Remarks of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta

Human Capital Management Government

Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, Arlington, VA

December 2, 2014

As prepared for delivery

Thank you, Jim (Hagy).

It’s great to be back with you again. When I addressed this conference last year, I had been the Director of OPM for just a few weeks. I outlined my priorities for building a diverse, innovative, engaged and talented workforce that is ready to meet the increasing challenges and opportunities of Federal service.

Today, I will share with you some of the work we’ve been doing to act on those priorities as well as some of our future plans to continue down this path.

Before I talk about those initiatives, I would like to take the time to thank you for the hard work you do each and every day. So much of what you do in the human resources space makes it possible for your agencies to succeed in their missions.

You help hiring managers across government effectively hire and retain world-class talent for our Federal workforce. I’m also grateful that each year you choose to honor human resources professionals for the work they do.

This year, three OPM teams have been named finalists for your HCMG Awards. You are recognizing OPM projects that go to the heart of our customer service, recruitment and development missions. OPM’s HR Solutions team is being honored for its automated performance management tool, which shows how agencies can use technology in innovative ways to make government work better.

Our Veterans Service Department is a finalist for its Vets to Feds career development program that targets 18- to 24-year-old veterans. This project includes mentoring and the development of accelerated career paths in high- demand occupations for young veterans whose career opportunities might otherwise be limited.

And our SES team is being recognized for our Federal Coaching Network, which includes a database of coaches from all levels of government who have volunteered to help their fellow employees. The Coaching Network is one of a number of initiatives that our team is working on to strengthen the SES as we work to develop the next generation of leaders.

I am proud of the work these three teams have accomplished, and congratulate them all on a job well done. I know that HCMG’s recognizing them as finalists makes all of us at OPM very proud.

Over the next three days, you will be discussing many of the areas OPM is focusing on.

And you’ll hear from some of our key leaders in strategic workforce planning, leadership development, performance management and human resources solutions.

One of the exciting new initiatives we are working on is REDI, which stands for Recruitment, Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion.

When it comes to recruitment, we are taking a long, hard look at USAJOBS. We’ve held several focus groups with veterans and with students and other job seekers to find out what would make the USAJOBS experience more efficient and easier for our users. We’re working to make job descriptions simpler, easier to understand and we are putting them in plain English. USAJOBS needs to be more intuitive and more interactive, so job seekers can better match their skills with available jobs, and we are making those changes.

When it comes to hiring, OPM is working hard to untie the knots that keep you from being as effective as possible.

For example, earlier this year, the Veterans Administration needed to quickly hire IT specialists to create solutions for its backlog of claims. The VA has a rule that was holding up the hiring process.

My OPM team stepped in, and was able to identify this crisis as a case for an exception to that rule. We found a workaround that enabled VA officials to quickly hire the IT talent they needed.

Many of you have asked for more training on the Pathways Programs. So we’re developing training for HR professionals, designing a new tool kit for you and for hiring managers and adding in a support handbook for Pathways Program officers.

I’ve been on the road for the past year and learned a lot as I’ve traveled around the country meeting with Federal employees. I’ve also visited with students at colleges, universities, trade schools and other programs. University students – AKA millennials - are the next generation of American workers. We need to recruit, develop and work to retain this talent in ways that will appeal to them.

We know millennials are extremely talented and ambitious. Research tells us that they are purpose- driven; that they want to make a difference and they believe government can make a difference.

We must build on those instincts. We must take advantage of their desire to innovate, to try new things.

But, millennials do not look for jobs the way most of us in this room traditionally have. We need to use the platforms young people use to hunt for jobs, and that is why we are experimenting with posting jobs on LinkedIn and Twitter. We are using graphics, humor, and plain language. I hope you saw our special report on millennials and their opinions on Federal service.

The data was very encouraging. Our number of millennials is increasing and millennial Federal employees strongly believe the work they do is important. They believe they are given real opportunities to improve their skills and they are overwhelmingly satisfied with their jobs.

Even though millennials tend to stay in one job for an average of two-to-three years, we need to show them that they have can have multiple careers right here in Federal service. They can have mobility within agencies and between agencies.

Millennials and the competition for hiring among major employers throughout the country have shown us that we have to think about recruitment and hiring differently.

So, to educate ourselves better about the future of recruitment and hiring, OPM brought together leaders from government, business, academia and global organizations to talk about the future of leadership and how we address the common challenges we are facing.

We talked about how technology is changing the HR environment. Our use of telework increases every day. Will the future of more work be virtual?

Will we be assessing job candidates in new ways?

Instead of reading their resumes and talking to them behind a desk, will we ask them to be part of a simulation so we can gauge how they will react to real-work situations?

Another speaker talked to us about using other simulations to select and develop our leaders of the future.

Rather than looking at an employee’s record on paper and sending that person to leadership training in a classroom, Dan Parisi and his team from BTS talked about the value of using gaming to digitally engage and motivate potential leaders. The U.S. Army has been successfully using this technique for years.

We also talked about LinkedIn’s approach to recruiting, a strategy that focuses on being proactive. In government, we need to understand that finding a top candidate is more than posting a job and waiting for the talent to come to us.

LinkedIn experts suggest that great recruiters think of recruiting in the same way that people think about marketing, and that includes developing a strong employer brand.

At our final Thought Leaders talk two weeks ago, noted business consultant Marcus Buckingham led a very impressive discussion in which he shared with us his strategy of emphasizing employee strengths for assessment of performance management and engagement.

Marcus talked about the value of focusing on coaching and helping employees succeed in their jobs and grow in their careers. He also stressed the importance of leaders frequently meeting with their staffs and providing them with the information they need to perform at a high level.

These Thought Leader Talks energized us and they showed us that the future of recruitment and hiring is rapidly changing. They also showed us that that government must be prepared to take advantage of this new technology-based environment if we are to attract the talent we are seeking --- especially if we are to successfully engage millennials.

Even as we work through the challenges and demands of tight budgets and competition for the most talented and most diverse workforce, I am so proud of the work I see from Federal employees all across this country.

So moving along with the tech-based environment we now live in, I am going to shout out, to Tweet, to blog and to post on Facebook stories that show the incredible motivation, talent and dedication of our Federal employees.

But what I know is not new, is the support you provide to Federal employees in every corner of this nation so that our country continues to run each and every day.

We must continue to be prepared. It is imperative that we position our managers to find and hire the best talent. And, our leaders must have the tools they need to groom their successors and create a pipeline of leadership.

Together, we will face these challenges together. Together, we must make sure we continue to have a model Federal workforce for the future. And this I know: The American people will continue to be served by millions of smart, hard-working, energetic and committed people who get up each and every day determined to do the best job they can.

Thank you.