U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

75–213 PDF 2012

S. Hrg. 112–660 

BUILDING AND MAINTAINING AN 

EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE WORKFORCE 

IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 9, 2012 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

JOYCE WARD, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

LISA POWELL, Majority Staff Director 

KARA SYBENGA, Counsel 

BRYAN POLISUK, Counsel 

RACHEL R. WEAVER, Minority Staff Director 

AARON WOOLF, Chief Clerk 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1 

Prepared statement: 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 37 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2012 

Hon. John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management .................... 2 

Hon. John U. Sepulveda, Assistant Secretary, Human Resources and Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ................................................. 5 

Anita Blair, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Chief 

Human Capital Officer, U.S. Department of Treasury ..................................... 8 

John Palguta, Vice President for Policy, Partnership for Public Service ............ 26 

Sara Thompson, Ph.D., Dean, Metropolitan School of Professional Studies, 

The Catholic University of America ................................................................... 29 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Berry, Hon. John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 2 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

Blair, Anita: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

Palguta, John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 26 

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

Sepulveda Hon. John U.: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42 

Thompson, Sara Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 29 

Prepared statement with attachment ............................................................. 64 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

(1) 

BUILDING AND MAINTAINING AN 

EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE WORKFORCE 

IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2012 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Akaka. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. This hearing will come to order. 

Aloha and thank you all for being here today at the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 

Workforce, and the District of Columbia. We meet to examine how 

we can build and maintain an effective Federal human resources 

(HR) workforce. 

As we all know, we have always felt the workforce is very key 

and we need to do everything we can to keep the quality up and 

efficiency as well. We all know, the Federal Government is currently facing some of the most complex challenges in our Nation’s 

history and doing so within serious budget constraints. As we celebrate Public Service Recognition Week, I want to take a moment 

to acknowledge and honor the dedicated public servants who are 

critical to meeting those challenges. Public servants provide so 

many vital services to our Nation. With the Federal workforce 

being asked to do more with less, making sure we have a top-notch 

workforce is more important than ever. 

So many talented, hard-working people want to dedicate their 

lives to serving their country and communities; but we need human 

resources professionals to make sure we are hiring, developing, and 

retaining the right people, with the right skills, for the right jobs. 

Federal agencies, and stakeholders, such as the Partnership for 

Public Service, have recognized that HR professionals currently are 

not fully equipped to fulfill modern Federal human resource missions. While these individuals still need to be able to perform traditional HR functions, such as hiring and benefit administration, 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

2 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Berry appears in the appendix on page 38. 

they also need to be responsive and educated strategic partners 

with managers to help agencies meet their objectives. 

People are the Federal Government’s most important asset, and 

we simply are not investing enough training, resources, and focus 

on the HR professionals who manage that critical asset. The Office 

of Personnel Management (OPM), the Chief Human Capital Officers Council (CHCOs), and individual agencies have been working 

together, along with private sector partners, to take on this challenge. 

So, I am so pleased to have all of our witnesses here today to tell 

us about these efforts and the challenges that they still face as 

they work together to professionalize the Federal HR workforce. 

Again, I want to share my appreciation with you, as our witnesses today, for all you have done. You really have done a great 

job, Mr. Berry and Mr. Sepulveda and Anita Blair. I thank you all, 

again, for being here. 

I welcome our first panel of witnesses to the Subcommittee. John 

Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management; John Sepulveda, Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); and Anita Blair, 

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Chief 

Human Capital Officer for the Department of Treasury. 

As you know, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in 

all witnesses. So please rise and raise your right hands. 

Do you swear that the testimony that you are about to give the 

Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth so help you, God. 

Mr. BERRY. I do. 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. I do. 

Ms. BLAIR. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

Let the record show that our witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Before we start, I want you to know that your full written statements will be part of the record and I usually tell witnesses to 

please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes but for this particular 

panel you have more than that. So, please feel free to tell us all 

you can. 

Mr. Berry, will you please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN BERRY,1 DIRECTOR OF THE 

OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much and thank you for 

your dedication and your passionate support for all men and 

women who work for our Federal Government. Your leadership, 

your commitment has been unmatched in the history of this government. And, as the government’s chief people person, I just want 

to say thank you on behalf of all of them for your commitment and 

passion that you expressed. Thank you, sir. 

I also want to thank and recognize, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, Mr. Chairman, which you created, you and Senator 

Voinovich, has become, thanks to the incredible leadership of all 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

3 

the CHCOs on that counsel, I think one of the most productive 

councils in the entire government. 

They have been a rock and roll group and have produced solid 

results, whether it be simplifying and streamlining the speed and 

time in which we can hire people, hiring our veterans. Today, we 

launched a major new initiative, Mr. Chairman, to hire students 

and issued, will be issuing tomorrow the final regulations for the 

President’s Student Pathways Program; and none of these programs could have happened without the incredible and passionate 

leadership of our CHCO Council and two of our best and brightest 

CHCOs. 

In fact, John was elected by his peers as CHCO of the year last 

year. So, I am honored to be here with John Sepulveda and Anita 

Blair, who are just two great colleagues on the CHCO Council. 

Senator AKAKA. Congratulations, John. 

Mr. BERRY. I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you 

about how we can better professionalize the human resources career field in the Federal Government. 

A strong HR community meets a core strategic mission for the 

Federal Government. When HR professionals get the training and 

the skills to do their jobs well, we will see unmistakably better results. 

For example, we have increased focus on training HR professional’s under the Veterans Employment Initiative, that the President issued an Executive Order (EO) on, with advanced e-learning 

modules and quarterly roundtables where we bring each of the veterans employment program office managers together. We have 

been able to hone HR professionals knowledge of veterans appointment authorities, disability hiring, and reasonable accommodation 

approaches, and best practices between the agencies through that 

forum. 

That has translated into a direct result, Mr. Chairman, that you 

and American taxpayers can be proud of. The effort to contribute 

has significantly increased our veterans’ hiring over the past 2 

years. It is 4.3 percentage points higher than it was 2 years ago 

thanks to this effort and we have now reached 28.3 percent of our 

new hires in 2011. That represents a 20-year high, Mr. Chairman, 

of veterans’ hiring in our Federal Government. 

Disabled vets have also benefited under this program. We have 

moved from 7 to 9 percent of disabled hires, a 2 percent increase 

over that same 2-year period. And, it is proof positive that training 

is an investment that can produce better results. 

In 2001 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified 

the Federal Government’s management of HR as, quote, the critical 

missing link in reforming and modernizing the Federal Government’s management practices. 

Over the last several years, working with the CHCO Council and 

other agencies, we have aggressively launched initiatives to enhance the skills of our HR professionals across the government. 

The Administration has also made closing Federal skill gaps one of 

only 14 cross agency priority goals for the entire government, and 

I am the accountable official in producing that result. 

My team partnered with a CHCO Council in addressing this skill 

gap in HR and we have been regularly briefing GAO on our efforts. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

4 

And, Mr. Chairman, I look forward. I hope, if we complete this 

project, that we will remove HR as a high risk area from the GAO 

high risk list within the next 12 months. So, that is our goal and 

our target. 

The recently created HR University Web site, created again 

through our leadership of the CHCO Council, provides an excellent 

foundation for training with a combination of classroom, online, 

and web-based courses across the government. 

Our growing catalog includes government training, vendor training and we recently offered for the first time college-level courses 

on HR management so that people could earn college credits while 

taking these training and development programs. 

The HR University (HRU) also represents an important savings, 

Mr. Chairman, for our Federal Government and our taxpayers. 

Through sharing these resources and economies of scale on the HR 

University Web site, the figure of savings that we have had by having agencies take advantage of these free training programs is now 

approaching $14 million. 

OPM is also building a new approach to mentoring. Not only are 

we having mentoring for our employees and helping new employees 

who are coming in to be supported by mentors in this field and in 

our profession but we are also mentoring smaller agencies with 

larger agencies, creating, if you will, HR mentorship clusters. 

And, I think this is going to be a very important one because a 

lot of smaller agencies, especially in declining budgets, Mr. Chairman, as you know, have to tighten their belts, they can benefit 

from larger agencies that have the resources to develop the training and skills and best practices, and we think that is going to be 

great. 

We are also partnering with colleges and universities now to create new opportunities for HR professionals to pursue advanced professional training towards both Bachelor and Master level degrees 

and we will be launching partnerships with several of the colleges 

in the greater D.C. area where you know we have a lot of Federal 

employees. 

Our goal is to do it first here in the D.C. area but then take it 

out nationwide and have our Federal Executive Boards (FEBs) do 

the exact same kind of partnerships in metropolitan areas all 

around the Nation. 

These agreements will enable our HR professionals to take 

courses on the campuses of these institutions as well as take advantage of web-based training that will equip them for advanced 

service in Federal human resources. 

Finally, our Federal Executive Boards which, as you know, Mr. 

Chairman, I know we have a great one in Honolulu. There are 28 

of them around the country. All of our major metropolitan areas 

have them. They are not only essential for emergency training but 

they are also wonderful places for us to get best practices in human 

resource management out to the field. 

People forget, the taxpayers forget, sir, 85 percent of our Federal 

Government employees are outside of the Washington, D.C. area; 

and how we can reach those employees is through our Federal Executive Boards and they are doing a phenomenal job. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Sepulveda appears in the appendix on page 42. 

The taxpayers should know that this is a shoestring operation 

that operates, if you will, with minimal support from OPM through 

our budget but then also agencies in each of those regions pony up 

a little bit of money to staff, to provide the staff with this but it 

is the best buy in the Federal Government. 

Last, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, it is Public Service Recognition Week, and we decided rather than to do the traditional 

lunch celebration for our employees, rather than do that this year, 

we took advantage of launching something that was developed at 

our Labor-Management Partnership Council at OPM, and we 

opened on Monday of this week a new center for innovative learning and professional growth at the Office of Personnel Management. 

We want to be a leader in training and developing our people. 

As you said so well, sir, they are our most important resource, they 

are our most important asset. We have got to develop them. 

My goal is that I want every employee at the Office of Personnel 

Management to have a career development plan that they had developed in concert with their supervisor and trained professionals 

so that they can be all that they can be; and it is not just the building, it is not just the location, it is not just a curriculum. 

I look at it as a launch pad for these people to be able to go as 

far as they want to go in their career. And you know what, if, at 

the end of the day, John Sepulveda or Anita hire them away from 

us, that is for the good of the government. 

So, the fact that they got their degree at OPM will just help 

spread the wealth. And so, we are celebrating our employees by 

giving them that career opportunity tool in advancement. 

And, I have my Chief Learning Officer here with me today, Joseph Kennedy. He is an outstanding career senior executive. But 

he has been leading this effort with our union partners, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 32 and 

2450. 

It was a phenomenal launch and one that I know is just going 

to get better and better, and we are hoping it can become a template, sir, that we can translate across the government. 

So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your generosity and 

the time. I will look forward to answering any questions and look 

forward to discussing with my colleagues here at the table. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much. I see that as an interesting and new model, that we can use and begin to disseminate 

throughout the country. 

Mr. BERRY. Yes, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your statement. 

Mr. John Sepulveda, please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN U. SEPULVEDA,1 ASSISTANT SECRETARY, HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me begin by echoing some of the remarks made by Director 

Berry in thanking you for your years of leadership in building a 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

6 

more effective and efficient Federal Government, for helping us to 

create the CHCO Council which, as Director Berry has indicated, 

is truly a great tool to address human capital challenges. 

I have the benefit of perspective. I was a Deputy Director of 

OPM in the Clinton Administration before we had something called 

a CHCO Council; and I can tell you that this Council, under the 

strong leadership of Director Berry, is tackling some really tough 

issues, hiring reform, veterans employment, so many other things. 

And, the fact that we have a counsel and there is great respect 

among the colleagues and the fact that we know that we should not 

try to solve these problems on our own, we should share resources, 

best practices, and we should support one another is making all the 

difference in the world. And, we are moving the needle and I am 

really very proud of the efforts of our Chairman, Director Berry, in 

keeping our eye on the ball. 

And I also want to thank you, sir, for your years of leadership 

on behalf of veterans and that is obviously something that is particularly important to us at the Department of Veterans Affairs 

(VA). 

Chairman thank you for the opportunity to testify today on our 

efforts to build and maintain an effective human resources workforce at the Department of Veterans Affairs. I serve as Secretary 

Eric K. Shinseki’s Chief Human Capital Officer at an agency of 

over 317,000 employees at over 1,400 facilities that stand ready to 

serve the Nation’s 22 million Veterans, their families and survivors 

through the delivery of authorized benefits and services. 

To deliver high quality services to veterans, the VA needs a highly skilled and competent workforce. The foundation for this workforce is a cadre of over 4,000 human resources professionals at VA. 

For all Federal HR professionals, there is an urgency to address 

the changing human capital needs of government. Human resource 

professionals must help agency leaders to hire more quickly; deliver superior employee and leadership training; promote productive labor-management relations; and assist the departments to improve services to the American people. 

To deliver effective benefits and health care to a growing population of veterans with changing needs, President Obama charged 

Secretary Shinseki with the job of transforming VA into a 21st 

Century organization. VA developed 16 major department-wide 

tranformational initiatives, including one called Human Capital Investment Plan. 

The success of all of these initiatives requires a well-led, wellstaffed and well-trained workforce which is where HR comes in. 

As the Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration, I support VA’s transformation by overseeing the strategic 

human capital investments. These investments have resulted in 

new training courses and online delivery systems as well as a new 

infrastructure to address the mission-critical skill gaps and other 

workforce challenges faced by the department. 

This infrastructure consists of the following five strategic components. First, we executed a corporate approach to employ leadership training and development through the creation of VA’s HR 

Academy, and VA’s Learning University. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

7 

The HR Academy, which offers online courses as well as in-person courses, and might say it preceded the HR University, offers 

a wide range of courses specifically designed for VA’s HR professionals while the learning university’s is a corporate university providing thousands of skill-building modules and training opportunities across the department. 

Second, we created something called MyCareer@VA which is an 

online career path tool for all employees including HR professionals. Using a competency assessment model, this tool identifies 

individual skill gaps, the necessary training to fill them, and also 

assists employees to map and manage their careers, all of which 

helps VA improve recruitment, retention, and performance. 

This is a really critical capacity because to the extent that we 

have our individual employees able to know what is it that they 

are missing to be able to do their jobs better and to progress in 

their careers, to the extent that we have that capacity we can connect them to the appropriate training or rotational assignments. 

So, we keep these great employees, we build their skills, and we 

also help them to get the department to perform at a higher level. 

Third, we establish a centralized online training platform called 

the Talent Management System that delivers world-class educational programs to VA employees throughout the country. 

Fourth, specialized training is provided to HR professionals and 

hiring managers to increase the hiring of veterans within VA 

through new and innovative recruitment, retention, and reintegration strategies developed under a new program that we developed 

called VA for Vets, which is also predicated on helping veterans, 

and especially those coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, to 

translate their skills and their experience into the civilian world, 

into civilian-speak, so they can be competitive looking for jobs in 

the Federal Government and in the private sector. 

Finally, we continually evaluate these programs for effectiveness 

in order to determine a return on investment. VA has also worked 

very closely in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council and other Federal 

agencies to successfully address a variety of governmentwide HR 

challenges like hiring reform, veterans employment, among others. 

Developing the capacity of HR professionals must be a priority 

for Federal agencies even in these challenging times. We will not 

achieve a leaner, smarter, and more efficient government without 

trained and engaged HR professionals at the table. 

VA’s strategic human capital investment plan is intended to help 

employees to better serve our veterans. We will continue to invest 

in the training, the systems, and the infrastructure that builds and 

strengthens the core of our department, our people. 

Thank you again, sir, for the opportunity to share VA’s experience for building and maintaining an effective human resources 

workforce. And, I look forward to your questions. Thank you very 

much, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Sepulveda. 

Ms. Blair, will you please proceed with your statement. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

8 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Blair appears in the appendix on page 47. 

TESTIMONY OF ANITA BLAIR,1 DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY 

Ms. BLAIR. Mr. Chairman, I also would like to echo the thanks 

by giving you a big mahalo for all of your leadership over the years 

and everything you have accomplished. 

My personal thanks as a government employee and on behalf of 

everybody that we all serve. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the role of the 

Department of the Treasury in building and maintaining an effective human resource workforce in the Federal Government. 

My written testimony contains many additional background details. In the interest of time today, I will focus here on three topics. 

First, the Treasury Department’s efforts to develop and train its 

HR professionals; second, our joint efforts with other governmental 

and nongovernmental agencies; and third, the most significant 

challenges facing our department in developing and training HR 

professionals. 

Although this hearing concerns the human resource workforce, 

our strategy at Treasury has been to develop our human resources, 

equal employment opportunity, and training specialist together because each area impacts the other two. Thus, I often refer to our 

human capital workforce which for us includes all three. 

On efforts to develop and train Treasury’s human resource professionals, the Treasury Department’s journey over the last few 

years to develop and train its professionals has consisted of a number of progressive steps. 

Step one was recognizing the need to transform the human capital occupation. In its 2007 to 2012 human capital strategic plan, 

the Treasury Department recognized the need to transform HR 

practitioners into strategic partners with business owners, to identify and develop HR practitioner competencies, and to facilitate career development for HR practitioners. 

One of our strategic plan goals specifically requires us to promote 

the transformation of Treasury’s human resource, training, and 

equal employment staffs, our human capital community, into a 

cadre of human professionals who serve as valued business advisors on people and organizations, and promote and organizational 

culture of fairness and respect. 

Step two was listening to the voice of the customer. Our first 

step, after recognizing the need, was to survey our customers, the 

mission, operational, and business leadership across Treasury. 

Detailed interviews of Treasury leaders disclosed an urgent need 

to build proficiency, not only in our technical HR competencies but 

in general competencies such as business acumen and strategic 

planning. 

Step three, developing a role-based competency model and career 

map framework. We built a role-based competency model that 

builds on the technical specialist role and incorporates the newer 

expectation of a strategic business partner. 

We defined and developed three roles. First, the technical specialist role. Technical specialists apply intensive knowledge of speH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

9 

cific technical areas to address and resolve immediate needs of 

business. 

The advisor role. As tactical consultants, advisors develop innovative human capital solutions to address customer issues and 

achieve specific business goals with an eye on those of tomorrow. 

The strategic partner role is the culmination. Strategic business 

partners identify broad human capital issues ahead of business 

leaders. They are high-level consultants who develop strategies to 

address long-term business needs. 

We validated our model by surveying all of our human capital 

practitioners and supervisors. The survey confirmed that general 

as well as technical competencies are critical and most are needed 

at the entry level. Key general competencies to be developed included strategic thinking, change management, and business acumen. 

Step four, assessing the competencies of the HR workforce. After 

researching assessment tools, we planned and launched the Treasury competency assessment process for human capital. 

About 95 percent of our total human capital workforce completed 

the assessment. Each employee’s self-assessment was compared 

and weighted with the supervisor’s assessment of that employee. 

