Developing, Valuing, and Sustaining a Premiere Workforce

FY 2012 - FY 2016

Table of Contents

Message from the Chair

Introduction

I. Understanding the EEOC

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Mission, Vision, and Goals
Strategic Plan and Direction
Factors Driving a Successful Human Capital Strategy

II. Human Capital Plan Strategy

Approach Used in the Development of the Plan
Supporting Infrastructure
Roles and Responsibilities

III. Workforce Overview

IV. Workforce Planning and Analysis

V. Human Capital Goals and Strategies

Strategic Alignment (Planning and Goal Setting)
Leadership and Knowledge Management (L&KM)
Results-Oriented Performance Culture
Talent Management
Accountability

Appendix A: Human Capital Roles and Responsibilities

Appendix B: Implementation and Accountability Plan

Appendix C: Key FY 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Results

Image

Developing, Valuing, and Sustaining a Premiere Workforce

Introduction

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) Human Capital Plan for FY 20122016 outlines our mission, strategic goals, standards for success, and major human capital strategic initiatives. With the EEOC's approach to hiring, training, retaining, and rewarding its valuable employees, we expect to increase Agency coordination and progress on achieving those initiatives. Our vision is to ensure our employees understand and support our goals and approach, and have the skills, knowledge, and competencies necessary to perform their important work.

The Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework (HCAAF) establishes and defines the five human capital systems that together provide a single, consistent definition of human capital management for the federal government. The HCAAF fuses human capital management to the merit system principles-a cornerstone of the American Civil Service-and other civil services laws, rules, and regulations. The five systems of HCAAF are identified along with a brief description as to how they will be used by the EEOC.

Strategic Alignment (Planning and Goal Setting) - The EEOC Human Capital Community recognizes that our first priority is to support the Agency's mission. As a strategic partner of EEOC management at all levels, we implement and improve HC programs that help the Agency's workforce achieve goals and meet future challenges. As the workforce changes and new HC requirements are added, we must collaborate with senior leadership and financial and technology leaders to acquire the necessary resources and systems to effectively fulfill HC responsibilities.

The Human Capital Plan goals align with the Agency's goals. These goals will be achieved by a high performing workforce; a workforce that is results focused and is rewarded for achieving the mission through properly aligned performance plans.

A human resources team that provides sound advice, processes actions correctly, and accurately maintains the history of the workforce allows managers to focus on the mission and less on administrative matters. Ensuring compliance with Merit System Principles and other human capital related regulatory and legal requirements give managers and employees the trust in the system that is need to ensure the mission is accomplished.

Leadership and Knowledge Management (Implementation) - Hiring and training a talented workforce is only part of the equation for success. EEOC must continue to develop managers and leaders with the skills necessary to address the challenges facing the Agency today and in the future. As part of the ongoing strategic planning process, EEOC will conduct workforce and succession planning, prioritize and invest in closing skill gaps, align performance with strategic goals, and fully engage its employees to find way to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Results Oriented Performance Culture (Implementation) - The Agency has a diverse, results-oriented, high performing workforce, and in FY 2012 it will be overhauling its performance management system to better differentiate between high and low performance, effectively link employees to organizational goals and objectives, and recognize and reward high performers.

Talent Management (Implementation) - Talent management addresses competency gaps, particularly in mission-critical occupations, by implementing and maintaining programs to attract, acquire, promote, and retain quality talent.

The Office of Human Resources has worked with the Office of Field Programs and the Office of General Counsel in identifying competencies for four mission-critical occupations: investigators, trial attorneys, administrative judges, and mediators. In FY 2012, additional occupations will be identified and competencies will be incorporated into programs that will allow us to attract, acquire, promote, and retain high performing employees.

Accountability (Evaluating Results) - Human capital management decisions are guided by data-driven, results-oriented planning and accountability systems. Results of the Agency's accountability system must inform the development of HC goals and objectives, in conjunction with the Agency's strategic planning and performance budgets. Effective application of the accountability system contributes to the Agency's practice of effective HC management in

accordance with the Merit System Principles and in compliance with Federal laws, rules, and regulations.

I. Understanding the EEOC

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Mission, Vision, and Goals

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the Nation's primary enforcer of the federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information. It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit. The laws apply to all types of work situations, including hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, wages, and benefits.

