STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL PLAN: Developing, Valuing, and Sustaining a Premiere Workforce FY 2009 - FY 2012

Table of Contents

Recruitment Vision

What is Recruitment Planning?

Current Situation

Mission Critical Occupations

Agency Specific Commonly Filled Occupation

80-Day Hiring Model

Recruitment Strategic Goals, Strategies & Performance Measures

Goal 1: Conduct An Assessment And Evaluation Of EEOC And Its Offices
Goal 2: Actively Market EEOC As A Desirable Employer
Goal 3: Attract And Recruit Key Staff To The Agency
Goal 4: Create And Sustain Deep Partnerships With Educational Institutions Across The Nation Goal 5: Use Technology To Enhance The EEOC Profile
Goal 6: Create and Implement Professional Development for Staff
Goal 7: Measure Recruitment Success

Summary

Recruitment Plan
RECRUITMENT PLANNING: VISION
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is
"THE" employer of choice.

The Office of Human Resources (OHR) is committed to conducting strategic recruitment and outreach in search of a world-class workforce that is diverse, motivated, and committed to excellence. To ensure the successful operations of EEOC's mission critical functions, human resources staff and all supervisors must work collaboratively to recruit talented applicants and fill vacancies as quickly as possible. Because recruitment should be an activity practiced by every employee, this Agency Plan is intended for use by all EEOC personnel. The ultimate goal is to increase the size of quality applicant pools, increase the number of minority applicants applying for and being referred for EEOC vacancies, and decrease the amount of time it takes to find, refer and hire high quality applicants.

This Agency Plan fulfills the requirements to implement a comprehensive strategy for improving the agency's hiring process, and is based on objectives that provide a platform for determining the recruitment activities that will ensure that EEOC meets its mission, as follows:

• Implement strategies to attract talented employees;
• Retain employees by enhancing the work environment and creating a culture that values employees;
• Invest in employees' professional development and growth;
• Provide opportunites for all leadership staff to learn and share best practices with each other; and
• Provide opportunities for all employees to learn and share with one another, encouraging better dialogue between employees and management.

This plan addresses EEOC's recruitment challenges and provides solutions for strengthening EEOC's current world-class workforce. It provides broad strategies for attracting talented applicants from diverse backgrounds while supporting EEOC's efforts to become an employer of choice.

This Agency plan provides a broad overview of EEOC's recruitment and outreach programs. An Action Plan will list all recruitment and outreach initiatives planned for each fiscal year, and will be updated annually based on current staffing requirements.

WHAT IS RECRUITMENT PLANNING?

" Successful recruitment in government boils down to a complex formula: get the right people in the right positions at the right time with the skills to perform the right role to achieve the agency's mission."¹

Recruitment is the foundation of any personnel selection process. Agencies cannot hire the best employees if they do not attract the best applicants. The best use of the resources available for attracting the best applicants can only come about through a well thought out plan. Recruitment planning takes into account workforce demographics and trends, the Commission's "mission critical" occupations, future workforce needs as well as current ones, the Commission's strengths and weaknesses, achieving or maintaining diversity in the workplace, and feedback from new and exisiting employees. All of these factors are taken into consideration in adopting recruitment goals and strategies.

CURRENT SITUATION

The Commission is facing the loss of a large percentage of its experienced workers because of its aging workforce. EEOC has 2,487 employeees who are geographically dispersed throughout the United States. Current data as of September, 2011 indicates EEOC has employees in 45 different occupational series. The average age of an EEOC employee is 48 years. The average Length of Service of an EEOC employee is 17 years. Approximately 40% of EEOC's supervisory and managerial staff is eligible to retire and 17% non-supervisory staff.

