DHS
tackles endless morale problems with seemingly endless studies
By Jerry Markon, The Washington Post
Afflicted
with the lowest morale of any large federal agency, the Department of Homeland
Security did what comes naturally to many in government.
It decided
to study the problem. And then study it some more.
The first
study cost about $1 million. When it was finished, it was put in a drawer. The
next one cost less but duplicated the first. It also ended up in a drawer.
So last
year, still stumped about why the employees charged with safeguarding Americans
are so unhappy, the department commissioned two more studies.
Now, with
the nation continuing to face threats to the homeland, some officials who have
worked inside the agency acknowledge it should spend less time studying its
internal problems and more energy trying to fix them.
“There’s
really no excuse for the department expending finite resources on multiple
studies, some at the same time, to tell the department pretty much what
everyone has concluded: that there are four-to-five things that need to be done
for morale,” said Chris Cummiskey, who left DHS in November after serving as
its third-highest-ranking official. “You don’t need $2 million worth of studies
to figure that out.”
Cummiskey
added that DHS Secretary Jeh C. Johnson “understands this and is focused on
delivering meaningful results for DHS employees.”
Since
taking over the department in late 2013, Johnson has focused on raising morale
and stemming high turnover, problems that date to the George W. Bush
administration. Many DHS employees have said in the annual government
“viewpoint” survey of federal employees that their senior leaders are
ineffective; that the department discourages innovation, and that promotions
and raises are not based on merit. Others have described in interviews how a
stifling bureaucracy and relentless congressional criticism makes DHS an
exhausting, even infuriating, place to work.
Many of
the frustrations stem from the way DHS was created, with 22 agencies from
across the government urgently welded into one department after the 9/11
attacks. Employees today say those agencies still have clashing cultures and
are subject to Byzantine congressional oversight, with more than 90 committees
and subcommittees retaining some jurisdiction.
Johnson
and Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have “personally committed themselves
to improving the morale and workforce satisfaction across the Department of
Homeland Security,” said Ginette Magana, a DHS spokeswoman. “They are directly
engaging with employees, listening to their concerns, working diligently to
improve employee recognition and training, and are focused on strengthening the
skills and abilities of every employee. She said the studies “comprise a first
step in a comprehensive process dedicated to tangible results.”
At the
same time, the department has continued to pay for even more outside reports.
“It’s a
big problem, not just at DHS but across the government,” said Max Stier,
president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that seeks
to make government more effective. “You see study, study, study and no
execution or fulfilling of the recommendations.”
Stier’s
group contributed to one of the most recent DHS studies, a $420,000 analysis
completed late last year by the consulting firm Deloitte. But Stier said his
help came with a caution. “It’s time to get moving,” he recalled telling
department officials, “and not simply study the issue.”
‘We just
hid it’
Three
years ago, officials in the department’s office of health affairs, which
provides expertise on national security medical issues, began to wonder about
the health of one of their own programs. In response to low scores on the viewpoint
survey, officials had set up a program, DHSTogether, aimed at making DHS “one
of the best places to work in the Federal government.” But it wasn’t working
out.
So the
department tapped the Institute of Medicine , which is part of the National
Academy of Sciences, to find out why.
A
committee of 11 experts visited about 25 DHS locations in Texas , New York and the Washington area. It produced a 268-page
report under a contract, which allocated $588,000 for the work. About $500,000
in additional funds for the study came out of another line item in the
contract, according to contracting documents and a source familiar with them.
The
result: virtually nothing.
“It was
not a very good light to shine on any of us, so we just hid it,” said one DHS
employee familiar with the report, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because of fear of retaliation by supervisors.
The
report, released in September 2013, concluded that DHSTogether had been starved
of money and support from DHS leaders and devolved into little more than an
ineffective suicide prevention program. The document made a series of
recommendations to improve employee resilience and morale, calling it
“imperative that senior leaders at DHS” get more involved.
One of
those leaders was Rafael Borras, who had just taken over as acting deputy
secretary, the department’s No. 2 post. “I’ve never seen it, never heard of it,
didn’t know they were doing it,” he recalled. “At no time did anyone raise with
me, ‘Oh, remember this study we did?’ ”
A DHS
official said the department has taken several steps in response to the
institute’s study. These include setting up a leadership council, embarking on
further research to measure employee resilience, and drafting a five-year
strategic plan for DHS workforce “readiness and resilience,” as the study had
urged.
When a
congressional committee asked a year ago about what had come of the institute’s
study, DHS officials also cited the five-year plan, saying it would be
presented to senior managers by May 2014.
Nearly a
year later, that strategic plan remains merely a draft in DHS’s computer
system. A copy of a draft, obtained by The Washington Post, contains phrases
such as “add introduction,” “add conclusion” and “insert photos.”
“There is
no plan,” said one DHS employee. “It just sat there and sat there and it sits
today. We are clearly just running around doing studies, getting
recommendations and not taking them.”
Overlapping
surveys
The same
month in 2012 that department officials signed the contract with the Institute of Medicine , they commissioned someone else to
study virtually the same issues. DHS’s office of health affairs awarded a
$250,000 contract to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS) at the
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda , Md. , to examine the DHSTogether
program and the mental well-being of employees.
Though the
contract has been extended twice, people familiar with it said the center
produced nothing more than a short draft in August.
The draft
offers an explanation for why the center had not made more progress. “Other
entities had already engaged employees in efforts to assess morale,” it said,
and as a result, DHS employees were developing “interview/survey fatigue.”
The
document continued, “Several other studies with significant overlap to CSTS’s
work efforts were underway at the same time.”
A
department spokeswoman said the center’s study is also expected to produce
other steps, including employee resilience training and a briefing to senior
DHS leadership.
DHS
employees say the draft itself has been ignored inside the department.
Even more
studies
Over the
last year, the department’s concern with morale has intensified. The 2014 Best
Places To Work in the Federal Government Survey, published by Stier’s group,
ranked DHS dead last among large agencies.
And the
department has launched two more studies.
The
Deloitte analysis, which focused on “employee engagement,” was finished late
last year.
People
familiar with the contract said Deloitte focused on the Senior Executive
Service — the government’s top career managers — who have been leaving DHS at a
high rate in recent years.
Deloitte
delivered a set of recommendations to DHS leaders late last year. A spokeswoman
for the firm referred questions to DHS. A DHS spokeswoman said the firm’s work
built on the previous studies and had produced an “implementation plan,” but
declined to elaborate.
Just as
Deloitte was completing its report, Fairfax-based professional services firm
ICF was starting a separate morale study of the DHS Science and Technology
Directorate, the department’s research and development arm, according to
interviews and agency documents.
An
internal e-mail, sent to the directorate’s employees in December, described the
$250,000 study as a “follow-up survey” to the annual viewpoint survey. For the
past several years, the science and technology directorate has ranked
especially low, even compared with other parts of DHS.
Dozens of
directorate employees have been interviewed about their morale by ICF as part
of an effort, as described by another internal e-mail, to “identify and
prioritize those areas where S&T can undertake corrective action by
engaging directly with S&T federal employees.”
After the
study is done, that e-mail added, ICF will follow up on the results — with
another study.
Ben Ferro
benferro@insideins.com
USCIS recently awarded a contract (BPA/multiple awards) to conduct surveys and analyses.
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