[Senate Hearing 112-73]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-73
STATE DEPARTMENT TRAINING:
INVESTING IN THE WORKFORCE TO ADDRESS 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES
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HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 8, 2011
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
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and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JON TESTER, Montana ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MARK BEGICH, Alaska RAND PAUL, Kentucky
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Joyce Ward, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK BEGICH, Alaska JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
Lisa M. Powell, Staff Director
Jessica K. Nagasako, Professional Staff Member
Aaron H. Woolf, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Senator Coburn............................................... 11
WITNESSES
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Hon. Nancy J. Powell, Director General of the Foreign Service and
Director of Human Resources, U.S. Department of State.......... 3
Ruth A. Whiteside, Director, Foreign Service Institute, U.S.
Department of State............................................ 4
Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 6
Hon. Ronald E. Neumann, President, American Academy of Diplomacy. 17
Susan R. Johnson, President, American Foreign Service Association 19
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Ford, Jess T.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Johnson, Susan R.:
Testimony.................................................... 19
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Neumann, Hon. Ronald E.:
Testimony.................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Powell, Hon. Nancy J.:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Whiteside, Ruth A.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 38
APPENDIX
Background....................................................... 69
STATE DEPARTMENT TRAINING:
INVESTING IN THE WORKFORCE TO ADDRESS 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES
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TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Akaka and Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and
the District of Columbia to order. I want to welcome our
witnesses. Aloha and thank you for being here today.
Today's hearing, State Department Training: Investing in
the Workforce to Address 21st Century Challenges, will examine
the results of the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
review on that topic. We will also discuss key recommendations
from a recent report by the American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD)
and the Stimson Center on Diplomatic Professional Education and
Training.
Advancing America's interest in safeguarding global
security is becoming ever more complex. According to Defense
Secretary Gates, a robust civilian capability, coupled with a
strong defense capability, is essential to preserving U.S.
national security interests around the world.
Today, GAO is releasing a report finding that the State
Department has developed an extensive training program for its
employees. In recent years, the department has focused on
increasing staffing levels and investing in training programs.
State offers a wide variety of education and training
opportunities, including traditional classroom, as well as
computer-based training.
However, GAO identified areas needing improvement. More
specifically, GAO found that State does not yet comprehensively
assess its training needs, track training costs and delivery,
or evaluate training using outcome-based performance measures.
I urge State to work closely with GAO to implement its
recommendations. In this tough budget climate, it is more
important than ever for the department to conduct the planning
and evaluation necessary to fully support its funding requests
and target limited resources strategically.
The House-passed budget would cut 16 percent from State and
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
I believe this cut is shortsighted and could lead to greater
long-term costs. The events in the Middle East and North Africa
over the past few months underscore the need for robust and
agile State Department capabilities. Iraq and Afghanistan also
will continue to present complex long-term diplomatic and
development challenges.
Around the world, the work of the State Department helps
build more stable societies, which minimizes the potential for
conflict, lowering the human and financial costs of military
engagement. Meeting these critical challenges requires
investment in the training and professional education needed
for State Department employees to effectively advance U.S.
foreign policy interests. It is essential to the department's
operations and our Nation's security to provide State with the
resources to properly staff and train its most valuable asset--
its workforce.
The American Academy of Diplomacy and others have
recommended that State maintains a 15 percent personnel float
to allow for training without hindering the department's
operations. The department has made great strides to try to
attain the staffing necessary for long-term training, but the
current funding environment has created a great deal of
uncertainty.
Congress must do its job to eliminate the funding
uncertainty. We cannot expect the Federal agencies to
efficiently or effectively implement long-term strategies with
short-term funding extensions.
I look forward to hearing from our first panel of witnesses
and welcome them here today: Ambassador Nancy J. Powell, the
Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human
Resources (HR) at the Department of State; Ruth Whiteside,
Director of the Foreign Service Institute, also at the
Department of State; and Jess Ford, the Director of
International Affairs and Trade at the Government
Accountability Office. Good to see you back again.
As you know, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear
in all witnesses and I would ask all of you to stand and raise
your right hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give this
Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Powell. I do.
Ms. Whiteside. I do.
Mr. Ford. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let it be noted in the record
that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Before we start, I want you to know that your full written
statements will be part of the record and I would also like to
remind you to please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes.
Ambassador Powell, will you please proceed with your
statement?
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. NANCY J. POWELL,\1\ DIRECTOR GENERAL,
FOREIGN SERVICE AND DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. Powell. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to
appear before you today to talk about the State Department's
efforts to ensure that our people are trained effectively to
address the foreign policy challenges of the 21st Century.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Powell appears in the appendix on
page 29.
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We worked closely with the GAO team on its study of our
training and we welcome their recommendations. The State
Department carries out U.S. foreign policy in increasingly
complex and often perilous environments. The last decade has
been marked by a growing number of global threats to our
security, including violent extremism, trafficking in narcotics
and persons, natural disasters and pandemics. In order to
manage these threats, we must build productive partnerships
with other countries to help strengthen their capabilities. We
recognize that we must continue to reach out to influence
public opinion and build our diplomatic presence where our
interests are most at stake.
In December, the State Department issued the first ever
Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), which
provides a blueprint for elevating American civilian power to
better advance our foreign policy interests. The QDDR also
calls on the department to deploy additional personnel and
resources to emerging powers and centers of global and regional
influence, such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico,
Nigeria, Russia, South Africa and Turkey.
We must ensure that our employees receive the support and
training they need to succeed in these posts, as well as when
they move on to their next assignment or return home. The
Bureau of Human Resources is responsible for the State
Department's greatest assets, its personnel. The Civil Service,
Foreign Service and locally-employed (LE) staff will advance
the interests of the United States.
Our mission spans the full course of employee services from
before employees are hired until after they have retired. We
work hand in hand with the Foreign Service Institute to ensure
that employees of our three different workforces are well
equipped to handle the demands of their jobs.
In this report, GAO recognized the wide variety of training
we have designed to provide our people with the knowledge and
skills to address today's diplomatic challenges. GAO also noted
some areas where we could improve. I would like to briefly
discuss what we have done to strengthen our training program.
My colleague, Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Director Dr. Ruth
Whiteside, will provide greater detail about FSI's programs.
Effective training is essential to the success of our
people in meeting our foreign policy objectives. We agree with
GAO that training programs, whether they be for our Foreign
Service employees, Civil Service employees, or locally-employed
staff, will not succeed unless we first fully assess our
training needs.
To better assess our Foreign Service needs, we completed a
comprehensive job analysis for Foreign Service generalists in
2007 and one for a specialist in 2009. FSI used the results of
these analyses to modify its course offerings. We have created
a career development plan (CDP) for generalists and specialists
that outlines the knowledge, skills and expertise they will
need throughout their career.
The situation with our Civil Service employees is a bit
different. Entry-level employees have well-defined training
needs and many enter through highly structured Federal
internship programs that have their own training requirements.
We are also developing a formal needs assessment for our Civil
Service workforce. For our 43,000 locally-employed staff in 270
different posts around the world, we require flexibility in
assessing needs and planning in administrative training. We
have increased training for these staff at our regional
centers, which allows them to take many of the same
professional courses given to United States staff. We
supplement these opportunities with professional conferences
and other training.