The assessment process revealed significant gaps in technical and 

general competencies agencywide. 

Step five, closing those gaps. To begin to close these gaps at the 

individual and office level, all Treasury human capital employees, 

with input and approval from their supervisors, were required to 

develop an online, competency-based individual development plan. 

These plans are regularly reviewed and updated. 

Because competency gaps were found departmentwide, we decided to attack them on a departmentwide basis. A planning team 

comprising 55 representatives from across the Treasury Department identified the high priority gaps and recommended methods 

to close them. 

We formed four teams, three to deal with technical competencies 

for HR, the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), and training 

and another to address the general competency gaps. 

As an example, the HR Technical Competency Team identified 5 

of the 10 high priority technical competencies: staffing, classification, employee relations, labor relations, and performance management. Over the ensuing 6 months, they worked to develop learning 

objectives for each specialty area. For each specialty, they built a 

career roadmap describing the requirements to become a technical 

expert and recommending ways to gain that knowledge at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of proficiency. 

The EEO Technical Competency Team and the Training Technical Team followed a similar process to develop knowledge frameworks and career maps for their technical areas. 

The General Competency Team added Customer Service and 

Metrics Use and Development to the previously identified key competencies of business acumen, strategic thinking and change management. 

The competency teams working together then developed a number of solutions to close these gaps. The initial set of Human CapH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

10 

ital transformation projects includes initiatives in the areas of 

training, experience, and resources. 

Under training, we have Quarterly Focus Days. Employee Development Focus Days were inspired by ‘‘Stand Down Days,’’ which 

are often used in the military and other Federal agencies to raise 

awareness on key topics of interest. 

Focus Days will provide employees approved time for continued 

learning and development, will develop key competencies within 

the workforce, and will unify the human capital community by focusing on common goals. 

Another training initiative, orientation for our new human capital professionals. New members of our human capital community, 

no matter when they come on board, will have an immediate introduction to the community through a multimedia program. 

Community leaders will provide information about Treasury’s expectations for its human capital professionals and available career 

paths. 

In the area of experience, two initiatives include flash mentoring. 

Flash mentoring enables small groups to engage with multiple 

mentors in a single setting. A small group discussion format allows 

participants to hear from their peers as well as their mentor. 

Flash mentoring is low-cost and relatively easy to administer, 

making it an ideal program to reach community members outside 

the Washington, D.C., area. 

Another initiative under experience is Temporary Job Swaps. 

Two or more employees in different organizations within or outside 

of their current bureau may ‘‘swap’’ jobs on a short term basis to 

acquire new skills and knowledge. These mini-rotations on an 

intra-agency basis will promote cross-fertilization of best practices 

through the sharing of knowledge between organizations, as well as 

cross-training and development for individuals. ‘‘Job Swaps’’ are 

also a low cost initiative with potential for improving employee engagement. 

In the area of resources, we offer new career guides. Career 

guides are catalogs of development opportunities for individuals in 

human capital specialties. For each technical skill area, as well as 

each general competency, volunteer teams of experts are compiling 

a career guide that breaks down the relevant competencies and describes various methods of acquiring the skill or knowledge. These 

guides will be posted on the Treasury Web site and periodically updated. 

Finally, in the area of resources, we are engaging in a program 

for Human Capital Strategic Partner Certification. We are designing a model for certification that will encourage employees not only 

to maintain their basic competencies but also to develop additional 

competencies and acquire the relevant experience necessary to advance in their careers. 

Step 6 has become designing and building a Treasury Human 

Capital Community. As noted earlier, in 2007, our Human Capital 

Strategic Plan established the goal to ‘‘Develop Human Capital 

Practitioners as Strategic Business Partners.’’ 

Five years on, now in 2012, we observed that rapid changes in 

business and technology demand new roles and career paths for 

human capital professionals. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

11 

For example, we see the need for not only strategic HR business 

partners, but also HR information technology specialists, performance management specialists, multisector workforce planners, and 

experts in workforce analytics. 

Accordingly, instead of focusing primarily on creating a specialty 

for human capital strategic business partners, we now envision creating a community framework whose senior leaders will continuously scan the horizon and prepare the human capital workforce to 

respond rapidly to changing business needs. 

We are modeling the structure and roles of our new human capital professional community on examples such as the Federal acquisition community and well-established professional communities 

such as law, medicine, engineering, and teaching. 

Taking a lesson from the acquisition community, I established 

the Treasury Human Capital Community Executive Steering Committee (ESC). The ESC members are accomplished Treasury executives who understand how to forge an adaptable and agile workforce by leveraging basic capabilities to meet emerging requirements. 

The ESC provides high level oversight and direction to Human 

Capital community development projects including those I just described. All projects will be monitored, measured, and evaluated. 

The ESC will have final approval of all deliverables. In this way, 

the ESC will help set high, uniform, and consistent standards of 

quality to which our human capital professionals must aspire. 

Step 7, looking to the future. Our future plans include reassessing the levels of critical competencies in the human capital 

workforce next year and renewing individual development plans to 

reflect achievement of previous personal development objectives 

and establishment of new objectives. 

Treasury’s Human Capital Strategic Plan will be updated for the 

period 2013–2018. We expect to expand our vision to include building other professional communities, especially mission-critical occupations and management-related occupations such as finance and 

information technology (IT) that typically serve agencywide customers. 

We look forward to collaborating in this endeavor with other Federal agencies under the OPM and CHCO Council Federal-wide, 

high risk initiative. Communications will continue to play a key 

role in all our efforts to maintain momentum and communicate expectations. We hope to expand our Web site, including access to social media. 

We are already starting to build capability in workforce analytics, and we plan to use more sophisticated forms of analysis to 

aid in developing both the human capital community and other occupational communities. 

Our joint efforts with other governmental and non-governmental 

agencies: We have been, and will continue, working closely with the 

CHCO Council and OPM to support HR University. 

The role-based portion of our model was incorporated into HRU’s 

career map. We will also continue to push for a governmentwide 

competency model, which would include the necessary business 

competencies we believe are the key to effecting change. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

12 

We are taking the lead for HRU on its interagency certification 

team to find a governmentwide solution to professionalizing its 

human capital occupation. 

Treasury’s draft certification process is currently being examined 

for its potential to be adapted as a governmentwide solution. Treasury is a strong supporter and participant in the Partnership for 

Public Service’s Emerging Leaders Program. 

We have had two dozen graduates from all across all our bureaus. This is exactly the type of program critical to developing the 

strategic partners we need. 

Significant challenges we faced. One thing that has not been a 

challenge is persuading our HR practitioners that they should embrace the responsibilities of acting as human capital professionals. 

Our HR, EEO, and Training specialists are eager to learn, grow, 

and create a community to improve the quality of their work and 

service. Notwithstanding their enthusiasm, some cultural and environmental impediments persist. 

For example, as a result of past reductions and demographic effects, there is a generational gap that could create the risk of a 

knowledge gap unless we can transfer knowledge and skills from 

the more experienced workers to the more junior workers. 

Delivering programs to increase training, education, and experience can be a challenge. The typical challenges associated with any 

large change effort apply in this case. 

Most of our efforts so far have been high return with low financial investment, and that is our preferred way of doing business. 

We are reaching the point, however, where some reliable level of 

investment, particularly in IT and training, as well as flexibility to 

provide people for rotational assignments, will be necessary to be 

able to maintain progress and anchor positive changes in the culture of the organization. 

Mr. Chairman, as you noted in your opening remarks, people are 

the most important and most valuable asset of any organization 

and for people to perform well they must be led and managed well. 

We expect managers in any area to be good with people, but the 

experts in the science and art of leading and managing people 

should be the human capital professionals. We at the Treasury Department, are doing our best to transform ‘‘HR’’ into a community 

of professionals who are experts in their field, committed to continuous learning and improvement, ethically bound, selflessly dedicated to the interests of those whom they serve, and loyal to the 

law and rules they administer. 

Sir, we very much appreciate the opportunity to tell our story 

today and look forward to your questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Blair. 

I have a question for both you, Mr. Sepulveda, and also Ms. 

Blair. You both testified about the skill gaps, the skill gaps you 

found among your agency’s HR specialists and my question to you 

is: What do you consider to be the root causes for these gaps at 

your agency and at the Federal agencies more generally as well? 

Mr. Sepulveda. 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Mr. Chairman, I think that, first and foremost, 

what we did at VA is we conducted some fairly rigorous assessH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

13 

ments to identify specific competencies that HR professionals will 

need to be able to accomplish their jobs. 

So, we identified 20 specific competencies, and then we looked at 

our 4,000 plus HR professionals to see how they matched up, and 

we found that because of the years of absence of training and developmental assignments in those specific areas we had quite a 

number of our HR professionals who were missing some of those 

core competencies. 

So, one of the things that we did fairly early on is to create this 

HR Academy which combines online training, because there is no 

way we are going to be able to train everyone scattered across the 

VA footprint around the country face to face. 

So, we developed some fairly rigorous courses. We partnered with 

OPM to make sure that whatever content we were developing also 

met their standard requirements, and then we proceeded to also 

identify, working very closely with these professionals, to identify 

what are the trends in HR that we need to be developing skills in 

so that we are better positioned to assume that strategic consulting 

role. 

So, it was an assessment. It was surveying our colleagues, working with OPM, also looking around to what other departments were 

doing. And, the fact of the matter is that we made some significant 

progress in filling those gaps. We have a lot more to do. But I am 

really proud of the progress we have made. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Blair. 

Ms. BLAIR. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with John Sepulveda’s 

assessment of the causes of the gaps and I would add one more 

which is that in our human resources community very often we 

find that there is a demographic discontinuity, that not all of the 

junior workers have had the opportunity to have more senior mentors who have been able to show them the ropes; and that is one 

of the reasons that has compelled us to focus on creating a human 

capital community. 

In this way even if you are a more junior person or even if in 

your time working in human resources you did not get the benefit 

of people advising you, by expanding our scope to comprise all of 

our 1,700 HR, human capital professionals at Treasury everybody 

will have the opportunity to get a mentor and to get people who 

will take an interest in their development. 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Mr. Chairman, I want to add to my remarks by 

adding another area of consideration, and that is the fact that we 

are asking HR professionals to do much more than ever before. 

We are asking them to lead change. We are asking them to also 

do the basic HR functions. We are asking them to be strategic consultants. We are asking them to help get managers prepared to engage in productive labor-management relations. We are asking 

them to do veterans employment efforts. We are asking them to increase efforts in the diversity and inclusion area. 

So, I mean, the list goes on and on and on; and it seems like 

while you are beginning to address the skill gaps that represent 

the core competencies, you are also adding some additional responsibilities as we try to make the HR workforce be able to support 

the transformation that government needs to go through in the 

times. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

14 

So, that is another consideration, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to add, to return if I 

could for a moment to the GAO high-risk area and how we are approaching that; and if I could, I would also like to recognize and 

thank the Executive Director of our CHCO Council. 

I mention my colleagues but we would be adrift without the stable and steady leadership and the incredible professionalism of 

Kathryn Medina on my team who is behind me here. She does a 

phenomenal job. She is our Executive Director of the Council. 

And Kathryn, working with the Defense Department (DOD) in 

our CHCO working group and the GAO, they did a rigorous analysis of data across the government and identified five high-priority 

governmentwide occupations that are critical skill gap areas that 

we must close immediately. 

And they are IT, HR, acquisition, financial auditors and economists. In addition, we created one broad area, the STEM area, 

science, technology, engineering, and math as a functional area 

that we need to specifically pursue. 

And we are now working through the CHCO Council to develop 

the most effective strategies to close the gaps in these occupations 

with the goal of closing 50 percent of the skill gaps by the end of 

2013. And, we will regularly refresh to make sure that is a constantly refreshed list as well as constantly met challenge list to go 

forward. 

So, that is how we will get occupations removed from the highrisk list by showing that we are identifying them in a rigorous 

manner and then pursuing an effective filling of those skill gap 

areas by developing the training programs that are necessary. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Mr. Berry, I was interested in your opening 

statement about what OPM has been doing in their programs, and 

I was pleased to hear that you are developing partnership agreements with some local colleges and universities. 

I would like to hear more about these agreements and what specifically OPM hopes to accomplish by partnering with these institutions of higher learning. And again, going back to your statement, 

besides partnering, I know you look forward to sharing resources 

as well and other things but partnering is one of them. 

So, will you please tell us more about your agreements. 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

It has been my opinion that much of the training that we pursue 

in the government, we often do not have the energy and the focus 

on it because we have not made that training accredited. 

Oftentimes people will take a training course and they will either 

get a certificate or they will get a nice thank you at the end, and 

hopefully they will develop skills that will help them to do their job 

better. 

In my experience, I have always found that the quality of the attention of the person is directly related to their self-interest. And 

to the extent that we can build accreditation into our programming 

and into our training, we are going to get people paying a lot more 

attention and taking the program a lot more seriously and showing 

up and doing it and taking whether there is a web-based component, whether there is a classroom component, they will put the enH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

15 

ergy, the time, and the effort into it because they know at the end 

of the day not only do they get better skills, they also get accredited college course credit that goes toward a degree which can help 

them advance both in their job as well as in their career, quite 

frankly, and have something that is transferable and portable with 

them. 

In other words, that degree goes with them wherever they go 

whereas the certificate they received at a training course might 

not. 

So, I have been pushing since I got here, working with our training professionals whether it be at the Federal Executive Institute, 

all the training we are doing through the CHCO Council and others, let us make sure wherever possible we increase the accreditation linkage. 

Well, the government cannot accredit courses. That has to come 

through university partnership, and so, in the D.C. area we are 

working with Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC), 

Prince George’s Community College (PGCC), University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and the University of Maryland (UMD) 

and George Mason University (GMU). 

That is just our starting group. We are looking also beyond that. 

The first courses that have been accredited on HR University have 

been at Catholic University. 

So, what we are looking at is taking our courses, partnering with 

universities to look at them and say either here is what you need 

to add to get accreditation or why do you not marry this program 

with this program that we have already developed and together 

that will help deepen and broaden the human resource professional 

training that needs to be done for your workforce. 

So, we are working very hard on this area, and I think next year 

is going to start to be the year that we will start to see significant 

fruit. And I hope we will prove that this can be done. There are 

hundreds of colleges in metropolitan areas where Federal employees are. We can take advantage of that same model. 

In our area especially, I know some of our lower grade employees 

are having a hard time, as you well know, sir, with the cost of living and that the Federal wage rates are tough to keep up with the 

cost of living, especially for our lower wage earners. 

And so, I thought it was critical we work with community colleges as well, to increase both affordability and access. They are 

closer to where a number of our employees live. They offer courses 

much more readily in the evening hours and on weekends, and so, 

our employees can marry their work life with their educational advancement and still do it in an affordable manner such that we can 

help them advance in their career. 

So, I am very excited by the program. I think it is one that, if 

we do it right, we will be able to develop this in such a way that 

it could go all across the country, and I will look forward to teaching courses with you in Honolulu someday. [Laughter.] 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Well, thank you so much for that. I should 

tell you that I had a rare experience of speaking with 10 university 

presidents across the country, and I took the advantage of talking 

to them about the need for the universities and colleges to pay a 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

16 

little more attention towards the Federal Government in preparing 

its workers or people to work in the Federal Government. 

And, I am hoping we can again expand that and begin to have 

definite programs. But I think the universities, as you are doing 

now, can really make a difference; but as you said for a person to 

receive a credit, something they can add to their resume, you are 

really correct in that. Thank you for that response. 

Mr. Sepulveda, as a veteran and senior member of the Senate 

Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I was interested about the VA for 

Vets Program which trains HR professionals in hiring managers to 

increase veterans’ employment within the VA. 

I would like to hear more about this program. I am curious to 

hear what kind of feedback you received from veterans on that. 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Thank you very much for that question, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Actually, we are really very proud of VA for Vets. It is really an 

integrated platform. It includes an online program that allows for 

the translation of military experience and skills into civilian-speak, 

to English. 

It also has built into it an assessment tool so that an individual 

veteran can begin to identify what kinds of occupations they might 

be interested in based on their interest and skills and their aptitudes. 

So, the data from that assessment, the data that comes from the 

military skills translation, results in a resume that is acceptable to 

every single Federal agency. We work with OPM to make sure that 

the resume that gets produced can be used to apply via USA Jobs. 

We also then connect that to coaches so that we have our veterans go through that process online; but at a certain point, they 

want to talk to an individual, a human being who can answer questions about how to go about applying for a job in the Federal Government. So, we have coaches working with these individuals to get 

them ready. 

And then, we have an office that we set up under the direction 

of the Secretary, the Veterans Employment Services Office, where 

I have a team of people who are largely veterans themselves, and 

their jobs are to be advocates for veterans to be hired within VA, 

utilizing the veterans preferences that allow for direct hiring. 

And so, we combine all of those elements together and as a result 

we have used that program successfully within VA. It has only 

really been in operation for less than 6 months. We have already 

helped in the hiring either directly at VA or other Federal agencies 

or the private sector of over 1,000 veterans. 

We did a major hiring event with the cooperation of the Director 

of OPM and several other Federal agencies and we hired upwards 

of 600 veterans at that event alone. 

And, veterans have sent their comments to us telling us that 

they really wish they had this tool, some time ago. 

The good thing is, again using the CHCO Council, this is where 

the CHCO Council really truly is a working body and working with 

Mr. Joseph Kennedy, who represents the Director on veterans employment issues, we are looking to migrate this technology to other 

Federal agencies. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

17 

The taxpayers should not have to pay more than once for this 

technology. So, while it is of great benefit to VA, it can be equally 

a good benefit to other Federal agencies that are committed to hiring more veterans. So, we are very proud of that initiative and you 

are going to be hearing more about that in the months to come, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your response. 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add. 

Senator AKAKA. Sure. 

Mr. BERRY. A good example of this where the VA has been phenomenal at developing a cutting edge technology and then sharing 

it with other agencies, they have done that with Blue Button. 

They invented it, and we have now adopted it for the Federal 

Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHB). We could not have 

done that without the VA leadership; and once again John, the Secretary, and Scott Gould, the Deputy, they have stepped up and on 

the VA for Vets program, I think have developed an amazingly 

powerful IT tool that shame on us if we cannot spread it across the 

government and so we are working hard at doing that and I cannot 

thank them enough because it is how the government should work. 

I wish the taxpayers could see, rather than the infighting that 

we often see in Washington, this is an example of people working 

together, getting the most use out of every tax dollar, and producing a solid result. It is a phenomenal example of leadership. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you for that additional comment on that. 

I really appreciate what you have been doing. 

Ms. Blair, I was interested to learn that your agency developed 

a process to assess the competencies and skill gaps for each individual in your HR workforce. You then implemented a plan to close 

each of the individual’s skill gaps. 

I would like to know how individual employees have responded 

to this process and whether you believe working with employees on 

an individual basis has been worth the time and effort that you 

have given already. 