MISSION-CRITICAL OCCUPATIONS

The following occupational series have been identified as mission-critical:

• Acqusition Specialist
• Appellate Attorneys
• Human Resources Specialist
• Information Intake Representative
• Information Technology Specialist
• Investigator
• Investigator Support Assistant
• Legal Technician
• Mediator
• Office Automation Assistant
• Paralegal Specialist
• Trial Attorney
• Supervisory Investigator

AGENCY-SPECIFIC COMMONLY FILLED OCCUPATIONS

Agency-defined occupations are the greatest number or highest volume of filled positions. Commonly Filled Occupations are those which, historically, have high volume of positions filled and they should not change from quarter to quarter based on immediate hiring needs. EEOC has selected the following occupations that generally have high vacancy rates.

• Mediator
• Investigator
• Investigative Support Assistant
• Information Intake Representative
• Lead Information Intake Representative
• Office Automation Assistant
• Trial Attorney
• Paralegal Specialist
• Legal Technician

80-DAY HIRING MODEL

EEOC has adopted the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) 80-day Hiring Process Model. As reflected on the following page, EEOC has streamlined the process to 78 days. The purpose of the model is to improve the timeliness of the Federal hiring process. It provides the recommended timeframes for each step in the hiring process, and has proven to be a useful tool for ensuring hiring proficiences, and reducing the chance of losing high-quality candidates due to procedural delays.

The Office of Human Resources has also incorporated a category-based rating system as a means to shorten the time it takes to hire a new employee. The purpose of category rating is to increase the number of qualified applicants from which to choose while preserving veteran's preference rights. Applicants with similar levels of job-related competencies are placed into the appropriate quality categories, and selection is made from the highest quality category. This is an alternative way to assess job applicants for positions filled through the competitive examining process. It's a flexible system that most often allows for a larger pool of qualified candidates to be considered by the hiring manager than the traditional methods used in the past which allowed a maximum of three candidates. Category-based rating is just one of the hiring flexibilities developed by the Office of Personnel Management.

Understanding EEOC's recruitment and outreach goals, the market in which it operates, and the hiring flexibilities available for use today, allows agency hiring officials to incorporate strategies to achieve a more diverse workforce.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGIC GOALS, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES

Goal 1. Conduct an assessment and evaluation of EEOC and its divisions.

Strategies

• Create evaluation tools to assess current recruitment efforts
• Develop and implement technological systems that will allow the comprehensive tracking of the skills of the workforce in order to identify skill-set gaps
• Conduct regular employee feedback

Performance Measures

• Incorporate qualitative feedback while reconfiguring recruitment strategies
• Expand or eliminate recruitment activities based on yield rates of various activities

Goal 2. Actively market EEOC as a desirable employer.

Strategies

• Continue to seek ways to be recognized as an "employer of choice" (e.g. allowing job rotation for transfer of knowledge between existing staff and their replacements, work-life flexibilities, and virtual offices).
• Educate EEOC Management on various recruitment flexibilities and hiring authorities.
• Work with OLCA to develop or refresh the visual and message layers of EEOC Employer Brand that have strong appeal to both new college graduates and experienced professionals, as well as to those who influence their career choices.
• Continual marketing of the corporate brand.
• Continue to improve vacancy announcements (simplify, clarify job descriptions, identify compentencies; "sell" the position).
• Develop a publication that provides career development information and promotional paths (i.e., "career ladders").

Performance Measures

• Improved qualitative feedback from our customers (i.e., applicants, employees, key stakeholders, etc.) through surveys.
• Increased marketing and outreach efforts that reflect employee's improved knowledge and awareness of EEOC processes, programs, opportunties and the diversity within the workforce.

Goal 3. Attract and recruit key staff to the agency

Objective 3.1 - Meet the future skills required of the Agency

Strategies

• Continuously assess and evaluate future workload needs and define competencies for the workforce of tomorrow.
• Develop a corporate-wide program to assess workforce compentencies.
• Dedicate resources and establish policies to ensure that management has the opportunity to use hiring flexibilities (incentives or accelerated steps).
• Develop outreach programs that create a channel of potential candidates.
• Develop or enhance recruitment programs that assist in meeting the continual replenishment of the EEOC workforce.
• Develop innovative ways to recruit applicants who have the potential to grow.