The agency opened its doors for business on July 2, 1965, with virtually no enforcement powers; its staff was small and inexperienced; employers, unions, and even judges were resistant to the new law; and there was little judicial precedent on even the basic concepts. However, EEOC used the powers it had to shape employment discrimination law in the areas of religious discrimination and national origin discrimination, the disparate impact theory of discrimination, and sex discrimination.

During the 1970's, Congress provided the Commission with litigation authority to back up its administrative findings and to expand the Commission's jurisdiction. Over the ensuing years, EEOC has evolved and adapted to its changing environment. However, throughout its relatively short history, the one constant has been its passionate, dedicated employees.

Strategic Plan and Direction

On February 22, 2012, the Commission approved a new Strategic Plan for the EEOC covering FY 2012 - 2016. The new plan has three objectives and outcome goals:

1. Combat employment discrimination through strategic law enforcement, with the outcome goals of: 1) have a broad impact on reducing employment discrimination at the national and local levels; and 2) remedy discriminatory practices and secure meaningful relief for victims of discrimination;
2. Prevent employment discrimination through education and outreach, with the outcome goals of: 1) members of the public understand and know how to exercise their right to employment free of discrimination; and 2) employers, unions and employment agencies (covered entities) better address and resolve EEO issues, thereby creating more inclusive workplaces; and
3. Deliver excellent and consistent service through a skilled and diverse workforce and effective systems, with the outcome goal that all interactions with the public are timely, of high quality, and informative.

Achieving EEOC's mission, vision, strategic objectives, and outcome goals requires an inclusive, diverse, highly skilled, highly motivated, and effective workforce comprised of employees who are enthusiastic about where they work and engaged in what they do. They should be provided with a workplace in which they are valued, trained, and encouraged to thrive. Success in recruiting, training, and retaining a workforce that meets changing mission requirements and program priorities requires a commitment to build the necessary infrastructure and a willingness to create a workplace that rewards teamwork and cooperation.

This Human Capital Plan will help to define and direct the strategic management of human capital at EEOC to ensure that employee are effectively utilized to support the EEOC's mission, vision, strategic objectives, and outcome goals.

Our Human Capital Goal is: The right people are in the right place at the right time to carry out the mission of the EEOC.

Our Human Resources Mission is: Provide leadership, guidance, and technical expertise in all areas related to management of EEOC's human resources, including recruitment, employee development, retention of staff, and leadership in labor-management cooperation.

Our Human Resource Vision is: A premier workforce that is diverse, continually learning, and expanding its capacity to shape this Agency's future and that of our Nation.

Factors Driving a Successful Human Capital Strategy

The EEOC has been faced with significant challenges in accomplishing its mission to promote equality of opportunity in the workplace and enforce federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. The following chart shows that the number of Full Time Equivalents¹ (FTE's) has remained relatively flat from FY 2007 until FY 2010, when additional staff were added to the Agency's rolls. However, in FY 2012, fiscal austerity measures have put the EEOC at the midway point between where it was in FY 2009 and in FY 2011.

Image

During times when funding was limited, hiring activity was concentrated on front-line positions directly supporting the agency's mission (primarily Investigators, Trial Attorneys, Attorney-Examiners, and Mediators). While this may seem an appropriate alignment of personnel with mission, it raises issues of inadequate administrative and professional support that ultimately impact both the agency's immediate and strategic effectiveness.

Agency management may take a fresh look at several diverse areas, from the agency's basic processes (e.g., federal sector reform) to headquarters structure (i.e., number of offices and their reporting relationships). Changes in these areas and others must be addressed when planning EEOC's needs for present and future effectiveness.

Workforce planning is a systematic approach to ensuring that the agency has the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, and at the right time. The EEOC, as is generally the case with sustainable organizations, has been involved with aspects of workforce planning throughout its history. What differs now is the emphasis on a systematic examination of the workforce's sustainable capability to meet mission-critical objectives; recruitment, development, motivation, and retention efforts closely tied to building and maintaining that capability, with costs allocated in the agency budget as strategic investments; and evaluation of these efforts in the light of how well they contribute to the effective and efficient accomplishment of the mission.

Concurrently, EEOC has multiple internal and external drivers moving EEOC towards more effective HC planning including:

Legislative and Regulatory: In the last few years, government-wide concerns with human capital issues have resulted in a number of legislative, policy, and regulatory changes. Some of these are the Chief Human Capital Act of 2002, 5 CFR 250.203², the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework (HCAAF), Human Capital Standards for Success, and the Annual Human Capital Management Report (HCMR).