Another challenge that we face as we bring in large numbers
of new Foreign Service and Civil Service employees is the
experience gap with our workforces. Approximately 33 percent of
Foreign Service employees and 36 percent of Civil Service
employees currently have less than 5 years of experience with
the department and 61 percent with less than 10. We are
continuing our formal and informal mentoring programs to help
them. This is also an issue that the American Academy of
Diplomacy addresses and Dr. Whiteside and I work closely with
them.
I want to take just a minute to touch on another training
issue that I know is of interest to you, Senator, strengthening
our foreign language capabilities, which are central to
achieving our Nation's foreign policy goals. We will transmit
to you today the formal copy of our language strategy, which
has been completed and cleared. But in the meantime, we have
been working to align our tools in terms of recruitment
incentives, career requirements and assignments, along with
that strategy.
With the news over the past few weeks highlighting how our
world is changing and increasing the complexity of the State
Department's mission, it is highly appropriate that we are
talking about training today. Our people are key to our success
and we must ensure that they are fully equipped to handle not
only today's challenges, but are prepared to meet tomorrow's as
well.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak today
and I will be happy to take your questions. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for your
statement. Director Whiteside, please proceed with your
statement.
TESTIMONY OF RUTH A. WHITESIDE,\1\ DIRECTOR, FOREIGN SERVICE
INSTITUTE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. Whiteside. Thank you very much, Senator. It is a great
honor to be here with you today to talk about this important
subject.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Whiteside appears in the appendix
on page 38.
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The GAO report has given us some very helpful insights into
ways we can enhance our training programs. We were very pleased
that the report found that the department was meeting 26 of the
32 attributes of the strongest Federal training, strategic
training and development efforts. We welcome the
recommendations they have made in other areas where we can
strengthen our actions and in fact, we have already closed out
one of their recommendations on curriculum design guidance.
The Foreign Service Institute is the department's principal
training arm. We provide career-long training programs for all
the department's employees, Foreign Service, Civil Service, and
foreign nationals overseas. Our programs include over 600
classroom courses and over 200 in-house developed distance
learning courses offered to our worldwide workforce.
We train everyone in the department from our newest Foreign
Service and Civil Service employees through our ambassadors as
they prepare to depart for their assignments overseas. Our
curriculum covers disciplines as diverse as management,
consular, public diplomacy, politics and economic reporting,
negotiations, area studies, among many others.
In addition to these traditional areas, we are providing
training and stability operations for those destined for our
most challenging assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Sudan and other unstable countries.
Foreign language instruction, as the director general said,
is critical to our diplomats' ability to communicate America's
message overseas and we provide language training in more than
70 languages. Leadership training is also an important focus
and we are training everyone from first-time supervisors to
newly promoted senior Foreign and Civil Service employees and
we work closely with employees and family members as they
transition overseas to help them anticipate and cope with
issues they face, ranging from security and dangerous overseas
environments to raising resilient Foreign Service children, to
returning from high-stress assignments and moving back into
mainstream assignments.
The FSI curriculum is geared to support the entire embassy
team and in our training audience we include students from 47
other Federal Government agencies who work in our embassies and
many members of the military who also serve in our embassies
abroad.
We face many challenges for providing training for today's
complex foreign affairs environment. The secretary's Diplomacy
3.0 hiring initiative has increased our training enrollments
over 50 percent from pre-deployment days. I mentioned our
stability operations curriculum, a new area that has led us
into much more training with the military and understanding
civilian-military relationships overseas.
And we heeded the call from Congress and the GAO and others
to strengthen interagency training, and we have created
programs such as the National Security Executive Leadership
Seminar for GS-15s and Foreign Service Officer (FSO)-1s from
all across the government.
A continuing challenge is the need to train a workforce
that is deployed worldwide and we are proud to be leaders in
the area of computer-based distance learning training, which
makes it possible for our workforce to train over the internet
24/7 from wherever they are in the world. Today we have more
than 200 courses ranging from foreign languages to trade craft,
to supervisory skills, to the basics of reconstruction and
stabilization, to augment the training that we do in the
classroom and to allow folks, particularly our local employees
overseas who would never have the opportunity perhaps for
training, to access these invaluable resources.
We work closely with the director general's staff and
others in the bureau to assure that our training is focused on
the department's needs and anticipates future requirements. We
regularly review reports like the GAO reports from other parts
of the department, inspector general's reports, work of the
director general's office, like the job analysis she mentioned,
and external reports, such as the Academy of American Diplomacy
report we will be talking about later today. We are delighted
to see Ambassador Neumann here and we work closely with him in
that important study.
In conclusion, sir, the men and women of the department,
Civil Service, the Foreign Service, and our locally-employed
staff have chosen the path of public service and they are doing
tough jobs often in very tough locales and at great personal
risk. They deserve the best preparation we can provide them to
do their jobs at a very high level and to help them develop
into future leaders. Especially in an era of tight budgets, as
you mentioned, training is critical to ensure that our
employees are performing their work with maximum efficiency and
effectiveness.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for letting us be here and we
look forward to your questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Director Whiteside, for
your statement.
Mr. Ford, will you please proceed with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF JESS T. FORD,\1\ DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
AND TRADE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here
today to discuss our report which is being released, as you
mentioned in your opening statement. Because the State
Department is the lead agency for U.S. foreign policy, its
personnel requires certain knowledge, skills, and abilities to
equip them to address the global security threats and
challenges facing the United States, such as fighting
terrorism, implementing AIDS, HIV-AIDS and other pandemic
problems, environmental degradation and a number of other
foreign policy issues.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ford appears in the appendix on
page 45.
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From Fiscal Year 2006 to 2010, the State Department's
funding for training has grown 62 percent, up to approximately
$266 million for this year. It covers training in a number of
key skill areas that have been mentioned by the other
witnesses, primarily in the areas of foreign language
proficiency, area studies, information technology (IT),
consular duties and other important endeavors that are
primarily under the aegis of the FSI, the Foreign Service
Institute.
Our prior work has identified staffing and foreign language
shortfalls at the State Department. These challenges are
directly related to their needs to address shortfalls in the
mid-level area, in particular, and also in the area of foreign
language. We discussed these issues with you approximately a
year ago.
Today the department is currently involved in a major
challenge in Iraq where they are trying to take over for the
military responsibility there, which is one of the greatest
hardship posts that State Department personnel are going to be
involved in. The recent departmental initiatives, particularly
Diplomacy 3.0, a multi-year effort launched in 2009, is meant
to increase the Foreign Service by 25 percent and the Civil
Service by 13 percent by 2014.
Mr. Chairman, our report today discusses a number of issues
related to the State Department's training. We acknowledge that
the State Department has taken a number of steps to incorporate
the elements of an effective training program. For example, the
State Department has a workforce training plan. FSI has an
annual schedule of courses for both classroom and distance
learning for all State employees.
State also has a range of evaluation mechanisms to assess
employee satisfaction with training and seeks feedback through
these annual training surveys. However, State has not
developed--we believe State can improve in a number of areas,
which we have covered extensively in our report.
