The Army is increasingly calling upon its Civilian Corps to assume greater levels of responsibility and accountability at organizations throughout the service. This is due to a number of initiatives to convert military and contractor positions to civilian careers, as well as due to the increased operational mission requirements in this era of persistent conflict. What has the Army done?The Civilian Workforce Transformation Task Force, which consists of the Army G-1 staff, along with G-3/5/7, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, and the Department of Defense personnel and readiness staff, is developing specific short- and long-term initiatives to transform the civilian workforce, consistent with Congressional 2010 requirements.This transformation is one of the Army’s top priorities, and has the support of the secretary of the Army, the Army chief of staff and the vice chief of staff. Efforts planned for the future

• Hire the right people, quickly. – Under development is a scalable hiring process proof of concept, which will move to achieve the federal OPM hiring standard of 80 days. The metric: By the end of Fiscal Year 2011, there will be documentation and implementation of a reformed hiring process that puts commanders in charge and leverages technology.
• Civilians in a career program. – The goal is to move from 40 percent of the force managed in a career program, to 100 percent coverage. By the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2011, the path and resource requirements will be established for 100 percent of the workforce to be covered by professional career program management.
• Train and develop civilians into leaders. – By the end of Fiscal Year 2011, there will be implementation of comprehensive competency-based Civilian Leadership Development Program.

This program will ensure employees and management understand what is required for success, with realistic career paths and developmental opportunities to achieve success. By the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2012, there will be an implementation of an Education, Training and Experiential Development Program for the Army’s Enterprise Leadership cohort.Why is this important to the Army? The Army is capitalizing on entry-level recruiting of high-quality candidates and providing a focused investment in developing the force into leaders throughout their careers.As Army civilians retire, there must be development and training of young leaders in order for them to become the next generation of senior leaders through succession planning. ResourcesBy hiring the right people, putting them in a career field, training and developing them throughout their career, this will take care of and keep Army civilians.