Technology: Technology is changing so rapidly and dramatically that all organizations, public and private, are having difficulty obtaining and maintaining the skills needed to plan for and operationalize their technology requirements. In EEOC, this encompasses not only standard information technology (IT), but also the highly sophisticated equipment used in programs. EEOC's strategic goals envision an agency capable of developing new technologies, providing integrated data sets for decision support and management systems, enhancing data management and analysis capabilities, and providing easy accessibility of data to the public.

Business Practices: EEOC has a highly motivated workforce that is focused on accomplishing EEOC's mission. The Agency is committed to organizational excellence and recognizes the need to continue to improve its human capital management practices as part of its larger effort to integrate planning, performance measurement, and budget formulation. New business processes, along with an increased emphasis on customer service and strategic alliances, create the need for new skills and different ways of thinking about our work.

Resources: Although FY 2009 and FY 2010 have brought some increases to EEOC's budget, FY 2011 and FY 2012 remained almost level and concerns about growing Federal deficits may bring renewed pressure on EEOC's resources (dollars and people) in the near term and foreseeable future. This will continue to impact EEOC's ability to retain critical knowledge and skills and to increase the recruitment of staff in multiple disciplines and functions.

II. Human Capital Plan Strategy

Approach Used in the Development of the Plan

A Human Capital Plan Strategy (HCPS) has been developed to ensure Agency-wide implementation efforts of the plan are holistic and help the Agency to attain its strategic goals and objectives. The HCPS includes an implementation plan and a communications plan that are flexible enough to allow changes in initiatives as the Agency develops insight into which initiatives best move the Agency towards results and how to best communicate those results. The HCPS is also linked to budget realities. Adequate leadership support and resources, both human and fiscal, are critical to the success of any plan. The Agency's HCPS constitutes a comprehensive roadmap to ensure a strong workforce: able to meet the mission challenges of today and the future.

The Agency recognizes communication as a critical component of developing and implementing any plan that requires a corporate effort. An informed and participative workforce involved in making decisions that impact them is more likely to be committed to and positively engaged in taking on a leadership role in accomplishing the Agency's mission. An example of engaging agency executives in this process was a "visioning" session conducted with a small focus group of SES managers in January 2010.

By the end of the visioning session, the attendees had identified five general areas that should be addressed in the Plan. In order of priority they are:

1. Strategic Planning
2. Workforce Analysis
3. Funding and Resources/Workload
4. Training
5. Recruitment and Hiring

The issues raised in the visioning session are, to a substantial degree, incorporated in this plan. The most important first step is to develop a Plan that aligns programs and HR so that all executives can assume ownership of the goals. Executives articulated a strong need for a strategic HR plan. Strong leadership from the Chair and the Office of Human Resources will also be critical.

In arriving at these priority areas, the participants considered the full cycle of HR management.

Image

In addition, the participants discussed the following:

• The need to include in the HC Plan an Agency-wide effort to complete the identification of competencies for the most critical occupations (attorneys, mediators, investigators, administrative judges);
• The value of conducting a skills gap analysis for all employees to ensure that EEOC has the contemporary skills now and in the future to achieve its goals and objectives;
• The development of an Agency-wide staffing plan, based on competencies;
• The desire for effective and efficient training for all employees to help close competency gaps;
• Development and/or completion of a new performance management plan, including a rewards structure based on achieving EEOC and individual goals;
• To a lesser extent, addressing performance that does not meet the fully successful level through a variety of approaches, including development, mentoring and, if appropriate, to initiate procedures to downgrade or remove employees;
• Supporting the need to identify resources to accomplish these goals (this was expressed in two ways-within current resource constraints, and with additional funding requests); and
• Supporting the improvement of services from the Office of Human Resources to better support these goals.

For this Human Capital Plan to be successfully implemented, everyone must understand it and must have input or a stake in its success.

Supporting Infrastructure

Strategic communication is the cornerstone of effective human capital management. In any work environment the need to inform others, share information, educate employees, brief management, brainstorm ideas with colleagues, and serve customers are the linchpins to accomplishing the work. Accordingly, EEOC has developed and will implement a comprehensive communication strategy that ensures all employees understand the Human Capital Plan, including their roles and responsibilities, and provides regular progress reports on accomplishing action strategies.