Ms. BLAIR. Well, thank you for your question, sir. Before I answer, may I just add to both Secretary Sepulveda and Director Berry’s comments that the other agencies of the government I think 

are genuinely grateful for the generosity and resources and allaround help from the Veterans’ Affairs Department. They have 

been so generous and I would like to recognize that and acknowledge that we do cooperate a lot. 

With regard to your question, it is never a waste of time to spend 

time or effort trying to help someone be their best. So, even if our 

employees in the HR area were not very enthusiastic, it would still 

be worthwhile to do. 

But, as I mentioned, they have embraced this program very 

warmly. We have had within a very short time after we started the 

individual development plan process, we had at least 65 percent of 

our HR specialists on an individual development plan which they 

had designed in conjunction with their supervisor to attack their 

specific needs; and in a very short time after that, we got 95 percent. 

So, it has been broadly embraced and I can only point to the 

amazing number of essential volunteer hours that people have devoted to our assessment, competency building and community 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

18 

building activities as evidence that this whole idea has been a very 

popular one with our workforce and I believe that it is already 

showing results. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

I just want to step back, Mr. Sepulveda. Under your leadership, 

VA has developed HR Academy prior to the development of HR 

University and has been a leader in developing and training HR 

professionals. 

How do you evaluate your training programs to ensure that they 

are effective and what results have you seen from that investment 

in terms of performance or morale and even budget savings? 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. 

First and foremost, I want to make clear for the record that 

while the HR Academy was developed at VA to serve the specific 

needs of the HR professionals, we have been working very closely 

with OPM and the CHCO Council in contributing some of our 

courses to the HR University. 

We think the HR University is a fantastic resource for our HR 

professionals as well as HR professionals across government, and 

we are really excited about HR University. We are going to leverage it and we are going to continue to contribute whatever way we 

can to that endeavor because that truly is a manifestation of all of 

these departments working so closely together. 

With regard to evaluating our training and development, we really have gone at it several ways. First and foremost, particularly 

with the courses that are in person, classroom-based courses, we do 

pre-tests. 

So we actually test the individuals before they take the course 

to see what their level of proficiency is. Then, we test them at the 

end to see how they improved; and on average, we found across all 

the different training we do which is including project and program 

management, IT, HR, finance, and budget analysts’ training and 

other training we found an improvement of over 17 percent. 

Then, what we do is we follow it up and we survey the supervisors to see whether they have seen any improvement on the basis 

of this course on the part of their employees, and we had a statistically significant sample of supervisors. Sixty-seven percent of 

them said that they did see, they did agree or strongly agreed that 

there was an overall job performance improvement on the basis of 

the training. 

Then, what we also did is we proceeded to look at what is the 

outcome, what are the organizational performance outcomes as a 

result of this training. 

So, we looked at specifically the training we did with our 5,400 

finance and budget analysts that we trained; and we determined— 

and this was the opinion of the chief financial officer (CFO)—that 

because of that training they were able to limit three material 

weaknesses in the financial area at the VA and also reduce significant deficiencies from 16 to 2. 

So organizationally in the finance area the training that we are 

doing is having an impact in improving management of financial 

systems. 

We did the same thing with IT. We took a look at what was the 

result of the project and program management training we delivH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

19 

ered to the IT professionals there. We found that they improved 

their ability to deliver on their IT milestones up to close to 90 percent. 

Then, we looked at, well, can we also identify are we saving any 

money, are we avoiding any costs. And so, we brought in Deloitte 

to do an independent analysis and they looked at a number of 

areas where our training was impactful and they look specifically 

at one with regard to employee turnover, regrettable turnover, in 

other words, looking at those offices that had a high percentage of 

employees who has taken our courses, our training, versus those offices or facilities or medical centers where you had a lower percentage of employees taking our courses. 

And, they determined that in those offices where there was a 

higher percentage of our employees taking our courses, turnover 

was much lower. Morale is much higher. And, when you calculated 

the costs associated with regrettable turnover, in the first year of 

the program which was 2010—that was a short year because obviously we just started the program—we had a cost avoidance of $80 

million. In the second year, 2011, over $200 million. 

So, that is significant and that is just simply in that one area, 

the area of employee turnover. So, we continue to evaluate, but at 

the end, we know that we need to identify in monetary terms a return on investment and we are continually looking for how this investment makes a difference and the factors that we are determining that it does. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, if I could add, looking at how we assess the success of some of these programs, one of the things that 

OPM tries to do to help all of the agencies is that we have developed in partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton something called a 

Federal Competency Assessment Tool and we are looking to do this 

on a biannual basis. 

But what it does is it looks at 33 competencies that the CHCO 

Council has identified in the HR profession and we assess and survey both employees as to how they feel the training went in terms 

of a self-assessment but then also go back to their supervisor and 

get that assessment as well. And then, in comparing the two assessments, we identify gaps. 

So, if the employee, for example, thinks, wow, they are just, the 

best thing since sliced bread and they are doing a great job but 

their supervisor does not agree, that is a gap. 

And so, trying to see what is going on there, what we are looking 

at, as to how to improve that training so that we end up with them 

both being closer together, that is when we find we are closer to 

reality. 

A good example of some of the gaps we have found in general 

incompetencies, two of the areas that were the largest were project 

management and organizational awareness. And so, those were 

areas, for example, that we learned that we could do a better job 

by targeting in. 

So, we are trying to refine these assessments and surveys and 

then we can share with each of the agencies both agency-specific 

data as well as governmentwide data and so they can see how they 

stand and stack up with their colleagues as well. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

20 

So, I think as this goes on, we are going to be using this tool with 

the HR University courses, and I think it will help us to, again assess, refine, improve, sort of create a cycle where we get better and 

better. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you so much for that. 

Mr. Sepulveda, you testified that there is a commitment from the 

top of the agency to transform the VA for the 21st Century and 

that part of the effort includes transforming human capital management. 

With so many important management initiatives being driven by 

top Federal leaders, how do you ensure that your HR workforce 

across the country is fully equipped to support these initiatives? 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Mr. Chairman, there are a number of things 

that we are doing to ensure that our HR colleagues across the VA 

are fully participating in the transformation of the department so, 

first and foremost, obviously the training they need so that they 

can fill gaps but also in the process we are also communicating 

what are the priorities of the Administration, of the Secretary, of 

the Deputy Secretary. 

In addition, we are also involving these HR professionals in carrying out priorities that have been set by OPM, hiring reform being 

an example of that. We have extensively trained our HR professionals to make sure that they understand how best to carry out 

HR reform. 

Veterans employment, I mentioned earlier, is another area where 

in many cases we have HR professionals who are not familiar with 

veterans preference and how those can be used to directly hire 

qualified veterans. 

We are also developing right now a strategic plan to formalize 

those relationships across the VA, creating a clearinghouse within 

VA just for the HR professionals so that the information we get 

from OPM and other sources we can ensure gets down to those HR 

professionals out there in the field much faster and easier to understand. 

The other thing we are going to be developing in the next few 

months is an HR policy and priorities council where I am going to 

be bringing in my colleagues from around VA so we can talk together and plan together. 

We already have an integrated HR board but we are looking to 

expand that. So, we are looking at a variety of ways to make sure 

that the rest of the HR team is fully engaged. 

But I would like to end by saying I am really very honored and 

fortunate to be working for Secretary Shinseki, who, as you know, 

sir, is a true leader in moving forward in an institution like VA 

and the Deputy Secretary Scott Gould is truly an expert in investing in human capital. I mean he literally wrote a book on the subject. 

These are two gentlemen who have been absolutely supportive, 

very clear about the need to invest in our employees. There is no 

way you can transform the department to better serve our veterans 

if you do not invest in your employees. 

So, I am very proud to be working under the direction of these 

gentlemen and I have gotten all the support that I could possibly 

need and want as a result of their leadership. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

21 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for that and mentioning 

General Shinseki, the Secretary who has done so much for our 

country as a Chief of the Army as well and so his experience with 

that and helping them transition into the civilian life is really helping what we are trying to do. 

It is great to have leaders like you in bringing that about, especially when you talk about 317,000 Federal workers, that is a lot 

to deal with. But we just have to do it and I am so glad you are 

doing what you are doing. So thank you. 

Ms. Blair, I understand—and again I appreciate your leadership 

as well in these areas—that you have developed a certification program for HR professionals at Treasury which you will be rolling 

out soon. 

Please tell us more about how that certification would work and 

how it differs from existing private-sector certification programs, 

and if it could be used as another kind of model for a governmentwide program as well? 

Ms. BLAIR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the chance to 

brag about our certification program. 

We did look at some of the private sector models and we felt for 

a variety of reasons that it would be more productive to take account of the unique aspects of the Federal Government environment and our rules and regulations and focus on what we might 

be able to do within the Federal Government to allow people to 

make the best advantage of the conditions under which they operate, typically very large organizations with very specialized rules 

and people with oftentimes longevity in their career because it 

makes sense if you are enjoying your service to keep on serving. 

So, we did examine some outside examples and we also consulted 

among our own senior people. We consulted with people whom we 

knew from the outside. We contacted friends across the government, other CHCO agencies, to be able to design something that 

we thought would serve as an incentive for our most talented people to want to not only hone the competencies that they now have 

but also stretch themselves in order to become certified and have 

the ability to advance in their career. 

Our certification process combines not only specific training and 

experience but it also allows people to demonstrate that they have 

gained the requisite training and experience through different 

means. 

Training might be in a formal educational situation. It might be 

what we might call on-the-job training. Experience could be 

through having had a job or it might be through having participated in a working group. 

We intend to ask each of our candidates for certification to basically come up and be interviewed by a panel of senior practitioners 

in that area as something that we envisioned as kind of a doctoral 

dissertation defense type of process. 

We will also be looking for our certificate people to have demonstrated that they understand the importance of being a part of 

the community, and so, we will be looking for people who have not 

only focused upon their own personal advancement and growth but 

also contributed to the advancement and growth of all human capital professionals within Treasury. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

22 

This is a beginning program. We are combining it obviously with 

our model of career advancement and our career guides which basically serve as a roadmap for our human capital professionals to be 

able to advance in their careers. 

But we are excited about it because it is a fresh look at a problem that has been circling around this area for a long time: How 

do we design something that will fairly reflect people’s experience 

and knowledge? And we think we have built something that is 

broad enough but yet has enough high quality built into it that 

people who obtain certification will have the Good Housekeeping 

Seal of Approval. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your response. 

Director Berry, I believe that the effective mentoring programs, 

and here again you have so many good ideas and programs that 

have been coming forth and mentoring is one of them. I believe the 

effective mentoring programs are an important goal for building 

the next generation of Federal workers, especially since so many 

Federal workers will soon be eligible to retire. You testified that 

OPM has helped agencies as well develop HR mentorship clusters. 

Do you have examples of how these mentoring clusters are working for smaller agencies? 

Mr. BERRY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I will tell you as somebody who 

would not have a career today without mentors in my life, I remember being a young 25-year-old wet behind the ears legislative 

assistant to Mr. Hoyer who sat right behind you and you and he 

were willing to mentor and teach the ropes to myself back in the 

late 1980s over in the House of Representatives. 

And I look at it as a special responsibility when you have been 

given a gift to have had such wonderful mentors in your life that 

you need to turn around and do the exact same. 

You were very kind, sir, when I took this job to allow one of your 

staff, Thomas Richards, to come and join my team at OPM and I 

took very seriously my responsibility to be a mentor to him. And, 

let me tell you, he is going to be a future leader of our government. 

He is a phenomenal individual and I am very grateful for your donation to the Executive Branch. [Laughter.] 

But there have been, you have heard, I think, a number of examples today of how larger agencies with a little deeper pockets than 

some of the smaller ones have stepped up to the plate. The VA for 

Vets and this IT platform being a prime example that we are now, 

being able to share with smaller agencies. 

But we could not have rolled out the veterans program, for example, the veterans hiring initiative, we could not have rolled out the 

hiring, the time to hire model as fast as we did and to achieve the 

results that we did to move to a resume-based model without larger agencies adopting smaller agencies and helping them. Here is a 

tool you can use or this is one we have developed or an assessment 

tool based on resumes that allowed smaller agencies to pick up that 

technology and hit the ground running. They would not have been 

able to do that by themselves. 

And so, we saw firsthand right at the beginning the difference 

that could make. And so, we have decided, we have so many small 

agencies—there are over 64 of them—whereas there are only 24 of 

the larger type agencies, that we can pair those up and create 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

23 

those mentorship communities, if you will, in an organizational 

sense so that everybody has a big brother or a big sister and will 

have someone looking out for them, helping to show them the 

ropes, helping them to not make the same mistakes. 

I think it can be very powerful but I also do not want to forget— 

that is an organizational sense. But my dream would be where 

every Federal leader and every Federal supervisor would become a 

mentor for someone, whether it be a new entry in the government 

or whether it be their successor, and I think we have a special responsibility. 

I know one of the efforts you are helping to launch is a phased 

retirement that will allow us to encourage our experienced employees to move more slowly into retirement and in exchange for that 

benefit to make sure that they also have that knowledge transfer 

to the next generation by agreeing to either develop their successor 

or to mentor a newbie. It is invaluable. 

One of the reasons we lose students and interns when we bring 

them on is we have not paired them with a mentor, and so they 

run into a culture that they are unfamiliar with. 

All of us can remember sitting at a table in the lunchroom, in 

our younger years where we had that alone period. You were the 

new kid or at a new school, and, that translates at any age group. 

We need to make sure, as people are joining, whatever age they 

are joining a new organization, especially some as large as you 

mentioned, the VA can be very intimidating, can be very impersonal. 

And, if they have a mentor, somebody they can go to and say how 

have you handled this or how have you handled this situation, it 

could be the difference between us losing that person or keeping 

them into a career and growing them into a career. 

So, I am working with the Senior Executive Association (SEA) 

and others to really try to help, on a voluntary basis to have all 

of our senior executives and to have all of our managers step up 

and be mentors because it can be one of our most effective approaches in terms of knowledge transfer, sir, and let me end by just 

thanking you again by being one for me. I appreciate it very much. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. I am so glad that we are 

able to do that. 

I can go on but I am going to ask the last question to this panel. 

Let me start with Mr. Sepulveda and Ms. Blair. Your agency’s 

human capital officers are leaders in your efforts to analyze and 

improve your HR workforces. 

How has OPM supported these efforts and do you have recommendations for how OPM could provide more effective support? 

And I would like to have Mr. Berry make any further comments 

after that. [Laughter.] 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Blair. 

Ms. BLAIR. Well, I am happy to go first because I have been so 

impressed by the support and organization framework that OPM 

has provided through the CHCO Council and through other activities. 

Our staff works closely with their staff. It is not only at the 

CHCO level. And, I would call out not only Mr. Berry but Kathryn 

Medina, our Executive Director of the CHCO Council, as well for 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

24 

being such leaders in enabling us to get together and do the things 

that we need to do. 

Honestly, I cannot think of anything else that I would be asking 

and I am sorry I cannot because I could probably get it right now. 

[Laughter.] 

But truly they have done a wonderful job and I think, I could not 

ask for more in terms of their support for any kind of innovation 

or initiatives that we want to take up. They make it possible for 

us to reach out across government and they are incredibly generous 

with time and resources for us. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you so much for that. Mr. Sepulveda. 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Mr. Chairman, I am in the same spot as Anita, 

Ms. Blair, because I have to tell you I have had a great working 

relationship with OPM. 

I have a soft spot in my heart because I worked there many 

years ago. A number of the people who I worked with at that time 

are still there, and so there are personal relationships, and John 

and I worked together in the Clinton Administration. His Chief of 

Staff, Liz Montoya, is an old friend. 

So, there are relationships. Kathryn Medina. I think relationships help a lot especially when you have to work through some 

bumpy issues. You do it out of respect. You work through them out 

of respect. 

But you have some extraordinary people at OPM, absolutely 

dedicated professionals. Angie Bailey. I mean, I could go on and on. 

But the fact of the matter is you have got Joe Kennedy, you have 

great people who lean forward and I always respect people who 

lean forward, who do not wait for the call that you may make to 

them. They will call you. 

So, when we were working through hiring reform, that is a major 

area, challenging our agencies, the ability to hire people quickly, 

high-quality people quickly because even in this job market high 

quality people are not going to remain out there for 6 months, 8 

months, a year. 

And, our government needs to have the best and the brightest as 

quickly as possible. So, hiring reform is something that Director 

Berry took on as a challenge. People have talked about hiring reform for many years but he took it on. 

He brought the CHCO Council together and he leveraged his 

best people to work with each of the agencies, including VA, to 

problem solve, to figure out how to use best practices and how to 

customize to the individual agencies; and they were always constantly available to answer any policy questions. 

And as a result, we were able to move the needle. And, the partnership that we have VA with OPM, I think, is a testament to the 

dedication of these individuals. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, let me sincerely point out that I am so glad 

to hear those responses because I wanted Director Berry to hear 

it. [Laughter.] 

And so now, Director Berry, any further comments that he may 

have on this. 

Mr. BERRY. Well, first, thank you. That is extremely kind; and 

I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, it has been a real privilege to work 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

25 

at the Office of Personnel Management. We have phenomenal employees. 

I think in many ways they were held back and they were not allowed to reach their full potential, and I think our culture when 

I got there, I think if you had asked and maybe if I was not in the 

room, OPM was widely referred to as No PM. We have tried to 

change that to Go PM. 

I have made clear to my folks that sometimes no is the right answer; but if you are going to tell someone no, if they object and 

they are trying to achieve is legal and appropriate, then we need 

to give them at least two alternatives for how they can achieve the 

same objective if they cannot go the way that they wanted to go. 

And, that is now, I think, really sinking in, and I think it is our 

people, when you unleash them and allow them to develop those 

creative ways within law and regulation to get to a good objective, 

a good end, then everybody wins. 

The agencies win. The taxpayer wins, and our employees are allowed to go home at the end of the day knowing that they have 

solved problems. 

And so, it has been an honor to work with them, sir. It has been 

a great rolling ride and it sounds like I have got a good Director 

and Deputy here to turn it over to if I move on. 

So, thank you, sir, for the opportunity to be with you and we will 

look forward to continuing to work with you on so many challenges 

in the months ahead. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, again, let me say Mahalo nui loa. Thank 

you very much for your responses, for especially the work that you 

have been doing in this effort to really help our public servants to 

be the best and most qualified, and it seems as though we are coming from Hawaii, we are in the same canoe and on the same course. 

So, thank you so much for your valuable testimony and your responses as well and for your efforts and support in recognizing the 

public servants working in your agencies and governmentwide as 

well. 

And so, I want to wish you well in your work and there is so 

much more to do. We know that, but I think we are heading on 

the right course in the same canoe, using or getting each other to 

help in bringing that about so that we are doing it together rather 

than separately and even sharing resources as we do that. 

