OPM to track agency training efforts

For the first time, the federal government is collecting and analyzing detailed data on the training that agencies offer their employees.

The Office of Personnel Management will give agencies until Dec. 31, 2006, to begin regularly submitting data on the cost and amount of training offered, according to an announcement last week in the Federal Register.

"The emphasis that we in this administration ... are putting is on the management of human capital," said Nancy Kichak, OPM's associate director for strategic human resources policy. "Therefore, it is causing us to take a new look at how employees are trained."

Kichak said OPM's team of employees in the human capital leadership and merit systems accountability project will monitor the data and work with agencies to ensure they are using training dollars for succession planning and to fill critical skills gaps, as well as improve performance management.

"We're going to look at the skills of their jobs," Kichak said. "If they're an accountant, they're going to be taking accounting classes; if they're an actuary, they're going to be taking actuary classes; they could be taking general management classes."

Specifically, agencies will be required to report: the names of employees receiving training; the title of the classes; the start and end dates; the facility where courses were offered, such as government agency or university; the number of hours; cost; travel costs; and category, such as leadership development.

Kichak said OPM used to gather some training data about a decade ago, but not on such a micro level. Agencies would only report that they sent a certain number of workers to classes.

Training often has been presented as a linchpin to the success of massive personnel reforms under way in many agencies. In April, Sens. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, held a hearing in Honolulu to examine training opportunities for employees under the Defense Department's new National Security Personnel System.

"DoD civilian managers -- who are the backbone of this new system -- must have training that will provide them with the skills and understanding to foster collaborative relationships with their employees, especially in areas like developing what NSPS calls shared expectations of performance," Akaka said.

In January, the Merit Systems Protection Board released survey results indicating that 46 percent of federal employees want more job training, but only 33 percent had communicated expectations for training to their supervisors.

Kichak said the availability of a new data system, the Enterprise Human Resources Integration, will enable OPM to process the additional training figures.