First, we believe that the State Department needs to
complete a systematic, comprehensive training needs assessment
to incorporate all bureaus and overseas posts. Since 2007, the
State Department has acknowledged that bureaus in particular
have not formally conducted annual training needs assessments.
Without such systematic assessments, State cannot be assured
that its training is connected to all of its true needs and
priorities.
State indicated that the Bureau of Human Resources intends
to form an interagency group to address the comprehensive need
and we heard earlier this morning that they have started to
take some analyses which are designed to address our
recommendation.
State has developed guidance designed to improve
information for employees about training opportunities, career
ladders, and paths, and how training can help employees with
their career goals. We found some issues regarding the
usefulness of some of the guides that they have prepared. We
found that specific training requirements designed by bureaus
and posts for certain groups of employees are not always
clearly identified in their training guidance. State has
acknowledged that they need to address this issue and are going
to be addressing our recommendations meant to improve the
guides.
State has also not developed a data collection and analysis
plan for evaluating training, which could help ensure that
appropriate procedures and criteria for evaluating training are
systematically applied across the board. As a result, it is not
clear whether and how State systematically makes decisions
regarding how training programs will be evaluated using
different methods or tools or how results will be used. Once
again, we have recommended that the State Department address
this issue and they have indicated they plan to do so.
State has not sufficiently demonstrated consistent and
appropriate support for training, because it does not track
detailed data and information on training costs and delivery
that would allow for such analysis and a comparison of
employees in different skill groups, particularly at the bureau
and post level.
For example, State could not provide data on the percentage
of foreign affairs or political officers that have completed
required, recommended, or suggested training for their areas of
work. We believe this type of analysis will help them identify
the needs and skills that they need in the future and we have
urged them to include more analysis of this type of training
endeavor.
Finally, State has developed certain training-related goals
and measures, but the measures do not fully address all of the
goals and are intended to be more output versus outcome
oriented. As a result, they could not provide clear means of
determining whether State's training efforts have achieved the
overall goals that they have set for themselves. Again, we made
a recommendation in our report for them to address that and
they indicated they would do so.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to stop and conclude my statement
here and I would be happy to address any further questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you, Mr. Ford, for your statement.
Mr. Ford, as you know, the State Department has invested
more heavily in training in recent years. Its funding for
training grew as you mentioned, by 62 percent between Fiscal
Years 2006 and 2010, when State devoted about $255 million to
employee training. At the same time, the number of Foreign
Service, Civil Service and locally-employed staff increased by
about 17 percent.
Your report highlights the importance of evaluating
training efforts. With State's current planning and evaluation,
can we be sure if State has sufficient funding for training and
if it is achieving the desired results?
Mr. Ford. Well, let me comment on a couple of things that I
think are important here. First, the department does have some
mechanisms to evaluate its training endeavor. I mentioned
earlier the annual surveys that they conduct for employees
overseas. They tend to focus on levels of satisfaction with the
training that had been received and the department collects
useful information on that.
I think there are a couple of areas that we think the
department needs to concentrate a little bit more on and that
has to do with the results of their programs. They tend to
focus primarily on employee satisfaction. We would like to see
more analysis on the actual impact of the training so that if
they are in a position where they have to make tradeoffs about
the type of training that is going to be provided because of
budgetary reasons, they will have a solid basis for determining
where they need to make that investment.
So our recommendation in the area of evaluation is designed
for them to have better information to make better investment
decisions so that if they have to make adjustments in training
because of budgetary constraints, they will be in a better
position to prioritize and spend the money in the areas that
are most important for their mission.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Ambassador Powell, what is the
current status of implementing the Secretary's Diplomacy 3.0
initiative to increase Foreign Service employees by 25 percent
and Civil Service employees by 13 percent by Fiscal Year 2014?
Ms. Powell. I am very happy to report, Senator, that using
the funds that were provided in Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010, we
have been able to increase the size of the Foreign Service by
16 percent and the Civil Service by 8 percent. These increases
have provided us with a number of opportunities with some very,
very highly talented people that we have been able to recruit.
They are serving around the world at this point. They are in
training. It has allowed us to increase the number of
individuals who are in training and still staff our positions
overseas.
We have also created 600 new positions that are addressing
critical needs in the areas that we have talked about earlier
today, some of the national security, some of the hard
languages, global climate change, women's rights, food
security, so a variety of things that were urgent needs and we
have been able to fill many of the vacancies, particularly at
the entry- and mid-level that have plagued our service over the
past few years when hiring was not as robust.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Powell, what effect does the
current budget uncertainty have on State operations and
training, and does State have contingency plans to meet its
workforce and training needs in the event of funding
shortfalls?
Ms. Powell. Senator, the answer is obviously difficult for
all of us as we deal with the Fiscal Year 2011 funding. We
continue to work on the program that we had set up with the
budget using the continuing resolution. We are working very
hard in HR to look at various scenarios involving different
budget scenarios. The fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget has included
additional positions in the 3.0 effort so that we can continue
that effort in Fiscal Year 2012.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Ford, State uses different models of
training more extensively with different employee groups. For
example, most FSI classroom training is provided to Foreign
Service employees, and locally-employed staff overseas receive
the largest amount of computer-based training.
Did GAO assess whether the type of training provided to the
different groups is appropriate?
Mr. Ford. Our report does not specifically identify the
appropriateness or the types of training that the department is
employing. We acknowledge that the distance learning has been
an expanding area and that the locally-engaged staff at the
over 200 missions overseas frequently use that as a device to
increase their skill sets.
I think the issue that we raise in our report has to do
with the overall needs of the department and we think they need
to have a solid foundation of defining what the needs are and
then the tools that they would use to carry those programs out,
be that classroom training, distance learning or external
training, would be part of the plan that they would pull
together to define which areas require the greatest investment.
So our view is if they--we want them to do a comprehensive
assessment to identify what those requirements are and then
they would look at the tools that they have in place to address
those. That would include distance learning, classroom training
or external training.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Ford, did GAO identify any specific
additional training that should be required for certain
personnel?
Mr. Ford. As part of our report, we met with and discussed
with a number of bureau officials at the department, functional
bureaus and geographic bureaus, as well as some State
Department employees overseas. We contacted 12 posts in the
course of our work. Our conversations with those individuals
indicated there are some areas that they believe the department
needs to focus on in training. A lot of it has to do with
occupational subject matter training, training in areas such as
program management, contract management, some of the areas that
we had in some of our prior work had identified areas where we
think the department needs to improve in.
So again, we would like to see the department's assessment
process clearly identify which of these programmatic
occupational areas should be greater focused on in the training
regime, because clearly the people in the field and at the
bureau level have indicated these are areas that they think
further training may be required.
Senator Akaka. Director Whiteside, as you know, three
regional centers provide some training to State employees,
particularly locally-employed staff. However, GAO found that
each center's model for developing and delivering training, as
well as their coordination with FSI, varies. GAO also found
that posts in African and Near Eastern Affairs regions
currently are not formally served by the regional centers.
Has State considered providing a more centralized and
strategic process for offering training through the regional
centers?
