No More Workforce Studies: Try Real Accountability

By Lenora Peters Gant, PhD, NSI Advisory Board Member & Distinguished Fellow

On July 8, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued the Annual Demographic Report Fiscal Year 2020 which seeks to provide transparency into the Intelligence Community’s effort to increase demographic diversity. The 2020 report revealed that there is a glaring disparity between the employment and retention of the civilian workforce who identify as minorities, women, and persons with disabilities (PWD) in the U.S. Intelligence Community.

As a former Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Human Capital (HC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and a member of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Community Management Staff (CMS), I oversaw HC strategy, policy development, academic outreach, and implementation for the 17 national-level intelligence agencies (IC). In my official capacity I also prepared the Congressional report required under Public Law 116–92, Section 560 and represented the IC/ODNI/CMS on Capitol Hill for Congressional pre-briefs. Additionally, I accompanied the IC/CMS leadership on the Hill to discuss the data sets outlined in the current report which assessed the Big Six IC Agencies and the IC elements. Having had exposure to the raw data sets since 1998, the policies and practices are stale. It’s time for groundbreaking and fair systemic approaches to ensure equitable career progression for all IC employees. Over the past decade, there has been no significant changes for African Americans and PWDs in key management and leadership positions, notably in GG/GS 13–15 and senior ranks. The bottom line is the decision making leadership levels are void of credible minority participation.

What is alarming is that the FY 2020 report showed minority representation in the IC is approximately 10 percent lower than in the general federal workforce and, similarly, 11 percent lower than in the civilian workforce. On one hand, the current data revealed the number of IC minority employees rose from 26.5 percent to 27.0 percent. But, on the other hand, the number of minorities that left the agencies rose from 25.4 percent in 2019 to 26.2 percent. The report further stated, “attrition in women employees also increased from 37.4 percent to 40.2 percent”. In particular, the report highlighted the IC’s hiring and retention of Black or African American, Hispanic, or Asian employees has increased. Yet, there was a “decrease in hiring and in the retention of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaska Native”. Based on the trends identified in the Fiscal Year 2020 report, IC leadership is right to be concerned about the disparity between the number of minorities applying verses the number actually hired.

What the report does not analyze is why these patterns have emerged. Nor does the report explain why and how each of the 17 IC agencies’ internal human capital systems and management issues contributed to minority employees exiting the IC in higher numbers. What is problematic is the percentages do not accurately reflect the gravity of the hiring, retention barriers, and challenges that minorities, PWD, and women encounter on a continuing basis. While much of the raw data is subject to classification standards; the IC must do a better job to accurately reflect the applicant pools and lists of candidates referred to management for hiring selections. The release of these data sets in unclassified form would help clarify in quantitative terms what actual progress is being made.

IC agencies’ directorates and mission support offices are responsible for cultivating productive work environments for all personnel. That translates into developing all employees, including defining career ladders, providing career enhancing assignments and ensuring equitable promotions in decision making positions. This is critical to ensure mission readiness as well as individual success.

The data shows that minority employees are concentrated in grades 6–12 while minority representation decreases as the grade structure increases. Until each IC core mission directorate takes on the responsibility of intentionally developing and implementing policies designed to recruit, provide career enhancing opportunities, and retain minority, PWD, and women employees, the same data sets results will again be published year after year, as seen in the past decade.

Accountability

Purportedly, what matters gets counted, measured, and reported. However, like the annual reports that preceded it, the FY2020 report illuminated minority recruitment and retention by using traditional statistical data sets used since the inception of the ODNI. Why not consider other variables that impact worker retention and career progression of minorities, e.g. developmental opportunities, credible assignments, workforce belonging, management and leadership respect survey results?

The IC needs to re-consider new paradigms and innovative strategies to challenge the status quo. They could do so in the following ways:

• Re-calibrate internal and external human capital resource systems to give fair access and development to all employees
• Focus on the root causes of why minority employees are exiting the IC
• Implement prior studies’ lessons learned and proven best practices
• Ensure accountability by utilizing real traceable metrics

As America’s demographics continue to change over the coming years, our IC and national security human resource systems must ferret out lessons learned — The Good, The Bad and The Ugly — and implement those proven best practices from across government and industry.

Dr. Lenora Peters Gant currently serves at Howard University School of Business as a National Security Executive Senior Advisor and Research Administrator. She is a retired SNIS officer, where she served the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Human Capital (HC), overseeing HC strategy and policy, academic outreach and strategic HC implementation for the 17 national-level intelligence agencies and elements.