So, again, Mahalo. Thank you very much. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SEPULVEDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. BLAIR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. I wish you well. 

I would like to ask our second panel of witnesses to come forward. In our second panel with afternoon, we have Mr. John 

Palguta, Vice President for Policy at the Partnership for Public 

Service and also Ms. Sara Thompson, Dean, Metropolitan School of 

Professional Studies at the Catholic University of America. 

As you know, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in 

all of our witnesses. I would ask you to please stand and raise your 

right hand. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

26 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Palguta appears in the appendix on page 57. 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth 

so help you, God? 

Mr. PALGUTA. I do. 

Ms. THOMPSON. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Let the record show that our witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

So, Mr. Palguta, will you please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN PALGUTA,1 VICE PRESIDENT FOR 

POLICY, PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE 

Mr. PALGUTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, as with the previous 

panel, I have to start with thanking you for your leadership and 

your support of the Federal workforce, including your sponsorship 

of the resolution this week in support of Public Service Recognition 

Week with which, as you know, the Partnership for Public Service 

is very involved. Thank you, sir. 

I am the Vice President for Policy at the Partnership for Public 

Service. I have been at the Partnership for 10 years. Prior to that, 

however, I had a career of over 30 years in the Federal Government as a Federal HR professional, and so in part, I feel this is 

a hearing about my people. 

I chose the HR profession knowing that good HR management 

and good HR professionals can make a tremendous difference in 

ensuring that we have an effective Federal government workforce 

and an effective government. In fact, I felt so strongly about it 35 

years ago that I married a Federal HR professional, my wife, and 

she is still my wife although recently retired from government. 

The topic, Mr. Chairman, of this hearing is particularly timely 

and critical. For over two decades now, we have a growing body of 

evidence that there are just simply too many HR staff members in 

government who are not yet at the level they need to be to fully 

help their agencies target, obtain, develop, and retain the talent 

they need to execute their missions. 

Some of that evidence is in my written testimony. I am not going 

to belabor the point. You heard from the previous panelists about 

some of the skills gaps they are working to close. 

I do want to hasten to add, however, that we also have some 

great HR professionals in government. You saw three of them at 

this table earlier, and they have staff under them who are doing 

a tremendous job. 

This is not an indictment of the Federal HR workforce but rather 

an acknowledgment that while we have some highly competent and 

qualified people we need to elevate the rest of the workforce to that 

same level. 

I have four points I want to make. That was one. The second 

point is that part of the issue here is not that we have not brought 

in great people to the HR workforce, but the HR environment in 

government itself has become more complex and more demanding. 

When I was in government 20 years ago it was actually much 

easier being a good HR professional. We had centralized examining 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

27 

and recruitment. We did not have to worry about HR technology 

because we did not have it. We did not have the Internet. We did 

not have personal computers. Yes, I go back that far. 

But we now have increased the HR flexibilities in government 

which is a good thing. With flexibilities and additional alternatives, 

we need people who are skilled at helping their agency leaders decide among those flexibilities and alternatives. 

We have changing workforce demographics. The increased pace 

of change in government and in the government workforce has 

made the job of a Federal HR worker more complex. Unfortunately, 

the HR workforce has not had the opportunity to keep up with the 

changing environment. We need to change that. 

The third point I would like to make is that in large part the HR 

workforce has been very akin to the shoemaker’s children. They 

were the people out there who were helping other segments of the 

Federal workforce maintain and improve their workers, particularly if you look at the acquisition and information technology communities. 

For many years now they have really focused on improving and 

maintaining the skill level in those communities; and in some 

ways, the HR workforce languished a bit. You heard from the previous panel that the situation is changing, but that is where we are 

starting from. 

The fourth point then is that there is some good news. The HR 

community is starting to catch up and I was pleased to hear some 

of the good work being done stated publically. 

HR University, the changing and more proactive role of the Office of Personnel Management and the work of the Chief Human 

Capital Officer Council have been very valuable. 

As you may know, the Partnership for Public Service itself has, 

as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization devoted to improving the 

effectiveness of government, focused on the Federal HR workforce 

as part of our efforts to help reform government. 

In particular, I have the privilege within the Partnership of helping to lead the Federal Human Capital Collaborative. It is a cross 

agency community of Federal HR leaders that join together with 

the participation of the Partnership in an effort to identify and collectively work on issues and problems. 

I am pleased that, for example, the Department of Treasury and 

the Department of Veterans Affairs, who are represented here, are 

members of our Collaborative. Kathryn Medina, who John Berry 

accurately pointed out as one of the leaders on the Council as the 

Executive Director, attends our Collaborative meetings. 

One particular aspect of the Collaborative, which Anita Blair 

from Treasury mentioned, is our Emerging HR Leaders program. 

When we asked the Chief Human Capital Officer community what 

we could do to help, they told us they needed help elevating their 

own workers. 

Our Emerging HR Leaders program started a little over 2 years 

ago. It is a year-long, facilitated, peer exchange program. Agencies 

nominate their HR professionals, their rising stars if you will, and 

for one year they meet monthly. They share information and we 

bring in subject matter experts on topics of their choosing. They 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

28 

have action learning projects that they work on as a cross-agency 

community of professionals. 

One of those projects, for example, resulted in the development 

of what was called the Strategic HR Advisors Results Project 

(SHARP), where they themselves identified, as emerging leaders 

the competencies needed to be true strategic advisors as well as a 

developmental plan for how to acquire those skills. That project is 

now on HR University. 

This is good news, and shows that there is progress being made. 

I think, we have in my written testimony a number of recommendations. I would just like to highlight four of them. 

First, I think it is going to be quite important that the Federal 

Government continue to maintain its focus on improving the HR 

workforce. This is not a one-off problem that we can fix and simply 

move on. 

When you are talking about developing a cadre of professionals 

you need to look at continual learning and progress. That investment, as you also heard from the previous panel, can have a significant return in terms of cost savings and in terms of more effective government, but we have to continue to make that investment 

in people. 

The second recommendation to highlight is that improving the 

quality and competency of the workforce should be approached and, 

I think, is being approached as a shared responsibility. 

It is not just the HR community. We need government leaders. 

We need Members of Congress such as yourself, Mr. Chairman, 

who understand the need to develop a great workforce, and in particular, to develop a great HR workforce. We also have to have accountability for results. We need to track what is happening to 

make sure we are making progress. 

I would like to highlight two other recommendations. One is that 

Federal agencies need to be encouraged to reward or recognize 

their HR professionals. Many do but we need to make that the 

norm, particularly HR professionals who make the effort to take 

some control over their own career and to expand their knowledge 

and skills. 

This should include incentives and support for those who demonstrate or seek mobility in their career. My wife for example, she 

worked for 10 different Federal agencies. She was my touchstone 

when I wanted to know what was really going on out there in the 

HR environment. She could tell me because she had that breadth 

of experience. 

I think we need to encourage that sort of mobility and sharing. 

I know you, Mr. Chairman, have focused on the senior executive 

workforce. We have talked with you about the value of mobility in 

becoming a senior executive. Making mobility a prerequisite for 

senior leadership could be a valuable thing to do. 

Finally, we have been talking about supporting the current HR 

workers, which is obviously highly important. However, the HR 

workforce is aging. It is actually older than the average age in government. 

Last year alone one out of every 10 HR workers left the Federal 

Government, mostly through retirement, while others left the profession. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

29 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Thompson appears in the appendix on page 64. 

The last recommendation I would like to highlight is that we 

need to focus on the pipeline of talent. We need to make sure that 

we are bringing in talented and motivated workers who have a desire and an affinity, for working on the people issues of government. 

I suggest that Congress consider establishing a Federalwide HR 

intern program built on the model of the Presidential Management 

Fellows Program. The program would be focused on identifying 

people who are highly skilled in terms of their raw talent and who 

have an interest in the HR profession, and put them in a program 

that is going to foster and develop that talent. 

But I am going to end there, Mr. Chairman. Again thank you so 

much for not only everything you have done but for focusing on 

this community that I love. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your statement. I want 

you to know that your full statements will be included in the 

record. 

Ms. Thompson, will you please begin with your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF SARA THOMPSON,1 PH.D., DEAN, METROPOLITAN SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES, THE CATHOLIC 

UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA 

Ms. THOMPSON. Certainly. Good afternoon. I am Dr. Sara 

Thompson, Dean of the Metropolitan School of Professional Studies 

and Associate Provost for New Program Initiatives at the Catholic 

University of America. 

I would like to thank you, Chairman Akaka, for the opportunity 

to discuss this important topic. The three areas that I will address 

are, one, the need for professional development in Federal HR; two, 

Catholic University’s academic programs for Federal HR professionals which provide an example of meeting this need; and the 

success of these programs thus far. 

First, regarding professional development, the mission of the 

Catholic University of America’s Metropolitan School is to offer 

educational opportunities to adult learners in the greater Washington, DC., region and beyond, to be the bridge between employers 

and employees in helping to prepare the workforce. 

We view our service to the Federal workforce as vital to our mission of outreach. In this role, the school continuously researches 

areas in which professional development needs to exist. We found 

that Federal HR, in particular, has significant needs for several 

reasons, many of which have been discussed today, including the 

transition in the field from transactional focus to that of strategic 

consultant. In addition, all HR professionals, current and future, 

will need to meet the standards of competencies developed by the 

Chief Human Capital Officers in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 

So, how can the Federal Government address these needs? Employee training and development through programs such as those 

offered by Catholic University of America offers one effective approach. We put forth a comprehensive Federal HR professional development ladder so that no matter where the Federal HR profesH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

30 

sionals are in their careers, our programs can help prepare them 

for the next level. 

For entry-level grades, GS–5 through–9, we offer the HR-related 

certificate and the Bachelors Degree both of which to build competencies at the CHCO awareness to intermediate level. For midand upper-GS levels, we offer a Master of Arts in Human Resource 

Management with a specialized track in Federal HR which incorporates the CHCO competencies at the advanced expert level. We 

believe that this is the only HR Master’s Degree in the country 

with a specialization in Federal HR and the only to integrate 

CHCO competencies. It is a 36-credit degree program offered in the 

evenings and online. Most students complete their degrees on a 

part-time basis in 11⁄2 to 2 years. 

The courses are taught by experienced individuals who either are 

or have been senior-level Federal HR professionals. As the only 

DC-based university with a partnership with the Society for 

Human Resource Management, we also prepare students in these 

programs for professional certifications, including the highly regarded credential of Professional in Human Resources (PHR), and 

Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). 

We have developed partnerships with several Federal agencies, 

including HR University, to offer our masters program in Federal 

HR, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to offer a Masters 

program on site at their central office, and NASA for the Certification Exam Preparation Course. 

Finally, the success of these programs are of course the learning 

outcomes are measured by the university. But equally important is 

the application of the course material in the Federal workplaces 

and the hiring and promotion of our graduates. Employing agencies 

confirm that we have succeeded in a moving their graduates from 

a compliance driven framework to a more strategic thinking about 

how their projects and tasks relate to the organization’s mission. 

In addition, students have offered very positive feedback. One 

spoke of being promoted twice since beginning her studies. 

Another said, quote, the courses I have taken have definitely 

helped to jumpstart my career in the Federal Government. Within 

the first semester, I landed a job with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), working as a management analyst in 

the office of the Executive Director. While working full time and 

going to school at night can be challenging, I was excited to learn 

that projects at work directly correlated to the assignments from 

my classes. I was tasked to write the Office of Executive Director 

(OED) submission for FERC’s human capital plan. The fact that I 

was taking an HR class entitled strategic human capital management in the Federal sector at the time was extremely beneficial to 

me, unquote. 

So, in summary, these programs serve to build a pipeline of highly qualified workers from within the agencies and to attract those 

from outside to a career of public service. 

Thank you again for this opportunity. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Palguta, in a recent report the partnership found that Federal HR offices generally have done a good job developing succesH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

31 

sion plans for the agencywide workforces but they have failed to 

develop succession plans for their own HR offices. 

What effect has this had on agency HR offices and what can be 

done to ensure that a new generation of HR professionals will be 

prepared to lead? 

Mr. PALGUTA. That is an excellent question, Mr. Chairman. It 

goes back to my metaphor of the HR community being like the 

shoemaker’s children, taking care of others while their own children are barefoot. 

I think the impact of not having done, until now, better succession planning is that we have many excellent HR people who are 

leaving government. They have served their career and have done 

tremendous work, and now they are leaving. The pipeline of talent 

behind them that we would expect to move up to replace them is 

very thin. We still have great people throughout, but not enough. 

So, I think what you heard from the previous panel and what we 

are discussing here is that the HR community is playing catch-up. 

They have to accelerate their efforts not only to prepare the existing workers to fill in behind the leaders who will be leaving government, but they also have to start filling that pipeline with new talent. Hence, my earlier comment about an HR intern program. 

I had the opportunity to talk one on one with many of the Chief 

Human Capital Officers in government. They recognize this, and 

that is the good news. They know this is an issue and they are 

working hard to remedy it but it is going to take sustained effort 

over several years to refill that talent pipeline with the type of talent we need for the future. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Ms. Thompson, I was really happy to learn that Catholic University provides graduate-level courses in Federal Government HR 

issues such as Federal pay and benefits, performance management, 

and labor relations. 

Will you please explain how you developed your curriculum and 

in particular what input the Office of Personnel Management and 

the Chief Human Capital Officers Council provided you? 

Ms. THOMPSON. Certainly, it was quite a process that started 

about 8 years ago, and we actually began working with OPM with 

Steve Benowitz just as he was about to retire, and he was of great 

assistance to us in helping to develop the program. 

We worked with the Workforce Development Subcommittee of 

the CHCO Council and had several focus groups with Federal 

agencies across the board asking what they really needed, what did 

they want from their workforce. 

We also had focus groups and lots of discussions with Federal 

HR specialists and those that wanted to become HR specialists. So, 

we really worked with the entire circle of people who were involved 

in this and the stakeholders. 

They gave significant input about what they appreciated. It is 

two schools of thought as one person said, that you can have HR 

management skills in a general sense and apply them. The other 

school of thought is the public and private sectors are fundamentally different and they need different programs. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

32 

What we tried to do with this program is blend the best of both 

worlds so that we have a broad HR foundation but very focused on 

some of the courses in the track in Federal HR. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Ms. Thompson, as witnesses on the first panel testified, the skills 

and abilities necessary to succeed as Federal human resource professionals are constantly changing and are becoming more demanding. 

What does your institution do to stay current with HR practices 

both in the Federal Government and also in the private sector? 

Ms. THOMPSON. Well, we are very involved with the agencies, 

with the students, with the leadership first of all. Always kind of 

keeping our ear to the ground about what is current and what the 

changing needs are. We are also involved with the Society for 

Human Resource Management, which I described, which provides 

a very highly regarded credential PHR and SPHR and that program is evolving as well. 

So, we feel as though by being involved in both the Federal sector and the private sector that we really have a sense of what is 

going on in the HR world. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. 

Mr. Palguta, in your testimony you talked about the Partnership’s recent report that looked at lessons learned from the budget 

cuts in the 1990s. At that time, some cost cutting strategies included reducing the size of the Federal workforce and decreasing 

administrative costs. Ms. Blair testified about the generational 

gaps this workforce strategy created and the challenges we continue to face because of that. 

Will you please discuss how you believe these cuts impacted the 

Federal HR workforce? 

Mr. PALGUTA. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. I think the original intent was good. The reductions in administrative costs, was at a 

time when we had a budget surplus in the country so it was not 

so much about cost savings, it was about making government work 

better and cost less. 

The notion was not to diminish the work of the HR community 

but rather to improve efficiency, improve the use of technology, and 

simplify some of our regulations and laws. 

Unfortunately what occurred was we disproportionately reduced 

the number of HR staff in government by over 20 percent, one of 

the largest cuts in all of these support occupations. There were 

similar cuts, of course, in acquisition and in information technology. 

The unintended result was that we did not achieve all of the efficiencies that we had hoped for in streamlining the process, implementing the technologies or reducing the complexity of some of 

these laws and regulations. 

Instead, what we found was that we had fewer people to do an 

increasingly complex job, and we did not hire. We did not refill the 

pipeline. Most of the reductions came through attrition. 

So, as some of our most experienced HR professionals and leaders left the government through buyouts and through retirements, 

we were not bringing in new individuals. Were promoting employH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

33 

ees already in the agencies and they were finding themselves overwhelmed. 

We saw the same thing in the acquisition community. We discovered that the greater reliance upon contracting support became 

problematic because we did not have people to administer the contracts and to ensure the taxpayers interest in making sure that 

public money was well-spent. 

I think that realization came later for the HR community. As it 

turned out we were simply being overwhelmed. As the number of 

applications for Federal jobs started to increase, there were fewer 

people to process them. 

Agency managers started looking for help on how to manage in 

a downsized environment, a situation we are facing today as a matter of fact as we are looking at ways to save money by reducing 

costs. Managers are asking for help on managing their workforce 

more cost effectively, and we do not have enough HR individuals 

with the right skill set to provide that strategic help on the variety 

of strategies that are going to work best in this environment. 

We realize that now and are trying to rebuild that capacity. But 

frankly, part of the problem right now and the reason we are playing catch-up in part goes back to how we downsized the HR workforce in the 90s. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Ms. Thompson, it is my understanding that many of the students 

in your Federal HR program are current Federal workers. 

Ms. THOMPSON. Uh-huh. 

Senator AKAKA. What can be done to make more young people 

interested in pursuing this course of study early on or prior to joining the Federal workforce? 

Ms. THOMPSON. Well, alluding to the issue of internships, we 

found to be extremely attractive to people entering the field. They 

really get to explore what the field is about. They get a taste of 

what the work is about. 

When we couple that with an evening program such as our Masters in Federal HR, they see the relevance. They bring it back to 

the workplace. We found that to be an excellent launch to a Federal career. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Palguta, our first panel of witnesses talked 

about how OPM and the agencies are working together to improve 

the HR workforce. What opportunities do you see for increased collaboration among agencies? 

Mr. PALGUTA. Well, I think there is tremendous opportunity, Mr. 

Chairman. The good news here is that we are starting to see agencies take advantage of those opportunities for collaboration. 

For example, using the platform of HR University, agencies have 

developed training programs or partnerships with institutions such 

as the Catholic University. If they find that they have some excess 

capacity in an internal training program, they are opening that up 

to employees in other agencies, sometimes at no cost. It is an exchange. 

Focusing together on the best ways to build the competencies and 

sharing information about things that are working is another opportunity for collaboration. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

34 

One other opportunity which has not been discussed is the issue 

of mobility. Mobility does not mean you have to permanently leave 

your agency to go to another agency. We can have a talent exchange within agencies. 

For example, I give you my rising HR star, you give me yours, 

and they learn about differences in how we do things, and they can 

bring some of their agencies or subcomponent’s best practices that 

we have not thought of, and in the meantime, my person is learning about that agency’s efficiencies and ways to operate that we 

might not have thought about. 

