree more, and, one of the things 

that I would submit is that USAJOBS is not directly a recruiting 

mechanism, but agencies can engage in lots of activities, and I 

know many of our folks at the table here do this, where they know 

where the talent pools are and how to strategically go after them. 

And what we are trying to do with USAJOBS is create kind of a 

central place where everybody can go. Once you find out about, 

hey, there is this place where you can go to find out about Federal 

jobs and it is USAJOBS, we want folks to have a good experience 

when they land there. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I think we want people to feel like this is not 

them asking for a job; this is them getting recruited to a job. I 

think that is a significant kind of—it adds to the discussion about 

the mission. We are being recruited to help launch the Web. We 

are being recruited to help protect the border. Someone wants me 

to help them do that. And I think that is different than, boy, that 

is a job, may pay good benefits and be exciting for a while, but, do 

they want me? 

I would turn it over to Senator Carper for questions. 
18 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. I just want to commend you for your 

interest in this area and for taking the initiative. This is important. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Well, I want to say this about Senator Carper. Every month Senator Carper goes to the floor and puts up a 

picture and talks about an enormous contribution of Federal employee has made to the safety or security or just to improving the 

quality of life in America. And he is one of the few people who does 

it, and there is no greater champion of recognizing the great service that so many of our Federal employees provide, no greater 

champion than Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. I have nothing else to say. [Laughter.] 

I will quit while I am ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Heidi. 

We use the internship program in our office much like a farm 

system in baseball, and we have a single-A team in Wilmington, 

Delaware, Carolina League, believe it or not, and they have a single-A. Folks finish up there, they go to double-A. If they are getting 

better, they go to triple-A, and eventually they end up with the 

Kansas City Royals. A year ago, when the Kansas City Royals won 

the World Series, half the people on the field that day for the 

Royals were folks who started off in Wilmington, Delaware, with 

the Wilmington Blue Rocks. 

But we think of our interns that work in our office here in Washington; we have three offices in Delaware—Wilmington, Dover, and 

a place called Georgetown down south—and we have interns in all 

of them throughout the year. In the summer, we pay them. We pay 

them a stipend—not a lot but something. And the other parts of 

the year, they can earn credit for school. For the most part, they 

are in school, in college. And if they do a good job, they get letters 

of recommendation. They get a great work experience. We treat 

them like our family. We welcome them warmly. We give them just 

a wonderful experience. 

I was shocked to learn, Senator Heitkamp, that there are some 

Senate offices where the interns are not allowed to talk to the Senators, if you can believe that. Good luck in our office. That would 

not be in ours either. But I have had five chiefs of staff as a Congressman, Governor, and Senator, and two out of the five started 

as unpaid interns. And what we do is we bring the really outstanding interns back for a second tour, either in Delaware or 

down here. And when we have an entry-level position, we hire our 

former interns in a lot of cases. And then we have sort of a career 

ladder for them that sometimes ends up as chief of staff or legislative director of our committee, that kind of thing. 

I do not know a whole lot about the Pathways Program, but I 

know what works for us. I understand that the Pathways Program 

is made up really of three programs, and one of those is an internship program. Can you just tell us how that works? We have people 

lined up to be interns. I mean, it is highly competitive. For maybe 

four slots here in D.C., we have easily 20 times that many people 

who would like to be able to hold a spot. But just tell us how the 

internship program works. We stay in touch with our interns. 

When they graduate and go off into the world, the ones that were 
19 

really outstanding, we stay in touch with them. And, eventually, 

when we have an opening, we try to bring them back in. 

For the folks that have been part of our team now going off into 

the world, there is actually a name for us. It is called 

‘‘Carpertown.’’ It is like ‘‘Hotel California.’’ You can get it but you 

cannot get out. [Laughter.] 

Please. 

Mr. REINHOLD. I would be happy to. Thank you. And thank you, 

Senator, for being a champion of the Federal workforce. I think it 

is critically important that we get them—— 

Senator CARPER. It is a labor of love. 

Mr. REINHOLD. So turning to your question about the Pathways 

internship program, it is very much designed to be what you are 

talking about. It allows current enrolled students to come in on a 

temporary basis and serve for some period of time. And for some 

it is a summer. For some it is summers and breaks. And for some 

it is a longer-term proposition. 

Part of what it does is give folks an opportunity to get some exposure to a lot of the interesting work that we do in the Federal 

Government, and that time served in an internship can also be 

credited toward—once they meet a certain number of hours and 

there is a position open, they can be converted into a permanent 

job at that point. So there is that flexibility to convert folks. 

Based on a recent review and study that we conducted of that 

Pathways Program, we were really pleased to see that recruitment 

efforts are paying off, that we are attracting good applicant, diverse 

applicant pools. And the other thing that, frankly, I think we were 

a bit surprised about based on conventional wisdom is that about 

93 percent of program participants who were surveyed indicated 

that they wanted to stay in the Federal Government. So we were 

really—— 

Senator CARPER. Say again the percentage? 

Mr. REINHOLD. Ninety-three percent of the folks who were surveyed. So we are really encouraged with the fact that, wow, they 

want to stay with us. 

So we have actually hired governmentwide about 35,000 individuals under that program since its inception in 2012, and we are 

continuing to work to publicize that program and encouraging 

agencies to take advantage of it as a tool. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Do you know if all Federal agencies or 

most of the major Federal agencies use the Pathways Program? 

Mr. REINHOLD. I do not have numbers off the top of my head. 

Senator CARPER. You do not have to even know, but just generally, are most agencies aware of it? Is there an interest in using 

it? 

Mr. REINHOLD. Yes, I will say the Pathways Program was introduced—kind of took the place of a group of student programs several years ago, and given the fact that we were going through, 

some budget constraints and there was not a lot of hiring going on, 

it kind of coincided with the introduction of this program, and the 

uptake was not great. But what we are pleased to see is that the 

uptake is picking up. OPM has done a lot of work to get the word 

out there about this program. As I mentioned, we reach out to colleges and universities to publicize the program. And we work very 
20 

aggressively to get the word out to agencies to ensure that they understand what it is and how they can leverage it. 

