Designing EEO Seminar

Maintaining a Diverse, High-Quality Workforce

Diversity Programs in Development; Be an EEO Professional
Courtesy of www.opm.gov

Achieving a diverse, high-quality workforce by successfully attracting and hiring the desired employee mix is only the first step. Having made investments to recruit and hire high-quality employees, the agency risks wasting those efforts absent a strong retention strategy. The agency's next objective is to ensure that their valuable employees stay with the agency. That goal is the focus of the second major set of elements to be included in the design and implementation of the agency's diversity program.
These elements can be described as part of a broad model of rewards, which sustain employee commitment. These rewards include support for:

a flexible and supportive work environment, including the quality of the supervision and leadership employees receive

an emphasis on learning and development

effective rewards and recognition systems

These aspects of work and working conditions are clearly becoming at least as important to employees' decisions to stay with an organization as their direct pay and benefits levels. An agency that commits to cultivating these broader rewards will be far better positioned to retain the diverse workforce it builds.

A Supportive Work Environment

A supportive work environment is one that provides employees with the direction and tools they need to perform the work of the organization to the very best of their ability. As an employer, the Federal Government offers many government wide programs to support employees; other aspects of a supportive work environment are in the hands of individual agencies. Actions to support employees include:

Ensure that supervisors and managers are provided leadership and diversity training. Their understanding of the benefits and rewards of a diverse workforce helps create a supportive work environment that enhances the potential of all employees.

Emphasize existing quality of work life initiatives as effective policies that advance the interests of a diverse workforce. These initiatives include programs such as:

Alternative Work Schedules

Family-Friendly Leave Programs

Part-time Employment and Job Sharing

Telecommuting

Dependent Care Support Programs

Employee Assistance Programs

Develop a process to provide reasonable accommodation to job applicants and employees with disabilities. Agencies are required to make reasonable accommodations to the physical and mental limitations of an applicant or employee who is a qualified person with a disability, unless the accommodation would impose undue hardship on the agency. In addition, competitive service agencies shall include reasonable accommodation language in job announcements to inform applicants with disabilities that Federal agencies will consider reasonable accommodation requests.

Ensure that agency facilities offer a safe and productive work environment. Employees spend a significant portion of their lives in agency surroundings. Keeping them pleasant conveys a sense of pride and respect that helps keep employees on board.

Foster a community spirit and a sense of belonging by offering employees a vehicle for becoming involved outside the formal workplace in a variety of recreational and volunteer activities.

Learning and Development

Professional development and training opportunities are important reasons why valued employees choose to stay with an organization. Agencies can use a variety of approaches to establish a climate that supports continuous learning and development, including:

Establish clear paths for acquiring the skills, knowledge, and experience that employees need for their continual learning and career development.

Use a variety of ways to provide training and development experiences for employees, such as:

developing formal and informal mentoring programs,

using CD-ROMs and other interactive and online training technology,

using internal and external training courses, and

establishing individual learning accounts (ILAs).

Provide training opportunities for all employees.  Through investments in training, agencies reflect the value they place on employees and support employees in their own interest in keeping their skills updated in order to remain competitive.

Encourage employees to become mentors. In particular, senior managers should be strongly encouraged to mentor individuals from different cultural, racial, or academic backgrounds.

Use tuition reimbursement programs. Agencies have the authority to pay all or part of the necessary expenses for training and formal education.

Widely publicize developmental opportunities for employees, such as detail assignments and leadership training, to give everyone interested a chance to participate in assignments that prepare them for higher-level positions.

Rewards and Recognition

The systems that reward and engage employees are key to maintaining a diverse, high-quality workforce. All people desire to see their efforts acknowledged. Many aspects of Federal pay, awards, and benefits systems are subject to government wide policies and procedures. Nonetheless, agencies must be vigilant about ensuring that merit and results serve as the drivers of differences in rewards. Agencies should use all aspects of pay flexibilities and awards to retain top employees.

Use awards to recognize significant contributions. These can be lump sum awards or accelerated pay provided through quality step increases. Agencies should continually monitor their use of awards, incentives, and recognition to ensure that individuals and groups all receive their fair share based on transparent criteria and well-understood processes for nominating and granting awards.

Consider paying retention allowances when challenged to keep particular skills available. Agencies should continually monitor the use of such allowances to check for any evidence of discrimination, and act quickly in the event any is detected. Such internal accountability will help preserve the credibility of such tools and their utility for dealing with retention problems.

Sustaining Commitment
The mark of a truly successful diversity program is one that becomes ingrained in the culture and the business processes of an agency and is sustained over time. Agencies can take several steps to facilitate this continuity.

Monitor Results
Agencies should develop systems of measures to continually monitor the effectiveness of their diversity initiatives and make adjustments as needed. The results should be shared and discussed with senior managers and supervisors.

Regularly monitor the agency workforce profile. Periodic analysis of the resulting data will help determine progress and successes. In turn, the data may be used to adjust recruiting strategies and other workforce planning initiatives as needed.

Monitor existing career development systems and programs (e.g., who is being chosen for non-routine assignments, special projects, rotational opportunities, training, and conference participation) to ensure that cultural bias is not a factor in participation rates. Evaluate and re-engineer career development systems and programs to better achieve the agency's diversity goals.

Work with EEO/civil rights office to monitor agency wide numbers and trends regarding formal EEO complaints.

Monitor the number and diversity of applicants and participants in developmental opportunities and assess the effectiveness of the publicity efforts.

Accountability
To succeed in developing and sustaining strong diversity initiatives, agency heads should hold their executives, managers, and supervisors accountable for achieving results. OPM also assesses agencies' effectiveness in implementing diversity initiatives.

Build accountability for hiring, retaining, and developing a diverse, high-quality workforce into the performance management systems for managers and supervisors.

Ensure that candidates for the Senior Executive Service have certain leadership competencies which include "Cultural Awareness." Selecting officials are accountable for ensuring that the candidates provide examples which evidence possession of such competencies.

Celebrate Success
In addition to holding managers and supervisors accountable for building and maintaining a diverse, high-quality workforce, agencies should also remember to recognize successes.

Identify and reward champions, publicizing their accomplishments.

Consider nominating senior executives for Presidential Rank Awards to recognize their accomplishments related to building and maintaining a diverse, high-quality workforce. The Rank Award is the highest level of recognition a member of the Senior Executive Service can receive. The selection criteria for this award use ECQs to recognize executives who have demonstrated unusual success in building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse, well trained, highly motivated, and productive.

Consider establishing an agency wide diversity award.