A Ready and Resilient Workforce for the Department of Homeland Security Protecting America's Front Line (2013) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction and Background
1 Introduction and Background
Pages 19-58
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To address that request, the IOM formed the Committee on Department of Homeland Security Workforce Resilience (see Box 1-1 for the complete statement of task from OHA)
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In this chapter, the committee provides background information on the history and makeup of DHS and the workforce challenges that it faces, an overview of the study process and how the committee addressed its task, and background information on DHS's current activities related to workforce resilience, including efforts in employee engagement, employee assistance, and peer support.
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. Chapter 2 also discusses the need for DHS workforce readiness, the capability of an individual, unit, or system to perform the missions or functions for which it was intended or designed (DoD, 2013)
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, except under Title 10, in which it becomes part of the military US Secret Service (USSS) __________ a The Directorate for Management includes the chief administrative ser vices officer, the chief financial officer, the chief human capital officer, the chief information officer, the chief procurement officer, and the chief secu rity officer.
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Department of Homeland Security Workforce Challenges The DHS workforce comprises law enforcement personnel (who make up about 50 percent of the department) , policy personnel who have high-level security clearances, and mission-support staff (IOM, 2012)
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The DHS operational mission elicits both chronic and acute stressors, including physical health risks, a zero-defect mentality whereby a mistake can jeopardize security clearance, narrow decision latitude, monotony, low discretion, and high expectations. There is a lack of a cohesive or unifying organizational structure: component agencies work in "silos," and individuals in components often do not identify with DHS.
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.4 The average age of a DHS employee is 45 years; like the federal workforce as a whole, the DHS workforce is aging. Baby boomers, with their valuable skills and experience, are close to retirement.
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. Physical Work Environment The DHS workforce performs its duties in a large variety of environments.
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That leaves little time for training outside an employee's specialty, so it is difficult for someone suffering from burnout to move to a position elsewhere in the department. Concerns About Attrition Retention of the workforce is a key element of workforce readiness and resilience.
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In 2006, 35.6 percent of the 15,570 new hires separated from DHS in less than 2 years; 72 percent of DHS executives left during 2003–2007 (Davidson, 2010; Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton, 2010)
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Therefore, it is crucial that the strategic plan for workforce resilience developed by DHS ensure that its most critical resource, its employees, is linked with the department's vision, mis 6 "The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FedView survey) is a tool that measures employees' perceptions of whether, and to what extent, conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in their agencies.
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DHS is accomplished in performing its various duties, and the DHS workforce every day carries out an astonishing amount of work that contributes to the safety of the country so that the American way of life can thrive (see Box 1-3 for examples)
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Works closely with government and private-sector partners to de fend against and respond to a variety of cyber threats and when necessary provides onsite support to owners and operators of the nation's critical infrastructure on incident response, forensic analy sis, site assessments, and training. Promotes the development of a world-class cybersecurity workforce by supporting initiatives such as Scholarship for Service and devel oping education curriculum designed to ensure that DHS cyber pro fessionals are educated in every aspect of cyber risk mitigation.
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SOURCE: DHS, 2013a. Human Capital Management From a human capital standpoint, having a ready and resilient workforce is essential.
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-- Former Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute (2013) The IOM Committee on Department of Homeland Security Workforce Resilience was asked to provide guidance on improving the resilience of the DHS workforce in accordance with its statement of task (see Box 1-1)
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" The committee concluded that a top-down, fully standardized set of activities aimed at enhancing workforce resilience and readiness throughout DHS would not work, because of the diversity of missions, organizational culture, and organization among component agencies. However, there need to be centralized strategic direction and resource investment, identification of core best practices, overarching policies, and measures of effectiveness at the department level that will unify the WRR effort.
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The committee received public submissions of materials for its consideration at the meetings and by e-mail throughout the course of the study.12 A website was created to provide information to the public about the committee's work and to facilitate communication between the public and the committee (IOM, 2013) .13 Committee members and staff visited multiple DHS component agencies in April 2013 to gain a better understanding of the physical work environments, daily job tasks, and stressors of the DHS workforce.