Senator CARPER. Senator Heitkamp and I were here, along with 

our colleagues, a couple of days ago, and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was here, and I think he was sitting, Mark, where you are sitting; and Jim Comey, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), was sitting where you are sitting; and Nick Rasmussen was sitting where Robert is. And one of 

the things we talked with Secretary Johnson about was the latest 

results from the surveys of Federal employees, and we go department by department to see where the agencies that are deemed to 

be most favored by employees as a place to work. And after years 

of seeing the Department of Homeland Security struggle with the 

low ratings, we had some very encouraging news, and we talked 

with him about that. I would like to hear from you, too, Angela. 

I like to say find out what works, do more of that. So what is working? 

Ms. BAILEY. Thank you, Senator. Yes, we are actually quite 

proud of that, for an agency the size of ours to have an increase 

that we did. And I know OPM has supported the fact that they believe it is a statistically significant increase. I really think the bottom line is that, for us, it all started with leadership at the top. 

So from the—— 

Senator CARPER. Could I just say something? 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, sir. 

Senator CARPER. When the President nominated Jeh Johnson to 

be the Secretary—I am sure Senator Heitkamp will remember 

this—across the whole top level of management within Homeland 

Security, there were folks in acting capacity, in some cases really 

almost nobody. 

Ms. BAILEY. Right. 

Senator CARPER. And that is not a good situation. And what this 

Committee did is worked with the administration, Democrats and 

Republicans—Tom Coburn was a part of that; Heidi was certainly 

a part of that—and put in place, I think, just a terrific team. I 

think leadership is always the key in the success of any organization. And they have been focused like a laser—Ali Mayorkas, the 

Deputy, Jeh, and obviously you are pulling the strings behind the 

stage. 

So go ahead. Tell us why this is happening. 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, and you have touched on some of it. One of the 

things that the Secretary did that I think I am not aware of any 

other Federal agency doing is he did the ‘‘Undercover Boss.’’ So he 

put on a uniform, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) 

uniform, went into Baltimore Washington International (BWI) Airport, and went amongst the employees, the passengers, the customers and everything, and he listened to honest feedback, because 

in some cases some of them were not—— 

Senator CARPER. Who did this? Jeh? 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Because I remember going through an airport 

security check one time, and I was talking to one of the Transportation Security Officers (TSOs), and I said, ‘‘Do you know who you 
21 

look like?’’ I said, ‘‘You look exactly like Jeh Johnson.’’ And he 

said—— 

Ms. BAILEY. Maybe it was. 

Senator CARPER. And he said, ‘‘Well, I am Jeh Johnson.’’ And I 

always thought he was just kidding. Maybe it was him. You never 

know. [Laughter.] 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, it very well may have. In addition—— 

Senator CARPER. Now, there is an old saying: ‘‘Never let the 

truth get in the way of a good story.’’ 

Ms. BAILEY. That is right. 

Senator CARPER. Take that with a grain of salt. 

Ms. BAILEY. So from his ‘‘Undercover Boss’’ experience, I think 

it was really great for him to actually hear from folks from an honest, unvarnished truth as to what is really going on, especially 

whenever folks are not necessarily sure who you are. 

Then the second thing that they did is they did a lot of what I 

will call listening tours, where he and the Deputy and the Under 

Secretary went out—— 

Senator CARPER. Yes. He talked about that the other day. 

Ms. BAILEY. And, again, it was a great opportunity and they did 

not go to all the places that are like the tourist attractions, right? 

They went to the places where it is really brass knuckles, really 

hard-to-do jobs, in some of our border areas, some of the tougher 

airports. 

And so, again, from that kind of intel, they came back, and also 

the Under Secretary, Russ Deyo, heads up our executive steering 

committee, personally heads it up—he does not send a delegate or 

anything. He comes to those. Each of the components has a representative at the senior executive level that sit on that. And we 

just really have honest, open, candid conversations about what is 

working, what is not working, what are the paths that we want to 

take, stop trying to boil the ocean. We said let us focus in on a 

few—— 

Senator CARPER. I like that: ‘‘Stop trying to boil the ocean.’’ 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, and so we decided to instead focus in on three 

concrete things that we really thought we could do. 

One was we started paying attention to the leadership. We started delivering things like toolkits for them so that they could actually have—one of the things that we delivered is OPM’s 

Mythbusters, for example, which was hugely welcomed by the hiring managers. 

The second thing we did is created stay interviews, so everybody 

wants to do an exit survey, but at that point, the person is already 

gone and it is not exactly helpful. So we created stay interviews 

where you actually sit down with the employees and the executives 

and ask them: What makes you get up in the morning? What 

makes you hit the snooze button? What kind of job would you like 

to go back to that you had in the past? And what that did is it allowed us to really kind of drill in and find out exactly what it 

would take, because many of these things do not require money. A 

lot of these things just actually require paying attention to the 

small things in life that the employees really want. 
22 

When we listened and they said, ‘‘We would really like a microwave in the break room,’’ we bought them a microwave for the 

break room. 

Senator CARPER. How about beer? 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, and so most of the mini fridges are stocked with 

beer—no, just kidding. [Laughter.] 

Just kidding. Jeff is going to kill me. I am really just kidding. 

Senator CARPER. I think Senator Heitkamp is going to kill me if 

I do not yield my time back. Just one more quick thought from you, 

and then I need to bow out. 

Ms. BAILEY. I think really what I wanted to say is that what we 

tried not to do, in addition to, like I said, not boiling the ocean, is 

we tried not to do one-size-fits-all. So we are a house of brands, 

right? We have cultures within cultures within DHS, and we tried 

to honor those and respect those and allow those different cultures 

to figure out what worked best for them. And I think really by 

doing so, we saw the results of that. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Well, you are living proof of finding out 

what works, do more of that. I will just close with one of my favorite quotes. There is a woman named Maya Angelou, a famous poetess. She passed away about a year or two ago. She actually sang 

at the President’s Inauguration I think 4 years ago. And I remember giving a graduation commencement address at the University 

of Delaware about 15 years ago when I was Governor and just really knocked the ball right out of the football field. But among the 

memorable things she said—and I think of this in the way that we 

treat our interns and, frankly, I hope, the other people on our staff. 

But she once said, ‘‘People will not remember what you said. They 

may not remember what you do. But they will always remember 

how you made them feel.’’ And what we try to do in our office— 

and I am sure the same is true in Senator Heitkamp’s office—especially with the interns, we want them to feel welcome, we want 

them to feel important, and we want them to feel like a valued 

member of our team. And it seems to work. 

