It is time to fundamentally rethink and revise current human capital strategies, including planning, development, performance management and, in some cases, structures within the federal government because previous efforts to improve federal workforce performance have failed, according to a commission convened by the Professional Services Council (PSC).
“Too many people are underestimating the severity of the current crisis,” PSC President and CEO Stan Soloway told reporters yesterday after presenting the commission’s report: From Crisis to Opportunity. “They’re missing the fact that a confluence of forces coming together right now that are really pretty dramatic.”
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| Professional Services Council (PSC) President and CEO Stan Soloway. Photo: PSC. |
Spurred by disturbing trends in acquisition workforce demographics and increasing budget uncertainty, PSC earlier this year convened the 2013 Leadership Commission, which developed several actionable recommendations for the government to help transform its acquisition and management of professional services.
In its report, the commission found that the federal government is at a critical crossroads of a rapidly escalating human capital crisis, a hitherto unseen pace of change in technology and diminishing public confidence. The commission said the rate of federal employee retirements is accelerating while the government’s ability to attract and retain critical talent is in serious doubt. Added to a punitive, risk-adverse culture that rewards finger-pointing and casting aspirations, the federal government has a serious problem on its hands.
“We have to more smartly utilize allocate and strategically think about increasingly precious internal resources,” Soloway said yesterday. “What are the most critical skills we need for the future? (We need to) stop worrying about trying to peanut butter spread them across every functional area we’ve ever historically done as a government.”
The commission, comprised of C-level executives from across the professional services industry, recommended that a focus be on carefully and objectively assessing and charting the workforce skills and capabilities that will be most needed in, and available to, the government in the future. This human capital crisis, the commission said, necessitates creating a workforce, across the “whole of government,” that is characterized by innovation, agility, critical thinking and continuous development.
The rising prevalence, and the fear of, award protests is clearly impacting federal agency willingness to make subjective decisions, or to use other than the most basic acquisition techniques, the commission said. PSC in the report said it would convene a joint panel of industry and government leaders and recommend to President Barack Obama’s administration and Congress, within 180 days, reforms to the protest process that are balanced and meaningful and will address issues including protest thresholds, frequency, scope and cost.
The commission recommended a process to garner “360 degree” assessments of acquisition outcomes, particularly for large dollar value or other types of significant acquisition. The report said, in the aftermath of any significant acquisition, customer and partner satisfaction surveys should be conducted to identify ways in which key communities felt the acquisition process was effective and responsive, and ways in which it was not.
These “360 degree” reviews should also include a formal and mandatory process for “reverse debriefings,” which should be used by federal agencies to receive candid feedback from industry on what in the procurement worked well and what didn’t, the commission said. The results should be shared among all internal and external stakeholders because, the commission said, they can be valuable learning tools for the government’s acquisition and related workforces.