Letters

As the president's chief adviser in matters of personnel administration, I read Brian Friel's article, "The Human Capital Crisis," (May) with considerable attention. While Friel constructs several valid points about the current state of the federal workforce, his article reinforces a misguided impression that there is little or nothing left to do to transform human capital management in government. In fact, our work is far from finished. The "crisis" identified by many experts and observers of the federal workforce is actually an opportunity yet to be fully realized.

Two years ago, President Bush identified five key initiatives for management improvement, with strategic management of human capital as the linchpin. Although some who looked at this initiative focused primarily on future retirement projections, I saw an important, broader opportunity-the opportunity to demonstrate how effective, strategic management of our single most valuable resource, our employees, could maximize organizational performance.

High-performing organizations of all types recognize that good people management doesn't happen by accident. It requires forethought, planning and investment focused on getting results through the three key people drivers in organizations: the talent to get the work done; visionary leadership; and an atmosphere that inspires employees to do their very best. The president asked me to help federal agencies link their human capital planning into every aspect of agency management. We know we can produce better results for the taxpayers through better workforce management practices.

The story's opening page said, "It's time to deflate the overblown rhetoric about federal staffing problems." Yet, predicting and reacting to fluctuations in staffing is not the whole story. Without careful attention to the requirements of the federal workforce, we could find ourselves unprepared to address whatever the future may bring.

It is nice to feel a sense of satisfaction as we see our efforts to improve our recruitment and retention of a high-quality workforce apparently begin to pay off. But the results of the Federal Human Capital Survey clearly demonstrate there are many factors that influence "getting employees to sign up and stay put," as stated by Friel.

We must be able to know with certainty that effective human capital management is helping agencies accomplish their important missions and get the results they need. Our desire to improve human capital management in the federal government is not rooted in "a false sense of insecurity among federal leaders," as Friel stated in his article. Rather, we are seizing an incredible opportunity to act with purpose and to ensure that our federal workforce is diverse, highly skilled, strategically deployed, effectively led and fully engaged to do its best work. The American people deserve nothing less. With a combined sense of confidence and obligation, I am committed to making this vision a reality in every federal agency.

Kay Coles James
Director
Office of Personnel Management
Washington

However, it isn't wise to take a snapshot of the government workforce during a three-year bear market and say that average retirement rates are 2 percent to 4 percent, and therefore there isn't a crisis, only a concern. The pressure just keeps building as more retirement-eligible folks just hang on and more mid-level federal employees leave for lack of promotion opportunities. When the bull returns and the pressure to stay is released, the wave is going to swamp the government. The fact that interns at some agencies are 42 years old and the government is not the career of choice for college graduates is a grave concern.

I just taught a class for new labor relations specialists, and most of the federal employees in the room were older than I am, and I have almost 15 years of government service. I have been to the Office of Personnel Management's Symposium of Employee and Labor Relations conference for the last three years, and I almost never meet a federal labor or employee relations specialist under 30 years old.

All the workforce planning programs and statistical analysis are fine and good. But a good old-fashioned walk around the federal block will show that we are in a crisis, and the sooner the senior HR folks recognize it, the better. Maybe not this year or the next, but the retirement wave will happen, and it is better to be prepared.

Michael Stein
Senior Labor Relations Specialist
Food Safety and Inspection Program
Agriculture Department

Steve Richardson
Program Specialist
Labor Department

In "Cash Clash" (July), Robert Reischauer was misidentified. He is president of the Urban Institute.