Thank you all, and thank you very much for letting me join you. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Ranking Member Carper. 

Ms. Bailey, I want to get back to you because, as you know, we 

have been doggedly determined to try and get a full-fledged workforce on the Northern border, whether it is in Portal or whether it 

is in Pembina or all of the places that are very remote on the 

Northern border. It has been incredibly difficult not only to recruit 

people up there, because obviously you can ask people to go and 

they go, but to retain folks. And a lot of that is quality of life. 

One of the things that we have experienced in economic development in rural areas is that we used to say, when I was in State 

government, all you had to do was develop primary sector jobs; and 

if you had jobs, that would save the rural areas. Now we are finding out we have open primary sector jobs, good jobs in rural America. No one wants to live there. And so we have a very hard time 

in this age category convincing folks that they want to live in rural 

America. 

You operate in rural America all across—I mean, I have been on 

the Southern border, mainly in the very remote locations in Arizona. I have been up and down—in fact, took Senator Carper on 
23 

an airplane, a helicopter run by Air and Marine, thank you very 

much, showing him the Northern border. 

How do we in this group really address the concerns of the 

younger millennials who would be coming in in terms of recruitment into what we might say are less desirable areas? What tools 

do you need to do that? 

Ms. BAILEY. I think we probably have the tools available. I think 

we just have to rethink some of our strategies. And so what I mean 

by that is I think too often we are applying Washington, D.C., or 

metropolitan type recruiting and retention strategies to an area 

that is completely different than this particular area. 

When I worked for the Defense Contract Management Agency, 

we ran into this same issue because we had some of the remote 

areas in which we were trying to do that, and one of the things 

that we successfully did—and I would like to actually bring this 

idea to DHS as well—is we started recruiting our interns and our 

recent grads, we started recruiting them in cohorts, and we started 

placing them as cohorts into these rural communities so that they 

were together as a group. Because what happens is if you just take, 

let us just say a 25-year-old or a 20-year-old and you plop them 

down into the middle of an environment which is completely unfamiliar to them, they do not have their parents, they do not have 

their family, they do not have their friends, and their co-workers 

are already married with their 2.5 kids and a dog, right? And so 

at the end of the day, when they are all headed home, the younger 

person just really did not have anybody that was there to be with 

them. 

And so by creating these cohorts and actually putting them together, we helped them find housing in an area that was together. 

They then formed their own groups. They formed their own softball 

teams. They went to happy hour together. They did all the things 

together. But that is how we actually recruited them in, kept them 

together. We created mentors, which, by the way, we brought back 

alumni. I think this is another great idea. So the alumni that had 

retired, we created an alumni group, and then that group became 

kind of like mom and dad, if you will, over the cohort, and it helped 

them, kind of stabilized them, and they had somebody to turn to 

that was not necessarily their boss or their colleague. And it just 

created this more family environment. 

Senator HEITKAMP. So how would you effectuate that, how would 

you implement that in Border Patrol? 

Ms. BAILEY. In Border Patrol—and, we can work with them on 

this, but basically whenever we do a hiring, we would do hiring, 

and then we would look at the demographics, because we cannot 

just hire for millennials, right? But when we hire for those, we will 

look at the demographics of that, and where we find clusters of 

folks that are within the same age range, if you will, we will actively reach out to them and then help them, again, like I said, 

with finding the kind of housing that they might want to have 

and—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Can I add a nuance to that? 

Ms. BAILEY. Sure. 
24 

Senator HEITKAMP. Recruiting from the area, recruiting people 

who love to hunt and fish, that is their value, that is their ethic 

connecting them with community people who will be—— 

Ms. BAILEY. Right. 

Senator HEITKAMP. But I think sometimes you take someone 

from Chicago and say here you are in Cavalier, North Dakota, and 

that is culture shock. And so I think taking a look at where you 

find these cohorts and who you recruit and how you recruit, taking 

a look at kind of what their backgrounds are, because you know 

the satisfaction level is going to be much higher if they are in a 

position—or if they are in a living situation that looks very familiar. 

Ms. BAILEY. Right, or if not familiar, it at least is an area in 

which they can kind of collaborate together, and they can kind of 

get through it together. In other words, when we just think of them 

as individuals, then they are trying to struggle on their own versus 

if they see themselves as part of a group, even within a foreign environment, I think that they just tend to like cluster together and 

have more interest. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes. One of the concerns that I have—and I 

guess it would go to both you and Ms. Leo—is that we think that 

you are enormously talented, and we are glad you are here today, 

grateful that you are here today. We think sometimes the bureaucracy or the rigidity of the system, you always have to be looking 

for work-arounds. I think that takes up too much energy to look 

for work-arounds. We want to know what are the embedded kind 

of problems that are in the system that need to be removed for you 

to do your job kind of moving forward. And most of you know I 

have a bill that deals with flexible hire. We have been working 

very closely with OPM on how this would work and respect kind 

of the traditions of Federal service, but also provide flexibility to 

the human service professionals, human capital professionals that 

are out there. 

So I will ask you, Ms. Leo, what just drives you crazy in doing 

your job and you just say, ‘‘If only this would go away, I would really be able to do my job much better’’? 

Ms. LEO. Interesting question. I think that the way I approach 

it—well, nothing drives me crazy in my job, so I just have to say 

that authentically because I really love what I do and I love being 

able to connect with the people at NASA, and they really love what 

they do. And I think that is our key to bringing people in, is we 

think about our recruitment strategy beginning with outreach in 

the community at large. And so our employees take the story to the 

American people, and we do that on a daily basis. Just before I was 

coming to—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. But you have to give me something that 

might be just an irritant. 

Ms. LEO. Well, I mean, there are certain things within our hiring 

authorities that are kind of rigid. I think even with the Pathways 

Program we have to be very creative with how we bring students, 

recent graduates and interns in. And we have met great success 

with that, too. So I think even though there are very many challenges with our hiring process and the regulations that we have to 

follow, we have a lot of flexibilities, and that is one of the things 
25 

we have been focusing on, is what are the authorities that we are 

not using that are there at our disposal. 