So, I think there are many opportunities for agencies to collaborate together, and I am also encouraged by the fact that we are 

seeing them collaborate with organizations outside of government 

such as the Catholic University of America. 

We have a wonderful relationship with the Office of Personnel 

Management and a number of other agencies. I know John Sepulveda and Anita very well, and I think those relationships are a 

very healthy thing to promote. 

None of us can afford to do it alone. We need to get in the canoe 

together, as you would say. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you. 

Do you have any further comments, Ms. Thompson? 

Ms. THOMPSON. Just a final comment that we are just so encouraged also and just thrilled to be a part of organizations such as HR 

University, the VA, and NASA, and we will support any further efforts. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes, and I mentioned that I had that rare opportunity of speaking to 10 university presidents and trying to get 

them interested in thinking about what they can do to help—this 

is prior to graduation of students—to get them to begin to work in 

the area of the Federal Government with the hope that they will 

somehow do that, and I think that is an area that we need to explore. 

I do not know whether you have any ideas about that kind of 

possibility. 

Ms. THOMPSON. Well, we are happy to explore it with you. I 

think again the partnerships that do exist such as HR University 

that allows us to work in tandem with Federal agencies and to 

kind of get the word out that we have these programs that are 

highly attractive that, as our student said, they can be promoted 

twice within the 2-year period that they are in their studies. We 

just appreciate that opportunity. 

Senator AKAKA. Even to the point of maybe creating internships—— 

Ms. THOMPSON. Yes. 

Senator AKAKA [continuing]. Where they can also explore different possibilities and see whether it can help them make some 

decisions as to what they need to do. 

I want to thank both of you for your responses. It has been valuable and will be valuable to us as we continue to work together to 

try to upgrade our workforce. 

It is more difficult. It is more complex. However, we need programs to deal with that and we can do it together and share some 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

35 

of these successes and failures as well. But the main effort would 

be to upgrade our workforce. We really need that. 

And, I want to thank you for your part in bringing that about 

and from your background and history of working with the Federal 

Government, many things that can be explored and worked on and 

improved in our workforce. 

So, thank you for your leadership in this area and we are very 

grateful for that. 

Ms. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Mr. PALGUTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your 

leadership, sir. 

Ms. THOMPSON. I agree. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

So, I want to thank all of you and encourage all of us to continue 

working together with our Subcommittee to build a stronger professional HR workforce. 

Modern HR professionals must work with agency leadership to 

make sure that government is equipped to take on the pressing 

challenges our country faces. 

We will keep the hearing record open for one week for Members 

to submit any additional statements or even questions to our witnesses. 

Again, I want to thank you for your time and your contribution 

to us here today. 

Ms. THOMPSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PALGUTA. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

(37) 

A P P E N D I X 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 9, 2012 

Contact: Jesse Broder Van Dyke 202-224-7045 

jesse brodervandyke®akaka.senate.gov 

STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN DANIEL K. AKAKA 

Building and Maintaining an Effective Human Resoarce Workforce in the Federal Government 

Hearing 

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, 

the Federal Workforce, and the District of Colnmbia, 

Senate Committee on Homeland Security aud Governmental Affairs 

Aloha and thank you all for being here today as the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 

Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia meets to examine how we can build 

and maintain an effective Federal human resources (HR) workforce. 

As we all know, the Federal government is currently facing some of the most complex challenges in our 

nation's history, and doing so within serious budget constraints. As we celebrate Public Service 

Recognition Week, I want to take a moment to acknowledge and honor the dedicated public servants 

who are critical to meeting those challenges. Public servants provide so many vital services to our 

nation. With the Federal workforce being asked to do more with less, making sure we have a top-notch 

workforce is more important than ever. 

So many talented, hard-working people want to dedicate their lives to serving their country and 

communities. But we need human resources professionals to make sure we are hiring, developing, and 

retaining the right people, with the right skills, for the right jobs. 

Federal agencies, and stakeholders such as the Partnership for Public Service, have recognized that HR 

professionals currently are not fully equipped to fulfill modem Federal human resource missions. While 

these individuals still need to be able to perform traditional HR functions, such as hiring and benefit 

administration, they also need to be responsive and educated strategic partners with managers to help 

agencies meet their objectives. 

People are the Federal government's most important asset, and we simply are not investing enough 

training, resources, and focus on the HR professionals who manage that critical asset. The Office of 

Personnel Management, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, and individual agencies have been 

working together, along with private sector partners, to take on this challenge. 

I am pleased to have all of our witnesses here today to tell us about these efforts and the challenges they 

still face as they work together to professionalize the Federal HR workforce. I thank you all, again, for 

being here today. 

-END-
38 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.002

UNITED STATES OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

STATEMENT OF 

JOHN BERRY 

DIRECTOR 

U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

before the 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE 

FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

on 

"Building and Maintaining an Effective Humau Resource Workforce in the Federal 

Workforce" 

May 9, 2012 

Chainnan Akaka, Ranking Member Johnson and members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon to discuss the Office of 

Personnel Management's (OPM) efforts to professionalize the human resources (HR) career field 

in the Federal government. OPM's core mission is to recruit, retain, and honor a world-class 

workforce to serve the American people. At the forefront of these efforts are human resources 

professionals, and when these individuals are given the tools they need, they can partner with 

Federal managers for positive results. 

A perfect example of these positive results can be found in the increased Federal hiring of our 

nation's veterans. Since the signing of Executive Order (EO) 13518 in November of 2009, the 

Veterans Employment Initiative (the 'Initiative') has produced an increase in the percentage of 

veteran and disabled veteran new hires in the Federal government. In FY 2009, 24.0 percent of 

new hires were veterans. This percentage increased significantly in FY 2011 to 28.3 percent. The 

number of newly hired disabled veterans also grew from 7 percent to 9 percent during the same 

period. 

In 2001, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified the Federal government's 

management of human resources as "the critical missing link in refonning and modernizing the 

Federal government's management practices." Over the last several years, OPM, the Chief 

Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department 

of Defense, the Department of Treasury, and other agencies have aggressively launched 
39 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.003

Statement of Honorable John Berry 

Director 

U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

May 9,2012 

initiatives to enhance the skills of human resources professionals across government. The 

Administration has made closing Federal skills gaps one of only 14 cross-agency priority goals, 

and I am accountable for achieving results. My team has partnered with the CHCO Council to 

identifY the top government-wide mission critical occupations. Based on rigorous analysis of 

agency mission and workforce data, we have identified human resources as one of these five 

occupations. With this designation, the CHCO Council and OPM will partner to identify skills 

gaps in the human resources workforce and build on the many initiatives that we have underway 

to fill critical gaps in human resources skills training. And, with better skills, our HR 

community can then help close the other high-risk skill gaps across the government. GAO has 

acknowledged improvements made by OPM and agencies to address human capital issues, and 

we are now tuming our attention to the one remaining area GAO identified as high risk - our 

ability to demonstrate a government-wide approach to closing skill gaps. 

OPM Core FunctionlValue 

OPM, through its Employee Services operation, works with agencies throughout the Federal 

government to develop and train human resources professionals. OPM has developed and created 

online and classroom training modules, classes, and workshops with other agencies in order to 

ensure Federal agencies have access to the customized human resources solutions they need. 

The larger training modules can be broken down into shorter modules by topic, allowing for 

flexibility in the training each human resources professional chooses to follow. Additionally, 

OPM has provided targeted agency support, mobile assistance teams, communication and 

training, including bite-size awareness training, seminars, do-it-yourself training materials, and 

frequently asked questions. This highly valued resource is available to other Federal agencies at 

no additional cost. 

The quality of our training is now being informed by a star rating system we have put in place 

for training programs listed at HR University. Additionally, OPM administers the Federal 

Competency Assessment Tool-HR to assess the HR workforce's proficiency level in an array of 

HR-related competencies. The results of the assessment help inform our developmental 

strategies, programs, and/or resources for HR professionals. Also, we routinely conduct 

evaluations of our training to determine whether participants received the information and skills 

they need. Finally, we conduct needs assessments through the CHCOs, HR Directors and other 

key officials to inform what training we develop and how best to deliver it. 

HR University 

Part of the recent effort to work with human resources professionals has been the creation of the 

HR University (HRU) website, which provides an excellent foundation for human resources 

professionals to get training to help them do their jobs even better. I was happy to launch this 

endeavor with the full support of the CHCO Council, and I was particularly grateful for the 

specific assistance and tools we received in standing up the HRU website from the Department 

of Defense, the Department of Treasury and NASA. The courses offered through HRU are a 

combination of classroom, online, and web-based courses and are offered across the government. 
40 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.004

Statement of Honorable John Berry 

Director 

U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

May 9,2012 

HRU's course catalog, which is approved by OPM, continues to grow, and we recently added 

college-level courses on human resources management. 

HRU presents a savings to the Federal government. These savings are realized through the 

sharing of resources and economies of scale by reducing duplicative courses across the 

government, identifying the best human resources training, and by sharing these resources 

through HRU. Today, the cost savings figure is approaching $13 million. This is a real-time 

calculator, visible on HRU's home page, that represents the number of agencies benefitting from 

the course multiplied by the initial course development cost. Cost savings are only calculated for 

the courses that were developed by Federal agencies and are now offered for free through HRU. 

The cost saving figure increases each time someone completes a free course from an agency that 

has not previously benefitted from it. Second, HRU features course ratings that allow users to 

rate the quality of the content and share that feedback with the public so that we strive for and 

maintain the highest level of quality in our training curriculum. 

Mentoring 

OPM is building on our successful human resources mentoring program by partnering with 

agencies to develop "HR Mentorship Clusters." These clusters will join large agencies with small 

agencies that share common mission and workforce characteristics. These mentorship clusters 

will enable human resources professionals from large agencies to mentor small agency human 

resources professionals who often do not have the resources needed to obtain outside support. 

These clusters will serve as a "big brotherfbig sister" type of mechanism to help human resources 

professionals develop lifelong partnerships with their colleagues and provide mentorship, 

coaching, and best practices. Another important tool we are developing is a government-wide 

mentoring "hub," which will afford Federal agencies a one-stop shop for their mentoring needs. 

The "hub" will be a resource to all Federal agencies, regardless of whether they have their own 

mentoring programs. It will provide tools, techniques, tips, and technical assistance relating to 

mentoring. The mentoring "hub" will promote a knowledge-sharing culture government-wide, 

ensuring that information is shared and retained within each agency and across the Federal 

government. 

Partnership with Colleges and Universities 

We recognize the value of working with others outside the Federal government, and to that end, 

OPM is partnering with colleges and universities to create opportunities for human resources 

professionals to pursue advanced professional training leading to bachelor and masters-level 

degrees. OPM is currently developing partnership agreements with the Northern Virginia 

Community College, Prince George's Community College, the University of the District of 

Columbia (including its community college program), the University of Maryland, and George 

Mason University. 

Role of Federal Executive Boards in Training 
41 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.005

Statement of Honorable John Berry 

Director 

U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

May 9, 2012 

The Federal Executive Boards (FEBs) also have an important role in training. They enhance 

communication, coordination and collaboration among Federal agencies in 28 locations across 

the country. As interagency organizations, FEBs do not receive direct appropriations; they rely 

on voluntary support from Federal agencies. They operate on a shoe-string budget with minimal 

funds for staffing and operations. The FEBs respond to member agency needs by providing 

coordinated, quality programs and activities, training being one focus area. By leveraging a large 

number of agency participants, FEBs are able to offer training sessions at either low or no cost. 

They reduce costs even more by local delivery, negating the need for travel and lodging. In 2011, 

FEBs provided training opportunities to 33,499 Federal employees at an estimated cost 

avoidance of more than $8.7 million. 

OPM's Own HR Workforce 

It is especially important that OPM's own human resources workforce is highly skilled and able 

to support our external and internal strategic and agency priority goals. Through a unique 

collaboration with our local unions, OPM will open our new Center for Innovative Learning and 

Professional Growth (the 'Center') to further enhance our training offerings to our workforce. 

The Center, designed and built by employees for employees, serves the entire OPM workforce 

with a comprehensive array of career development and learning services, including classroom 

and online training, career counseling, and mentoring. OPM's human resources workforce will be 

a focus customer for this Center. In July, OPM plans to launch comprehensive training on basic 

and immediate human resources skills for the human resources employees in the agency and will 

open these sessions to other agencies as space becomes available. Training courses will cover the 

range of human capital management issues, and focus on specific skills human resources 

professionals need to support agency performance. 

Future Challenges 

Challenges for the future include staying at the forefront of human resources professional needs 

during a time of fiscal austerity. While we have made many great strides in addressing human 

resources professionals' needs, it is of the utmost importance that we stay focused and continue 

to offer the top notch training and support that Federal agencies have come to expect and that 

they deserve. 

Conclusion 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the important work that OPM is doing to address the 

complex educational needs of the Federal human resources workforce. I look forward to 

answering any questions you may have. 

Page 4 of 4 
42 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.006

STATEMENT OF 

JOHN U. SEPULVEDA 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND 

ADMINISTRATION 

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS (VA) 

BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF 

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND 

D.C. 

MAY 9, 2012 

Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member Johnson, and members of the committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify today on our efforts to build and maintain an 

effective human resources workforce at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). I am 

proud to serve as Secretary Eric K. Shinseki's Chief Human Capital Officer at VA, an 

agency of 317,000 employees that stands ready to serve the Nation's 22 million 

Veterans, their families and survivors through the delivery of authorized benefits and 

services. 

Introduction: 

To deliver high quality service to Veterans in the 21 st Century, the VA requires a 

highly skilled and competent workforce. A core foundation for this VA workforce is a 

cadre of 4,000 plus human resources (HR) professionals. In this testimony, I will share 

some of the challenges HR professionals face and describe what VA is doing to help 

them to meet those challenges. I will then review VA's overarching strategy for 

investing in its human capital. 

New Challenges Faced By The Federal HR community 

For federal HR professionals, there is a heightened urgency to address the 

changing human capital needs of government. HR must help agency leaders to hire 

more quickly; enhance employee and leadership training and development; promote 

productive labor-management relations; and provide the organization with ways to 

transform service delivery to the American public. 

HR professionals are often called upon by their agency leadership to ensure 

compliance with various legislative and Presidential directives. In recent years, this has 

1 
43 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.007

included Presidential Directives regarding Hiring Reform, diversity and inclusion 

initiatives, Veterans' employment, Telework, and student and recent graduate internship 

programs. 

Human Resource offices are also increasingly expected to advise leadership on 

how to best lead and manage amid an environment of great change. Key areas of 

change include: budget; technology; generational and demographic shifts; and 

increased retirements. Generally speaking, the public sector is under great pressure to 

meet higher expectations, while demands are increasing and resources are 

constrained. Considering the wide array of challenges, the HR workforce must be 

trained and given the appropriate resources to thrive in this dynamic environment. 

VA's Approach 

To deliver high quality service to a growing population of Veterans with changing 

needs, President Obama charged Secretary Shinseki to transform VA into a 21 st 

Century organization. VA developed major initiatives spanning the activities of the 

entire department. The success of these initiatives requires a we"-Ied, well-staffed, and 

well-trained workforce. One of the major initiatives is to transform human capital 

management through the development of the Human Capital Investment Plan. 

Human Capital Investment Plan 

As the Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration, I support 

VA's transformation by addressing its human capital needs. This required a VA 

leadership strategic commitment to invest in the training and development of our 

employees, including VA's HR community. 

VA implemented a comprehensive Human Capital Investment Plan designed to 

advance employee training and development as well as enhance the work environment 

to enable high performance across the Department. 

VA's strategic investments have provided training courses, created delivery 

systems and built an infrastructure to address the mission-critical skills gaps and other 

workforce challenges faced by the Department. Some important achievements include: 

• Executing a corporate approach to employee and leadership training and 

development through the creation of an HR Academy, and the VA Learning 

University (VALU); 

2 
44 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.008

The HR Academy offers a wide range of courses for HR professionals, using 

online webinars and in-class instruction on such topics as staffing, recruitment, 

labor management relations, and IT systems. In addition, the Academy provides 

an integrated suite of features such as information on emerging trends and 

developments in HR, industry-leading best practices, peer-to-peer knowledge 

sharing, and HR-specific career mapping resources. 

VALU is representative of the integrated holistic strategy used by HRA and has 

become the centralized source for institutional approaches to training and 

development, providing hundreds of thousands of skills-building opportunities 

every year across VA. VALU is truly a "university without walls", delivering highquality, multi-modal training to VA employees at all levels and locations of the 

organization. VALU's corporate approach includes smart planning, robust IT 

capability, personalized services for skills building and career development, and 

ongoing analysiS. 

• Using a competency-based training model based on skills and competencies 

needed for mission critical and other cross-cutting occupations; 

VA conducted extensive agency-wide competency assessments to enable VA to 

target its training efforts to areas where it is most needed, such as financial and 

budget management, resulting in the development of numerous training 

initiatives to fill key competency gaps and creating benefits key business 

functions. The results of these various assessments led to the creation of 

MyCareer@VA. 

• Creating MyCareer@VA, a game-changing career path online tool for 

employees, including HR professionals, to map and manage their careers which 

helps VA improve recruitment and retention; 

MyCareer@VA is innovative, web-based systems with a people-centric approach 

to VA's investment in employees' profeSSional growth, helping established 

employees seek advancement or search for horizontal opportunities or scaledback responsibilities due to unplanned challenges in their personal lives. 

MyCareer@VA also serves as a key retention tool and a recruitment tool that 

helps potential job applicants to identify careers and career paths within VA. 

3 
45 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.009

• Establishing a Talent Management System (TMS) that delivers high quality 

educational programs via an award-winning online platform to VA employees 

nationwide; 

The Talent Management System (TMS) combines a variety of on-site, remote, 

and online learning options that serve a diverse and geographically-dispersed 

audience. TMS also offers robust capabilities for employees and their 

supervisors to manage their training, course curricula, performance reporting, 

and career development plans. 

• VA for Vets is focused on training HR professionals and hiring managers to 

increase Veteran employment within the VA through recruitment, retention and 

reintegration strategies. 

VA for Vets was designed specifically to assist Veterans to translate their military 

skills and experience into a successful civilian career at VA and elsewhere in the 

Federal Government. VA for Vets is high-tech and high-touch. High-tech refers 

to the online platform for Veteran employment resources including resume 

builders, a military skills translator, virtual collaboration tools, self assessments, 

career matching reports. High-touch means Veterans who may need additional 

assistance can access a live coach who will support them through the entire 

process. 

Leveraging Partnerships: 

The VA leverages a wide array of collaborative work groups to ensure we 

capture numerous perspectives and best practices. Working groups involving VA 

Human Resources include: the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability 

Framework (HCAAF) Restructuring Taskforce; Strategic Human Capital High Risk 

Initiative; Veterans Employment Council; Hispanic Employment Council; and the 

Partnership for Public Service's Emerging HR Leaders program. 

