Army Unveils New Workforce Implementation Plan for 2022

The U.S. Army plans to launch a new version of its civilian implementation plan (CIP), adding new, key elements like leveraging people analytics, technology and data to drive talent management modernization.

The 2019 Army People Strategy was developed to maintain the service’s readiness by managing talent. It provides a roadmap for how the Army will shift its efforts from distributing personnel to managing soldier and civilian talent to best support its mission.

“The Army People Strategy is the building implementation plan and the military implementation plan, demonstrating the Army’s commitment to people,” Denise Howell Parker, Army People Strategy-Civilian Implementation Plan Lead Integrator at the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army said during the AUSA 2022 Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. Tuesday.

In 2020, the service published the Military Implementation Plan and the CIP to execute the directives in the Army People Strategy. CIP aims to optimize Army Civilians by modernizing talent management policies and practices, making them more agile and data driven.

The Army announced Tuesday the next iteration of this plan, Civilian Implementation Plan 2022, which builds on the work the service accomplished in CIP 2020 with evolving initiatives. CIP 2022 focuses on four critical areas: acquire, develop, employ and retain.

Over the past two years, the Army has expanded its recruitment efforts with the goal of acquiring top talent to gain critical mission occupation throughout the workforce. Edward C. Emden, Director of the Army Civilian Career Management Activity at the Army Civilian Human Resources Agency, explained that his unit is improving marketing and partnering with universities to improve awareness and talent acquisition.

“In FY 22, we started using digital tools to improve our recruitment approach,” Emden said. “It’s a tool that allows you to target specific groups of individuals that meet criteria we’d like to identify… What we’ve seen is that in the first three quarters FY 22, 30% of those who applied… were referred by that [tool].”

Once talent is onboarded, the Army will work to develop talent by establishing a comprehensive supervisory development and certification program and modernizing senior executive training and education.

“One of our most significant accomplishments was the designation of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civilian Personnel,” Howell Parker explained. “[Previously,] there was no central champion for developing and certification of Army supervisors of civilian employees. By centralizing the oversight, it provides progress across the army enterprises.”

Under CIP 2022, the Army plans to institutionalize a process to match people to positions and provide clear career pathways to Army civilians. As part of its effort, the Army cyber excepted service, and Howell Parker explained that her team is developing a new talent marketplace capability to match people with opportunities.

“We are in the process of revising policies and regulations to coincide with the CIP tasks and actions and active roles and responsibilities,” Howell Parker explained.

The Army will also strengthen the culture of employee engagement for Army civilians and establish a new “Army Civilian for Life” program as part of the service’s retention strategy. The Army intends to provide more work/life balance and adopt 21st century best workforce practices.

“We have encouraged telework, remote work and flexible work schedules. We’ve increased our culture of employee engagement. We published the first army employee engagement strategy,” Howell Parker explained.

The second version of CIP added new priorities: leverage people analytics and evolve enterprise civilian talent management services. By leveraging people analytics, the Army will be better equipped to support talent management positions. Technology and data will further modernize people processes by providing a single, authoritative source of data for talent management decisions. The Army has developed a strategic communications campaign to inform current and future Army civilians of implementation progress and provide visibility of outcomes.

“CIP 2022 features one new strategic priority and one new cross-cutting objective. Both of these focus on data and technology. The new strategic priority is leverage people analytics. The new cross cutting objective is leverage technology and data,” Howell Parker said. “The goal of this objective is to ensure we have the single authoritative data source for making talent management decisions for Army civilian. I cannot be more excited to serve with and alongside you as we execute this important plan.”