Fort Leavenworth was host to the Enhanced Engagement Training Conference (E2TC) at the Lewis and Clark Center Wednesday, Sept. 9 and Thursday Sept. 10. The event brought together several of the Department of the Army's senior most leaders in an effort to craft reasonable solutions to address issues facing the Army's modern civilian workforce.
The conference, which was organized by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, was part of an effort to address a presidential mandate to increase civilian employee engagement scores to 67 percent from the current number of 62.5 percent. The desired goals of the event were to spur recommendations, which could be brought back to Washington D.C. for further review.
"The new Army Chief of Staff says readiness is his number one priority," said Debra S. Wada, assistant secretary of the Army (Manpower & Reserve Affairs). "Readiness means, not only the readiness of military, but of our civilians. We are here today because, we've got a morale problem in our Civilian Corps. I think we understand what the problems and challenges are. I'm hopeful the breakout sessions will provide useful recommendations with which to move forward."
The hand-picked senior leaders in attendance were separated into eight groups to address four specific engagement issues, including: performance management, career management, professional development and communication. Each section had a subject matter expert to provide guidance and a lead to act as a facilitator.
After a day and half of discussion, the groups presented their findings to representatives of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and Gen. David Perkins, commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, who was in attendance on the second day. He focused much of his remarks on the importance of leadership at the local level.
"I have a huge passion for leadership," Perkins said. "Not only because I am a proponent for leadership development in the Army, but because I think it is the number one ingredient to success in an organization. All leadership is local. There are institutional-level policies that enable it or enforce it, but it really is a local commodity and most people underestimate that."
After the presentations, Perkins provided guidance for the senior leaders present to take back to their organizations. He discussed the concept of mission statements and used Google's as an example: To organize the world's information in an easily accessible manner.
"If a person working for Google is working on an idea and it doesn't address that vision, they change course," Perkins said "The Army's mission is to ensure that when we send Soldiers into battle, they have the full might and weight of the United States behind them. If your efforts don't tie directly to that vision, you need to rethink them."
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