Army program designed to advance senior civilian careers

By Mr. Zack Shelby (IMCOM)July 6, 2009

FORT EUSTIS, Va. (July 6, 2009) -- Fort Eustis was the second of 25 stops on a summer registration drive the Army started at Fort Belvoir June 8 to create a new central management talent pool for senior civilian employees - GS-15 or NSPS upper pay-band 3 equivalents.

"It (the drive) was designed to get the Army enterprise employees to register in our system so we'll have information on them in our database so we can prepare slates for these vacancies for enterprise positions," said Bonnie Dehart, career advisor, Civilian Talent Management Office. "We can match their competencies with those required of the position."

Dehart said they can also select preferences on location or series or if they want to work in a different command. She added there is a mobility requirement that can be geographical, functional or organizational.

"I think overall the responses have been positive," Dehart said of the employee response during registration drives. "There are some concerns. Mobility is always a concern." She added there is the two options of functional or organizational requirements for those who don't want to make geographic moves.

"I think they look at it as a developmental opportunity to be reassigned to different positions, get different experiences, and be more competitive with retired military that are coming in and are very well qualified for higher-level positions," Dehart said. She added it's a reassignment program and a broadening experience.

"There are opportunities," she said. "They can go into the database and they can see all the positions. They are all listed in there. They can indicate preferences and it gives us a lot of information to work with and help them in their reassignment and what goals they want to achieve." Of the more than 11,000 eligible members of the talent pool, 97 work at Fort Eustis and 152 at Fort Monroe. Advisors visited Eustis June 16, to present and answer questions about the program designed to strengthen the Army's Civilian Corps. There is one enterprise position currently identified at Eustis and six at Monroe. The Army enterprise employees at Eustis are predominantly under the Army Materiel Command and at Monroe under the Training and Doctrine Command. Dehart also said there are representatives from other major commands.

The Civilian Talent Management Program aligns the senior civilian management at the GS-15 level with that of colonels, generals and those in the Senior Executive Service - providing an enterprise view of leadership positions and the available pool of senior talent. The initiative is designed to fuse the Army's current and projected civilian leadership requirements with the individual employee's desires for reassignment and career growth. Currently, the Army has only limited visibility of its senior civilian workforce and the positions that they occupy.

"Things are moving along quickly," said Jill Mueller, Army Civilian Development Office. "We've been preparing for a year and a half and things are coming together."

Career advisors will continue to visit various venues throughout the registration drive through early October. The CTMO plans to have eligible members registered by late October, using information from employees to begin assembling the slates.

"We will be preparing the slate in November and issuing the first slate in December," Dehart said. "It's an opportunity for individuals to advance and to be in a better position for possibly SES, but definitely senior-level positions. There's an opportunity for a more well-rounded experience than there would be in a traditional referral method because they actually get to have in the system the information they want us to see and we'll match them up with vacancies."