The decennial census is conducted against a backdrop of immutable deadlines. The census’s elaborate chain of interrelated pre- and post- Census Day activities is predicated upon those dates. To meet these mandated reporting requirements, census activities must occur at specific times and in the proper sequence. The Secretary of Commerce is legally required to (1) conduct the census on April 1 of the decennial year, (2) report the state population counts to the President for purposes of congressional apportionment by December 31 of the decennial year, and (3) send population tabulations to the states for purposes of redistricting no later than 1 year after the April 1 census date. For the decennial census, the vast majority of housing units will receive paper, mailback census questionnaires delivered by mail or by census field workers before April 1, 2010. This requires a complete and accurate address list. The inventory of housing units is obtained from several sources including files from the U.S. Postal Service, partnerships established with local entities, and the Bureau’s address canvassing— where temporary field workers verify and identify the addresses of an estimated 130 million housing units over the course of about 6 weeks in 2009. When housing units do not respond to questionnaires by a certain deadline, temporary field workers will follow up and collect census data through personal interviews during the nonresponse follow-up operation, which accounts for the largest single component of the field data collection workload and budget. The Bureau estimates that nonresponse follow-up will include an estimated 39 million housing units over the course of 12 weeks in 2010. The Bureau also relies on special procedures to handle areas or living quarters that are not suitable for mailing or delivering census questionnaires, such as very remote areas in Alaska and prisons. To gather census data, the Bureau opens temporary offices across the country for approximately 2 years, and all field staff employed in these offices are considered temporary, with jobs lasting as long as the entire 2- year period or as short as a few weeks, depending on the specific operation for which they are employed. For example, one could work on address canvassing, an early operation, and then be rehired again to work on the nonresponse follow-up operation later on in the decennial. To conduct its decennial activities, the Bureau recruits, hires, and trains temporary field workers based out of local census offices nationwide. During Census 2000, the Bureau hired about half a million temporary workers at peak, which temporarily made it one of the nation’s largest employers, surpassed by only a handful of big organizations, such as Wal- Mart and the U.S. Postal Service. For the 2010 Census, the Bureau expects to hire almost 75,000 temporary field workers—at a cost of over $350 million—during address canvassing in 2009 and almost 525,000 temporary field workers—at a cost of over $2 billion—for nonresponse follow-up in 2010. (See fig. 1.) High-performance organizations are inclusive, drawing on the strengths of employees at all levels and of all backgrounds. For the decennial census, having a diverse workforce is particularly important. For example, in its strategic plan, the Bureau notes that as the nation becomes more diverse, the Bureau’s staff must reflect the increasing diversity of the American population if they are to do their job well. In a related point, Bureau officials emphasize the need to recruit temporary field workers locally, because such staff are best able to relate to local residents and overcome any reluctance to participate in the census. In fact, the census, in many respects, is a local endeavor because the key ingredients of a successful population count, such as a complete and accurate address list and timely and accurate field data collection, are carried out by the locally recruited temporary field staff—working in and around their respective neighborhoods—collecting data through various operations. A high-performance organization relies on a dynamic workforce with the requisite talents, multidisciplinary knowledge, and up-to-date skills to ensure it can accomplish its goals and missions. As we have previously reported, such an organization fosters a work environment in which people are enabled and motivated to contribute to continuous learning and improvement as well as to accomplishing missions and goals. Such organizations promote accountability and fairness. Importantly, they take advantage of a workforce that is inclusive and utilizes the strengths and talents of employees at all levels and backgrounds. This work environment is consistent with the principles of “diversity management”—a process intended to create and maintain a positive work environment where individual similarities and differences are valued, so that all can reach their potential and maximize their contributions to the organization. As shown in table 1, in our previous work on diversity management, we identified 9 diversity management practices. Perhaps the most important practice for diversity management is top leadership commitment, because leaders and managers must commit the time and necessary resources for the success of an organization’s diversity initiatives. Although all of these practices are important, today we discuss two of them as they relate to the Bureau: (1) succession planning—an ongoing, strategic process for identifying and