Objective 3.2 - Enable the achievement of the Agency's diversity strategic goals

Strategies

• Monitor recruitment and staffing information to gather demographic data.
• Advertise vacancies using different sources to widen interest from underrepresented groups.
• Customize recruitment advertising (specific images and/or words) to appeal to a wider audience.
• Diversify the format of recruiting documents (e.g. Braille, large print, etc.).

Objective 3.3 - Conduct targeted recruitment for identified Mission Critical Occupations

Strategies

• Provide strategic recruitment marketing support and tactical vacancy advertising resources.
• Identify professional organizations whose members are experienced professionals.
• Identify behavioral trends of the Baby-boomers and Generation X and Y.
• Develop target marketing for the Baby-boomers and Generation X and Y.

Objective 3.4 - Support succession planning

Strategies

• Develop a corporate program to address leadership recruitment and retention issues.
• Establish relationships with organizations that cater to Executive recruitment.

Performance Measures

• Assess data on the number of recruitment events, attendees, and the yield of qualified applicants and hired employees.
• Use Agency survey responses to evaluate "client" relationship.
• Utilize Return-on-Investment (ROI) reports to evaluate success of events and relationships.
• Evaluate the percentage of employees applying for senior management and executive leadership positions
• Evaluate improvement in diversity based on applicant and selection data.

Goal 4. Create and sustain deep partnerships with educational institutions across the nation

Objective 4.1 - Identify effective recruitment trends for Generation X and the Millennials

Strategies

• Contact research firms that maintain data pertaining to Generation X and the Millennials.
• Research articles, magazines and online databases to gather relevant data.
• Develop a strategic recruitment model that identifies tactile recruiting mechanisms for Generation X and the Millennials.

Objective 4.2 - Build the Student Intern program to be a feeder pool for talent

Strategies

• Conduct targeted recruitment in localized areas reaching out to Land-Grant colleges and universities, and minority - serving insitutions.

Performance Measures

• Use Agency survey responses to evaluate "client" relationship.
• Increased hiring of students for targeted applicant pools.

Goal 5. Use technology to enhance the EEOC profile

Objective 5.1 - Reduce recruitment cost

Strategies

• Modernize marketing and recruitment processes to meet the demands of the new job seeker
• Expand recruitment sources to a larger and virtual audience.

Performance Measures

• Use surveys to evaluate marketing and technology advances and impact.

Goal 6. Create and implement professional development for staff

Strategies

• Organize regular "training" meetings for the Recruitment/Placement staff to reinforce and introduce important information. Ensure that staff keeps abreast of the latest recruitment trends by attending training sessions, reading magazines and attending conferences.
• Develop a "Hiring Reform Toolkit".
• Team with Operations to design a new manager recruiter orientation.

Performance Measures

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the training.
• Self and management evaluations that demonstrate employees have improved knowledge of recruitment processes, programs, strategies, and branding.

Goal 7. Measure recruitment success.

Strategies

• Measure and evaluate recruitment activities to determine their effectiveness and the ROI of resources.

Performance Measures

• Evaluate improvement in diversity based on employee data.
• Evaluate decrease in skill gaps based on workforce competency data.
• Develop a quarterly report of filled vacancies with relevant statistics for tracking.
• Evaluate increase in organizational performance based on performance management data (i.e., fewer Rejections on Probations and disciplinary actions and fewer performance based actions).
• The number of days to fill vacancies decreased by at least 25% in the next two fiscal years.

Review the Strategic Recruitment Plan annually to ensure it addresses current challenges and focuses on diversity.

SUMMARY

If the EEOC is to be recognized as the "Employer of Choice" in the Federal Government for recruiting, retaining, and sustaining a ready, diverse and highly-skilled workforce, it will require commitment on the part of leadership as well as each employee, manager, and supervisor within EEOC. It also requires an investment in time and resources that are vital to our success as a Agency.

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Footnote

¹ " Strategic Recruitment for Government: Ten Innovative Practices for Designing, Implementing and Measuring Recruitment Initiatives in Government," The Performance Institute