Workforce efforts advance

NAPA report

Training federal program and project managers and drafting a career road map for federal information technology workers are priorities for the CIO Council's Workforce and Human Capital for IT Committee, according to Ira Hobbs, co-chairman of the committee.

In a briefing with reporters July 2, Hobbs also said the committee is trying to keep alive recommendations in an August 2001 National Academy of Public Administration report that proposed the idea of a market-based pay system for federal IT workers, among other reforms.

The "seeds were planted for a new approach" to how IT workers are recruited, managed and compensated, Hobbs said. "Any effort of this scope will take time and care" and must be nurtured.

In the next six to nine months, Hobbs said the workforce committee plans to advance a number of programs. They include working with the Office of Personnel Management to modernize and standardize project and program manager positions. This is similar to efforts conducted last year to reclassify computer specialists into a new GS-2210 series.

"We talked with OPM," said Fred Thompson, assistant director of customer service consulting at the Treasury Department, who helped draft the GS-2210 series. "They understand that the IT industry is in [a] constant state of change. The traditional way of changing classification standards is not very quick" and can take as long as two years.

The committee also plans to develop an automated tool to help all IT workers assess where they are in their careers and how to find courses to gain the skills they need to advance. An interagency group is helping to develop that, Hobbs said.