developing a diverse pool of talent for an organizations’ potential future leaders—and (2) recruitment for the Bureau’s temporary field work—the process of attracting qualified, diverse applicants for employment which is important for maintaining high performance. As we have testified earlier, the federal government is facing new and more complex challenges in the 21st century because of long-term fiscal constraints, changing demographics, and other factors. The federal Senior Executive Service (SES), which generally represents the most experienced and senior segment of the federal workforce, is critical to providing the strategic leadership needed to effectively meet these challenges. Governmentwide, SES retirement eligibility is much higher than the workforce in general, and a significant number of SES retirements could result in a loss of leadership continuity, institutional knowledge, and expertise among the SES corps. We have previously reported that the Bureau needs to strategically manage its human capital to meet future requirements. For example, three senior census executives left the Bureau after the 2000 Census; in the years ahead, other key employees will become eligible for retirement. According to the Bureau’s strategic plan, about 45 percent of the Bureau's current permanent employees will be eligible for regular or early retirement by 2010. Thus, human capital is a key planning area for ensuring that the Bureau has the skill mix necessary to meet its future staffing requirements. Racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in the federal government’s senior ranks can be a key organizational component for executing agency missions, ensuring accountability to the American people in the administration and operation of federal programs, and achieving results. Based on previous work identifying diversity in the federal SES corps, we compared diversity at the Bureau’s senior levels with that of the Department of Commerce and the executive branch governmentwide. Also, because the vast majority of SES personnel is drawn from an agency’s pool of GS-14s and GS-15s, we also compared the diversity of the Bureau’s SES developmental pool with that of the Department of Commerce and other executive branch agencies governmentwide. (See table 2.) Overall, we found that the Bureau’s leadership ranks are about as diverse as the leadership ranks for the federal government as a whole, with higher minority representation and lower representation of women. Diversity in the federal government’s senior leadership and developmental pools are important to developing and maintaining a high-quality and inclusive workforce. Succession planning also is tied to the federal government’s opportunity to change the diversity of the SES corps through new appointments. The success of the 2010 Census depends, in part, upon the Bureau’s ability to recruit, hire, and train a very large temporary workforce that works for a very short period. Over the next several years the Bureau plans to recruit 3.8 million applicants and hire nearly 600,000 temporary field staff from that applicant pool for two key operations: address canvassing and nonresponse follow-up. For the 2010 Census the Bureau plans to use a recruiting and hiring approach like the one it used in 2000. For the 2000 Census, the Bureau used an aggressive recruitment strategy in partnership with state, local, and tribal governments, community groups, and other organizations to help recruit employees and obtained exemptions from the majority of state governments so that individuals receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Medicaid, and selected other types of public assistance would not have their benefits reduced when earning census income, thus making census jobs more attractive. Further, the Bureau used a recruitment advertising campaign, totaling over $2.3 million, which variously emphasized the ability to earn good pay, work flexible hours, learn new skills, and do something important for one’s community. Moreover, the advertisements were in a variety of languages to attract different ethnic groups, and were also targeted to different races, senior citizens, retirees, and people seeking part-time employment. The Bureau also advertised using traditional outlets such as newspaper classified sections, as well as more novel media including Internet banners and messages on utility and credit card bills. Through its local census offices, the Bureau plans to recruit, hire, and deploy a diverse workforce that looks like and can relate to the people being counted. Local census offices will open for the 2010 Census in October 2008. The Bureau has developed a Planning Database that local and regional offices use to prepare recruiting plans. The Bureau expects those offices to use the database to identify areas where field staff are more difficult to recruit and other areas where certain skills—such as foreign language abilities—are needed. The Bureau will update the Planning Database for every census tract in the United States for the 2010 Census, using many variables from Census 2000. These variables include: Census 2000 mail return rates; household size; median household income; percentage of persons living in poverty; number of single person households; highest level of education achieved; percentage of linguistically isolated households (i.e., where no person 14 or over speaks English at least “very well”); and percentage of persons on public assistance.