Ms. Whiteside. Thank you very much for the question, sir. I
think the answer to that is a definite yes. We have been very
proactive in the last year and increasingly with the regional
centers in terms of coordinating the training that they have
done.
We have recognized that because they are in the region, we
can leverage their locations. We have been working with them to
identify what we call adjunct faculty. These are persons who
serve in the region, often locally-employed staff that can be
trained to offer training. Then we are able to extend the
number of FSI courses in the field that do not have to be
taught by sending an instructor from FSI to the field, but that
can be taught in the field by someone who has been trained by
FSI using FSI training materials.
We have a very active program now with the three, as you
mentioned, the Western Hemisphere, the European Bureau, and the
East Asia and Pacific Bureau, and they are in fact now reaching
out more to Africa and the Middle East through arrangements
that will reach those Foreign Service National employees (FSNs)
as well, so regional training and using adjunct faculty to
expand the reach of training in the most efficient way possible
is a very high goal of ours.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you for those responses. Good
morning, Senator Coburn.
Senator Coburn. Good morning.
Senator Akaka. Good to have you. I would like to ask
Senator Coburn for his questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to
be here. I have a short statement. How many of you are familiar
with what the Deficit Commission recommendation was in terms of
the State Department; anybody familiar with the recommendation?
The recommendation of the Deficit Commission was to
essentially reduce State Department personnel by 10 percent
based on studies that we reviewed. And based on the criticisms
in the report that was released by the GAO today, every area of
the Federal Government has some problems, including yours truly
in the Senate.
The thing that concerns me is we have Diplomacy 3.0 with
this goal of ramping up at a time when we're on an absolutely
unsustainable course in terms of being able to pay the bills.
It is one thing to ramp up. It is the other thing to ramp up
without proper training and also the proper controls on the
training.
I wanted to come today to thank Senator Akaka for holding
the hearing, one, but also to put into the record what is not
going to happen in the future, and it is not going to get
ramped up, because we do not have the dollars to do it. I also
want to put into the record a criticism on locality pay.
Right now the State Department has 25,000 applicants for
900 positions. You essentially have 27 applicants for every one
position that is open. The locality pay, which is another
recommendation, in terms of comparison is something that we are
not going to be able to afford in the future and it is going to
go away and people ought to be expecting that.
Our troops do not get locality pay. Our military officers
do not get foreign pay. The other thing that the Deficit
Commission asked to be done is for every consulate to really
assess whether or not they are absolutely necessary everywhere
we have a consulate. It is a new day and it is really important
that our leaders, such as you all, understand that we are going
to be under very constricted resources for the next 20 years in
this country and the absolute imperative of having an effective
diplomacy effort is vital to us. We understand that.
But every area of our Federal Government is going to be
required to contribute. It really works out that if we do not
do that, we will be making these decisions in a very short time
frame and not making them as effective as if we planned for
them. I will not go into the reason why that is going to
happen, but there are not many people that deny that is going
to happen. We must do it in a thoughtful and in a very prudent
manner as we go forward.
I appreciate tremendously the work of the GAO to raise the
prudent questions that need to be raised for all of us to be
better in what we do. I recognize Director Powell and Director
Whiteside having a report that is critical of what we do in
terms of training. It is not meant to be critical. It is meant
to make us better and I hope that the report that is put
forward will reenergize us in terms of comprehensive training
for the very valuable State Department employees that we have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Coburn.
Ambassador Powell and Director Whiteside, in recent years,
more State Department employees have been serving in dangerous
locations and carrying out their missions beyond the walls of
secured embassy compounds. The National Security Presidential
Directive (NSPD) 12 calls on the Federal Government to prepare
all at-risk Federal employees for hostage or other isolation
situations.
My question to you is, what steps has the department taken
to implement this directive? Director Whiteside?
Ms. Whiteside. Sir, the directive is the specific
responsibility of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and their
training program and we have as recently as within the last
month been in touch with them about how to coordinate that in
the government. I think currently that is being done primarily
in our security training provided at post by our regional
security officers (RSOs), who do an orientation for everyone
who comes to their posts.
But they have very recently been in touch with us to talk
about what more we need to do to implement this in the
department.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Powell, how will the department
use funds requested for fiscal year 2012 to implement this
training and will the department require any additional
resources?
Ms. Powell. Senator, we will use our planning documents,
the Bureau and Mission Strategic Plans, as well as for
particularly working with FSI. We are also going to be informed
by the implementation of the QDDR. There are a number of new
requests for training, new areas for training, particularly
emphasizing the need to develop people who are comfortable in
the interagency setting here in Washington, overseas and we
will be looking at those.
But we have a strategic plan that we are using. We have the
new language plan that will also be available to us to guide
the look at funding. Certainly looking ahead to implementing
the GAO recommendations we will need to look at the cost for
some of those in terms of the tracking.
We have already set aside time and effort for the
assessment needs study that is going to be done in our Civil
Service mission critical occupations. Those are some of the
high priorities for us for that target. But we will continue
with the language training, our leadership training, and the
other areas that Dr. Whiteside supervises at FSI.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Powell, as you know well, foreign
language skills are critical to carrying out the department's
mission. I am pleased that the department has completed a
strategic plan for foreign languages, which GAO called for in
its 2009 foreign language report.
Please elaborate on what action State has taken or still
plans to take to implement the recommendations for that report.
Ms. Powell. We've been working very hard on the strategy
itself, but in the meantime, taking some very important
decisions, I believe, to implement things that will come to
total fruition after it becomes part of our standard strategy.
The working groups that have been working on language have
worked particularly hard on identifying languages for incentive
pay. We have been studying what needs to be done in that area.
We have also set up a new, and I think a much improved and
strategic approach to designating languages as critical,
requiring training or proficiency.
We also have a new strategy that's been developed and is
going to be used to look at recruitment language incentives,
deciding which ones will gain people extra credit in the
registry after they have passed the Foreign Service test.
I am very pleased to tell you that we have developed a
language training and assignment model. The pilot has been
completed. I had my first briefing on it last week. It appears
to have great promise not only for language training, but we
think it may be able to address some of the needs that the GAO
has identified and help us with other areas of State Department
training in terms of modeling our needs on a longer term scale.
We have been very pleased that Diplomacy 3.0 has provided
us with additional opportunities to put students in hard
languages. Our Arabic and Chinese students have expanded
greatly, particularly since September 11, 2001, and we continue
to recruit Dari, Farsi, Pashto speakers in our recruitment
efforts, but also provide additional training for people that
need those languages at FSI.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Powell, I am a strong supporter
of rotational programs to improve government integration and
coordination. I am pleased that the department recognizes the
importance of understanding interagency processes and has
incorporated rotational arrangements into its training program.
According to QDDR, employees will be encouraged to
undertake short-term detail assignments in other agencies. Will
you please elaborate on this program and what efforts the
department is taking to encourage employees to participate in
it?
Ms. Powell. The QDDR recommendations are under review right
now and we have not really begun the implementation project.
But the genesis of the idea was to support exactly what you
were saying, of trying to provide people with familiarity with
the operations of other government agencies with whom we work
directly, particularly overseas now. Our country teams are very
definitely interagency.