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The committee reviewed and considered resilience programs, tools, and policies of the military, law enforcement, and the private sector, such as the Army's Ready and Resilient effort and Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, DoD's Total Force Fitness, the Navy's resilience programs (including Combat and Operational Stress Control and the Navy Installations Command Fleet and Family Readiness) , and such relevant efforts of law enforcement entities as early-intervention systems,15 Education Based Discipline,16 Mediation,17 best practices of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and peer support.
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Commitment to Resilience: Workforce readiness and resilience have not had high priority for leadership and are not actively measured, and the DHSTogether program does not receive adequate support. Disconnect from Headquarters: There appears to be a disconnect between the staff in DHS headquarters and component agencies that leaves employ ees not feeling heard or not feeling like an integral part of the organization.
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and provide recommendations on how infrastructures within component agencies can be better integrated into a coordinated, DHS-wide system with the necessary centralized oversight au thority. Specifically, the committee will Review and assess DHS's current occupational health and opera tional medicine infrastructure.
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After the program's inception, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report noting that the morale of the DHS workforce as a whole was lower than the federal government average: DHS employees' job satisfaction was 4.5 percentage points lower and engagement in their work was 7.0 percentage points lower (GAO, 2012)
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. The division has three branches: Medical First Responder Coordination, Medical Quality Assurance, and Occupational Health; DHSTogether is in the last of these.19 Because of the substantial influence of the chief human capital officer in the program's early development, DHSTogether is heavily based on a wellness model and uses a holistic approach (see Figure 1-1)
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Early actions of the initiative included creating an inventory of existing related policies and programs and trainings that were already under way in the components; conducting a DHS-wide Safety Stand Down to focus on resilience and wellness; and creating the Employee and Organizational Resilience Program Taskforce (Green and Perkins, 2012; IOM, 2012)
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Design a peer support program for the NOC adapted from the psychological first-aid model.
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. OHA under-scored the desire to tailor the program to the unique needs of the component agencies while also having an overall strategic approach.
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. For example, the committee requested copies of component agencies' action plans for improving employee engagement and morale, DHS component agency or Employee Engagement Executive Steering Committee (EEESC)
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What is clear from the FEVS data is that the DHS workforce has low morale, which may be related to resilience. But it is possible that the workforce has demonstrated a high level of resilience by executing its duties admirably in the face of low morale and numerous organizational challenges.
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How was the survey sample designed and selected? OPM designed the survey to produce valid results representing governmentwide federal employees as well as employees in indi vidual federal agencies and subagencies.
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However, without a consistent, vocal commitment on the part of both DHS and component agency leadership to build workforce resilience, the focus on increasing wellness and resilience quickly diminished. The task force was not given the ability to establish departmentwide policies and principles to guide the components and was therefore unable to effect change.
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. OCHCO regularly consults with the component agencies to advise them on relevant issues and to share best practices; however, individual employee-support programs vary from component to component and even within components.
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Employee Engagement Executive Steering Committee On the basis of FEVS data, in 2006, the chief human capital officer decided that DHS needed a concerted effort to change morale, starting at the component level (Manlove, 2013)
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It formed a subcommittee that is evaluating each component action plan to ensure that the actions are solid, are based on root-cause analyses, and contain good metrics. GAO recommended that component agencies conduct demographic analysis and benchmark as appropriate; however, it is difficult for components like TSA and CBP to find similar organizations to benchmark against (Manlove, 2013)
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Employee Assistance Programs DHS component agencies all have at least a basic level of staffsupport resources through their EAPs and have some oversight by OCHCO in managing their EAPs. It is up to the components individually to give their employees access to such services.
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Peer Support Programs Organizations often use peer support programs as a means of providing employees support in stressful situations. Border Patrol, FAMS, FLETC, and recently ICE have peer support programs that use different models and are implemented separately.
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CISM is a multicomponent source of help and extends from prevention through intervention to postaction support. In FLETC, CISM includes peer support programs, EAPs, chaplaincy or spiritual care, training efforts, and wellness and is overseen by the Office of Organizational Health.
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The committee observed that the component agencies often do not consult with OCHCO or OHA, nor, in most cases, would it occur to them to do so. For example, the committee learned during its information gathering about a new wellness program that FAMS is developing with support from FAMS leadership.
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2012. DHS workforce resilience: Past, current and future.
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Presentation to the IOM Committee on Department of Homeland Security Workforce Resilience, February 4–5, Washington, DC.
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2013. Support programs.
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