Leveraging partnerships with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and 

other federal agencies to help develop OPM's HR University as well as active 

engagement in working groups on Hiring Reform and Veterans Employment established 

under the Chief Human Capital Officers Council will continue to playa key role in 

developing VA's HR workforce. Partnerships with OPM have proven very beneficial for 

several reasons. First, VA benefits from hearing about the experiences of other federal 

4 
46 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.010

agencies who are wrestling with some of the same challenges as VA. Second, VA is 

able to provide information, including lessons learned and best practices in 

implementing human capital solutions. VA can leverage in-house expertise to support 

new initiatives and provide additional insights that can strengthen federal-wide 

solutions. 

The Way Forward 

Ultimately, I believe investment in HR must be a priority for the Federal 

Government even in the most challenging fiscal times. We will not achieve a leaner 

government, or more effective operations, without trained professionals at the helm. HR 

is a critical enabler in an organization's ability to recruit, train, and lead the federal 

workforce. 

VA's efforts to build and maintain an effective human resources workforce have 

centered on human capital management that directly supports the strategic direction of 

the Department. The ultimate goal of our training and development strategy is to enable 

employees to better serve Veterans. We will continue to invest in the courses, the 

systems and the infrastructure that builds and strengthens the core of our organization -

our people. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to share VA's experience with building and 

maintaining an effective human resources workforce. I am prepared to answer your 

questions. 

5 
47 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.011

Testimony of Anita Blair 

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Chief Human Capital Officer 

Department ofthe Treasury 

Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 

Workforce, and the District of Columbia of the Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate 

May 9, 2012 

Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 

the opportunity to testify on the role of the Department of the Treasury in building and 

maintaining an effective human resource workforce in the Federal government. After setting the 

stage with some brief background about the Treasury Department and the Federal human 

resource (HR) occupation, my testimony today will address three topics: I) the Treasury 

Department's efforts to develop and train its HR professionals; 2) joint efforts with other 

governmental and non-governmental agencies; and 3) the most significant challenges facing the 

Department in developing and training HR professionals. 

Background Facts Ahout the Department of the Treasury 

• The mission of the Treasury Department is to maintain a strong economy and create 

economic and job opportunities by promoting conditions that enable economic growth and 

stability at home and abroad; to strengthen national security by combating threats and 

protecting the integrity of the financial system; and to manage the U.S. Government's 

finances and resources effectively. 

• The work of the Treasury Department covers a broad range: manufacturing coins and 

currency; administering and enforcing the federal tax code and collecting taxes; managing 

the federal finances and paying bills of the United States; and developing and executing 

critical policies and strategies to strengthen domestic and international economies. 

• The Treasury Department has an annual discretionary budget of approximately $13 billion 

and roughly 100,000 employees. To service its HR needs, the Department has approximately 

1,700 non-supervisory personnel, of whom about 79 percent are in HR (200-series), 11 

percent in Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) (260-series), and 10 percent in Training 

(l700-series).1 Treasury's HR practitioners include approximately 200 employees who work 

for Treasury's HR Line of Business in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which also provides 

comprehensive HR services to 16 other non-Treasury organizations. 

1 In our strategic planning process and development of a competency model, we determined that to be most effective 

with this initiative we needed to include not just those in the HR field, but those in the EEO and Training fields as 

well. The development of our workforce includes the entire Human Capital (He) professional workforce, While 

about four-fifths of our HC workforce are HR professionals, all three professions impact each other. For example, in 

approaching efforts to improve diversity, we found far too often that HR and EEO professionals were unfamiliar 

with each other's processes and requirements. This truly impacts our diversity programs. Our goal was to identify 

the competencies required across the three major occupations and ensure that we were carrying out alI our human 

capital programs in a cohesive manner in support of the Treasury Department. 
48 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.012

Background on Recent History of the Federal Human Resources Occupation 

In order to meet current and emerging mission and programmatic goals, federal agencies are 

attempting to transform themselves into organizations that are more results-oriented, 

collaborative and customer-focused. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has 

reported that federal agencies do not consistently have the modern, effective, economical, and 

efficient human capital programs, policies, and procedures needed to succeed in their 

transformation efforts. (Federal Workforce Challenges in the 21st Century, GAO-07-556T, 

March 6, 2007.) Further, workforce planning must address long term strategies for acquiring, 

developing, motivating, and retaining staff to achieve programmatic goals. 

Chief among the people required to be well developed and motivated to achieve an agency's 

programmatic goals are its human capital employees. They are required to transform themselves 

from the enforcer of rules and independent agents to a consultant tool maker and strategic partner 

in leading and supporting the agency's business entities to achieve their programmatic goals. 

However, these employees will need the skills and abilities to: 

• Recruit and develop employees with the skills necessary to achieve the agency's mission 

objectives; 

• Provide timely and accurate human capital guidance and advice; 

• Inventory and analyze critical skills gaps; 

• Design effective training and development programs to address gaps in skills and 

competencies once identified in the workforce; 

• Evaluate the impact of training and development activities; 

• Strengthen efforts and use of available flexibilities to acquire, motivate, and retain talent; 

• Use targets and measures to monitor the composition of hires and separations; 

• Hire new employees within required timeframes; and 

• Provide performance management tools to help leaders manage on a day-to-day basis. 

This is not an exhaustive list of skills and abilities agencies must address; different agencies will 

have different needs. Moreover, agencies are finding themselves having to address human 

resources challenges during a period of likely sustained budget cuts. This will require agencies 

to plan their transformations more strategically, prioritize their needs, evaluate results, allocate 

their resources more carefully, and react to workforce challenges more expeditiously in order to 

achieve their missions economically, efficiently, and effectively. 

Examining if and why employees may be lacking the necessary tools is critical to understanding 

the scope of the problem. The challenges must be put into the context of the significant changes 

HR has experienced within the last twenty years. A number of significant events brought us to 

2 
49 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.013

the point where Federal HR systems and the HR workforce have less resources to help support 

the HR mission. These include: 

• Significant reductions were made in administrative personnel in the 1 990s that did not 

always match our ability to become more efficient and creative in delivering services; 

• In the 1990s, the Office of Personnel Management replaced the Federal Personnel 

Manual System, the official instruction manual to agencies on personnel management, 

with multiple reference sources including the Code of Federal Regulations and a variety 

other handbooks, guides and policy issuances; as a result, HR practitioners no longer 

have a single-source reference but must master multiple systems of reference; 

• The push toward automation to speed the hiring process often yielded a pool that 

included a higher volume of less-qualified applicants and was not quicker; 

• The work became more complicated with the proliferation of alternative pay systems and 

special appointing authorities; 

• The Government did not always successfully replace in-house technical training for 

Federal HR professionals with equivalent vendor-provided training; and 

• The expectations of HR management grew as senior leadership increasingly recognized 

the importance of their most expensive (and valuable) resource investment -their 

workforce. 

We must recognize that, even without these events, the Federal Merit Based system is inherently 

more complicated to administer, making a Federal HR practitioner's job more complicated than 

the same job in most private sector operations. Recruiting and retaining a competent HR 

professional is critical to ensuring that a workforce investment is effective. 

HR professionals need to support management in identifying the skills required to get the work 

done and then translate that into language that can be used to recruit the best person for the job. 

They need the proper technical training to ensure that they can navigate the complicated mosaic 

of the Federal employment system. In addition to technical training, HR professionals need 

business, analytical, and consulting skills. 

For more than a decade, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and agency HR leadership 

have expressed an urgency to move forward to address personnel challenges. We are pleased 

that the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council and OPM have worked together to 

develop the Human Resources University. This is an important step and Treasury has becn a 

very active member in this effort. More needs to be done and Treasury hopes to continue to lead 

government efforts. 

Efforts to Develop and Train Treasury's Human Resource (HR) Professionals 

I will describe briefly the Treasury Department's efforts over the last few years to develop and 

train its Human Capital professionals. We followed a rigorous process to identify the requisite 

3 
50 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.014

competencies, assess our workforce to see where gaps exist, and implement a program for 

individual skill development tied to organizational needs. 

Step 1: Recognizing the need to transform the Human Capital Occupation 

In its 2007-2012 Human Capital Strategic Plan, the Treasury Department recognized the need to 

transform HR practitioners into strategic partners with business owners, to identify and 

developed HR practitioner competencies, and to facilitate the career development of HR 

practitioners. One strategic goal called for the Department to "Develop Human Capital 

Practitioners as Strategic Business Partners." As further developed in the implementation plan, 

that goal requires us to -

Promote the transformation of Treasury's human resource, training and equal 

employment staffs (human capital community) into a cadre of Human Capital 

professionals who serve as valued business advisors on people and organizations and an 

organizational culture of fairness and respect. 

Human capital practitioners with the necessary skills and competencies must be "at the table" as 

an integral team member, working with senior leaders and line managers and supervisors to 

create innovative, state-of-the-art, effective human capital policies, programs, and tools to 

support strategic business needs. 

Beyond the HR workforce situation that has evolved over the years, Treasury is also faced with 

the rapidly changing state of human capital management. Knowledge about the science and art 

of managing people continues to expand through research and experience. Research areas 

include employee performance, motivation and engagement, organizational design and 

development, and harnessing the power of data through analytics. Progress in these areas, plus 

the changing environment of technology, law, demographics, and other factors, are redefining 

the set of competencies needed for the human capital community. 

Identifying the specific set of competencies most needed for human capital practitioners across 

the Department was our first step. With the use of workforce assessments, we then evaluated our 

workforce against those competencies and developed an approach to close key competency gaps. 

This is needed to ensure the Department has a sustainable and high-performing human capital 

workforce in order to support Treasury's critical mission. 

Step 2: Listening to the Voice ofthe Customer 

Treasury's first step was researching best practices and hearing the voice of the customer. We 

built our competency model based on a survey of our customers, the mission, operational, and 

business leadership across Treasury. What skills did Treasury Offices want from their human 

capital office? Detailed interviews of Treasury leaders revealed an urgency to build proficiency 

not only in our technical competencies but in competencies such as Business Acumen and 

Strategic Planning. 

Step 3: Developing a Role-Based Competency Model and Career Map Framework 

4 
51 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.015

We built a role-based competency model that builds on the technical specialist role and 

incorporates the newer expectation of a Strategic Partner. We used customer feedback to deepen 

and enhance the general competencies expected of any HR practitioner. We identified three 

categories: 

• Business Competencies (Business Acumen, Information Management, Project 

Management, and Strategic Thinking); 

• Analytical Competencies (Decision Making, Metrics Use and Development, and 

Problem Solving); and 

• Consulting Competencies (Change Management, Communication, Customer Service, 

InfluencinglNegotiating, and Interpersonal Skills) 

We developed three roles and defined them as: 

• Strategic Partner Role: Strategic business partners identify broad Human Capital (HC) 

issues ahead of business leaders; partners are high-level consultants who develop 

strategies to address long-term business needs. 

• Advisor Role: As tactical consultants, advisors develop innovative Human Capital 

solutions to address customer issues and achicve specific business goals (with an eye on 

those of tomorrow). 

• Technical Specialist Role: Technical specialists apply intensive knowledge of specific 

technical areas to address and resolve immediate needs of business. 

We then validated our model by deploying a competency validation survey to all Human Capital 

practitioners and supervisors and prepared a technical report. The purpose was to validate the 

level of importance and need of the competency at the time an individual enters the role in order 

to determine the Treasury Human Capital Competency model for selection and development. 

The survey showed that all the general competencies are critical and most are needed at the entry 

level. The competencies seen as key for role gro\\1h (and, therefore, career growth) were 

Strategic Thinking, Change Management, and Business Acumen. 

Step 4: Assessing the Competencies of the HR Workforce 

We then moved forward in 2011 to assess our workforce against the competency model. We 

researched assessment tools and planned and launched the Treasury Competency Assessment 

Process for Human Capital (TCAP-HC). We assessed all the competencies and determined gaps 

for each individual throughout the organization. These assessments were completed by both the 

employee and his or her supervisor. Of our total Human Capital workforce, 95 percent 

completed the assessment. This was followed by a requirement to develop an on-line 

competency-based individual development plan that was designed to close key gaps. The 

TCAP-HC process revealed significant gaps in technical and general competencies agency-wide. 

Individuals were then working toward individual goals based on the Treasury competency 

model, but as a Department we had to ask, how might we close the gaps across Treasury? We 

5 
52 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.016

also asked how we could help our workforce appreciate and understand the need for additional 

competencies and the changing nature of customer expectations. 

Step 5: Closing the Competency Gaps 

We formed a Department-wide planning team and met in September 2011 with fifty-five HC 

representatives from throughout the Department to identify the high-priority gaps and develop 

methods to close them. We then had a corporate view of our competency gaps and we had to 

decide what we were going to do with this view. We formed four teams - three to deal with the 

technical competencies (HR, EEO, and Training) and another to address the general competency 

gaps. 

The HR Technical Competency Team identified five of the ten high priority technical 

competencies: staffing, classification, Employee Relations (ER), Labor Relations (LR), and 

performance management. The teams then worked over the next six months to develop learning 

objectives for each specialty area, building a career roadmap within each of these specialty areas 

to convey what is required to become a technical expert as well as ways to gain the necessary 

knowledge (training, knowledge transfer, etc.). The career roadmap also establishes 

recommended learning needs at each level (beginning, intermediate and advanced). This 

framework will assist individuals with their learning plans. The EEO Technical Competency 

Team and the Training Technical Team also developed these knowledge frameworks for their 

technical areas. 

The General Competency Team identified five high priority competencies. These were 

identified as high priority because of the gap size that exists and because of the positive impact 

closing the gap could have on the occupation. They are: Business Acumen, Strategic Thinking, 

Customer Service, Metrics Use and Development. and Change Management. 

This team then developed a number of solutions to close these gaps as well as technical 

competency gaps. The overarching theme of Treasury's various Human Capital transformation 

projects is to combine opportunities for training and experience with an array of easily 

accessible, multimedia resources to provide our Human Capital practitioners an environment 

where they are allowed and encouraged to excel. We deliberately create collaborative projects to 

bring together various elements of our Human Capital workforce not only HR, EEO. and 

Training, but colleagues from different Bureaus and other Federal agencies. This gives our 

Human Capital practitioners a sense of community and engenders pride in their work. Our 

overarching purpose in building a Treasury Human Capital professional community is to learn 

the best ways to provide the same advantages for other professional communities. Therefore, we 

constantly seek innovative. low cost solutions that are readily adaptable for different situations. 

The initial set of Human Capital transformation projects includes the following: 

A. Quarterly Focus Days: Treasury Employee Development Focus Days were inspired by 

"Stand Down Days," which are often used by the military (and some federal agencies) to 

raise awareness of key topics of interest. Focus Days will provide Human Capital employees 

approved time for continued learning and development, develop key competencies within the 

workforce, and unify the Human Capital community by focusing on common goals. 

6 
53 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.017

Focus Days will be conducted quarterly. Content for the first three quarters of the year wi II 

be developed and presented by rotating assignment amongst the bureaus. The last quarter 

will be self-guided and geared toward individual goals and development. Potential topics for 

2012 Focus Days include: 

• The Human Capital Competency Model: "What Is a Strategic Partner and How Can You 

Become One?" 

• Customer Service: "Knowing Your Customers and What You Can Do For Them." 

• General Competencies: "Business Acumen: Understanding the Impact." 

• Employee Self-Development: "Making the Most of Developmental Opportunities." 

B. Orientation for new Human Capital professionals: New members of our Human Capital 

Community, no matter when they come on board, will have an immediate introduction to the 

community through a multimedia program. Community leaders will provide information 

about Treasury's expectations for its Human Capital professionals and available career paths. 

C. Flash Mentoring: Flash mentoring enables small groups to engage with multiple mentors in 

a single setting. A small group discussion format allows participants to hear from their peers 

as well. Flash mentoring is low-cost and relatively easy to administer, making it an ideal 

program to reach community members outside the Washington, D.C., area. 

D. Temporary Job Swaps: Two or more employees in different organizations (within or 

outside of their current bureau) may "swap" jobs on a short term basis (a detail) to acquire 

new skills and knowledge. These mini-rotations on an intra-agency basis will promote crossfertilization of best practices through the sharing of knowledge between organizations, as 

well as cross-training and development for individuals. "Job Swaps" are also low cost, with 

potential for improving employee engagement. 

E. Career Guides: Career guides are catalogs of development opportunities for individuals in 

Human Capital specialties. For each technical skill area, as well as each general competency, 

volunteer teams of experts are compiling a career guide that breaks down the relevant 

competencies and describes various methods of acquiring the skill/knowledge. These guides 

will be posted on the Treasury website and periodically updated. 

F. Human Capital Strategic Partner Certification: We are designing a model for certification 

that will encourage employees not only to maintain basic competencies but also to develop 

additional competencies and acquire the relevant experience necessary to advance in their 

careers. 

Step 6: Designing and Building Treasury's Human Capital Community 

As noted earlier, in 2007, the Treasury Human Capital Strategic Plan established the goal to 

"Develop Human Capital Practitioners as Strategic Business Partners." In pursuit of this goal, a 

Treasury-wide team assembled to: a) redefine Human Capital roles from the business 

perspective; b) achieve organizational proficiency in key technical, business, consulting, and 

analytical competencies; and c) build a cadre of strategic business partners. 

7 
54 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.018

Five years on, in 2012, we observe that rapid changes in business and technology demand new 

roles and career paths for Human Capital professionals. For example, we see the need for not 

only strategic HR business partners, but also HR information technology specialists, 

performance management specialists, multi-sector workforce planners, and experts in workforce 

analytics. Accordingly, instead of focusing primarily on creating a specialty for strategic 

business partners, we now envision creating a community framework whose senior leaders will 

continuously scan the horizon and prepare the Human Capital workforce to respond rapidly to 

changing business needs. We are modeling the structure and rules of our new Human Capital 

professional community on examples such as the federal acquisition community and wellestablished professional communities such as law, medicine, engineering, and teaching. 

Taking a lesson from the federal acquisition community, I established the Treasury Human 

Capital Community Executive Steering Committee (HCC-ESC) to advise and assist in the 

transformation of Treasury's Human Capital workforce into a community of highly valued, 

customer-focused professionals. The HCC-ESC members are accomplished Treasury executives 

known for their commitment to innovation and continuous improvement. They understand how 

to forge an adaptable and agile workforce by leveraging basic capabilities to meet emerging 

requirements. 

The HCC-ESC helps oversee and guide the strategic development of our Human Capital 

professional community by defining competencies and career paths for multiple specialties in 

HR, EEO and training. The HCC-ESC provides high level oversight and direction to Human 

Capital community development projects and will have final approval of all deliverables. In this 

way the HCC-ESC will help set high, uniform, and consistent standards of quality to which our 

Human Capital professionals must aspire. In time, as the community concept takes hold, the 

HCC-ESC will have a role in department-wide human capital community talent management and 

succession planning as well. 

