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Federal agencies need strong leadership commitment, structural changes and a willingness to confront internalized biases if they want to create a truly diverse workforce, speakers at a National Academy of Public Administration panel said on Friday.

"People look at mechanisms to improve diversity, but the bottom line is if you don't have support at the top, those other things don't matter," said John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service. "Managers need to be held accountable for providing that culture."

Tania Shand, staff director for the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia, said a new bill introduced by Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., would provide some of that structural reform and accountability. The bill would create three-person panels that include a woman and a member of a racial minority group to review appointments to Senior Executive Service positions, and then report those appointments to agency heads.

"It says you must know about what candidates are moving forward," Shand said. "You should know if your SES is getting more or less diverse."

Ron Stroman, managing director of the Office of Opportunity and Inclusiveness at the Government Accountability Office, said those kinds of structural changes were important, but that inherent biases had an impact on the ability of federal workers to advance as well.

"Work sometimes gets done informally," Stroman said. "You're walking down the hall, you're talking to your colleagues. Who are you going to have those conversations with? You're going to have those conversations with people you feel comfortable with, who look like you, whose office you can go into. It has real implications for the work you do, for the ratings you get, the promotions that people get. This natural implication to work with people who look like them is something agencies really have to understand if they're going to deal with this issue of diversity."

Palguta said it was not enough to simply recruit a candidate pool and expect that would result in a diverse leadership team.

"We've got overall, pretty good diversity, but [it's] clustered at the lower levels. I don't think we can assume that takes care of it," Palguta said. "It may be that we need to focus and move away from spending all our time on recruitment efforts, and look at what we're doing to get our folks ready to move up into leadership positions."

When it comes to making those final decisions, Stroman said, stereotypes and biases can be at their most pernicious.

"As you go up the ladder, the criteria for selection becomes vague," he said. "It's things like 'do you have leadership skills?' What are leadership skills? Who defines that? As the criteria for selection becomes less precise, stereotypes creep into the decision-making process."

COMMENTS

• Ignorance is at an all time peak when it comes to what diversity means and what it doesn't mean (all across the US). It is the same for Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity. Many comments/reactions come from fear and ignorance (not using the word ignorance in a derogatory manner, for we ALL are ignorant ... Will Rogers once said, "All people are ignorant - just on different subjects." This review panel is not being created to ensure individuals are promoted beyond the glass ceiling simply because of their race or gender...that would be blatant discrimination. Instead, they are there to ensure justifiable and objective qualification factors are consistently being considered for promotions into SES levels...we already know (statistically) this isn't happening at several management layers in the federal government. It should never be who you know or who knows you...but it should be what you know and how you apply that knowledge to being the best at your job. The person who does meets all the qualification factors the most, should be awarded the position. As for the terms Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity...there isn't enough space to clarify here. Don't fear the fairness of our equality laws...they apply to everyone who has a race (that would be...everyone), gender (yep, again, everyone), etc. Final quote from Will,"An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out." Good Luck to the panel - keep fairness and equality at the top of your agenda. C.A. Dawson Posted January 9, 2008 2:18 PM
• How about extending the benefits of diversity to professional sports? Perhaps a recruiting panel should prescreen athletes prior to coaches to insure candidates that "look like America". But that would be crazy. Pro sports is about optimum performance, regardless of skin color. Like our government and military should be. Harrison Flint Posted December 1, 2007 12:47 AM
• All I've seen in almost 30 years of federal employment is an extraordinary emphasis on diversity, with extensive EEO programs and mandatory diversity training on a frequent basis, and recruitment aimed at members of minority groups. I'm a white male, and despite having a record of significant accomplishments in my career, and scoring well on promotional exams and interviews, I have never been selected for a GS-14 position, despite ranking highly on many Best Qualified lists. Others with less experience and accomplishments, who are younger and members of minority groups, have gotten promoted instead. It seems that white males are the new minority these days, so where's the beef? ICEd Posted November 27, 2007 3:39 PM