More than 130 Army Civilian Corps leaders from across the Army came together for the Employee Engagement Training Event May 21-22 at Fort Leavenworth's Lewis and Clark Center. The annual event, put together by the Army's Civilian Workforce Transformation Team considered the theme "Promoting High Performance through Greater Accountability."
Kirby Brown, deputy to the commanding general of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth kicked off the event noting the work event attendees would do over the next two days fit perfectly into President's Management Agenda that was released in Kansas City March 20 by the Office of Manpower and Budget. One of the three pillars highlighted in the agenda is "federal workforce transformation." Diane Randon, performing the duties of the Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), added the Army and DoD has led the effort for human resource reform within the federal government. Randon spoke to the conference by teleconference because of weather-related travel issues on the east coast.
Randon, who oversees Army efforts for civilian workforce transformation told the attendees the Secretary of the Army's number one priority for civilians is human resource reform. She said individuals are held accountable as both supervisors and employees and they must exhibit moral courage, be present, and be attentive to be successful. Randon said the event's theme was chosen because supervisor engagement and accountability helps to build a growth mindset and opportunities for individuals.
Following Randon's remarks, Elisa-Ruth Nelson, human resource specialist for the Army's G-1 and member of the Civilian Workforce Transformation Team that planned the conference, laid the groundwork for measuring employee engagement and teammate Edward Emden, civilian workforce transformation integrator at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), talked about the accountability model that was used in the training event.
Working sessions during the training focused on "know your team," "set clear goals," "collaborate," and "reinforce with integrity." Nelson spoke of the goals for the conference, "first and foremost we would love for people to go back and share," she said. "If they go back and they share with their peers and their leadership then we're planting seeds and employee engagement grows."
"We want to see our employee engagement results improve," she said, "but, what's more important is that people understand the importance of employee engagement because it fosters growth, it fosters development, trust, high-performing teams, low turnover, and so much more." Emden agreed, "This [training event] is a really great opportunity for us to get together with people that normally we're only interacting with from a distance, and get together folks who are really passionate about employee engagement and civilian development."
This year's training event focused on supervisors. "We decided to bring the supervisors in because they're the lynchpin. They're the ones who can actually drive motivation and drive people to think differently. They can influence the individuals that they work with," said Nelson.
Nelson said the engagement training event began by focusing on officials responsible for engagement and two years ago switched to focus on supervisors. "I'm looking forward to the day we have dynamic employees here [at the event], she said. "Supervisors have a role in improving and increasing employee engagement, but now we need to get employees to understand what their role is. We're moving in the right direction now, but we'll be definitely going in the right direction once we expose employees to [the importance of] employee engagement."
"Engagement really has to be something that happens at that local level," said Emden. "We invited supervisors here to come to this event because supervisors are really the key to employee engagement. We're planting a seed right now and hopefully our participants will take that back and it will start to spread through their organizations."
One of the indicators that employee engagement is moving in the right direction is the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Emden said the annual survey allows leaders to get a pulse for what's happening across the Army as a whole and down to the unit and community level. "Leaders at those various echelons know what the perceptions are across their workforce, know how to address any issues or build off of any successes they already have," he explained.
The survey is conducted annually in the spring and is normally sent to a sample of the civilian workforce. This year, the Office of Personnel Management will send the survey to all federal workers who were either full-time or part-time employee as of October 2017 to get a census of federal workers views.
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