So we have recently become an employer of National Service, and 

we are recruiting returned Peace Corps volunteers and AmeriCorps 

VISTA folks so that we can reach a different part of the population. 

So I think there are a lot of flexibilities. You just have to look 

broadly and cast a wide net and think about recruitment from outreach all the way to onboarding. 

So even though there are some challenges with our hiring system 

in the Federal Government, there is a lot that is available to us 

that we can use. 

Senator HEITKAMP. If you are familiar with it and if you are willing to use those flexibilities. 

Ms. LEO. Yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Ms. Bailey, same question. 

Ms. BAILEY. So I think that—well, I guess there are a couple 

things. I had the fortunate opportunity of working at OPM for 

eight years, and so I kind of had the opportunity to see some of 

these things are they bubble up that we were actually trying to fix. 

The number one thing for me is that I really do think that the 

H.R. community as a whole over the years has been decimated to 

the point where we do not have the number of folks actually on 

board to do the work that they need to do. They are not well 

trained anymore. We really actually need to start growing our own 

through what I will call an ‘‘HR Academy.’’ I would love, love, love 

to see OPM get back in the business of actually providing H.R. 

training so that like whenever I was coming up in my 20s and I 

was an Army intern, you went to OPM and you got trained. And 

it was considered world-class training, and people actually recognized that and cared about that. 

So I would love to see an H.R. Academy—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. So the same thing that we know drives 

millennials was just training and—— 

Ms. BAILEY. Right. 

Senator HEITKAMP [continuing]. It is what you need in the workforce. 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, absolutely. And so that is one of the things, 

making sure that, both the hiring managers and the H.R. specialists understand this. We have way too many hiring authorities. Everywhere you turn, there is yet a different way to hire somebody, 

whether it is competitive or it is excepted or whatever, and it gets 

ultra confusing for everyone. 

The next thing that I would really love to have is the ability to 

actually have these hiring events and use the direct hire authority. 

So one of the reasons we were so incredibly successful with our 

cyber hiring event is we used our direct hire authority, which OPM 

did give us—actually, they gave the Federal Government, all the 

agencies—to hire information technology security specialists. But 

without that, I can only say we have 14,000 resumes that we are 

trying to rate, rank, apply the veterans’ preference, do everything 

that we need to do in order to get through all of that takes weeks 

and weeks and weeks because you really have to do that right. 

And so the advantage and the benefit of having a direct hire authority when you are having a hiring event is that you can invite 
26 

people in. You can do it virtually, or you can do it in person. But 

you can actually get the resumes, and what we so successfully did 

is we had in this case the CIO community literally sitting in a 

room like this, CIO, HR, and security all together. 

So as we are looking at the resumes that were coming in and 

people were walking in, we actually could review those, hand them 

over to the CIO, who literally ran downstairs, found the hiring 

manager, interviewed them, walked them over to the security office, gave them a tentative job offer, fingerprinted them on the 

spot, and out the door they walked. 

And so that is how you can really effectively make some changes 

that would be just incredibly beneficial to us, is that when we have 

these specific hiring events. 

Senator HEITKAMP. And I would say there is no more critical 

place where you need to do that, because we absolutely need the 

best and the brightest in this terrific challenge that we have on 

cybersecurity. 

Ms. BAILEY. Exactly. 

Senator HEITKAMP. So, you could really make a case that is a national security imperative, because you do not want those same 

folks using those incredible skills to go do something else. 

Ms. BAILEY. Right. And I am not trying to suggest that we need 

to have these kind of things for every position out there, but I 

think we have to be judicious in which positions that we are actually using that kind of process for. So, those are really probably two 

of the things that just eat up most of our time, is this thing called 

the rating and ranking process when you are trying to get through. 

Thousands of people do apply for our jobs. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Is there a way to streamline the rating and 

ranking—because I do not think anyone here would say we are interested in eliminating that. But is there a way to do it, using data, 

using kind of a more structured, less labor intensive kind of method? 

Ms. BAILEY. Mark might be able to help me out with this answer 

a little bit more, or at least correct me if I get out of bounds here. 

But I really think that probably one of the best ways might be to 

do it is to actually ramp up the assessment process on the front 

end, right? And so what I mean by that is actually have something 

that has a little bit more rigor in an automated way on that front 

end so that what is spitting out on the back end is not tons of people that have to be manually reviewed, because that is the bottom 

line. 

But I think whenever we actually do a lot of that, it is expensive 

to do the assessments. It sometimes can irritate the applicants, to 

think that they have to go through this assessment process on the 

front end before they are even interviewed, if you will. And so it 

is really trying to get that balance right. And, Mark, I do not know 

if you have any thoughts on that, too. 

Mr. REINHOLD. No. I mean, I think your comments are right on 

point. I think in many ways we have come to rely on technology 

as kind of the fallback to do an assessment. But if you are not 

building a good assessment in the first place, then technology does 

not do anything but streamline a bad process. 
27 

OPM is continuing to put a lot of effort into a set of assessments 

that we call ‘‘USA Hire,’’ and these are professionally developed assessment tools that are available to agencies that they can use to 

help screen in many cases large quantities of applicants. And some 

of these assessments help get at soft skills, which are really hard 

to glean from a resume, even sometimes from an interview. But 

they are a very robust set of assessments that you can actually 

apply at scale and help, winnow down some of the volume. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Well, I am really interested in what the barriers would be to using those kinds of tools to streamline this process, because I want to say this: If in 2019, 30 percent of the workforce that is working today is not working, everybody retires when 

they can retire. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for it? I 

mean, that is a huge, huge challenge. 

I think that we all need to think about this not as a continuation 

of a process, but that succession planning for almost every major 

organization is a huge challenge. This is not unique to the Federal 

workforce. You see this in utility companies where I have sat on 

boards of directors talking about the average age of managers, 

never mind the average age of the maintenance worker who may 

have started with a plant who finished their career with a plant, 

and that is a lot of intellectual property that the Federal Government has that is walking out the door. And if we do not have succession planning, if we do not have the ability or the workforce in 

the H.R. area to actually do the work that we need to do to guarantee that we are hiring the best and brightest, that is a formula 

for failure in the important work that the Federal Government 

does. 

So are we ready? I guess, Mark, that is a question to you. Are 

we ready? If you can just imagine the worst-case scenario—because 

we know that a lot of people who are eligible to retire do not retire. 

