Career Program Managers from across Army Materiel Command headquarters and its major subordinate commands participated in a virtual summit, Aug. 24-26, to discuss continued implementation efforts of the Army’s People Strategy and professional development opportunities for the civilian workforce.
The biannual meeting, hosted by AMC’s deputy chief of staff for personnel, G-1, focused on the transition and alignment of the Army’s 32 career programs into 11 career fields under the recently-formed Army Civilian Career Management Activity.
The creation ACCMA under the Civilian Human Resources Agency advances human capital initiatives, integrates processes and creates additional opportunities for the Army civilian workforce, said Ed Emden, ACCMA director. Where 32 silos for developmental opportunities and career paths previously existed, now career programs are collaborating much more closely and managing growth opportunities from a broader perspective.
“We are thinking about careers now less as a career ladder and more as a career lattice,” said Emden. “We have already started with training opportunities. Instead of opening opportunities to one career program, now they are open to entire career fields.”
Noting the stand-up of ACCMA comes 10 years after the Army assigned all civilians to career programs, AMC’s Executive Deputy to the Commanding General Lisha Adams said the command is in full support of the transition, which was a major effort from the Army People Strategy.
“This will create significant opportunities for growth and advancement, eliminate isolation and replace it with a structure, and leverage scarce resources to provide quality career management support,” Adams said. “The transition will enable us to achieve total Army readiness and meet the challenges of tomorrow.”
ACCMA is focused on six efforts across the 11 career fields:
- Recruiting and Outreach
- Talent Acquisition
- Operations and Programming
- Talent Development
- Talent Assessment and Analysis
- Supervisor Talent Management
From developing workforce plans to revamping training for supervisors, the goal is to create efficiencies and collaborations across career fields for all Army civilians, said Emden.
“We are focused on talent management – developing skills and retaining talent,” he said.
With AMC’s workforce spanning across all career fields, Adams said AMC is formulating its own People Strategy that will be nested with the Army’s, focused on winning the war for talent.
“We want people’s first choice of employment to be AMC,” she said. “A career is a journey and a commitment to lifelong learning, growth and development. I challenge all of you to be the example. Our future depends on having the right talent, and growing and developing our workforce to build the bench.”
In addition to receiving briefs from representatives of the 11 career fields on their priorities and initiatives, summit participants also discussed professional development and training opportunities, changes to the Army Apprentice – now known as the Army Fellows program, and best practices for encouraging participation in the Senior Enterprise Talent Management and Enterprise Talent Management programs.
“The intent of this summit was to increase communication, collaboration and shared understanding of the way ahead,” said Tim McLean, chief of the civilian workforce and talent management division, AMC G-1. “With your participation, we did just that.”
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