FORT SILL, Okla. (Oct. 23, 2014) -- The Developmental Assignment Program (DAP) is an Armywide program that allows government employees to gain valuable job experience in cross-functional assignments.
DA civilians GS 9-13 are encouraged to apply to this program each year. Chosen applicants are offered 60 day supplemental cross-job and cross-skill training opportunities at various Army installations across the globe.
Overseen by Installation Managment Command (IMCOM), applicants are selected to fill positions either within their current field of work or to experience a position in a different field. At the end of their assignment period, employees return to their previous job positions with increased skills, communication, and abilities.
"When you come back from that assignment, you bring more to the job and the environment is better. It increases the loyalty, that your boss let you go ... so when you come back you want to work that much harder so you let them know you appreciate that and you'll work twice as much harder to make sure everything gets done. Letting your employees go and come back (on theses assignments) is big," said Dr. Thomas Easterly, Fort Sill Garrison Plans Analysis Integration Office management analyst.
Easterly participated in the DAP program representing Fort Sill and was assigned to work under IMCOM at the Pentagon, in a position outside of his current field.
"I actually picked all three Pentagon assignments available. All my senior leadership friends told me, 'you don't know about working in the Pentagon, until you work in the Pentagon,' and they were right," said Easterly. "I worked on Lt. Gen. David Halverson's s staff for ACSIM (Assistant Cheif of Staff for Installation Management), Maj. Gen. Al Ayacock and Chris Collins on real property. Finding out what's on installations and what exists, what doesn't exist. It's a whole plethora of stuff. But it was a good learning experience."
Easterly says his experience enabled him to bring a lot of new information back to Fort Sill. The skills that he gained on assignment provide valuable input for senior leadership and command. The decisions and plans that are made at the Pentagon affect the entire Army. This brought a new perspective of thought process and decision making to Easterly, which he in turn was able to bring back to his position on Fort Sill and improve upon things here.
Rhonda Hawes, casualty operations coordinator on Fort Sill, was also chosen as part of DAP. Her assignment took her to Grafenwoehr, Germany, where she worked with the director of human resources, a complement to her position here.
"It was really rewarding," she said. "One thing I learned is you have to have some tenacity, you gotta hit the ground running because it's a lot of work, it's a lot of responsiblity."
During her time in Germany, Hawes was able to experience different areas under the director, such as workforce development, Army substance abuse program, and the education center to gain a familiarity with all that the director does.
"Being at that level and to run around with him (the director) to all these meeting, it really had an impact on my own leadership development," said Hawes.
Hawes's current position is with the director of human resources, so the exprience with DAP in Grafenwoehr allowed her to develop her skills as a director and apply those skills as a leader in the causality assistance center.
"The best thing I got out of it, is now I feel like I want to go do more. In the DA civilian world, things are changing, people are retiring. All these positions are becoming vacant and so IMCOM is using this program as a succession planning, to be able to fill these slots as these people vacate them through attrition," said Hawes. "It's been outstanding for me. I'm back in casualty now and I'm like, OK what else can I do? I want to look for the next thing."
"If you're looking for an adventure and you're looking to expand your career goals ... you need to do the developmental assignment programs," said Easterly.
Hawes added DAP to her resume upon selection for the program.
"I got three job interviews when I put DAP on my resume, with West Point in New York and Fort Belvoir,Virginia, and then one with United States Army Garrison in Japan. So the potential is there. It opened up doors and opportunities," she said.
In 2014, 176 GS employees applied for positions world-wide. Of those, 56 were offered positions within the program. With the selection being so limited the chance to participate in the program is a tremendous opportunity.
"The program is competitive and coveted, because not everyone gets in," says Easterly. "When you get selected to go and the government spends the dollars on you, they see something in you for the future of the Army ... the government ... the civil service. They see something special and we have to take that and we have to run with it."
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