THE SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE continues
gages in active lobbying with Congress and executive branch officials, and joins with others of similar interests. In 2001, the Office of Personnel Management published its annual report to Congress on its Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (FEORP). The 2000 FEORP report showed that although minority employment in the federal workforce increased, and that the federal gov- ernment continued to be a leader in providing employment opportunities to minorities, there were recruiting barriers to professional development among minority groups. By February 2002, four African- American members of the SES—Wil- liam Brown Sr., Tracey Pinson, Dr. Lenora Gant, and William Lewis— founded a new tax exempt, non-profit professional association to promote the professional development and advance- ment of African Americans into, and, within, the senior levels of the United States government. Since 2002, more than three hundred federal employees have joined the African American Fed- eral Executives Association Incorpo- rated (AAFEA) and eighteen members have been promoted into the Senior Executive Service. The AAFEA has trained more than 1200 federal employees at eight workshops and has forged alliances with the National Association of His- panic Federal Executives, the Asian American Government Executives Network, and both the Federally Em- ployed Women and Blacks in Govern- ment organizations. AAFEA has also commented on pending legislation affecting senior executives and served on several agency boards and panels promoting diversity in the SES. The AAFEA President, Wil-
liam A. Brown Sr., has testified three times before Congress on inadequate minority representation in the SES corps. This resulted in introduction of the “SES Diversity Assurance Bill,” which if passed will alter the selection process for members of the SES and should result in the selection of a greater number of minorities.
38 USBE&IT I WINTER 2011
Diversity in the Senior Executive Service A Department of Defense (DOD) concept paper, published in November 2006, announced that the DOD had 1,248 Senior Executive Service positions. Of the 6,811 career and politically-appointed SES members in the government, the average age among DOD executives was 54.4 years with 22.5 years service.
Twenty percent of Department of Defense SES members were women and eight percent were minori- ties.
The Department of Defense concept paper also said that under representation of black SES members in the department was the greatest at three percent, compared to federal SES representation at 7.09 percent. Numbers broke down as follows for Hispanic SES members (DOD - 2 percent, federal 3.43 percent); Asia Pacific-Islanders (DOD - 2 percent; federal 3.17 percent) and Native American/Alaskan Native (DOD 1 percent; federal.78 percent).
In 2004, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) notified hundreds of organizations representing middle managers, minorities, veterans, people with disabilities, and others that applications for the Se- nior Executive Service Federal Candidate Development Program (FCDP) were being accepted starting November 15 of that year.
Earlier in 2004, then Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Kay Coles James, met with representatives from the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving col- leges and universities, and diverse employee and service organizations for a briefing. During these meetings James stressed the value of the FCDP to men and women who planed ambitious careers in federal public service. At that time, roughly ninety percent of the Senior Executive Service (SES) was white.
By December 2004, the OPM had received almost 5,000 applications for consideration for forty slots in the SES FCDP. The OPM also reported that nearly sixty percent of the federal career SES corps was eligible to retire within five years. One organization, dedicated to the revitalization of public service, had noted that forty-two percent of federal SES leaders would be eligible to retire by 2010. Though pro- spective, those figures represented the loss of a sizable portion of the government’s senior leadership cadre and an opportunity for the senior ranks of government to mirror the U.S. population.
Seven years later much still needs to be done to achieve this goal.
Many agencies now have their own OPM-approved SES Candidate Development Programs designed to develop the executive qualifications of employees to qualify them for appointment to the SES. These programs range from 12 - 24 months and are open to GS-14s/15s (government pay schedules) or em- ployees at equivalent levels from within or outside the federal government. Each agency decides how large its program will be based on its executive needs.
Recognizing that the federal system hasn’t fully achieved its vision of diverse federal executive leader- ship, a cross-agency initiative was launched in May 2010 to strengthen the SES corps through leader- ship engagement, career development, performance management, and recruitment. The project was structured in three working groups, comprising more than 50 people from 19 agencies, that analyzed key issues, evaluated potential improvements, and identified a set of recommendations to benefit the SES corps.
On August 18, 2011, President Obama issued an executive order establishing a coordinated initiative to promote diversity and inclusion in the federal workforce.
According to the African American Federal Executives Association (AAFEA) national president, William A. Brown Sr., “this initiative by the President was a call to arms for federal agencies to get serious about diversifying the highest ranks of government.” The executive order creates a framework that will look to a council of deputy agency chiefs. Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plan to create a government-wide plan within 90 days of August 18, 2011; and each agency must present its own specific diversity plan within 120 days. Efforts must reflect initiatives on recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, and retaining a diverse workforce.
A Blacks in Government (BIG) newsletter called the long-awaited executive order “the highest-profile response to the problem.” Speaking at BIG’s national training conference in August 2011, the federal government’s chief people person, John Berry, Director of the OPM since 2009, cited the agency’s ac- complishments with bringing in veterans and people with disabilities, speeding the hiring process and simplifying recruitment. Still, Berry added, getting minorities into SES positions is an area that needs progress. “We’ve come a long way in the last few decades,” he said, “but we still have mountains to climb. “Although minorities comprise 34 percent of our diverse federal workforce, they’re just 18 per- cent of our SES. That’s unacceptable. We can do better.” Whites currently hold more than 81 percent of senior pay level positions.
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