Strategic Management of Human Capital

Employees of the HTF agencies are a critical resource for mission delivery.

The Department's Human Capital Plan guides the HTF agencies' efforts on this goal. The plan provides for strategic alignment of the workforce, workforce planning and deployment, leadership, and knowledge management. The Department's plan also contains initiatives to help the Department recruit, develop, and retain the diverse talent needed now and in the future to perform its mission and achieve strategic objectives.

Challenge

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has stated that the entire federal government faces an impending wave of retirements of long-service, highly competent federal employees. From this arises a large-scale strategic human resource planning issue. While this exodus of talent will not happen overnight, the Department must plan now to maintain required levels of experience, competencies, and knowledge levels in the Department's civilian, military, and contract workforce. Succession planning, as well as managing and maintaining adequate institutional knowledge, will be crucial for the Department's ability to carry out its functions during this period of high workforce turnover.

All of the HTF modes participated in Department-wide human capital efforts. At the HTF modal level, the following actions supported the Department's Human Capital Plan:

FHWA

With the implementation of its FY 2004 Workforce/Human Capital Plan, FHWA had a much better picture of workforce dynamics. Consistent with the earlier predictions, approximately 67 percent of FHWA's senior leaders and managers (Senior Executive Service (SES) and GS-15) will be eligible to retire within the next five years. When these possible retirements are combined with other losses from normal attrition and vacancies created by internal promotions, FHWA can expect a 40 percent turnover in its entire workforce by the end of FY 2006.

To fully implement the Strategic Management of Human Capital initiative of the PMA and continue to maintain a fully qualified workforce to deliver FHWA's programs to customers, FHWA required each of its internal organizations to develop a unit plan to formally analyze internal succession and workforce development needs. The unit manager also formulated strategies to meet these future needs.

FHWA also established a clear mandate to continue to provide program and technical expertise to customers while completing a transition from an engineering review and approval organization to one that is more multi-disciplinary and embodies the essential elements of major project control and program stewardship. In FY 2004, FHWA maintained employment levels at or above 97 percent of authorized FTE by implementing an aggressive External Recruitment Plan that placed special emphasis on the recruitment of Hispanics and persons with disabilities.

As a part of FHWA's workforce planning and in support of this continuing transition to a more multidisciplinary approach to the oversight and stewardship of the Federal-aid Highway Program, FHWA established a Multidisciplinary Employee Development Program. The goal of the program is to develop and enhance employees' skills necessary to ensure the effectiveness of states' processes in areas that are major project drivers, such as financing, controlling project-level costs, schedule performance, transportation planning, and maintaining accountability over funds.

FHWA enjoyed an attrition rate of nearly four percent which was 40 percent below that of the rest of the federal government in FY 2004. This was attributed to high employee satisfaction with their job, work environment, and Agency leadership.

Finally, FHWA implemented its Leadership Development Program. This program focuses on the early identification of potential leaders. The target audience for this course is GS-11 through GS-13 level employees. As part of this program, the Agency has developed and deployed a new educational course for potential future leaders entitled, “The Foundation for Visionary Leadership.”

FTA

FTA took positive steps during FY 2004 to strategically manage its workforce. Since FY 1998, FTA's attrition rate (retirements and departures for other jobs) averaged approximately six percent per year. Internal analysis projected that by 2008, retirements alone could reach as high as 225 FTEs, or 40 percent of FTA's total workforce. Without efforts to train current staff and recruit highly qualified new staff, this potential wave of retirements could result in the loss of institutional knowledge and valuable expertise in managing billions of dollars in transit programs. FTA identified staffing shortages in five core occupations—engineer, community planner, security specialist, transportation program specialist, and information technology (IT) specialist.

FTA chose to address this situation by offering voluntary early retirements and buyouts during FY 2004 to personnel in other occupations. This gave FTA the needed flexibility to recruit the skill-mix needed to meet ongoing and future demands on the Agency, and improve the impact of its programs and focus on customers.

FTA also included in its Strategic Business Plan a performance accountability program for senior executives to measure specific results in transit ridership, transit system security readiness, project management and oversight, and grants management. FTA's senior executives are also evaluated with regard to common accountabilities related to leadership, human resource management, diversity, and the PMA.

NHTSA

In FY 2004, NHTSA implemented a pilot of the new performance management policy requiring movement of all NHTSA GS employees from a pass/fail performance system to a multi-tiered performance management system, as required by the Office of Personnel Management and the Department. NHTSA was also required to demonstrate to the Department that 60 percent or more of employee performance appraisals focused on performance results and provided consequences. This goal was accomplished through updating and revising the performance plan and the incentive awards program policy. NHTSA also participated in the Department's activities to analyze the workforce and begin planning for succession.

FMCSA

Building and sustaining a high-quality workforce is the foundation for FMCSA's organizational excellence. Strategies to prevent gaps in leadership and key programmatic competencies through succession planning and efficient staffing and training are a top priority. To meet these priorities, FMCSA completed a baseline Human Capital Plan in FY 2004. Implementation of this plan is targeted for FY 2005 and will promote alignment of human capital strategies with mission goals and performance targets, expand in-service training with Web-based training to enhance employee knowledge and skills and leadership training to develop future Agency leaders, and apply competitive sourcing strategies and public-private competitions to achieve efficient use of human capital assets.

BTS

BTS developed a Human Capital Plan in FY 2004. Implementation of the plan did not occur in FY 2004 pending completion of an Agency realignment that is currently underway. The realignment shifts current areas of agency focus from process to programs, however no changes in the management distribution or structure is inherent in the revised organizational plan.