CHCO Council to gauge effectiveness of federal hiring, training

If you are a Presidential Management Fellow and have had a good experience at the agency to which you are assigned, the government wants to hear from you. The Chief Human Capital Officers Council wants fellows to present their experiences at one of its Training Academy sessions in 2008. “I’m looking for good experiences,” not bad ones, said John Salamone, executive director of the CHCO Council, who spoke Dec. 6 at a professional development meeting of Young Government Leaders (YGL). Salamone said the council planned to showcase those experiences at one of six Training Academy sessions it will offer in 2008. CHCOs can invite three people from their respective agencies to attend the sessions, he said. About 300 people received academy training in 2007. Salamone said the council is interested in what he called PMF conversion rates: the number of fellows who like working in government and decide to stay on past their fellowship and become federal employees. The council is studying that and other management research questions as part of its 2008 agenda, Salamone said. In broader terms, the council plans to study the return on investment in federal hiring and federal training. “There’s more of a push in government for ROI” than in the past, he said. Salamone gave career advice to the YGL group, suggesting to them that the retirement wave is an opportunity for them to rise to high levels in the government relatively quickly. The retirement wave is a matter of demographics that will affect the public and private sectors, he said. To meet the challenges of that retirement wave, human resources departments must transform themselves, Salamone said, adding that progressive HR leaders are trying hard to shed a process-oriented mind-set and re-fashion themselves strategic consultants. Salamone added that many federal agencies are now hiring new employees in less than 45 days.