Roles and Responsibilities

To successfully implement the Agency's Human Capital Plan, everyone, from the Chair to frontline employees, must be committed to the plan and its goals. Senior leadership will need to communicate its commitment to developing human capital in general and to achieving the specific human capital goals outlined in the Human Capital Plan. In addition, they must provide support by incorporating human capital into their performance plans and ensuring that resources are allocated to the efforts.

The Agency's Chief Human Capital Officer will take the lead in updating the Agency's Human Capital Plan, facilitating coordination and collaboration among offices, developing and implementing the communication strategy, and managing the accountability system. The Agency's Chief Operating Officer will work in collaboration with the Agency's Chief Human Capital Officer to update the Human Capital Plan.

Through these communication efforts, EEOC employees should be able to identify their roles in the Human Capital Plan and provide feedback. Moreover, the Human Capital Plan will be made available on the Agency's internal and external websites. More detailed information regarding the roles and responsibilities of staff are set forth in Appendix A: Human Capital Roles and Responsibilities.

III. Workforce Overview

As of the end of the FY 2011, EEOC employed 2,458 employees with the following demographics:

Gender: 1,571 (63.9%) are women and 887 (36.1%) are men.
Race: 1,018 (42%) are Black, 985 (40%) are White, 326 (13%) are Hispanic, 102 (4%) are Asian, and 27 (1%) are American Indian or Alaska Native.
Average Age: 48 years.
Average Length of Service: 17 years.
Individuals with Disabilities: About 11.4% (279) of our workforce report having a disability.
Veteran Status: 20.3% (500) are veterans.

The following chart shows the workforce by grade ranges. The majority of EEOC employees are at GS-9 and above. This is due primarily to the large number of attorneys employed at the GS-14 and 15 levels and a significant number of investigators employed at the GS-12 level.

Image

The following chart shows the permanent workforce broken out by age ranges. No surprise to see a significant number of Baby Boomers represented in the 50-59 bracket.

Image

The next chart depicts the workforce by years of service. This charts shows three "hiring waves": one in the early90's depicted in the column with 20-24 years of service; another in the early00's depicted in the column with 10-14 years of service; and the last one in 2010 depicted in the column with less than 5 years of service.

Image

The final chart in this section addresses retirement eligibility. The number of employees eligible for retirement has been growing steadily since FY 2006. The jump in FY 2010 is probably due to a "hiring surge" in the early 80's.

Image

As stated in the section heading, these charts provide an overview of the EEOC's workforce. As the workforce planning group identifies future needs in particular occupational series and grades, in Offices, and geographical areas, and as the use of competencies becomes more common within the Agency, more targeted analyses will be conducted.

IV. Workforce Planning and Analysis

Planning for human resources is one of the greatest challenges facing managers and leaders, and it becomes more challenging as resources become scarce. To meet this challenge, a strategic approach for matching human resources with anticipated needs of EEOC is essential. This section provides an overview of workforce planning. A "Workforce Planning Guide" dated April 2012 provides a step by step process for workforce planning. That guide is available on inSite under the Office of Human Resources.

Workforce planning and analysis is a fundamental planning tool that contributes to the achievement of program objectives by providing a basis for justifying budget allocation and workload staffing levels. As EEOC develops strategies to support the achievement of both long-term and annual performance goals in the human capital plan, workforce planning and analysis will be included as a key management activity.

Image

It is critical to conduct workforce planning during times of budget reduction as well as budget increases. Proper human resources allocation effectively allocates funding to achieve agency objectives. In addition, analyzing projected workforce supply based on projected retirements and attrition data on the current workforce provides the basis for evaluation of future gaps and surpluses in the workforce, as well as other relevant data such as diversity statistics, population demographic, turnover rates and causes, employee viewpoint survey results, and other issues unique to the Agency. Proper planning and analysis identifies skills/competencies needed in the workforce, recruiting, career development, training, and retraining to ensure the workforce is ready and able to meet expectations and challenges.