But if you think worst-case scenario, something happens and people just get fed up because they are tired of the government shutting down and not knowing and feeling underappreciated, are we 

ready to fulfill the commitments that we have made in the Federal 

Government with the workforce? 

Mr. REINHOLD. So I will say to your point, one of the things that 

OPM is really driving hard on is strategic workforce planning. 

There are some agencies who use very good approaches and sophisticated approaches, and there are others who are not doing as good 

a job as they could be. It is critically important that we look at the 

composition of our workforce, evolving skill sets that we are going 

to need, what we need today and looking at demographics of our 

workforce and that we systematically and intentionally plan for 

that. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Well, it seems to me—and I want to turn 

back to Mr. Goldenkoff—that when we judge what we are doing 

right now, when we evaluate what we are doing, we have heard 

great creative ideas here. We have heard best practices. That is 

why both Angela and Lauren are here, because we think they represent great practices and great improvement. But how do we get 

other agencies to adopt these best practices? How do we best develop metrics, some kind of evaluative tool that we would need to 
28 

judge this from this Subcommittee’s perspective, so that we can, in 

fact, do the oversight that we need to do on the Federal workforce? 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Well, that is a great question. You are absolutely right. There are lot of best practices out there. There are 

agencies that are doing great things. You mentioned the agencies 

at this table. The problem is it is inconsistent across the Federal 

Government. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. And so how can we level the playing field and 

how can we share those best practices? And so one approach is the 

CHCO Council, which already exists. It is the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, and that was set up to do exactly this in part, 

to share some of these best practices. 

Senator HEITKAMP. But we need you to be our eyes and ears, to 

help us with that oversight function so that when we bring in an 

agency where we do not believe they are doing the right thing, we 

have the ability to evaluate that and to have that discussion. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Right, but—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. And they know what they are going to be 

measured on. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. And that is where GAO can play a important 

role, and that is what we work with your Committee on, and we 

go about that in a couple of ways. 

First, GAO has identified a series of best practices. We have our 

best practices or the drivers of engagement, and so that is something that you can use and evaluate agencies against and say, ‘‘To 

what extent are you implementing these drivers of engagement? ’’ 

We also issued a report recently, where we mentioned some of 

the barriers to more effective hiring. A key recommendation that 

we made to OPM was to basically scrub all the hiring authorities 

that are out there. In this report that we issued earlier this year, 

there were 196,000 new appointments in 2014, but just 20 hiring 

authorities of the dozens out there. Over 100 hiring authorities 

were used that year. Only 20 were used to make 90 percent of the 

hires. So there is a lot of hiring authority that is basically going 

unused. There are a lot of tools in the toolkit. That really begs the 

question: Why aren’t these tools being used? And so that is one of 

the recommendations that we have made to OPM. 

So where I am going with this is hold OPM accountable for implementing GAO’s recommendations, these governmentwide recommendations. OPM is doing some great things, but they need to 

do more. And one of them, as I said, is looking at the hiring authorities and determine: Are they effective in meeting the needs of 

agencies? Effective in terms of meeting the needs of hiring managers? Of applicants? Are they meeting the needs of the merit system? 

Another barrier is the classification system. The Federal classification system was established in 1949, so it is a relic of something 

that is decades old. Back then it was designed for workforce and 

workers of a different time or a different era. And we made some 

recommendations about the attributes of a modern and effective 

classification system such as flexibility, that sort of thing. By making changes to it, you might be able to give more flexibility in 

terms of pay, give more flexibility in terms of moving Federal em-
29 

ployees around, both in terms of within agencies and across agencies. So that is another thing that can be done. 

Senator HEITKAMP. And all of these things, I mean, going back 

to kind of the theme of this, all of these things in terms of removing the rigidity, making sure that people are using the flexibility 

and the hiring tools that they have, those are all things that, it 

seems to me, fit within recruiting the new Federal workforce. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Oh, exactly. And then a final thing in terms 

of actually getting down to specific metrics, GAO has put closing 

mission-critical skills gaps on our high-risk list, and one of the recommendations that we have made to OPM in concert with the 

CHCO Council is to develop a suite of metrics that agencies can 

use, a consistent set of metrics. Something called ‘‘HRStat,’’ basically statistics for the human resource field, they already exist. 

Agencies are developing them. One of the issues that we found is 

that those metrics are inconsistent. So it is like you are using the 

metric system; someone else is using inches; someone else is using 

furlongs. And so in terms of your ability to oversee progress being 

made in improving the hiring process of whether agencies are addressing mission-critical skills gaps without a common suite of 

metrics, you cannot do that. 

So we are not saying that there should be one-size-fits-all. Agencies do need their own individual metrics. But there also should be 

something that agencies—a more cross-cutting set of metrics as 

well, and that is something that the CHCO Council can consider. 

Senator Lankford [Presiding.] Thank you. Let me drill down on 

the classification statement that you just made. And, by the way, 

I have a friend of mine that I know for a fact was born in 1949. 

I am going to tell him you say he is a relic. [Laughter.] 

But the classification system does need an update. There is no 

question about that. Who is making the proposals to do that? Have 

you seen outside groups, have you seen CHCO, have you seen anyone that said, ‘‘Here is a set of ideas that we would propose as a 

change to that’’? 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. No. The President has proposed a commission, 

and that has never happened. No one has picked up the ball, and 

that is where it could be a key starting point. Obviously, it is in 

statute, so that would need to be changed. 

Senator LANKFORD. Sure. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Another aspect, too, is Title V. I mean, if we 

are talking about some relics here that is from 1978. Again, it was 

designed for a workforce of a different time. Things have changed. 

The skills that are required for a Federal job have changed. We 

have a need for many more advanced skills than existed just even 

in the last 10 years. And all those things just need to be reexamined. Some pieces may be entirely appropriate. There is a lot of it 

that still works. I mean, the merit principles, those are important. 

We need to retain those. But there is a big part of it that may not 

be working. We just need to look at where the friction is. 

Senator LANKFORD. Mr. Reinhold, which agency would you look 

at and you would lift up and say—as Mr. Goldenkoff discussed earlier, there are 100 different tools in the toolbox there of these different authorities, 20 of them are used. Which agency or agencies 

would you lift up and say they are really good at using the authori-
30 

ties that they have and that they are actually doing an effective job 

of using those? Any agencies in particular you would lift up? 

