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August 23, 2019 By cs

The Pentagon embraced flexibility to up its acquisition workforce

The expansive list of federal hiring authorities has seen mixed responses from agency human resource offices, with some saying that options help them to fill critical positions, while others say that the increasing number and complexity of hiring authorities does more damage than good.

But according to the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Defense has had success over the past five years in using such authorities to expand their substantial civilian acquisition workforce.

“The Department of Defense has used human capital flexibilities extensively to hire, recruit and retain its civilian acquisition workforce. Since 2014, usage rates for hiring flexibilities — alternatives to the traditional, competitive hiring process — have generally increased,” an Aug. 15 report said.

“DoD leadership has encouraged its hiring personnel to use these flexibilities, such as direct hire authorities, to reduce the length of the hiring process. From fiscal year 2014 to 2018, DoD used hiring flexibilities for 90 percent of its approximately 44,000 civilian acquisition workforce hiring actions.”

According to data collected by the DoD’s Human Capital Initiative, the civilian acquisition workforce increased by nearly 17 percent over that period, going from 134,808 employees in 2014 to 157,318 in 2018.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/management/hr/2019/08/15/the-pentagon-embraced-flexibility-to-up-its-acquisition-workforce

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, DCMA, DoD, flexibility, GAO, HCI, hiring authority, human capital, Human Capital Initiatives, human resources

May 30, 2019 By AMK

Building a 21st century defense acquisition workforce

Every year, the Department of Defense spends roughly $300 billion to purchase everything from nuclear submarines to accounting services. The defense acquisition workforce is responsible not only for negotiating prices, enforcing requirements, and managing delivery on these acquisitions, but also for addressing issues like interoperability, sustainability, cyber protection, and supply chain security.

And every year, Congress adds complexity to the system, with almost 250 provisions of acquisition legislation changing the rules on types of contracts, contract audits, source selection criteria, commercial items acquisition, data rights and intellectual property, and other issues from 2016 to 2018 alone.

Advocates of acquisition reform have long sought changes in the civil service rules to make it easier to build the talent that the Pentagon needs to meet this challenge, but despite the wide array of legislative authorities now available, little has changed. What is needed is not a new set of rules, but a new mindset: If the Department of Defense wants to develop employees rather than just manage them for immediate performance, it must stop making hiring decisions position by position and establish a system that enables it to rotate future civilian leaders through a series of time-limited, career-building assignments. Instead of managing civil service positions, the Department must start managing its people.

The Call for Civilian Personnel Reform

Sixteen years ago, the National Commission on the Public Service (known as the “Second Volcker Commission”), reported that the federal government was not adequately staffed to meet the demands of the 21st century. Instead of attracting talent, the federal government too often drives it away. “Those who enter the civil service,” the commission reported, “often find themselves trapped in a maze of rules and regulations that thwart their personal development and stifle their creativity. The best are underpaid, the worst, overpaid. Too many of the most talented leave the public service too early, too many of the least talented stay too long.”

Keep reading article at: https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/building-a-21st-century-defense-acquisition-workforce/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition reform, acquisition workforce, career development, civilian personnel reform, civilian personnel system, DAWIA, Defense Innovation Board, DoD, hiring authority, hiring procedures, leadership development, Section 809 Panel, training, workplace flexibility

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