Office Directors will use the Workforce Planning Guide to analyze their workforce and propose changes, training, etc. that might be needed to achieve those goals and objectives as well as other agency goals (e.g., hiring more individuals with disabilities, hiring more veterans, reducing separation rates of bilingual employees, etc.). A detailed 3-year plan and a 5-year vision plan will be created. Both would describe the as-is and the desired workforce, and would address multiple budget scenarios. Key measures include: FTE's used in major areas (enforcement, litigation, federal sector, administrative, overhead, etc.), budget, competency levels, and outcome metrics (productivity, quality, etc.). Secondary measures may include: supervisory ratio, number of organizational levels between lowest level employee within each Office and the Chair, number of positions at each full performance level, turnover of new hires within 2 years of hire, exit survey data regarding reasons for leaving the EEOC, time to hire, overhead costs as a percentage of Agency/Office budgets, variance between workforce plan and reality, and amount of correlation between competency gap reduction and training conducted. All plans would be reviewed by a Workforce Planning Committee/Team and submitted to the Chair with recommendations. After the Chair's review and approval, the workforce plans would become the EEOC's human capital workforce plan for the fiscal year.

V. Human Capital Goals and Strategies

1. Align human capital management policies, programs, processes, and systems to support accomplishment of EEOC mission, vision, goals, and priorities.
2. Ensure EEOC has leadership with the technical and managerial knowledge and skills necessary to manage a diverse workforce and to accomplish EEOC's strategic goals and priorities, and to promote knowledge-sharing, continuous learning and improvement, and a climate of open communications.
3. Create a responsive, high-performance culture.
4. Recruit, hire, develop, and retain a diverse workforce with the competencies necessary to accomplish the Agency mission.
5. Ensure compliance with Merit System Principles and other human capital related regulatory and legal requirements.

Strategic Alignment (Planning and Goal Setting)

Human capital strategies should be aligned with mission, goals, and organizational objectives and integrated into its strategic plans and performance plans. The EEOC Human Capital Management Plan includes workforce planning tied to EEOC's Strategic Plan. The Chief Human Capital Officer provides advice to top management and builds consensus on HC issues. In addition, the Chief Human Capital Officer is a member of the EEOC Senior Management Staff which helps set EEOC's strategic direction. The Office of Human Resources staff works with EEOC field and HQ offices to assist with strategic human capital planning.

Goal 1: Align human capital management policies, programs, processes, and systems to support accomplishment of EEOC mission, vision, goals, and priorities.

Outcome: The Agency is organized to support its mission in a safe, effective, and efficient way. Each HQ and Field Office understands its contribution to the EEOC mission and each employee understands his or her personal contribution.

Action Strategies:

1. Evaluate and improve existing human capital management processes and programs, employing streamlining, automation, re-engineering, and best-practices, to ensure they are efficiently supporting desired organizational outcomes and in compliance with regulatory requirements (i.e., Merit System Principles).
2. Ensure that all levels of management receive training and understand their role in human capital management; how to manage for inclusion and diversity; and their labor-management relations responsibilities, and are held accountable for the results.
3. Ensure that the human capital management functions are adequately staffed and prepared, in competencies and resources, to proactively partner and consult with managers in implementing this Plan.
4. Ensure that human capital management requirements and investments are an integral part of EEOC's budgeting process, the resulting budget and performance plans, and technology and facilities plans by including human capital representatives as key advisors in planning for changes that will involve EEOC's workforce.
5. Ensure maximum flexibility and utilization of workforce activities such as telework, health and wellness.
6. Ensure currency and consistency of use in accountability activities that allow for stakeholder input.

Leadership and Knowledge Management (L&KM)

EEOC leaders must provide the committed, consistent, and inspired direction needed to address organizational issues. An effective organization includes a leadership team committed to developing increasingly effective ways of meeting mission and customer needs, accomplishing results, and investing in and developing human capital.

To improve and enhance the effectiveness of current EEOC leaders and develop capable future leaders, EEOC is utilizing the following strategies, plans, systems and information:

• Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results
• EEOC Leadership and Management Development Strategy which guides activities such as:
  • The EEOC Leadership Competency Development Program (LCDP)
  • Leadership development course evaluations and program assessment
• Review and assessment of year-end performance ratings and evaluations of leaders

These help EEOC target leadership/knowledge management needs and describe an effective approach to meeting those needs. EEOC will continue to conduct the following activities to support this strategic need:

• Continue to offer leadership development opportunities for emerging leaders, new leaders, and experienced leaders through the Leadership Competencies Development Program, EEOC Leadership Seminar, and through other leadership development programs and assignments.
• Continue to promote participation in external leadership development programs such as the Federal Executive Institute, and the EEOC Aspiring Leader Development Program.

