Agencies Focus on Reskilling During Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way the federal workforce operates and evaluates employee skills. Much of the federal workforce has shifted to virtual work during the pandemic, and this change has had an effect on the way employees work in the federal realm.
Departments are reskilling their employees in ways that best fit their agency’s missions.
Robyn Rees, a senior adviser on workforce trends and innovative workforce planning processes at the Department of the Interior (DOI) told Federal News Network, “Some of the low value work we were doing has dropped away because we aren’t in the office to do it. Think filing cabinets, printing and stapling presentations for meetings and scanning and signing documents. In some cases, that has freed us up to be truly collaborative and more effective. In other cases, that has freed us up to do more cross-servicing with fewer people, leaving room for some to consider alternate opportunities where workforce gaps are known.”
During a reskilling webinar hosted by the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC), Rees highlighted the “My DOI Career tool.” The tool, which launched last year, can be used to map out employee career paths and show which steps need to be taken to meet those goals.
Scott Cameron, DOI’s acting assistant secretary for policy, management and budget said, “We’re looking for opportunities to reskill our employees so they can provide more value added in the work they do and spend less time pushing paper.”
The DOI is planning to use the tool to build employee profiles where employees can describe themselves and their skills. The department’s ultimate goal is to encourage collaboration and bring together employees with different skill sets to work on specific projects. Mapping out employee career paths is helpful because it can show employees how to advance their own careers within the federal government, said Cameron.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is another agency that is focusing on reskilling their employees according to their own needs.
Roland Edwards, the agency’s deputy chief human capital officer, told Federal News Network, “We’ve had to be trained as well as reskilled a bit. Now we’re using Microsoft Teams. We’re getting packages electronically. We’re having to sign them electronically. Reskilling has a whole different and evolved connotation in this new pandemic world and, quite frankly, where the future of work is going to take us.”
