Workforce Planning in the Intelligence Community: A Retrospective

Abstract

Soon after the events of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community began a decade-long effort to reconstitute a workforce that was downsized considerably following the end of the Cold War, resulting in a loss not only of personnel but also of critical capability. Early efforts to rebuild this workforce focused primarily on getting more people on board to respond to growing near-term demands related to the terrorist threat. Before long, however, the community faced criticism from congressional oversight committees about the rapid and what to some seemed chaotic growth of the intelligence workforce. The need to address these concerns motivated efforts to develop and apply a more strategic approach to workforce planning in the intelligence community. The need to make far-reaching changes in a workforce with a wide diversity of elements proved challenging, but the chief human capital officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence made considerable headway in identifying community-wide workforce issues and tools to facilitate more-effective workforce planning in the future. As the Obama administration enters its second term and the potential for budget cuts looms, it is an opportune time to examine the progress made within the intelligence community in workforce planning. This report chronicles intelligence community efforts over more than half a decade to improve community-wide workforce planning and management. It should be of interest to anyone concerned with workforce planning in the U.S. intelligence community. Beyond the intelligence community, the need to manage human resources in today's environment of constrained resources suggests that the lessons learned and workforce-planning tools described in this report should have applicability across the federal government to anyone who manages a large human capital portfolio. The appendix contains a 21-page analysis of Department of Defense military intelligence personnel.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2013
Accession Number
ADA584886

Entities

People

  • Barbara Bicksler
  • Bernard D. Rostker
  • Charles Nemfakos
  • Jeffrey Engstrom
  • Joseph Jenkins
  • Lianne Kennedy-boudali
  • Raymond E. Conley
  • Sara-beth Elson
  • Stephanie Young
  • William A. Williams

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Congress
  • Employment
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Intelligence Community (United States)
  • Intelligence Cycle
  • Law
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Personnel
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personnel Management
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States Government
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Geospatial Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence Analytics