Mr. REINHOLD. Off the top of my head, I really would not be able 

to do that. I think there are pockets of excellence when it comes 

to things like using a Pathways Program or leveraging things like 

direct hire authority. But, obviously, one of the big challenges is 

that we all crave flexibility, but the more flexibility there is, the 

greater the difficulty in managing it, and understanding the flexibilities that are available. And that is kind of one of the tensions 

that we have seen is, gee, we have 100-and-some flexibilities, nobody is using them? Should we take them away or should we encourage more use of them and train people so that they understand 

what they are? And it is just striking the right balance there. And 

I do not have a perfect solution for it, but—— 

Senator LANKFORD. Yes, part of that is going to be just management training so that they have the ability—when you trust your 

managers, then those managers are able to be able to make the 

hires and have the authorities that are needed, a set of parameters, a set of guidelines, that you go buy good training for those 

individuals and then provide trust. And I understand every agency 

is always concerned about ending up here or ending up in the 

newspaper at some point saying that there was a mistake made. 

But we have 2.5 million civilian employees. There will be mistakes 

made. Part of the challenge we have is the removal of individuals 

that should not have been hired or that are a problem, that 

streamlined process to make sure that is effective, good hiring process and good hiring authorities in the middle, and so that on one 

end you do not have individuals working within the Federal Government that are toxic in an environment that makes it miserable 

to work there because it is someone that should be removed and 

no one wants to isolate rather than remove them; on the other side 

that we hire better in the process, and that is just a trust issue. 

Can I ask just a general question as well? How did this 60-day 

target come about? Obviously, as I mentioned before, we have actually gone from 90 days to 99 days over the last three years as far 

as the length of time it actually takes. But there has been this goal 

of 60. How was the 60-day time period set, that is what we want 

to achieve? 

Mr. REINHOLD. So I have to be honest, the standard that was established as part of the hiring reform effort was actually 80 days, 

and I am not familiar with the 60 days. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. 

Mr. REINHOLD. But that 80-day standard was based on research 

into what are the various components of the process from the time 

you need on the front end to begin planning and understanding 

what the job is that you are trying to fill, making sure that you 

have it classified correctly, you have a good job description, you understand what you are going to be looking for in candidates, 

through the open period where we allow folks to apply and throw 

their hat in the ring, through the process of assessing them to figure out who the best of the best are, all the way up to the point 

of onboarding. And it was, as I mentioned an intentional and 

thoughtful review to determine that 80 days seemed like it was a 

worthy target. 
31 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. Let me ask this: Ms. Bailey, this is 

going to sound like a ‘‘gotcha’’ question. It is not. This is an open 

dialogue. I pulled something recently on DHS and on the merger 

of DHS, which was such a giant merger and putting so many legacy systems all together in the previous two decades. There is still 

an H.R. struggle that is going through. 

In 2011, the agency determined there are 400-some-odd different 

processes for H.R. within DHS, and they set what they call 15 

areas of improvement and 77 projects. GAO came out and said at 

the end of 2015, of those 15 areas only one of them had been done, 

and I think only three of the 77 projects had been done over that 

four-year time period. Do you know where that is going by the end 

of 2016? And I know we have not talked about this before, but I 

just have an interest in this because this is an H.R. consolidation 

project that will affect obviously hiring, which is at 124 days at 

DHS. 

Ms. BAILEY. I sure do. We actually reestablished—since I came 

on aboard in January, one of the things that we did is we reestablished the Executive Steering Committee that both myself and 

Luke McCormack, the CIO, we both co-chair, now this whole thing 

called HRIT. And so we are in the process—we actually are almost 

complete—probably by the end of October, we will have a complete 

view of all the H.R. systems that we have. 

I will tell you that just whenever I came in and I saw those reports, I read the GAO report, and looking at the so-called 400 systems, we counted everything to include spread sheets. One of the 

things that I want to get away from is, like, let us make sure we 

are really clear on what a system is. 

So, for example, within the Department we have one payroll system for the whole entire Department. Well, we use USAJOBS, so 

we have one front-end system for employees to apply. We have two 

what are called ‘‘back-end systems’’ that are being run, one by the 

private sector and one from OPM. So we have two major back-end 

systems that handle all of the applications that come in, the rating 

and ranking and all that kind of stuff. So from a global perspective 

within DHS, the things that I am really interested in, we actually 

have those kind of neck down to where we have the appropriate 

kinds of systems. 

And then what we are doing is we have looked at all 77 projects. 

We actually put together an advisory team of all the components. 

Instead of it just being headquarters driven, we looked at every 

single project. If it did not make sense or it is not actually a real 

project that is going to drive us where we need to, we got rid of 

it. We took pretty brave steps in doing that because we had been 

reporting on it, and we just stopped them. 

We got that all completely boiled down to nine specific areas, 

nine specific strategic improvement opportunity areas. The first 

one that I will take that I think is a success is we were actually 

able to, although we use USA Staffing, for example, as one system, 

we had seven different instances of that, or negotiated contracts, 

if you will, with OPM, with the seven different components. 

We all pulled together with that, had a great conversation with 

OPM, got a 20-percent discount for doing so. We also now have a 

common set of requirements in which OPM can now deliver to us 
32 

exactly what we need for that. We are going to do that with the 

other hiring system that we have as well. So that is one example. 

The second thing that we did is we said—what I asked them to 

do is let us actually look at this as to what is meaningful for us. 

So one of the things that we are putting our energy and our resources and priorities into is the workforce planning or the position 

management part. You have to know what your requirements are. 

When you address 2019, we have to know into the future five, 10 

years from now what are going to be our requirements so we can 

build our recruiting strategies and our hiring strategies with the 

communities, with the universities, and with the employees themselves to actually meet that requirement. 

That is another strategic opportunity that we are going after. We 

are looking at this from end to end so that we can actually wrap 

our arms around what the time to hire really is. So today one component keeps it on the books over here, and I think you are kind 

of speaking to that. Then you will have another component. So 

what we have done is we have actually gone through and done 

what we call an ‘‘apple and apple,’’ so that we are all clear that 

when someone says entrance on duty that we actually know what 

that means. 

