By Terrence Kane
WASHINGTON – Officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before Congress on efforts to develop a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
This hearing was the first in over a decade to look specifically at efforts within DHS to increase diversity and inclusion. “The Committee last held a hearing on this topic in 2009 after learning that racial minorities constituted only 20 percent of the DHS workforce,” Chairwoman Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) said in her opening statement.
DHS Chief Human Capital Officer Angela Bailey and GAO Director of Strategic Issues Yvonne Jones provided testimony. Attendance included several members of a non-partisan, good government group called Partnership for Public Service. The organization aims to increase access, retention and equity in the federal workforce via legislative oversight and education.
Dara Carney-Nedelman, an intern at Partnership, described how her organization worked from outside the government to create a diverse workforce. Her area of focus is political appointee positions and educating the public on how they can apply for these positions. This education is crucial, she says, “so the general public is well informed to ensure that there is the most diversified portfolio of candidates at least applying for the positions.”
Madison Kubinski, an associate at Partnership whose focus includes workforce development, said actions taken by the Trump Administration regarding agencies within DHS caused her concern regarding workforce development. The Transportation Security Administration became the second DHS agency to suffer a hiring a freeze that was announced in early February.
“I am concerned with the TSA recent hiring freeze that they just announced. There have been a few other freezes that the administration is doing,” Kubinski said, referring to recent disruptions to federal hiring. She continued, “I was very happy to see that they wanted to give everybody a percentage increase on they’re paycheck. However, these latest moves are somewhat concerning to me.”
Kubinski says that she is hopeful moving forward that DHS will continue to make it a priority to hire and retain the most qualified people possible. This positive sentiment was echoed in the hearing by Ranking Member Dan Crenshaw (R-TX).
“Current efforts at DHS, like developing robust internship programs, recruiting at minority service institutions, and veterans hiring initiatives will all help in continuing this progress,” Crenshaw said in his opening remarks. The hearing also included discussion on several programs and initiatives that have been enacted in the past ten years and what affect, if any, they have had on increasing diversity and retention in the DHS workforce.
DHS has established an Employee and Family Readiness Council with a goal to identify top stressors for workers, as well as provide them with the resources necessary to manage the stress. The Council identified five major challenges that DHS workers face: general stress, dependent care, personal relationships, mental health, and financial concerns.
The department has instituted new training and counseling practices that specifically target the challenges related to personal and mental health to increase worker satisfaction and retention. However, working to increase the diversity of the workforce can often cause challenges for the department particularly in dealing with non-traditional workers.
Non-traditional workers are typically those that work reduced hours or engage in teleworking to accommodate their responsibilities outside of work. While non-traditional work seems like an easy set of solutions to a significant problem for many employees, Bailey made it clear that things aren’t quite so simple.
Asked about the potential expansion of teleworking withing DHS, Bailey said “So it depends, right? Because when you are going through the airport you certainly don’t want your TSA agent teleworking because I think you’d want to get on the plane,” providing an example of roles that may not be eligible for telework programs.
Telework expansion, according to Bailey, is “a balance of making sure the mission is able to be accomplished and then making sure that those who are eligible to telework can.” This provides a narrower path for retention for some DHS positions that require employees to work in person. But Bailey indicated that expanding the telework program where applicable would be a priority for the department moving forward.
Another initiative created a process by which subject matter experts take an active role in the hiring of new works, rather than it being left solely to the human capital office. “It helps tremendously,” said Bailey of the initiative, “What it really helps with is that they actually get more qualified people because they actually know who they want to hire. And I don’t mean by name I mean that they are able to recognize talent.” However, the initiative is still too new to have statistics showing its affect on worker diversity or retention.
During questioning, Republican members were focused on the nature of diversity barriers, rather than the specific efforts to combat them. The questions focused on whether the barriers were intentional or unintentional, to which both witnesses responded that there were no “intentional” barriers to workforce development.
However, Democratic committee members questioned the claim that DHS was significantly more diverse than it had been a decade ago. They cited specific reports that showed the department was failing to retain female workers at the same rate as their male counterpart, and that the department had a crucial shortage of bilingual employees.
As a result, Democrats continued to call for stronger efforts and better reporting of results. These improvements could be the ultimate effects of legislation currently before the committee, the Department of Homeland Security Enhanced Hiring Act.
The Enhanced Hiring Act has two provisions related to hiring veterans and workforce diversification. First, the act would condense several veterans hiring authorities into a single program to increase efficiency.
Second, the act would allow DHS to hire workers regardless of work history, so long as the total workforce still maintains at least 20% veterans. This would increase opportunities for diverse hiring as it loosens the current requirements on DHS to hire veterans at a hire rate than other applicants.
Advanced Reporting Times, Spring 2020 