Goal 2: Ensure EEOC has leadership with the technical and managerial knowledge and skills necessary to manage a diverse workforce and to accomplish EEOC's strategic goals and priorities and to promote knowledge-sharing, continuous learning and improvement, and a climate of open communications.

Outcome: EEOC has leaders who think strategically, inspire employees, and achieve results.

Action Strategies:

1. Develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive leadership and management development strategy that recruits, hires, prepares, develops, assesses, and rewards non-SES managers using validated managerial competencies.
2. Develop and implement a succession planning strategy that supports accomplishment of diversity management objectives and mission results.
3. Ensure EEOC's leaders are prepared and have adequate resources to support change processes.
4. Ensure that an integrated, strategic training and development program builds needed Agency leadership competencies.
5. Assess EEOC's investment (time, funding, staff, technology, and facilities) in workplace learning in order to ensure that resources meet targeted needs.
6. Create an EEOC learning infrastructure that includes partnerships among field offices, assessment of the Agency's priority learning needs, consideration of diverse learning styles and other differences, development of strategic learning plans, and linkages to the budget process in order to ensure learning priorities are aligned with and support organizational objectives.
7. Ensure training and development programs build needed competencies, including more effective incorporation of knowledge sharing, mentoring, and distance learning in the development of employees.
8. Develop core competency requirements for Mission Critical Occupations (MCOs) and other occupational groups and grade levels.

Results-Oriented Performance Culture

EEOC is committed to advancing an organizational culture that promotes high performance and inclusion of all staff in setting and accomplishing mission goals. EEOC is also committed to cultivating a work environment that values cooperation and knowledge-sharing to engage employees and enhance their abilities to contribute to the mission.

To support (1) a management culture that promotes high performance, ensures accountability, and includes staff in setting and accomplishing programmatic goals and (2) an organizational culture that promotes and facilitates cooperation and information-sharing to achieve results, EEOC is utilizing the following systems and information:

• Organizational performance indicators
• Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results
• Transactional survey results
• Assessment of awards program

Such data and information help EEOC foster a results-oriented performance culture. EEOC will conduct the following activities to support this strategic need:

• Utilize OPM's Performance Appraisal Assessment Tool (PAAT) to evaluate effectiveness.
• Promote individual excellence through recognition of employee contributions, fair treatment and an environment that values and delivers equal opportunity and inclusiveness.

Goal 3: Create a responsive, high-performance culture.

Outcome: EEOC achieves excellence by valuing and recognizing performance in an environment in which all employees feel encouraged to contribute.

Action Strategies:

1. Ensure that overall mission results are achieved by aligning individual performance expectations with short-term and long-term organizational goals.
2. Develop the capacity to facilitate (e.g., team building, work redesign, change management, inclusion and managing diversity strategies) organizational culture change in EEOC.
3. Assure that employee rewards and recognition programs are adequately linked to performance that contributes to achievement of Agency goals.
4. Assure that EEOC's performance management systems focus on accountability for results.
5. Provide all current and new supervisors/managers with appropriate training to engage in performance management.
6. Encourage telework.

Talent Management

To meet its mission, EEOC must continue to attract and retain talented people. To enhance its status as an employer of choice, EEOC must continue to build and maintain a diverse workforce and provide an environment that is conducive to performance excellence, encourages full participation, and supports personal, professional, and organizational growth. EEOC must also identify and address competency gaps. Accordingly, EEOC is committed to providing opportunities for staff to develop the skills and competencies needed to meet strategic and programmatic goals and achieve performance excellence.

To support EEOC's ability to recruit, hire, and retain a highly-skilled, diverse, and capable workforce, we are utilizing the following systems and information:

• New hire survey data
• Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results
• Automated hiring systems data
• Delegated Examining Unit (DEU) audit data
• Annual assessment surveys for targeted MCOs

Such data and information help EEOC to:

• Enhance the EEOC hiring program by working with field and HQ offices to develop strategies for identifying recruitment sources and acquiring diverse staff with needed skills and competencies.
• Expand the diversity of applicant pools by reaching out to diverse organizations for recruitment purposes.
• Review the effectiveness of EEOC's strategy to recruit, hire, and retain a highly-skilled, diverse workforce.
• Continue to offer and encourage family-friendly practices such as alternative work schedules and telework.

