Human Capital in the Intelligence Community
Initiative introduces a planning framework for the U.S. intelligence community that helps drive human capital policies towards meaningful change.
Human capital—the skills, insights, experience, and motivation that people bring to their jobs—is a critical contributor to an organization’s success.
Left untapped and underutilized, it can also be the source of an organization’s greatest liabilities.
The rate of progress of the federal government’s intelligence community (IC) toward building a culture of collaboration rests largely on its people and their skills. Realizing the value of the IC’s human capital, and in response to a changing national security environment, the National Intelligence Strategy (NIS) mandated in 2005 that the IC attract and unify an innovative, results-focused workforce.
When the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was established in 2004, it responded to the NIS mandate by creating the first-ever IC Strategic Human Capital Plan—one of the more significant examples of cross-agency collaboration at that time. It outlined human capital initiatives that could integrate agency intelligence and analysis to support national security. Since then, initiatives such as the 500-Day Plan and Vision 2015 continue to serve as roadmaps to achieve IC-wide integration.
But many organizations—including IC agencies—find it difficult to implement and sustain change programs involving human capital, even if they’re well designed. To support the IC, Booz Allen Hamilton—long recognized as a thought leader in solving organizational problems—introduced the Human Capital Implementation Planning Framework.
The framework is part of a capability the firm developed to help organizations go beyond simply talking about changing human capital initiatives to implementing them effectively. A way of strategically thinking about and tactically implementing change, the framework provides questions to be addressed, activities to be carried out, and methods for measuring success over time.
“Programs can be better implemented within a common collaborative framework, where tools and best processes are shared,” says Booz Allen executive advisor David Broadhurst. “The Human Capital Implementation approach is a way to talk about change under the constructs of a framework.”
The IC-wide framework can translate human capital strategies into implementation plans that feature a common approach for making those strategies operational while preserving the unique characteristics of each agency. It addresses the gap between policy makers and policy implementers by providing repeatable procedures for human capital initiatives. When implemented, the procedures can then achieve outcomes such as collaborative planning and execution, sharing of best practices and resources, practicality, and sustained results.
The framework is being put into practice as part of the IC Round Table Series, a structured learning forum in which information is developed and shared with agency stakeholders. Round Table participants use the framework and its elements as discussion items to weigh risks and rewards from different points of view.
A second example of how the framework is being used involves testing, evaluation, and refinement. As the framework is being implemented in various federal agencies, agency practitioners are providing data and information to assess its utility and the refinements needed for improvement.
“This framework helps an organization manage change better so everyone can benefit, with a greater chance for success,” Broadhurst says. “It helps institutionalize and sustain change with a groundbreaking collaborative, comprehensive approach. Change is tough, but our capability shows real-life examples of how to accomplish it successfully.”
Applying the Framework: IC Pay Modernization Example
According to a 2007 survey, IC employees believe that promotions and other benefits are based more on a person’s longevity than on job performance, and that underperformers are rarely held accountable for their actions. This perception can be traced to a compensation system that rewards many government workers with cost-of-living increases as they progress in their careers, with little regard as to whether their individual job performance has been good or bad.
Based on concepts from the 1940s, the timeworn General Schedule (GS) compensation system has not aged well, and no longer meets the needs of today’s diverse, skilled workforce. But a Pay Modernization initiative now under way across the IC is starting to address these issues.
Pay Modernization refers to the pay-for-performance effort called the National Intelligence Civilian Compensation Program (NICCP), established by ODNI in collaboration with IC agencies, and designed and implemented by the IC.
The NICCP is a fundamental shift from the current GS pay scale to a more collaborative, market-sensitive, performance-based model. Modernizing the compensation system will help reward excellence, strengthen the IC, and establish a level playing field across IC agencies.
“The modern government workforce wants to be rewarded for what they do,” says principal Dr. David Dye. “Employees want to be inspired to demonstrate their full impact as individuals and as members of an organization.”
Booz Allen is working with the ODNI and IC agencies to support the NICCP, and is using the Human Capital Implementation Planning Framework as a reference point for helping them adapt the NICCP’s system of performance evaluation and compensation.
“When it comes to leveraging their intellectual capital, IC and client organizations often do not think about a framework and activities around that framework,” says Dye. “So they often find that there are gaps between policy and execution.
“One of the hardest things to do well in business is pay modernization,” Dye continues. “But when you get the fundamental changes right—how you pay, reward, and recognize people—the impacts are enormous. These changes should also impact how you recruit, train, and retain a workforce. We’re working with ODNI to develop and implement a market- and performance-based performance approach for recognizing the work and the people who do it.”
The NICCP includes communications initiatives such as developing concise messages strategically tailored to reach stakeholders. To sustain momentum long term, it also links the initiative to personal motivations as well as incentives and rewards, measures commitment level over time, and highlights short-term wins and key milestones.
“Some agencies draft policy, others implement changes based on policy,” says Broadhurst. “Booz Allen helps policy drafters and implementers collaborate so the gap between drafting and implementation is eased.”
For more information, contact David Dye or David Broadhurst.
story posted October 14, 2008
