Frustrated that hiring actions move at the speed of turtles'
So is the Department of Defense Military District of Washington.
To reduce the cycle time for recruitment and to improve the quality of new hires, the MDW is teaming with the Office of Secretary of Defense Deputy Chief Management Office to pilot a new way of doing business.
The pilot, led by personnel from the performance management section of the DoD Strategic Management and Performance Office with a cross-functional team from the MDW, is expected to be completed by the end of the current fiscal year.
Hiring is a team sport enlisting the support of budget, manpower, MDW human resources, the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Civilian Personnel Advisory Center and most importantly, command and line management.
Over the years the work of this omnibus HR team has become compartmentalized and fragmented with many handoffs, miscommunication and interminable waiting without clear roles, responsibility or accountability for action.
The pilot is designated to reinvigorate the process through the horizontal integration, coordination and synchronization of business operations.
After digesting that mouthful one might ask, what does that mean' How will it work'
The solution is the tried and true Army method of planning, training and execution according to doctrine.
Here are some key points. Organizational discipline is a key to success. Command is the ultimate authority for the organization as it is responsible for the mission, the people and their performance.
A Table of Distribution and Allowances sourced, manpower driven staffing plan will be the controlling document for management-directed hiring.
Positions, titles, series and grade will be approved in aggregate by the Command eliminating debate and rework each time a single vacancy occurs.
The Command plan will account for 100 percent of authorized positions, avoiding management by exception.
Once approved, managers and supervisors may initiate recruitment immediately based on delegated approval authority from higher level authority and staff, according to the plan. Updates to the plan are cyclical, regular and recurring but not based on a single vacancy.
To enable the execution phase, all of the documents required to recruit a given position will be prepared in advance and staged for execution.
No matter what position becomes vacant, a package will be on the shelf ready for recruitment by line management without further approval.
Once received by the CPAC, the action will move immediately to advertisement and issue a referral list in three weeks.
The CPAC will meet this suspense so reliably line managers will be able to block their calendars for the fourth week following the submission of the request for personnel action to interview and select candidates. The rapid receipt of a referral list, interview, selection and offer of employment is essential to reaching top candidates who will not wait months for a decision.
In 1942 Jacques Cousteau combined the demand regulator with compressed air to enable a Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA), even though the piece parts had existed since the nineteenth century.
To speed the hiring process from selection to entry on duty, three pre-existing information systems will be introduced and applied by the CPAC in an alignment not used to date.
USA Staffing will replace Resumex as the means to distinguish highly qualified candidates from minimally qualified candidates.
USA Staffing also notifies applicants of their status several times during the application process.
Suitability and security evaluations and decisions are made rapidly using a modern analytic capability, the Clearance Adjudication Tracking System (CATS) to facilitate electronic adjudication (eAdjudication). CATS is a viable technical means to make eligibility determinations for security clearances by applying computer coded business rules.
The third system will be the initial operating capability of the Army's electronic Entry on Duty (eEOD) system.
The successful candidate completes all documents required for service online and signs two documents on the day they enter on duty, ready to work. The pilot project team will conduct training for managers, supervisors and personnel practitioners and will provide policies, procedures and desk guides for their use.
The target go live date is Oct. 1. The project is designed to be replicated by other Army activities, other services, defense agencies and federal departments. Speed in hiring is everything.
The MDW, CPAC and the pilot project team intend to demonstrate Army 'Can Do' by breaking the cycle of intransience and frustration.
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