And so we have done some back end work as well as looking at 

the actual systems so that we can start consolidating and really 

start making some really smart business decisions. We started also 

doing the independent cost estimates, which we are finalizing right 

now. I think we go back to GAO with regard to the independent 

cost estimate on each of these different strategic improvement opportunity areas. But it is my goal and it is Luke McCormack’s goal 

as well, as well as our DOSM, to make sure that we focus in on 

the things that are actually going to drive the business and drive 

us in a direction in which we want to go, instead of just trying to 

tackle everything at one time. 

Senator LANKFORD. Great. 

Senator HEITKAMP. She is not boiling the ocean. 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes, I told Senator Carper that we are not going to 

boil the ocean. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is good to know. The global warming 

thing, that really throws that off. [Laughter.] 

By the way, it is painful for me to hear. It is brave to be able 

to clear some of the areas and projects and things that are not strategic. I would hope that you would hear from us that is a great 

thing to do and that we would affirm that to say let us boil it down, 

instead of just ticking off someone’s old list, try to figure out is this 

the right list to be able to work from, should be entirely appropriate. 

Ms. BAILEY. Yes. 

Senator LANKFORD. And we are glad to be able to walk through 

that together, whatever we can do to be able to help. The merger 

of DHS is one of those challenges that we still have as a Nation 

of trying to be able to merge so many things together that all of 

us are trying to figure out how do we actually get this done so we 

are no longer saying we are still working on merging entities together to be able to solve it. So we are grateful for the work on that 

and look forward to getting some of the reports on it. 
33 

Can I ask a process question as well? 

Ms. BAILEY. Sure. 

Senator LANKFORD. In the delays that are out there, how long 

does the background check part of it typically take? Because I have 

heard from multiple folks that seems to be a delay. 

Ms. BAILEY. It is. I mean, that—— 

Senator LANKFORD. How long, typically? And I know it can 

change from moment to moment depending on the backlog. But 

what is typical? 

Ms. BAILEY. It is not only the backlog. It is the level of clearance. 

So I will up front answer your question, I think it can take—I have 

seen it take as long as 200-plus days. I have seen it take as few 

as 25 days. We are averaging probably around 60 days, 45 to 60 

days to get our folks cleared through the background investigation. 

Another part of it, like a part of our 124 days—and I am kind 

of glad that you asked this question. So at DHS—and I would 

imagine some of my sister agencies find the same thing—we not 

only have top secret clearances, we have polygraphs, we have medical examinations, we have fitness examinations. So we have some 

pretty tough jobs that require quite a bit of extensive assessment 

beyond just simply applying for the job. 

So when we look at that, at the 124 days, we actually as a team, 

as the entire leadership team, including the components, we have 

actually settled on the fact that—I think it was actually 125 days 

for us is what our target is, because we really do have to take into 

consideration that whole back end of getting them cleared through 

the process. 

The other thing that we are discovering is—and OPM’s standard, 

and I was part of OPM whenever we created these standards, the 

80-day model. We had actually tacked on the back end I think it 

was 14 days for entrance on duty, for people to come on board after 

they got their final job offer. What we are finding is that most employees—and this is whether they are coming from outside or inside government. It is taking on average 30 days, because most 

people are giving their employers at least a month’s notice before 

they are coming on board. So that artificially, if you will, tacks on 

some of it. 

But what we have the ability to do today—and all of the components within DHS are participating in this—we can take every single step of that hiring process, and we have it completely broken 

down. We set targets for each of that, and then we have created 

a heat map where we can go in and we can look to see, and some 

of that has driven some incredible innovation. 

One of the things that we are doing, for example, is partnering 

with DOD and getting reciprocity on some of these medicals and 

fitness and physicals. If they just got out of the military and they 

just got a medical, it does not make any sense that we are turning 

around and doing yet another medical. So that is an example of 

really using the data, heat mapping it, figuring out where we are 

red, and then going after that. We have actually even gone—started going after the military before they even get out of the service 

by putting recruiting efforts on the military transition centers. And 

so doing things like that, we are able to take what used to be 300- 

day hiring processes and get it down to like 125. 
34 

I am pretty confident that the folks who are applying for our 

jobs, whether it is a Secret Service agent or a Federal Emergency 

Management Agency (FEMA) responder, as long as we continually 

communicate with them what step they are in the process, what 

their next step is, what they can expect, they are actually willing— 

and they understand that it is a pretty arduous process to get in, 

but it is a very rewarding career at the end when they do. 

Senator LANKFORD. Now, that would be true for someone who is 

a field agent and other individuals on it. Do you find the same to 

be true with individuals that are in a warehouse position or in an 

administrative position as well, that they are willing to wait that 

long to be able to get in? Or is that tougher? 

Ms. BAILEY. So we set different standards for that. So for an administrative position, it should be the OPM 80-day model because 

most of those are just through a NACI and a fingerprint check and 

FBI check, we can get them on board. So we set different standards, depending on the job. So I should have been a little clearer 

on that. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is OK. So tell me a length of time that 

you would anticipate in a role like that. 

Ms. BAILEY. Well, right now we are averaging somewhere around 

the 80-, 90-day period. I would agree, we need to get that down to 

at least 60 days, if we are going to use the traditional process, 

right? What I would like to instead use is the process that we used 

whenever we did our hiring event, where we brought everybody together and we made tentative job offers on the spot. 

Senator LANKFORD. See, and that is what people look for. 

Ms. BAILEY. Right. 

Senator LANKFORD. Is the opportunity to know—just tell me yes 

or no, are we moving to the next step? 

Ms. BAILEY. Oh, yes. 

Senator LANKFORD. That is a big issue. What about issues like 

moving from temporary to permanent? That is another issue that 

I hear quite a bit from individuals. And any of you can answer this, 

but that is a request that I frequently hear from people. They say, 

‘‘I have a temporary employee that has been here 9 months. We 

really want to be able to keep them, but it becomes a whole big 

H.R. issue just to be able to do the transition.’’ How does that 

work? 

Ms. BAILEY. I think that that is correct, so that would be one of 

the areas which I would imagine will take legislation to be able to 

change that, to be able to go from a temporary or a term position 

and then convert them over into permanent. We would probably 

have to put some rules around it, like how long they are so that 

we are not circumventing the competitive hiring process—right?— 

to bring them in temporarily for 30 days and, bam, convert them 

over. I think that that would just cause us more headaches. 