Earlier this year, the HCC-ESC approved the coordinated set of initiatives proposed by our 

transformation teams, as described above. Each project will be monitored, measured, and 

assessed for how well it supports the goal of transforming Treasury's Human Capital workforce 

into a community of highly valued, customer-focused professionals. 

Step 7: Looking to the Future 

Future plans include reassessing the levels of critical competencies in the Human Capital 

workforce in 2013 and renewing individual development plans ("MyPlans") to reflect 

achievement of previous personal development objectives and establishment of new objectives. 

Treasury's Human Capital Strategic Plan is will be updated for the period 2013-2018; we expect 

the "strategic partner" goal will be amended to call for building not only a Human Capital 

professional community but other occupational communities, especially mission-critical 

occupations and management-related occupations (such as finance and IT) that typically serve 

agency-wide customers. We look forward to collaborating with other federal agencies in this 

endeavor. 

Communications will continue to playa key role in all our efforts, to maintain momentum and 

communicate expectations. We expect to use the most effective and efficient tools to deliver 

8 
55 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.019

continuing training to our Human Capital professionals. We hope to be able to expand our 

website, including access to social media, which will not only enable our members to reach out 

to one another, but also encourage them to aspire to the highest standards and, we hope, improve 

employee engagement. 

We are already starting to build capability in workforce analytics, and we plan to use more 

sophisticated forms of analysis to aid in developing both the Human Capital community and 

other occupational communities. 

Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Management has established policies to increase collaboration 

among the management elements of all components (Bureaus and Offices) and the headquarters 

oversight function. This includes assigning Treasury-wide performance elements for officials 

who manage finance, IT, procurement, HR, and EEO for those components. Thus we have the 

opportunity to include goals related to strategic HR community development in the performance 

plans of HR and EEO leaders across the department. 

Joint Efforts with Other Governmental and Non-Governmental Agencies 

We have been, and will continue, working with the CHCO Council and OPM to support HR 

University (HRU). The role-based portion of our model was incorporated into HRU's career 

map. We will also continue to push for a Government-wide competency model, which would 

include the necessary business competencies we believe are the key to effecting change. 

We are also taking the lead for HRU on its interagency certification team to find a Governmentwide solution to professionalizing the Human Capital occupation. Treasury's draft certification 

process is currently being examined for its potential to be adapted as a Government-wide 

solution. 

Treasury is a strong supporter and participant in the Partnership for Public Service's Emerging 

Leaders Program. We have had two dozen graduates from across all our bureaus. This is 

exactly the type of program critical to developing the strategic partners we need. 

Significant Challenges 

One thing that has not been a challenge is persuading our HR practitioners that they should 

embrace the responsibilities of acting as Human Capital Professionals. As witnessed by the 

thousands of hours of volunteer effort to transform the Human Capital occupation, our HR, EEO, 

and Training specialists are eager to learn, grow, and create a community to improve the quality 

of their work and service. 

Notwithstanding their enthusiasm, some cultural and environmental impediments persist. Our 

reviews have led us to conclude that some employees and managers may not understand the 

challenges inherent in Human Capital transformation. Some members of our Human Capital 

community members would benefit from further training and education on the competency 

model and how it relates to career progression and performance. As a result of past reductions 

and demographic effects, there is a generational gap that could create the risk of a knowledge 

gap unless we can transfer knowledge and skills from the more experienced workers to the more 

junior workers. 

9 
56 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.020

Delivering programs to increase training, education, and experience for our members can be 

challenging. The typical challenges associated with any large change effort apply in this casco 

We are pursuing a classic change management strategy of a robust communications effort, 

collaboration to achieve early wins, and projects designed to embed new habits of thinking and 

doing among our people. 

Most of our efforts so far have been high return and low financial investment, and that is our 

preferred way of doing business. We are reaching the point, however, where some reliable level 

of investment, particularly in IT and training, as well as flexibility to provide people for 

rotational assignments, will be necessary to be able to maintain progress and anchor positive 

changes in the culture of the organization. 

We will continue to find low-cost ways within Treasury to close competency gaps. Treasury 

manages the financial resources for the government, but we also think of the people carrying out 

Treasury's mission - and missions across the federal sector - as an equally precious asset. We 

believe Human Capital management provides critical support to all other mission functions: 

People do the most important work in any organization, and for people to perform well, they 

must be led and managed well. We expect managers in any area to be good with people, but the 

experts in the science and art of leading and managing people should be the human capital 

professionals. We need to invest in this human capital workforce so they can, in turn, invest in, 

manage, and support the broader Federal workforce. 

We at the Treasury Department are doing our best to transform "HR" into a community of 

experts in their field, committed to continuous learning and improvement, ethically bound, 

selflessly dedicated to the interests of those whom thcy serve, and loyal to the law and rules they 

administer. 

We appreciate the opportunity to tell the story of Treasury's Human Capital Community 

transformation, and look forward to answering your questions. 

10 
57 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.021

• PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE 

Written Testimony of John Palguta 

Vice President for Policy 

Partnership for Public Service 

Prepared for 

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs 

Subcommittee on the Oversight of Government 

Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of 

Columbia 

Hearing Entitled 

"Building and Maintaining an Effective Human Resource 

Workforce in the Federal Workforce" 

May 9,2012 
58 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.022

Chairman Akaka, Senator Johnson, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you very 

much for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am John Palguta, Vice President 

for Policy, of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization 

dedicated to revitalizing the federal civil service and transforming the way government 

works. Prior to joining the Partnership over 10 years ago, I spent more than 30 years as 

a career federal employee and human resources (HR) professional. I also had the 

privilege to serve as a career member of the Senior Executive Service as the Director of 

Policy and Evaluation for the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. 

The Partnership has two principal areas of focus. First, we work to inspire new talent to 

join federal service. Second, we work with government leaders to help transform 

government so that highly qualified and motivated employees will enter, stay and 

succeed in meeting the challenges of our nation. 

This hearing today focuses on a topic of vital importance to the effective and efficient 

operation of our government and one in which the Partnership has a strong and ongoing 

interest - the capability of federal HR professionals to adequately support, advise, and 

assist their respective organizations to meet the daunting workforce challenges that lie 

ahead. As budgetary pressures mount, along with calls for increased workforce 

efficiencies, an HR workforce capable of being a full and effective partner with agency 

management is essential. 

In my testimony today, I will focus on four major areas relevant to the topic at hand. 

1. A Cause for Concern. For nearly two decades, a growing body of evidence points 

to the increasing inability of too many HR staff members to support federal agencies 

in targeting, obtaining, developing and keeping the talent needed to execute their 

missions. 

2. Actions Taken and Lessons Learned. The good news is that the problems 

afflicting the federal HR workforce have not gone unnoticed and policymakers have 

taken steps to address them. 

3. Current Challenges for the HR Workforce. The competencies needed for the HR 

workforce do not exist in a vacuum - they are dictated by the environment in which 

the HR professional functions and today that environment is extremely demanding. 

4. Recommendations for Additional Action. The health of the federal HR profession 

is improving but still fragile. Additional action is necessary to build on the good work 

being done and to chart some new improvement strategies. 

A Cause for Concern 

Problems afflicting the federal HR workforce are longstanding. Almost 20 years ago, 

when I was the Deputy Director, Policy and Evaluation for the U.S. Merit Systems 

Protection Board (MSPB), we issued a 1993 report titled, Federal Personnel Offices: 

Time for Change,1 which found that "over half of the managers and almost half of the 

personnel specialists surveyed cited lack of sufficient skill in the personnel staff ... to 

1 Federal Personnel Offices: Time for Change. U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1993. 
59 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.023

effectively support agency operations." Seven years later, in 2000, the Office of 

Personnel Management (OPM) issued a three-part series of reports on the federal HR 

workforce which found that as the HR workforce was being reduced by over 20 percent, 

workload actually expanded and growing demands for HR to serve as a strategic 

business partner and change agent could not be met with existing talent. 

In 2001, GAO identified human capital management as a government-wide high-risk 

area because federal agencies lacked a strategic approach to human capital 

management that integrated human capital efforts with their missions and program 

goals. Even today, the area remains high-risk because of a continuing need for a 

government-wide framework to advance human capital reform. Among other things, 

GAO said in a 2009 report titled Human Capital: Sustained Attention to Strategic Human 

Capital Management Needecf that executing the government-wide framework needed 

requires HR skill sets and talent most agencies do not have. 

In an August 2010 report titled Closing the Gap: Seven Obstacles to a First-Class 

Federal Workforce, 3 the Partnership, in collaboration with Grant Thornton, found that a 

mere 40 percent offederal Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) believe their HR 

staffs possess the competencies needed to succeed in the future and to support agency 

missions to a great or very great extent. The report also found that efforts to build and 

maintain a high-quality federal workforce are being seriously hampered by a number of 

longstanding, systemic and often dysfunctional practices and policies. 

To be clear, there are a number of highly competent and effective HR professionals in 

the federal workforce who serve as true strategic advisors and partners to agency 

managers and leaders. Unfortunately, there are also too many who do not possess that 

ability. The largest deficiencies in this latter category are HR staff who do not yet 

demonstrate the strategic thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving capabilities they 

need to be successful. For others, there may be an issue of technical competence and 

organizational awareness, i.e., the ability to see the bigger picture and to identify 

solutions to human capital problems that hinder the agency's ability to effectively and 

efficiently achieve its mission. Unfortunately, there has long been debate over the need 

for a certification program for the federal HR workforce to help determine whether 

needed competenCies have been gained but no conclusions have been reached. 

In December 2010, the Partnership, with support from GRA Inc., Kelly Anderson & 

AssOCiates, and Lindholm & Associates, held a symposium with Director John Berry of 

the Office of Personnel Management and top leaders from across the federal 

government, private and nonprofit sectors and academia to find solutions. The clear 

consensus was that it will take the collective pressure, focus and commitment of key 

leaders to move the HR workforce from the unsatisfactory status quo to an agile, 

educated and strategic partner essential to meeting the demands of government. 

The overall message was that agencies cannot improve the efficiency and productivity of 

their people - and certainly cannot effectively reshape their workforces - without 

strategic guidance from highly skilled individuals leading the HR function. The stage was 

2 Human Capital: Sustained Attention to Strategic Human Capital Management Needed. 

Government Accountability Office, April 22, 2009, 

3 Closing the Gap: Seven Obstacles to a First Class Federal Workforce, Partnership for Public 

Service and Grant Thorton, August 18, 2010, 

2 
60 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.024

thus set for the federal HR community - with the active support and involvement of OPM 

- to engage with other leaders in government to take sustained corrective action in this 

critically important area. 

Actions Taken and Lessons Learned 

For much too long, the federal HR community has been like the proverbial shoemaker's 

children - helping other professions address their workforce needs while their own 

workforce languished. For example, the Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council and 

the Chief Acquisition Officers (CAO) Council have been significantly ahead of the federal 

HR Community in building strategies and taking initiatives to support the growth and 

development of their respective workforces. 

In December 2010, then U.S. Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, issued a 25 Point 

Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management. 4 The plan 

outlines a strategy for designing and developing a cadre of specialized IT acquisition 

professionals. It also calls for the launch of a "technology fellows" program to build a 

better pipeline of emerging talent for the federal IT workforce needs going forward. 

Doing its part, the Department of Defense manages the National Defense University 

Information Resources Management College, an institution that provides unparalleled 

education for federal leaders who will be responsible for employing information and 

information technology. 

The federal acquisition community has taken similar steps to improve and 

professionalize its workforce. The Defense Acquisition University has provided training 

and certification programs for decades. The Federal Acquisition Institute and the Office 

of Federal Procurement Policy in OMS work together to improve efforts focused on the 

development of the acquisition workforce. New entrants to the acquisition workforce are 

also now expected to hold a four-year college degree or higher. The Department of 

Veterans Affairs has also developed an "acquisition academy" that includes 

opportunities such as an Acquisition Internship School, a Program Management Fellows 

Program, and a Contracting Professional School. 

However, there are clear signs that the federal HR community - spurred by a growing 

sense of urgency and an understanding that there is a real opportunity for change - is 

making some headway in addressing their workforce needs. It is worth noting, for 

example, that in 2010 the CHCO Council adopted as one of their three overarching 

strategic goals the "development and implementation of Government-wide HR tools to 

improve the selection, assessment, and development of the federal HR profession." 

In this context, in early 2011, OPM with support from the CHCO Council launched HR 

University (www.hru.gov), an online "one stop" human resources career development 

center. HRU is specifically aimed at professionalizing the federal HR career field with a 

focus on addressing competency and skill gaps within the federal HR community in a 

cost effective manner. OPM and the CHCO Council also created career maps for federal 

HR professionals. These career maps have been posted on HR University and provide 

specific career guidance to better enable individual HR professionals to take charge of 

their careers. 

4 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management. Vivek 

Kundra, U.S. Chief Information Officer, December 9,2010. 

3 
61 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.025

There is also increased collaboration among federal agencies (with the active 

encouragement of OPM and supported by the HR University platform) which includes 

better sharing of scarce training resources at an overall cost savings to the government. 

More generally, there is a renewed focus on identifying competency gaps among the 

current HR workforce and developing strategies for closing those gaps. 

The Partnership for Public Service has also made the development of the HR workforce 

a key priority. In early 2009, the Partnership formed a Federal Human Capital 

Collaborative to create an active community of federal managers and human resources 

professionals to identify cross-cutting challenges and to work collaboratively and 

systematically to solve them on behalf of the community and the nation. In just over two 

years, the Collaborative membership has grown to 30 federal departments and agencies 

and a number of initiatives have been undertaken on their behalf. Two specific 

outcomes of note are: 

• A "Strategic HR Advisors Results Project" (SHARP) that developed not only a set of 

competencies needed by HR professionals who aspire to be true strategic advisors 

to management, but also an outline of an individual development plan that can 

assist HR professionals acquire those competencies. 

• Development of an "Emerging HR Leaders" program for high-potential federal HR 

professionals. Participants meet monthly in a facilitated peer-exchange 

environment, discuss topics of interest with subject matter experts and engage in 

cross-agency action learning projects (e.g., the SHARP project mentioned above 

was developed as part of an action learning project). 

Current Challenges for the HR Workforce 

The skills and competencies required for federal HR professionals to succeed are 

significantly greater today than at any previous time in the evolution of the federal civil 

service system. Decentralization of HR authorities, HR information technology systems, 

increased HR flexibilities and alternatives, changing workforce demographics and the 

increased pace of change has made the job of the federal HR workforce a challenge 

under the best of circumstances. Add to that an environment in which the government is 

being asked to operate effectively with increasing workloads and declining resources 

and the people challenges in government can seem almost overwhelming. 

Actions to improve the competence and capability of the federal HR workforce are being 

driven in part by an understanding that the cost to government and the public of a 

potential talent failure in any of the mission critical areas of government are 

unacceptable. A well-qualified and effective federal HR workforce is a vital part of the 

government's defense against such a failure. 

Federal HR profeSSionals, for example, must have a seat at the table when discussing 

how to attract and retain the best talent possible during a time of pay freezes, budget 

uncertainties and anti-public employee rhetoric. They must be able to lead or contribute 

to the conversation which may also include divergent views on how best to reshape the 

workforce and deal with performance issues at a time when increased productivity is 

essential. As another example, the recent report, Making Smart Cuts: Lessons from the 

4 
62 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.026

1990s Budget Front,S authored by the Partnership and Booz Allen Hamilton, outlines 

eight strategies for dealing with budget cutbacks while still getting the mission 

accomplished, Federal HR staff must be able to help managers understand what 

combination of strategies may be most effective in different circumstances and how to 

establish the conditions for success, 

The good news is that OPM and the CHCO community, as noted, have been developing 

a plan of action to address a number of overlapping issues and challenges concerning 

the federal HR workforce of the future, However, these good efforts could easily be 

derailed by the turnover among some of the most experienced members of the HR 

community who have been instrumental in those planning efforts, In FY 2011, for 

example, over 10 percent of the HR workforce left government (compared to a 

government-wide turnover rate of approximately seven percent for permanent 

employees) and this doesn't count the HR staff that left for other non-HR jobs in 

government. This can also be an opportunity, of course, if those who leave are replaced 

with quality hires and effective training and development programs and plans to help 

prepare them for the challenges ahead, 

Under any scenario, however, federal HR professionals will be expected to "step up their 

game" and to help their respective departments and agencies not only cope in the 

difficult times ahead, but even improve, If this is to happen, federal agencies and 

leaders cannot return to a business as usual approach to acquiring and developing their 

HR workforce, 

Recommendations for Additional Action 

Below are several actions that government leaders and Congress can take to make a 

difference: 

1, The federal government needs to maintain its focus on improving the HR 

workforce and, if anything, it should increase the level of effort and resources 

devoted to these endeavors. Such an investment can yield a significant return in 

terms of increased productivity and effectiveness for the government workforce as a 

whole, 

2. Improving the quality and competence of the federal HR workforce should be 

approached as a shared responsibility that involves leadership throughout the 

executive branch and Congress. While OPM and the federal HR community have 

a major responsibility for improvement of the HR workforce, they need to be 

supported and encouraged in these efforts - and held accountability for results, 

3. Federal agencies should reward or recognized HR professionals who make the 

effort to expand their knowledge and skills. This should include incentives and 

support for those who demonstrate or seek mobility in their career development 

(including the use of temporary development details to different HR functions or 

different lines of business) and for other self-development efforts, 

S Making Smart Cuts: Lessons from the 1990s Budget Front. Partnership for Public Service and 

Booz Allen Hamilton, September 27, 2011, 

5 
63 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.027

4. Congress should also support efforts to expand the experience base of federal 

HR professionals - and other professional communities - by making mobility a 

mandatory requirement for entry into the Senior Executive Service. This will 

help bring about a culture change that encourages HR professionals and others who 

aspire to senior leadership roles to seek mobility assignments and a broader 

experience base early in their careers. 

5. Congress could support executive branch efforts to build a better talent 

pipeline into the federal HR profession by establishing a government-wide 

federal HR intern program with the stated goal of attracting and developing the 

best talent available. Such an intern program might build upon existing programs 

such as the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program by targeting PMF 

finalists who have a particular interest in the HR field. 

6. OPM and Federal HR leaders also need to reach agreement on and implement 

a meaningful certification program for federal HR professionals. While 

certification is not a guarantee that an HR staff member will be fully proficient and 

effective - it does increase the probability. 

7. OPM should be encouraged and supported in its effort to exercise a more 

proactive role in this area, one that includes encouraging greater cross-agency 

collaboration and sharing of resources. As the federal government's central HR 

organization, OPM has a logical leadership role to play in advancing the HR 

profession but it needs to have a reasonable level of resources to devote to this end 

and it needs the full cooperation of the other executive branch departments and 

agencies. 

