FORT BELVOIR, Va. -- The U.S. Army Manpower Analysis Agency recently relocated to a bigger building on Fort Belvoir, as a result of its growth two years ago from 33 to 42 people. And, it is an agency that, itself, deals in changes and fluctuations in the Army's workload and growth.
"Our agency's goals are to work with commands and validate their work force models and analyze how agencies determine their manpower requirements," said Jay Aronowitz, director of USAMAA.
"Based on Army staff leadership requests, we study upcoming priorities for the Army."
The agency uses workload-based templates, rather than employee-based, to determine Army entities' needs. "When someone comes to us and says they need more people - more employees - we figure out if the workload they have, or an expected workload increase, warrants having more employees there to do what needs to be done," he said.
"We support the Army by overseeing how commands determine the size of their organizations," he said. "One of the reasons USAMAA was stood up was to give independent and objective analyses of what the Army's needs are," Aronowitz said.
"We are constantly looking at improving our processes of modeling and reviewing and refining how we approve Army command studies of manpower models," he said.
"The challenge is in projecting future requirements, partially using historical knowledge."
"Requirements can be changed by a concept plan. A command can do a manpower study or develop a manpower model," he said, adding that the agency's recommendations usually take three to five years, and are based on new and future missions."
Aronowitz said the organization's best asset is its diversity, in terms of experiences and background. "We have people with all different types of degrees, from different parts of the country who add their talent and critical thinking to challenges we face. We always hire the most qualified in their field," he added.
"I'm actually kind of proud of our diverse education. We have a lot of employees with master's degrees, although that's not a requirement for the positions they have.
He added the agency is working on staffing models for Civilian Personnel Advisory Centers. "This is critical because the Army is going to be ramping up its civilian employee work force by 5,000-plus in 2010; and by an additional 9,000 by fiscal year 2015.
"These are Congressionally dictated," Aronowitz said. "And, that's the floor. There very well may be more people added than what's predicted now."
"We work from the front end of the personnel life cycle," he said.
"The agency is one of the best places to work. The projects we get are so different. We have opportunities to travel, to work on projects and meet with clients and customers. It's so good here, that we have employees return to work here with us," Aronowitz said.
Nieta Scott-Dunmore, USAMAA's Strategic Assessment Division Chief, has worked there for 2A,A1/2 years and in the manpower field for 28 years.
"Working there gives me the opportunity to go in and assess the work load and functions within each and every discipline of the Army, both in military and civilian aspects," she said.
"It's different every day," she said. "The neatest thing about my job is the full-circle aspect of it. When I worked in garrisons, people came in and did studies on me. Some of the people I taught the Manpower and Force Management Course to, through the U.S. Army Logistics Management College, down at Fort Lee, I now interact with," she said. The college recently had a grand opening in honor of it now being the Army Logistics University.
Ed Emden, who's been a management analyst for USAMAA for 15 months, indicated one of the most interesting things of working for the agency is learning about the Army's diversity in its contributions. "Our organization really takes a strategic look at the entire Army. Every day, I learn a lot about diverse things the Army does. For instance, one day I'm working on a veterinary treatment facility and next on a logistics project."
While our agency partners with different organizations in the Army, we find that when we pair their functional expertise with our manpower expertise, together, we build a solid, reliable, better product and a reliable requirement for determining manpower.
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