I was in Mexico last week, or 2 weeks ago. The number of
agencies sitting around the country team table is very
impressive and the coordination that our people need to be able
to bring to that effort can be developed through these details.
We are looking particularly at details with USAID and
expanding the details we have with the Department of Defense
(DOD). We have greatly expanded the number of political
advisors and the number of students who are attending DOD
facilities and this has certainly encouraged a much better
rapport as people--our provincial reconstruction teams in
Afghanistan or Iraq, they already know each other. They already
know the mechanisms for working across interagency lines.
We anticipate that providing that we have the funds, we
will be able to expand those opportunities to other agencies.
Center for Disease Control (CDC) comes to mind, particularly
for those programs that are working with HIV/AIDS around the
world, but other details with the agencies here in Washington.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Powell and Director Whiteside,
due to the mid-level staffing gaps, more entry-level officers
are being assigned to supervisory positions. The Academy
recommends that all new officers in supervisory positions take
a short course in supervising and mentoring employees, as well
as supervising employees in other cultures.
What steps has the department taken to make sure that
officers have the skills needed to be effective managers?
Director Whiteside.
Ms. Whiteside. Sir, thank you very much. I think this is a
very, very important question and one the director general
particularly has encouraged us to focus on very specifically.
In the last year, we have taken a number of steps in this
regard. We have created a new fundamentals of supervision
course that we are now offering 25 times, I believe, a year in
this first year, to try to be sure that first-time
supervisors--we realize that many of our new officers, new
Foreign Service personnel going overseas, will supervise local
employees in their first assignments, so we want to give them
this basic understanding of supervision.
We have increased in our consular overseas training. For
example, we have focused this entire year with the Bureau of
Consular Affairs and with the director general staff on
training consular officers who are first-time supervisors in
consulates in the fundamentals of supervision and more nuts and
bolts, if you may, of supervisory skills.
And currently we are developing a series of distance
learning courses, one on the Foreign Service, one on the Civil
Service, and one on the locally-employed staffing system, to
give all of our employees worldwide a better understanding of
these systems, better understanding of the requirements of each
system, how people are promoted, how they are assigned, how
they are trained, and those courses will be fundamental for
everyone in our system on this important subject.
Ms. Powell. Senator, if I could just add to that. Dr.
Whiteside and I have particularly been working and have had the
backing of the American Academy in their report on a project
that we have found foundation money to do a pilot that will
work with our first-time supervisors of American employees.
They will be provided with classroom instruction.
And then we hope to have a recent retiree that will ride
the circuit to their posts and see how they are implementing
that training at post, talk to their supervisors to see what
additional information, if we were able to do this again, that
we could provide in the next class. We are quite excited about
this as part of our attempt to improve supervision of both the
American and the locally-engaged staff.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Ambassador Powell and Director
Whiteside, the mid-level staffing gap also has created a
shortage of mentors for younger State employees. The department
has developed mentoring programs to address this experience
gap. The Academy's report also recommends that State establish
a core of rotating counselors to provide mentoring.
Would you please elaborate on State's mentoring programs
and discuss your reactions to the Academy's recommendation as
well?
Ms. Powell. Senator, we have a very robust mentoring
program. For those employees overseas, for our American
employees, we have charged the deputy chief of mission, the
number two person at the embassy, with the formal
responsibility.
But certainly in my remarks to the staffs as I travel
around in other fora, we encourage everyone to be a mentor. We
recognize that particularly if you are overseas, you can very
quickly become the old timer in being able to help a brand new
employee, whether they are just new to the Foreign Service or
just new to post. So we encourage everyone to be a mentor.
Our senior employees have stepped up to fill this gap and I
am very pleased with the mentoring programs. Several of our
bureaus, including the Western Hemisphere Bureau, has created
an entry-level coordinator that is designed to work with all of
the entry-level officers throughout that region of the world, a
very interactive web page that has video clips. It has a great
deal of information for people, an opportunity to answer
questions.
This has served as a force multiplier for our mentors at
the smaller posts in particular. There are other efforts in
East Asia, in the Middle East that are being done. Our
ambassadors are particularly seized with this and see it not
only in the interest of improving their mission, but ensuring
that people have the opportunities that they have.
We have started similar programs for our locally-engaged
staff and for the Civil Service with full-time mentors and then
something called situational mentoring in which we have several
hundred people who have volunteered to be experts on a
particular subject. There is a database and if you are
interested in that particular subject, there is a group of
people that you can request assistance from, go have a cup of
coffee, or if it is a more formal question, they will assist
you in getting to the right place in the department to get the
assistance that you need.
But this is a constant effort. We are very pleased with the
volunteers that have done this and we will continue to expand
it.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. On the same question, Mr. Ford,
what are the key elements needed to ensure an effective
mentoring program?
Mr. Ford. Well, I think there's a couple--several things
here. First of all, it's encouraging to hear that the
department is focusing on mentoring. This is an issue not
unique to State Department. Many Federal agencies in town,
including our own, we have a lot of younger employees that we
are trying to teach how to do our work, but also to mentor them
in how they advance their careers.
I think that the critical thing here is identifying first
of all what the needs are of the employees. I think it is
important, particularly for junior staff, to have a good
understanding of what their basic needs are, what kind of
skills they need to develop particularly early on in their
career and that the mentoring program be directly tied to that
so that the mentoring has not just generic value by having a
senior person, for example, like myself, to tell my staff what
I think is important.
I think it needs to be tied to what their skills needs are
and that needs to be fully developed and defined in order to
have an effective program. So I would say that is the key step
of a mentoring program that is not unique to the State
Department. I think it is true in general for Federal agencies
that are now staffed with a lot of junior staff.
Senator Akaka. Thank you for that response. I have a final
question for the State Department witnesses and then I will
give Mr. Ford an opportunity for final comments.
Ambassador Powell and Director Whiteside, what do you
expect to be the key challenges to implementing GAO's
recommendations? Director Whiteside.
Ms. Whiteside. Sir, I think there are a couple of things.
One is we are a worldwide workforce in 270 missions overseas
and in many domestic facilities around the United States. Our
workforce, particularly locally-engaged staff, I think vary so
much from post to post. There are cultural differences,
obviously, in every post in the world. There are levels of
sophistication. Our local employee staff range from highly
sophisticated professionals to those who work in support
positions around the embassy.
So I think the key challenge will be how to assess the
needs of this worldwide workforce when they are so
geographically dispersed and very different within the mission
itself. But I think we are very focused on being able to do
that. We will work closely with the regional bureaus in this
upcoming cycle of strategic planning where each mission
overseas prepares its strategic plan, to come in to do our best
to encourage them to help us identify the needs of those
workforces so that we can then address them more strategically.
So I think the key challenges are simply the nature of our
business that gives us such both dispersed and very diverse
workforce. But I think we are very focused on trying to address
the GAO's recommendations in that area.
Ms. Powell. If I could echo that by pointing out that there
is an additional complicating factor for us in that the world
does not stay still. We are constantly having to anticipate and
to react to the new challenges that come to us in the midst of
designing a program that has to have enough flexibility to be
able to do that.
