GovernmentExecutive.com

The federal government must enhance and refocus Hispanic hiring plans, and remove barriers to encourage greater opportunities for Hispanic applicants and employees, according to a new report.

The Federal Hispanic Work Group, created in May by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, concluded that the government should establish a media outreach and branding strategy to help agencies market various types of federal employment to Hispanics, and should include diversity requirements in the performance evaluations that hiring officials use.

The report noted that Hispanic participation in the federal workforce has increased marginally from 6.4 percent in 1997 to 7.79 percent in 2007. Hispanics are even further underrepresented in the government's senior ranks, the group said, where they make up only 3.63 percent. Hispanics also are in occupational niches in the federal sector and disproportionately are hired in some agencies and occupations more than others, according to the report.

"We [the federal government] should be the model employer when it comes to all groups in a society and unless we are willing to become that ... we shouldn't be so forceful in our discussions with the private sector about it," said EEOC Commissioner Christine Griffin at a meeting on Thursday. "We need to model the right behavior, and this is an area where we certainly have not done that."

Several panelists at the EEOC meeting noted that increasing job opportunities for Hispanics will require a commitment from top leadership at agencies, and most notably, the next president. This would involve ensuring that equal employment opportunity is integrated and aligned with the overall mission and goals of the agency, including its human capital plan, staffing and budget, panelists said.

Commissioners expressed particular concern with the lack of participation and leadership by the Office of Personnel Management in boosting diversity efforts. EEOC Commissioner Stuart Ishimaru said it will be up to the new leadership at OPM to begin addressing the lack of diversity at federal agencies, specifically among Hispanics and people with disabilities.

"It strikes me that one of the elephants in the room is the absence of [OPM] in all of these discussions," Ishimaru said. "The EEOC is a law enforcement agency, and it's not the personnel agency of the federal government. ...When people say leadership starts at the top, [OPM] is the top."

Ramon Suris Fernandez, director of the Civil Rights Center at the Labor Department, said that as 60 percent of the federal workforce becomes eligible to retire during the next eight years, the federal government has an opportunity to address the issue of underrepresentation of Hispanics. "This is a historic moment," he said.

Meanwhile, Ishimaru noted specific concern with occupational niches for Hispanics in the federal sector, notably Customs and Border Protection and the Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Homeland Security Department, as well as front-line jobs at the Social Security Administration. DHS and the Social Security Administration are considered the top agencies hiring Hispanics.

"When you take those people out of the federal workforce picture, the positions of Hispanics in the federal workforce is extremely troubling," Ishimaru said. "We can't let niche employment point us away from looking at the problems Hispanics face in entering, staying and advancing within the federal workplace."

Carlton Hadden, director of EEOC's Office of Federal Operations, said Hispanics often are clustered in specific jobs, many of which interact to a large degree with the Hispanic public. He also noted these jobs were fairly low in pay, and pointed to an OPM report that found most Hispanic employees are concentrated within the General Schedule 5 through 8 pay grades.

To address the issue of niche employment, the work group recommended establishing a consortium of federal agencies whose mission-critical occupations include science, technology, engineering and mathematics to coordinate recruiting of Hispanics. The work group also recommended creating full-time Hispanic employment program manager positions at federal agencies to address job initiatives and programs.

In addition, the work group suggested that agencies make better use of internships and create mentoring programs to boost the recruitment, hiring and retention of Hispanics in the federal workforce.

Commissioner Naomi Earp said the work group made 26 recommendations, some of which would require a vote by the commission. "I would like to be committed to anything we can do right away and that we not necessarily wait for the next administration," she said, "and for those things that we can't take on, that we leave a clear roadmap for the next administration."