Goal 4: Recruit, hire, develop, and retain a diverse workforce with the competencies necessary to accomplish the Agency mission.

Outcome: EEOC understands the competencies required for successful mission accomplishment, and recruits, acquires, and retains a workforce representative of the Nation's diversity and consistent with competency needs.

Action Strategies:

1. Develop and implement a model process and tools to conduct workforce planning and analysis, including the identification of current and future competencies necessary to accomplish the Agency's mission.
2. Conduct a comprehensive workforce analysis resulting in an EEOC-wide workforce plan that includes recruitment and hiring strategies and programs for staff development, building on existing competencies and developing new skills required for mission accomplishment.
3. Increase the use of recruitment, retention, and other workplace flexibilities and tools to ensure a highly skilled, diverse, and productive workforce.
4. Establish programs and policies to address key employee concerns raised by periodic surveys and other feedback mechanisms.
5. Establish the Agency as an "Employer of Choice" with a diverse workforce.
6. Establish HR Specialists as world class advisors who assist in successfully meeting the Agency's human capital needs.

Accountability

The annual Human Capital Management Report will be used to illustrate the effectiveness of EEOC's human capital programs. This report will contain the results and outcomes of all major human capital activities conducted during the fiscal year. In addition, it will include EEOC's accountability activities, e.g., audits, program evaluations, employee surveys, etc. It will detail EEOC's OHR services operations status, including progress made since the last audit and measures in place to ensure compliance with the Merit System Principles and related laws and regulations. The results contained in the report are used to inform the Agency's Human Capital Plan and efforts, and update the Accountability Plan as necessary.

To support this effort, we are using the following systems and information:

EEOC will continue to use a Competitive Staffing File Checklist as one action to ensure that relevant Merit System Principles are being followed. EEOC expects to implement additional tools and procedures to further support compliance with the Merit System Principles as needed.

What is common to all organizations deploying HC initiatives is a need to track those initiatives and measure progress. To do this EEOC will prepare a Human Capital Dashboard that will place the various measures used to track progress in one easy to read diagram. The dashboard will be a living document that will be updated regularly to reflect EEOC's progress.

Goal 5: Ensure compliance with Merit System Principles and other human capital related regulatory and legal requirements.

Outcome: Employees and managers have confidence that human capital related programs and systems comply with Merit System Principles.

Action Strategies:

1. Review the Human Capital and Accountability System Plans regularly to report results against milestones and update as necessary.
2. Evaluate the results on human capital initiatives; identifying and monitoring improvements and expected results.
3. Conduct periodic Human Capital Accountability Audits that include an evaluation of human capital management systems.

Appendix A: Human Capital Roles and Responsibilities

Appendix B: Implementation and Accountability Plan

Introduction

Responsibility for human capital accountability is shared by top EEOC management, line managers, and the Office of Human Resources (OHR) officials. This includes ensuring that employees are efficiently and effectively managed in support of EEOC's mission and ensuring that all Merit System Principles and related human capital rules and regulations are followed. Implementation of the EEOC Human Capital Accountability System will promote effective human capital management by identifying and resolving problems before they impact EEOC's employees or the accomplishment of the mission.

In accordance with the HR Accountability System, EEOC will perform recurring internal self-assessments to ensure that its practices are consistent with Merit System Principles, statutory and regulatory requirements, EEOC policies, and negotiated agreements. Line managers should understand which practices and procedures are critical to a merit-based Human Resources system through an active communication process.

EEOC is committed to continuous improvement. Developing and using the capabilities and capacity of our workforce in effective and productive ways and assessing the results of our human capital management activities are critical to that improvement. EEOC has formalized this Human Capital Accountability System Plan (HCASP) to ensure EEOC-wide accountability for human capital management. The plan is a mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of the EEOC Human Capital Management Plan which supports EEOC's mission and goals and ensures compliance with the Merit System Principles and other HC related legal requirements. This plan also incorporates the five systems described in the HCAAF:

• Strategic Alignment
• Leadership and Knowledge Management
• Results-Oriented Performance Culture
• Talent Management
• Accountability

This plan will be adjusted as necessary to accommodate the redirection of work impacted by factors such as: 1) changed agency requirements or direction; 2) funding levels; 3) emerging needs; and 4) Governmental and national priorities. If an activity listed in this plan is found not to fully achieve an HCM Strategic or HC Plan goal or objective, it will be modified or eliminated as deemed appropriate.