I think, obviously, the resource constraints that were
previewed here this morning are ones that we will have to take
seriously as we design our programs and attempt to make sure
that our people have the skills and the training that they
need. But it is a very diverse workplace. The flexibility is
very, very important, that we be able to anticipate and respond
as the world changes. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your response. Mr.
Ford, would you like to make any final statements?
Mr. Ford. Yes, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to say
that during the course of this assessment, the State Department
was very cooperative with us. We work well with their staff. As
I tried to say in my opening statement, we think there are a
lot of positive things that the department is doing in the
training area.
I think the key in the future is they have some challenges
now because of the exigencies of operating in conflict zones.
We are going to be civilianizing our efforts in Iraq. That is
going to require a lot of manpower based on what the State
Department is proposing and they are going to have challenges
in training people for that mission.
I think the key here again, and if in fact there is a
constrained budget environment, it is critical that the
department is able to prioritize the most valuable types of
training that they need to provide to their employees. We think
the process they go through to help identify those priorities
is critical and I think that if they take the right steps
forward to identify what their real needs are in these kind of
situations, that they will be able to identify what they really
need so that they have the right skill sets being developed for
the staff that they have to carry out their mission.
So I think I feel positive about the State Department's
response to our report and we are hopeful that they will
implement our recommendations and they will be able to provide
Congress with some tangible information on what they are doing
down the road as they go forward.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford. I want to
thank this panel for your valuable testimony this morning and
tell you that it will certainly help us in our work here in the
Senate.
I would like at this time to ask the second panel of
witnesses to come forward. [Pause.]
I want to welcome our second panel of witnesses, the
Ambassador Ronald Neumann, President of the American Academy of
Diplomacy; and Susan Johnson, President of the American Foreign
Service Association (AFSA).
As you know, it is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear
in all witnesses, so will you please stand and raise your right
hands?
Do you swear that the testimony you are both about to give
this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth so help you, God?
Mr. Neumann. I do.
Ms. Johnson. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let it be noted in the record
that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Before we start, I want to say that your written statement
will be part of the record and I would like to remind you to
limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes.
So Ambassador Neumann, will you please proceed with your
statement?
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. RONALD E. NEUMANN,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
ACADEMY OF DIPLOMACY
Mr. Neumann. Senator Akaka, as demonstrations sweep across
the Arab World, we have seen exemplary performance by Foreign
Service Officers (FSOs) taking risks to protect American
citizens and report on developments. Yet despite the work of a
number of superbly qualified Arab-speaking officers, our
government lacks sufficient trained Arabic-speaking officers to
fully understand and assess what is happening, to go beyond the
glib English-speaking reporters in Tahrir Square to take the
full measure of what Islamists, young people, demonstrators,
and the jobless are saying off camera.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Neumann appears in the appendix
on page 55.
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We lack these capacities because for years the department
lacked the resources to train enough officers. The Director
General and Dr. Whiteside are making progress in addressing the
problem, but it will be years before they can compensate for
the mistakes of the past. This is a microcosm of the training
problem that you on this Subcommittee and your colleagues are
going to make worse or better in the budgets of this and the
next few years.
The American Academy of Diplomacy, an expert non-partisan
organization that you know well, has just released this study
of training and education necessary for our diplomats. This
study found serious problems and makes specific
recommendations, it builds on our earlier study of ``A Foreign
Affair's Budget for the Future'' (FAB) and like that study, was
funded by the Una Chapman Cox Foundation with, in this case,
help from the American Foreign Service Association, Delavan
Foundation and our own resources. Ambassador Robert Beecroft
headed the work.
Let me highlight our most important issues and
recommendations. First is the need for personnel. With
congressional support, the State Department has made serious
progress. However, the progress is not complete. Several
hundred positions are needed still for training alone. The
Department lacks an adequate number of positions for what the
military calls a training float. Until an adequate reserve is
created, all the recommendations of yours, ours, the Secretary
of State, are frankly so much useless noise they cannot be
implemented without sufficient personnel and funding.
Second, the personnel system must take more responsibility
for ensuring that officers actually take the training they
need. You might think, as I did previously, that mandatory and
required are synonyms, but not in the State Department when it
comes to training. Mandatory means no kidding, you have to do
it. Required means you should do it, but because we need you
elsewhere, you can get a waiver and skip it, and too much of
the training officers need is required, which means it really
isn't.
While resources are important, another issue is that
assignment decisions are limited to immediate service needs and
officers' personal preferences. Integrating assignments into
how we produce experienced officers would significantly
strengthen the service. The system already in place to do this,
the Career Development Program (CDP), needs to be strengthened.
We make recommendations to that end.
We see a need for integration of resources and authorities
to arrive at a situation where in most cases officers must take
the training they require before getting to their jobs. That is
not now happening.
Third, diplomatic officers, like military counterparts,
need to go beyond training on specifics to broader military
education. As our military colleagues say, train for certainty,
but educate for uncertainty. One of our most far reaching
recommendations is to institute a full year of professional
education for all middle grade officers. We know it cannot be
done immediately. We urge that a gradually increasing cascade
of officers be devoted to this end.
In this connection, I want to say that while we are
generally strongly supportive of the administration's
management of the department, to hire only at attrition is a
mistake. Even if it is five officers, we think the direction of
increase needs to be sustained.
There are many additional recommendations that I will not
detail here. They cover ways to overcome the temporary gap in
mid-level officers and improve supervision. They touch on
better ways to train senior officers. I hope the Subcommittee
will give all these recommendations due consideration.
Chairman Akaka, in closing, we recognize the difficult
budgetary time. Nevertheless, let me leave you with one rather
shocking figure and a final thought. The statistics which
Director Powell mentioned is not new. Today two-thirds of U.S.
Foreign Service Officers have less than 10 years of service.
Let me repeat that. Two-thirds of our diplomats have less than
10 years of experience.
We cannot afford to leave their training to mistakes made
on the way to experience. Not building our professional staff
is akin to leaving maintenance of facilities undone. In the end
it costs more in time and money to repair the damage. I hope as
cuts are examined the Congress will recognize that diplomacy is
an essential element of national security and by far the
cheapest part in lives and dollars. But to the extent that cuts
must be made, let them be made in programs rather than in
personnel.
I assure you that over time the results will be to our
country's benefit. Thank you and I am ready for your questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for your
statement. Ms. Johnson, will you please proceed with your
statement?
TESTIMONY OF SUSAN R. JOHNSON,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREIGN
SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Ms. Johnson. Mr. Chairman, the American Foreign Service
Association, welcomes this opportunity to speak before this
Subcommittee on the subject of State Department training,
professional education and formation, and I look forward very
much to meeting with Senators Johnson and Coburn and their
staffs on another occasion.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the appendix
on page 63.
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The question of professional education and training for
21st Century diplomacy and development goes to the heart of our
national security readiness and competitiveness. Diplomacy and
development are key instruments of our national power and
should be our primary tools for advancing U.S. interest abroad.
There are no alternatives to diplomacy, as invariably
military interventions are costly and complicated and must
remain the option of last resort. AFSA is proud to represent
employees not only of the State Department, but also of the
U.S. Agency for International Development, the Foreign
Commercial Service, the Foreign Agricultural Service and the
International Broadcasting Bureau.