6 
64 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.028

Submitted to: 

Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 

Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District 

of Columbia 

"Building and Maintaining an Effective Human 

Resource Workforce in the Federal Government" 

May 9, 2012 

THE 

The Catholic University of America 

Metropolitan School of Professional Stndies 

620 Michigan Ave. NE 

Washington, DC 20064 

(202) 319-5256 

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY 

of AMERICA 
65 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.029

1. BIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 1 

2. TESTIMONY ........................................................................................................................... .2 

3. APPENDICES 

Appendix A: Professional Development Ladder ........................................................................ 6 

Appendix B: Master of Arts in Human Resource Management (M.A. in HRM).... . ............. 8 

Appendix C: Human Resource Management Program Mapping.. . ........... 13 

Appendix D: Master of Science in Management (M.S.M.) Program ....................................... 21 
66 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.030

Good afternoon. I am Dr. Sara Thompson, Dean of the Metropolitan School of Professional 

Studies and Associate Provost for New Program Initiatives at The Catholic University of 

America. 

I would like to thank you Chairman Akaka, Senator Johnson, and committee members -- for 

the opportunity to discuss the important topic of building and maintaining an effective federal 

human resource workforce. 

The three areas that I will address are: 1) the need for professional development in federal 

Human Resources, 2) Catholic University's academic programs for federal HR professionals, 

which provide an example meeting this need, and 3) the success of these programs thus far. 

First, regarding professional development, the mission of Catholic University's Metropolitan 

School of Professional Studies is to offer educational opportunities to adult learners in the 

greater Washington DC region and beyond - - to be the bridge between employers and 

employees in helping to prepare the workforce. We offer programs that are academically 

rigorous, while being offered in evening and online formats for our students, many of whom 

work full-time in the federal government or who are aspiring to federal careers. We view our 

service to the largest employer in DC, the federal government, and the federal workforce as vital 

to our mission of outreach. 

In this role, the School continuously researches areas in which significant knowledge and skills 

gaps and professional development needs exist. We found that federal HR, in particular, has 

significant needs. As with all areas of the federal government, the federal HR workforce faces a 

looming crisis caused by the large numbers of employees who are eligible for retirement, which 

in turn creates the need for proactive staffing and succession planning. Agencies will either 

grow their own or hire from outside. Furthermore, there is a significant transition in the field, 

moving from a primarily transactional focus involving, for example, payroll, staffing, 

compensation and benefits - - all functions that are vitally important - - to one that recognizes 

the importance of HR's role as strategic consultant. In addition, all HR professionals, current 

and future, will need to meet the standards of competencies developed in 2006 by the 

partnership between the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO's) and the U.S. Office of 

Personnel Management (OPM). 

So, how can the federal government address these needs? Employee training and development 

-- through programs such as those offered by CUA's Metropolitan School of Professional 

Studies -- offers one effective approach. Metropolitan School has put forth a comprehensive 

federal HR professional development ladder for entry-, mid-, and senior-level personnel so that, 

no matter where federal HR professionals are in their careers, our programs can help prepare 

them for the next level. 

For entry-level federal HR specialists in grades GS 5-9, we offer the Certificate in HR and the 

Bachelor of Arts in Management, both of which build competencies at the CHCO awarenessintermediate level. At the mid- and upper-GS levels, HR professionals can prepare for 
67 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.031

promotion, and possibly Senior Executive Service, through obtaining a Master of Arts in HR 

Management with a specialized track in federal HR. This degree incorporates the CHCO 

competencies at the advanced-expert level. We believe that this is the only HR master's degree 

in the country with a specialization in federal HR and the only to integrate CHCO competencies. 

It is a 36-credit degree program, offered in the evenings and online in order to accommodate the 

work schedules of adult learners. Most students complete their degrees on a part-time basis in 

one and a half to two years. 

Course offerings address general competency needs in leadership, communication, and teambuilding, as well as technical knowledge in federal staffing, compensation and benefits, strategic 

human capital management. The courses are taught by experienced individuals who either are, 

or have been, senior level federal HR professionals. As the only DC-based university with a 

partnership with the Society for Human Resource Management, we also prepare students in 

these programs for professional certifications including the highly-regarded credential of 

Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and Senior Professional in Human Resources 

(SPHR). 

Catholic University offers these courses on-campus, on-site at employers' locations, and online. 

We have developed partnerships with several federal agencies including: 

HR University - - a collaboration between the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and 

the CHCO Council - - to offer our Master's program in federal HR, 

the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to offer our Master of Science in Management 

on-site at their central office, and 

• NASA for the certification exam preparation course offered in association with the 

Society of Human Resource Management. 

Our student population is about evenly split between federal workers who wish to take their 

careers to the next level versus those who want to enter the federal HR workforce. One faculty 

member said that for the federal workers, especially those who have risen through the ranks 

within the federal system, these programs can help expose them to a wider world of HR 

practice. We find that many are extremely well-versed in the technical aspects of their jobs, the 

laws, regulations and practices, but benefit tremendously from the course content and 

competency building to better understand and embrace a more strategic partnership with the 

leadership of their agencies. 

Finally, the success of the programs are of course the learning outcomes measured by the 

university, but equally important is the application of the course material in federal workplaces, 

and the hiring and promotion of our graduates. Employing agencies confirm that we have 

succeeded in moving their graduates from a compliance-driven framework over to more 

strategic thinking about how their projects and tasks relate to the organization's mission. 
68 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.032

In addition, students have offered the following feedback on the programs: 

o This program has been both fruitful and invaluable to me as a young woman 

embarking on my career in Human Resources in the Federal Government. I feel I am 

thoroughly equipped, have received the necessary foundation, tools and resources 

to continue on in my journey in public service with the federal government in human 

resources. 

o Since I have begun my studies I have been promoted twice, I have received the 

opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge learned to programs such as the 

Presidential Management Fellows Program (PMF) in the DC Assessment Center and 

the OPM mentoring program, in addition to my daily work aSSignments. 

o The courses I have taken as part of the graduate program at CUA have definitely 

helped to jumpstart my career in the Federal Government. I started the program in 

the fall of 2009. Within the first semester of entering CUA's graduate program, I 

landed a job with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) working as a 

Management Analyst in the Office of the Executive Director (OED). While working 

full-time and going to school at night can be challenging, I was excited to learn that 

projects at work directly correlated to aSSignments in my classes. More specifically, I 

was tasked to write the OED submission for FERC's Human Capital Plan. The fact 

that I was taking an HR class entitled "StrategiC Hurnan Capital Management in the 

Federal Sector" at the time was extremely beneficial to me. 

These student comments demonstrate the effectiveness such programs have in attracting and 

developing well-qualified federal HR employees. These programs serve to build a pipeline of 

highly qualified workers from within the agencies and attract those from the outside to a career 

of public service. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this important issue. 
69 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.033

Appendix A 

75213.034H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

Federal Human Resources Management Specialists 

Professional Development Ladder 

CHCO Council Competencies 

The Catholic University 

of America (CUA) 

International Public 

Management 

Association 

(IPMA) 

Society for Human 

Resource Management 

(SHRM) 

Note," CflCO Council Competencies are 
71 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.035

Appendix B 
72 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.036

Resource Ma'!1a,~ennerlt 
73 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.037

The program consists of a total of 12 courses, or 36 semester credits, and Iypically reQuires between 12 

and 24 months to complete, depending on the student's course load, Students must earn at least a 'B' 

grade point average (3.0 on a 4.0 scale) -- both overall and on the final project completed as part of the 

capstone course, "Master's Capstone: Research, Synthesis, Applications." 

Courses common to both versions of the M.A. in HRM program include: 

0zr;anization TheolY and Behavior HR Info Systems & Communications 

Labor-Manasement Relations Leadership and Orsanization 

HR Oevelopment and Trainins Master 5 Capstone: Research, !irnthesis. 

Courses specific to the HR Generalist track include: 

Manasement of Human Resources 

Compens,1tion and Benefits 

Le,lial Environment in HR Manasement 

Conflict Resolution 

HR Budsetil1fj & Metrics 

StrateSic Plannins for HR Mafl3sers 

Course Schedule 

Applications 

Courses within the Federal HR track include: 

Manasement of HR in the Federal Government 

Compensation & Benefits in the Federal Sector 

Le,lial Em1ronment of HR in the Federal Sector 

Performance Manasement in the Federal 

Sector 

StrateSies and Practices in Federal Staffli1fj 

Strate Sic Human Capital Manasement in the 

Federal Sector 

Metropolitan understands that -- with the demands of the job, family, and other commitments -- working 

professionals need an educational program that offers flexibilily and convenience. As such, the M.A. in 

HRM program is available in both classroom-based and online formats to allow students to choose the 

option that best suits their personal situation and learning slyle. 

Online 

Starting in January 2013, the M.A. in HRM program will be available fully online. Student will focus on jllst 

one course at a time, with each course lasting apprOXimately 8 weeks. Course will primarily be delivered 

asynchronously, offering students the ultimate in flexibili~y. 

Classroom-Based 

The following table provides a sample schedule for the classroom-based program. Participants usually take 

two courses per term, with each course meeting one evening per week, Iypically from either 6: 1 0 - 8:40 

p.m. or 6:35 9:05 p.m. The schedule is particularly tailored to students pursuing the program on a yearround, part-time basis, with Significant breaks in late summer and late December. However, students may 

pursue the program more slowly if they prefer, or they may take a full-time load to complete the program in 

just a year. 
74 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.038

~'~St~{;ij!\(,;\\ .••. t,.·;·.(;t~.l~ · ..•• i.·;l\!\~~i·~~:;\~;Z}\\~ 

Term Course/Evening I Course/Evening 2 

Fall- Year I Management of Human Resources Labor·Management Relations (in the Federal Government) 

Spring - Year I Compensation & Benefits Organizational Theo!}1 and Behavior (in the Federal Sector) 

Summer - Year I Leg;}! Environment in HRM HR Development & Training (in the Federal Sector) 

Fall- Year 2 Conflict Resolution OR Performance HR Information Systems and 

Management in the Federal Sector Communications 

Spring - Year 2 HR Budgeting & Metrics OR Leadership and Organiz..l1ions Strategies and Practices in Federal Staffing 

Strategic Planning for HR Managers OR Master's Capstone: ReSeJfch. 

Summer - Year 2 Strategic Human Capital M.:magement in Synthesis, Application 

the Federal Sector 

Tuition and Fees 

Tuition for the 2012·13 academic year is $775 per credit. Each course awards 3 credits, with a total of 36 

credits reQ]Jired by the program, Other fees associated with the program include a one-time new student 

fee of $125, as well as modest "per semester" fees. 

Advantages of CUA's Program 

Curriculum Relevant to All Types of Or!:anizations: Managerial functions that apply to a wide variety of 

situations and institutions are covered. with emphasis on both the practical issues that HR professionals 

must address and the tools needed to fulfill job reQ]Jirements. 

Exclusive Partnership with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM): As the only 

accredited university in D.C. partnering with SHRM to offer the exam preparation course for certification 

as a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). CUA 

offers a program that builds on the core competencies of HR professionals and integrates current and 

best practices in the field of HR, as outlined by SHRM and the certification process. In addition, 

students have the opportunity to participate in CUA's student chapter of SHRM. 
75 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.039

Admission 

Applicants must submit 
76 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.040

Appendix C 

75213.041H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

TIns chart lists the courses in Catholic 

competencies of the CH CO CounciL and 

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA 

Metropolitan School oj'i'rojessional Swdies 

Human Resource Management 

Program Mapping 

Master of Arts in Human Resource Management program and how they parallel the learning o

System. 

Attention to Detail 

Client Engagement/Change 

Management 

Creative Thinking Customer Service 

Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills 

Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 

Organizational Awareness 

Planning and Evaluating 

Stress Tolerance 

Teamwork Technical Competence 

Writing 

Technical: 

Overview of all technical competencies 

with a focus on 

Performance Management 

Recruitment/Placement 

Workforce Planning 

75213.042H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

Creative Thinking 

Decision Making 

Flexibility 

Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 

Oral Communication 

Planning and Evaluating Reasoning 

Technical Competence 

Writing 

General: 

Attention to Detail 

Integrity/Honesty 

Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 

Oral Communication Organizational Awareness 

Reading Reasoning 

Self-Management 

Teamwork Technical Competence 

Writing 

Technical: 

Employee Relations 

Legal, Government and 

Jurisprudence 

75213.043H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

Client Engagement/Change 

Management 

Customer Service 

Flexibility 

Influencing/Negotiating Interpersonal Skills 

Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 

Oral Communication 

Problem Solving Reading Reasoning 

Self-Management 

Stress Tolerance 

Teamwork 

Client Engagement/Change 

Management 

Decision Making 

Influencing/Negotiating 

Interpersonal Skills 

Oral Communication Organizational Awareness 

Planning and Evaluating Reading Reasoning 

Self-Management 

75213.044H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

General: 

Attention to Detail 

Client Engagement/Change 

Management 

Creative Thinking Customer Service 

Decision Making 

Flexibility 

Influencing/Negotiating Information Management Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills 

Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 

Oral Communication Organizational Awareness 

Planning and Evaluating 

Problem Solving Project Management 

Reading 

Reasoning 

Self-Management 

Planning and Evaluating 

Stress Tolerance 

Teamwork Technical Competence 

Workforce Planning 

Writing 

75213.045H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

Creative Thinking 

Decision Making 

Influencing/Negotiating Integrity/Honesty 

Organizational Awareness 

Planning and Evaluating 

Reasoning 

Self-Management 

Teamwork 

Information Management 

Planning and Evaluating Project Management Reasoning 

Planning and Evaluating 

Teamwork Technical Competence 

Writing 

General: 

Interpersonal Skills 

Oral Communication 

Planning and Evaluating Problem Solving Reading Reasoning 

Self-Management 

Stress Tolerance 

Teamwork 

75213.046H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

General: 

Creative Thinking 

Decision Making 

Interpersonal Skills 

Oral Communication 

Organizational Awareness 

Planning and Evaluating 

Problem Solving Project Management Reading 

Planning and Evaluation 

Teamwork 

Workforce Planning Writing 

General: 

Attention to Detail 

Client Engagement/Change 

Management 

Creative Thinking 

Customer Service 

Decision Making 

Flexibility 

Influencing/Negotiating Information Management Integ rity /Honesty 

75213.047H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

Government, and Jurisprudence 

Communication 

Organizational Awareness 

Planning and Evaluating Problem Solving 

Project Management 

Reading Reasoning 

Self-Management 

Planning and Evaluating 

Stress Tolerance 

Teamwork Technical Competence 

Workforce Planning Writing 

Integration and application of ali 

competencies 

Decision-Making 

Interpersonal Skills 

Oral Communication 

Professional Ethics 

Problem-solving 

Writing 

CHCO Couucil Competencies are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Memorandum for Chief Human Capital Officers dated Apr
84 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.048

Appendix D 
85 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.049
86 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.050

M.S.M. Track Courses 

In addition to the eight core courses, students complete four courses in a selected track. The program offers four 

"tracks" from which students may select to customize their educational experience. All of the tracks - listed below 

are designed to provide students with skills and knowledge to help them succeed in their careers. 

Federal Acquisition and Contract Mana~ement 

In its report. "Where the Jobs Are: Mission Critical Opportunities for America," The Partnership for Public Service 

lists "contracting" among the top areas where government is hiring, Likewise, the Federal ACQuisition Institute states 

on its Web site that, " ... candidates for jobs in contracting are in high demand throughout the Federal Government." 

The track in Federal Acquisition and Contract Management is ideal for those students who are interested in 

capitalizing on the robust career opportunities for contracting professionals and who would enjoy the job security and 

benefits offered by employment in the U.S. federal government. These four courses are required in the track: 

• Federal Contract Management and Administration 

• Legal Aspects of Government Contracting 

• Contract Pricing, Negotiations, and Source Selection 

• Performance of Government Contracts 

Human Resource Mana~ement 

The Human Resource Management track within the M.S.M. program is designed to provide current and aspiring 

managers working in any department or organization with a deeper understanding of the role, tools, and techniques of 

the H R function in managing human capital. Students pursuing the Human Resource Management track may 

complete any four of the following courses: 

• Legal Environment of Human Resource Management 

• Human Resource Training and Development 

• Compensation and Benefits 

• Labor -Management Relations 

• leading Organizational Change 

• Hum:m Resource Information Systems and Communication 

• Others, with advisor approval 

Leadership 

The Leadership track is uniQue in its focus on skills development. The focus of the Leadership courses is to provide 

students with a better conceptual understanding of leadership, to help them identity opportunities for their own 

development, and - ultimately - to facilitate the emergence of a better leader-manager. Students within the 

Leadership track complete the following: 

• Ethical Leadership 

• Leading Organizational Change 

• Developing Leadership Competencies 

• One additional course selected from: 

• Labor-Management Relations • Human Resource Training and Development 

• Conflict Resolution • Public Relations: Managing External Relations 

• Advanced Managerial Communication 

Professional Communication 

The Professional Communication track not only improves one's verbal and written communication skills, but also 

enhances skills and knowledge in interpersonal communication, organizational communication, and communication 

strategy. This track will help students see management and managerial communication through a whole new lens 

and provide skills that will make them much more effective, knowledgeable, holistic, and strategic communicators. 

Students within the Professional Communication track complete the following: 
87 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.051

• Public Relations: Managing External Relations 

• Advanced Managerial Communication 

• One course selected from: 

• Human Resource Development and Training' Conflict Resolution 

• One additional course selected from: 

• Labor-Management Relations • Developing Leadership Competencies 

• Leading Organizational Change 

Online-Only Option 

MSPS understands what a working professional needs. We now offer our entire M.S.M. and M.A-H.R.M. 

programs in a fully online format for the ultimate in flexibili~y and convenience. 

Classroom-Based Program Schedule 

The following table provides a sample schedule for the program. Participants ,viII typically take two courses per term. 

with each course meeting one evening per week. typically from either 6: I 0 - 8:40 p.m. or 6:35 - 9:05 p.m. The 

schedule is particularly tailored to students pursuing the program on a year-round. part-time basis, with significant 

breaks in late summer and late December. However. students may pursue the program more slowly if they prefer, or 

they may take a full-time load to complete the program in just a year. 

'M'VA\T';';',~:i;£";S~i:';: 

Term Course/Evening I Course/Evening 2 

Fall- Year 1 Communicating EffectivelY as a Manager Managing People and Performance 

Spring - Year 1 Human Resource Management and Managerial Decision-Making: Tools and 

Strategy TechniQues 

Summer - Year! leadership Foundations Project Management 

Fall- Year 2 StrategiC Planning and Implementation Track Elective 1 

Spring - Year 2 Track Elective 2 Track Elective 3 

Summer - Year 2 Track Elective 4 Master's Capstone 

Tuition and Fees 

Tuition for the 2012-13 academic year is $775 per credit. Each course awards 3 credits, with a total of 36 

credits reQuired by the program. Fees associated with the program include a one-time new student fee of $125. 
88 

Æ 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


75213.052