But I think if we had some good, solid criteria around it, like, 

for example, they are on that temporary appointment for a year or 

two and then we want to have the ability to convert them, I am 

positive that would take legislative change. And we would be more 

than willing to work with you and to work with OPM to write some 

legislation that would make sense in that regard. 
35 

Senator LANKFORD. I think that would be very helpful for us to 

be able to get, because I would say that is something I hear frequently from different groups. And, again, we are back into warehouse positions, clerical positions, administrative positions, where 

they have brought somebody on board, they love them, they fit 

well, they fit in the group, and they think, ‘‘I want to be able to 

make the transition,’’ but it is such an administrative nightmare to 

be able to work through that process for the H.R. folks that they 

find barriers to keeping good folks. And so those folks are just 

incentivized to look elsewhere. 

Ms. BAILEY. Right. 

Senator LANKFORD. Or they are re-upping their term consistently. Any ideas on that, Mr. Reinhold? We have talked about that 

before. 

Mr. REINHOLD. Yes, I mean, I think it is an important issue. One 

of the challenges we face, candidly, is that when we advertise for 

a job that is going to last for 30 days, that often has the effect of 

limiting the number of people who apply for it. So I think we would 

not want to have a situation where, kind of as Angie mentioned, 

we are advertising everything for 30 days, wink, wink, do not 

worry, we will convert you to a permanent job. 

So I think we just need to be sensitive to those kinds of conditions, and, to Angie’s point, I think there would need to be some 

structure around the way that we do that. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Just in closing, I remember being hired as a 

young lawyer and being told I was a GS–9. I had no idea what that 

meant, but it did not sound very glamorous. It sounded pretty 

rigid. It sounded pretty bureaucratic. And it did not really help my 

identity as we move forward. And so I think that it is really important that we, in the work that you all do, start thinking about how 

we approach potential employees in a way that really makes them 

feel like, boy, this could be part of a mission I want to be part of; 

I will be an individual, I will not be a GS–9 in some kind of classification system. 

And so I think that is one of the challenges that we have, but 

we do not have a lot of time. And I am intrigued by the reclassification system. That is a big job. And that is why it is not getting 

done. If this were easy, it would be done. But it may mean that 

because we have this transition coming, there is no better time, because you are not changing someone’s status or classification. You 

may be just looking at bringing people in at a secondary level. But 

I think all of this rigidity leads to a diminished employment pool, 

and we need to figure that out. We need to really understand what 

it is that the new worker wants in the workplace, and we need to 

deliver that. And I think, NASA and with the progression that is 

happening at DHS, an important job there, cybersecurity, what a 

great success story that is, we need to populate those kinds of stories throughout the whole Federal employment system. 

And so this discussion is by no means over. We are always interested on this Committee, not playing the role of ‘‘I got you,’’ we are 

always interested in what can we do that will make your jobs easier. But going back to GAO, what do we need to do to guarantee 

that we have the ability to do the oversight so that we can play 

our important role, because there is no more important decision— 
36 

there is no more important decision that the Federal Government 

makes than who they hire to serve the people. That is true in elections, and it is true when you are doing the hiring. And, we take 

this role very seriously, this oversight role very seriously. 

So thank you all for coming. You guys have been great witnesses. 

Senator LANKFORD. I do appreciate that. Let me second her 

statement on that. I do appreciate it. These are big issues, and I 

agree that dealing with the classification system is biting off an 

enormous chunk. But when we are dealing with a changeover in 

administration here in the days ahead, that may be an area that 

needs to be proposed and to be able to be attacked. 

I also understand full well when you say that, the onslaught of 

mail that we will get suddenly saying, ‘‘Do not change it, we finally 

just got it to this,’’ and all that goes with that, there is a lot of 

pressure to be able to look at, to be able to evaluate this. 

I think we have finally reached a point as a government that we 

are so heavy and we cannot take risk in every area and everyone 

has to be managed from D.C. that we are not spending enough 

time training managers and trusting people in the local entities to 

be able to make that, and that is the area where in so many places 

the private sector has rapid speed because they train managers, 

trust managers, and when there is a problem with managers and 

with the Department, they go deal with that manager. So we have 

to have the ability to be able to have oversight for managers, expectations, specifications, but they are not locked in a box so much 

that they think, ‘‘I know a good person, and I cannot hire them.’’ 

So we have to figure out how we are hiring the person I do not 

want to hire when this person I think is going to be better, or if 

someone in the middle is a problem to the entity and is draining 

morale because they are a problem in the middle and we cannot 

deal with that. 

All of those are dynamics that can be dealt with, and I understand all of them bring slings and arrows toward you and toward 

us because they are suddenly the exception that is sitting out 

there. We will have to work through this, and that is tough to do 

with 2.5 million people in processes. We get that. 

I want to say to all of you, as you encounter different groups, different entities, that they get together and they think through these 

issues and they make proposals and ideas, we are open to seeing 

them and reading them and having those conversations. It does not 

have to be in an open hearing like this. We are glad to be able to 

go through those documents and to be able to determine what are 

good solutions and directions to be able to go. So whether it is a 

finished product, as several of you have said, we can get you some 

ideas on that, we do anticipate getting those ideas from you. That 

is not something we will just turn away. But if there are also 

groups that you would recommend and that you would say this is 

something you might consider in the days ahead, we are glad to 

hear that as well. And just because we are in the month that we 

are in, I like to say to all of our witnesses that not every person 

will remain on in a new administration. Some of our best advice 

has been from people from previous administrations that could not 

say it while they were in the administration, but once they are not 

in the administration and they are not under those same guide-
37 

lines, they can say, ‘‘Here is a set of ideas that I have seen that 

could make this better.’’ We are open to hearing those things as 

well and to be able to walk through it. Again, this is not ‘‘gotcha.’’ 

This is: How do we fix it? And what are the practical steps to be 

able to do that? 

So I appreciate all of your work preparing for this. This will be 

an ongoing dialogue, and we will see where we can go from there. 

I would like to thank all the witnesses again for your testimony. 

The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until the close of 

business on October 14 for the submission of statements and questions for the record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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