AFSA's over 11,000 active duty members represent today a
much broader and more diverse range of concerns and aspirations
then when I entered the Service in 1980. As AFSA president, one
of my goals is to help ensure that the institutional
environment in which our next generation of diplomats must work
stays attuned and responsive to both the enduring and the new
demands of their chosen profession.
We therefore welcome the focus of this timely hearing on
this important issue for our Nation's diplomatic service and
look forward to a similar focus on our development service,
USAID. As I noted in my written testimony, AFSA warmly welcomes
the Academy of American Diplomacy (AAD) study on Forging a 21st
Century Diplomatic Service for the United States through
Professional Education and Training.
As Ambassador Neumann noted in his excellent testimony, the
first three AAD recommendations focus on the urgent need to
redress our chronic under investment in diplomacy and
development by fully funding Diplomacy 3.0 hiring and providing
a training reserve or float and by making a long-term
commitment to investing in professional formation and training.
We agree with him that if there is no training reserve, the
remaining recommendations become almost meaningless.
In connection with AFSA's participation in the AAD study,
we invited a number of former U.S. diplomats now in academia to
help define a core body of knowledge that should be common to
all U.S. diplomats. They noted the dramatic shifts in the
geopolitical environment that foreshadow the rise of competing
power centers and value systems and emphasize that marginal
change in an effort to strengthen our diplomatic service will
not be sufficient to meet coming challenges.
The huge advantage the United States enjoys in the conduct
of its international affairs by virtue of our unparalleled hard
and soft power does not detract from the need to exercise
astute professional diplomacy to anticipate developments, to
provide sound advice to promote our interests and avoid costly
mistakes.
We need a first-class diplomatic service to maintain U.S.
global leadership and to better advance and defend U.S.
interests. AFSA also supports the GAO recommendations and
believes that in order to undertake effective training needs
assessment, the starting point must be a clear concept in
definition of what we are training for, translated into
operational terms and related to the central themes of the
department's recently completed Quadrennial Diplomatic and
Development Review.
Second, we would like to see greater recognition of the
importance of a diplomatic service that can operate from a
well-defined foundation of professional standards and ethics,
education, skills and know-how that is shared, in common. Our
military colleagues have demonstrated the role and importance
of professional education and training in creating services
that are more than the sum of their parts.
Third, AFSA believes that in order to prepare the next
generation of American diplomats now in mid-career for a
leadership role, there must be a system that ensures their
participation in defining the needs and priorities of American
diplomacy today. AFSA welcomes the growing recognition of the
urgent need for increased investment in American diplomacy and
in the Foreign Service as an institution.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. AFSA
values your long-standing support of initiatives to enhance the
diplomatic readiness of our civilian Foreign Service agencies
and we particularly appreciate the leadership that you have
shown in convening this hearing and we look forward to
continuing to serve as a resource to you and your colleagues.
Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Johnson.
Ambassador Neumann, in your testimony, you stated the
department still lacks an adequate number of positions for a
training float. Although State has expanded positions for
language training, it has not been able to do the same for
training in leadership and other critical skills.
Will you please discuss how a training float could help
support our overseas diplomatic operations?
Mr. Neumann. Senator Akaka, thank you for doing this
hearing. Essentially, all aspects of training are geared to
improving performance overseas, so I think it is therefore
axiomatic that if you don't train, your performance will be
less, unless you are extraordinarily lucky.
If the department continues to lack a float, it will be
where it has been for many of these past years, pulling people
to get them into jobs to diminish gaps in assignments and they
will therefore, continue to be unavailable for the training
that everybody agrees they ought to have. So I think the pieces
couple together.
I do not think it will be possible, even with the best
prioritization, to comment in a sense on Mr. Ford's earlier
optimism. I am more skeptical. If the personnel do not exist to
allow them to be withdrawn from the line, as it were, from the
active work, then you can do a little better by prioritizing
what you do not have. But after that, you will not get much
better.
Senator Akaka. As you both know, FSOs are serving in
increasingly more remote and dangerous locations. The State
Department provides security training to make sure FSOs have
the proper skills to avoid, manage and respond to dangerous
situations, such as hostage situations or the recent uprisings
in North Africa and the Middle East.
To both of you, what additional steps should the department
take to make sure FSOs are sufficiently trained for dangerous
situations?
Mr. Neumann. Do you want to start? You have a constituent.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In fact, that
question is very important to AFSA because it is our members
that we are talking about and their security and their ability
to provide also for the security of their colleagues. And in
this regard, I think we would certainly subscribe to the axiom
that an ounce of prevention is worth a great deal.
So we believe that this issue should be looked at
creatively to see whether what we are currently doing is
adequate. I did hear a reference in, and I think it was
Ambassador Powell's testimony, to the role of the RSOs in
providing security training. We have often heard from our
members that the RSOs are already overburdened with other
responsibilities and often have not had any experience with
training, and therefore, to rely on that as the principal mode
of providing training at post is not sufficient.
Now, I realize that additional training is taking place in
the department, or at FSI, prior to assignment. I do not know
if that is required or mandatory and if there are any waivers,
but I am hoping that it is mandatory. We have heard and talked
with Diplomatic Security about this and there are a number of
efforts underway, or there are a number of courses actually
underway--not underway now, but available, that train people in
how to be aware of dangerous situations as they develop and how
to escape from them.
But I think this brings us back again to the topic of
importance to you, which is language training, and something
that I have found in my experience, that if we are sending
officers into potentially harm's way, to the extent that they
are language capable, they will be better able to anticipate,
prevent, manage, deal with those situations. So language
training is not just training needed to better communicate. It
is training to be more secure.
Mr. Neumann. It is a fascinating question you ask, Senator
Akaka. It is one that I have perhaps more experience with than
most having served in four wars, one as a soldier, three as a
diplomat. I've had my embassy stormed in Bahrain and carried a
weapon under threat situations in countries in the old days
when we had no security, so I sort of lived this.
I subscribe to what Ms. Johnson said. I do believe that we
have gotten a lot better at security training. One will never
be perfect because there will always be new threats and new
challenges, but the department is doing a great deal more.
I think one issue that needs to be addressed is not in the
area of training, but in the area of decision making. How much
risk do we want our officers to take? The department has
historically been very risk-adverse, but we are living in
situations where that is not a sufficiency. In my experience,
what often happens is that officers actually take more risks
than the department would prefer in order to accomplish their
jobs.
I think there is a greater degree of courage in Foreign
Service Officers than is often recognized in their public image
and some of those who have worked for me have died in the line
of duty. But I think the department has a responsibility to
reconsider the issues of risks so that officers who have to
take risks to accomplish their job do not have to risk their
careers by stretching the regulations at the same time that
they risk their lives for the performance of national goals.
That is an issue that is raised in the QDDR. It calls for a
reexamination of this issue of risk. I hope the department
follows through. It is the kind of thing where if the Congress
does what the department has asked and mandates the QDDR being
instituted in law so that it has to be redone, is the kind of
thing that will get follow-up in the future.
Thank you for asking the question, sir.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let me call a very
brief recess. [Recess.]
The Subcommittee will be in order.
I would like to continue with a question for Ms. Johnson.