EEOC Human Capital Accountability Measures

Appendix C: Key FY 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Results

The Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework (HCAAF) indices provide consistent metrics for measuring progress toward HCAAF objectives. Figures 1-4 shows our agency results compared with Government-wide results and our 2010 results compared with our 2011 results for the four HCAAF Indices. If a rating trailed a respective Government-wide rating and/or declined from 2010 to 2011 by 5 or more percentage points, we may target it for improvement during the action planning process.

The Leadership and Knowledge Management Index indicates the extent employees hold their leadership in high regard, both overall and on specific facets of leadership. (see below).

Image

EEOC's positive response rating of 60 percent for the Leadership and Knowledge Management Index is slightly lower than the Government-wide rating of 62 percent. A comparison of the individual items in this index shows 5 out of 12 items are rated at least 65 percent. Items rated 65 percent or higher are agency strengths (indicated in blue). EEOC positive ratings for three items lead and three equal Government-wide positive ratings. Ratings for eight items increased from 2010 to 2011 and half of these increased by five percentage points or more which is notable. On the other hand, EEOC ratings for six items trail the Government-wide average.

The Results-Oriented Performance Culture Index indicates the extent employees believe their organizational culture promotes improvement in processes, products and services, and organizational outcomes. The individual items in this index are listed below.

Image

EEOC's rating of 55 percent for the Results-Oriented Performance Culture Index leads the Government-wide rating of 54 percent. An analysis of the ratings for individual items in this index shows almost half to be agency strengths (indicated in blue). All but four ratings lead or show no notable difference than Government-wide ratings. Of the ratings that trail Government-wide ratings, none exceed the five percent threshold, which indicates no meaningful differences. Moreover, a comparison between EEOC 2010 and 2011 ratings show that the majority of the ratings increased and only one remained unchanged.

The Job Satisfaction Index indicates the extent employees are satisfied with their jobs and various aspects thereof. This index is comprised of the items listed below.

Image

The EEOC rating and the Government-wide rating for the Job Satisfaction Index match at 68 percent. Last year, EEOC tied the Government-wide rating as well at 67 percent. In evaluating items in this index, we found that 4 out of 7 remained agency strengths as they retained a rating of 65 percent or higher. When we compared differences in ratings between EEOC and Government-wide, we found that 3 out of 7 EEOC ratings exceeded and thus lead Government-wide ratings. Conversely, we found that four EEOC ratings trail Government-wide ratings. EEOC's rating for satisfaction with opportunity to get a better job, trails the Government-wide rating by a notable eight percentage points. Looking at changes in EEOC ratings from 2010 to 2011 we found three increases, three decreases and, one rating remained the same. In other words, for this period EEOC ratings did not significantly change.

The Talent Management Index indicates the extent employees think the organization has the talent necessary to achieve organizational goals. This index contains seven items which are listed below.

Image

EEOC's rating for the Talent Management Index is 56 percent and the Government-wide rating is 60 percent. Ratings for two items in this index, items 29 and 47, can be considered Agency strengths since they are above 65 percent (see blue indicators). While EEOC ratings trail Government-wide ratings for all items in the index, most or four of our ratings align fairly closely with the Government-wide ratings (see EEOC vs. Government-wide ratings that differentiate <5 percentage points). While this may be true, EEOC and Government-wide ratings show notable gaps for opportunity to improve skills, training needs assessed and, satisfaction with training received for present job.

Despite of the gap between EEOC and Government-wide ratings, EEOC ratings changed for the better from 2010 to 2011. Interesting enough, our ratings for the three items mentioned above opportunity to improve skills and training needs assessed, improved by five percentage points while satisfaction with training received for present job, increased four percentage points. We had a significant gain as well for supporting employee development - six percentage points, which is our biggest improvement.

---

FOOTNOTES:

1The Federal government defines an FTE as the total hours worked divided by the maximum number of compensable hours in a work year as defined by law. For example, if the work year is defined as 2,080 hours, then one worker occupying a paid full time job all year would consume 1 FTE. Two part-time employees working 1,040 hours each would be a total of 1 FTE or .5 FTE each, one employee working full time for 6 months would also occupy .5 FTE.

2 This establishes requirements for an agency to maintain a current Human Capital plan and submit to OPM an annual Human Capital accountability report