As you know, I asked Ambassador Powell about State's efforts to
make sure that officers have the needed supervisory skills. I
would like you to comment as well on State's supervisory skill
training.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. AFSA is very pleased
that the department is undertaking a number of new measures
that they are to address the issue of supervisory skills. We
have seen in the surveys that we have conducted and in feedback
from our members that this has been an area of considerable
concern and occasionally complaint. And we have also seen in
the grievance area that we deal with and other areas that AFSA
operates that people are dissatisfied and sometimes not
qualified or haven't been provided the training necessary to be
effective supervisors.
So we are very pleased to see that the department is
actively seeking to do a better job and to institute new
courses, which I hope will be mandatory, for employees who are
going out to first-time supervisory jobs, and to pay more
attention to this whole issue as people move through the mid-
career.
Senator Akaka. As you both know, much of the training at
the posts is on-the-job training, which is an important aspect
of training. The Academy recommends that State conduct a study
to examine best practices for on-the-job training. My question
to both of you is, what recommendations would you give the
department regarding carrying out this study?
Mr. Neumann. I guess I should start since it was our
recommendation.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Neumann.
Mr. Neumann. Thank you, Senator Akaka. I think, of course,
I would look to professional trainers and people who have
looked at this kind of issue before to do this sort of study.
And anecdotally, we hear things about some people relate much
better to Generation X, Generation Y people than others, that
there are techniques that convey information better, and others
that get people's backs up.
The point of a survey would be to pick up that kind of
information, both from those doing on-the-job training and
those who receive counseling on the job, what works, what
doesn't, to try to compile a sense of best practices. Then to
put that into some readily digestible form. As Director Powell
noted, all Deputy Chief Missions (DCMs) have this mentoring
responsibility. It would be very helpful for people who have
newly become DCMs, or maybe not so new, who have this
responsibility, to have something to go on beyond completely
gut instinct as to what works best in mentoring. They might be
able to go through a short, possibly distance learning course
in how do you identify different generational types. What kinds
of things work best to convey advice so that it is meaningful
and useful? That is the kind of thing we are looking at.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you. I would just like to add to the
comments of Ambassador Neumann, with which I agree. But from my
own experience and what people have said to me, it might be
helpful if we could identify what specific skills we want to
develop and perfect through this on-the-job training and make
that clear upfront, both to the DCM and to the mentors, as well
as to the mentees, so you would get a better sense of whether
the experiences that the mentor is trying to make sure an
employee gets to constitute the sort of on-the-job training are
in fact the right ones and which gaps there are.
So I think it would help both parties to have a better
sense what specific skills are we trying to develop or improve
and perfect through this mentoring.
Mr. Neumann. So long as you recognize that some of what you
are trying to mentor is not a specific skill, but a sort of
general ability to react to problems.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Ambassador Neumann, as you
pointed out in your testimony, although State has established
requirements for promotion to the senior ranks, the Academy
reported that it is concerned that officers will be unprepared
because the department does not monitor their progress toward
meeting the requirements.
My question to you is what steps should the department take
to make sure its officers are prepared to enter the senior
ranks?
Mr. Neumann. Very briefly, so that I do not recapitulate
all our recommendations, I think they have done a pretty good
job in the Career Development Program of laying out the basic
things that are necessary. What is needed now is the how, how
are you going to make sure officers get the skills you have
already identified, and part of that is informal training, as
we have talked about. Part of it is in mentoring.
Part of it will be whether the department has the capacity
to actually allow people to take the training which it has
identified. The one piece that we have particularly focused on
here as well is to look at assignments as being related to
training. Right now, decisions are made pretty much exclusively
on the short-term needs of the service and the short-term focus
of the officer.
We think there ought to be a third piece of that so that
the assignments in particular career tracks help officers to
develop the skills for the future. That kind of thinking will
only be possible if the role of the central personnel system is
strengthened in the assignments process. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Neumann, the Academy's report
states that employees of the Office of Career Development and
Assignment are not trained to offer career advice or conduct
the workforce planning. The report also points out that most of
the office's staff are in the Foreign Service, which brings
important expertise, but means that people leave after 2 or 3
years' rotations.
You recommend establishing a cadre of 7 to 10 permanent
human resource specialists for this office. Would you please
elaborate on how this would benefit the service?
Mr. Neumann. The office has to maintain, sir, a balance
between its various requirements, including needs of the
officer, needs of the service. Part of that balance requires
that Foreign Service Officers, who actually know what the jobs
are overseas and the conditions, remain in charge of the
office. I think we would have a serious problem if you ended up
with a service in the field being run entirely by people who do
not serve in the field.
But there is also a need that my colleagues who worked on
this report identified, which I believe in, for a strengthening
of the numbers of the permanent staff, that is, the Civil
Service staff, to provide the underpinning of continuity and
knowledge so that the continuity on the one hand and the
foreign experience on the other make a blending in the office
to perform a stronger role.
Our estimation was, as you stated. That is our estimation.
One could find that it needs a few more or a few less of the
permanent cadres as one actually experiments with it. But the
notion of the increase is so that you have enough permanent
staff to provide the expanded basis of continuity, which we
believe would be useful. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. In Ambassador Neumann's testimony, he stated
that we should train for certainty and educate for uncertainty.
He emphasized the importance of intellectual preparation.
The Academy recommends that mid-career officers receive a
year of professional education and that it be required for
promotion to the senior ranks. Would you please discuss this
and the advantages of allowing officers a year of advance
study?
Mr. Neumann. Certainly. This is, as you know, Senator
Akaka, a constant which has been long and well established with
our military colleagues. It is exactly this approach that has
led to people like General David Petraeus having a doctoral
degree from an advanced university.
There is a quality to education, to reflection on broader
issues, which you cannot get simply by specific training and I
think that is actually a notion which underlies the whole
notion of liberal education in universities in America. I can
tell you that my own experience of going to the National War
College back in 1990, 1991 bore this out.
In an anecdotal fashion I expected to have fun. I had no
idea how much I was going to learn and I learned a great deal,
not only about how to interoperate with my colleagues in the
military, but giving me a chance to step back from the day-to-
day pressures of resolving specific things or being trained for
specific skills and think about how do you integrate these
things more broadly and what are the downsides to any course of
action and how do you mitigate the kind of things that senior
managers have to think about?
There is a degree to which these will always be a little
bit ephemeral. You can always more easily define specific skill
sets than what it means to be an educated person and one
capable of reflection at senior levels. But I am quite sure
working up in this diverse body we call the Congress that you
are able to identify both sets of personalities. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you, Ambassador. Ms. Johnson, in your
testimony, you stated that AFSA would like to see greater
recognition of the importance of a common foundation of
professional identity, standards, and expectations within the
Foreign Service. This may be difficult to develop if training
is too focused on narrowly defined technical skills.
Would you please explain the importance of having a clear
sense of unity of effort and what steps the department can take
to address this?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it has been
noted by a number of the witnesses this morning the diversity
that is reflected in the Foreign Service of today. We have a
very talented group of people from all over the United States
and every measure of diversity that you can think of entering
our service today and this very varied background I think
underscores the need, even the heightened need for trying to
develop a common shared foundation for across all of our sort
of specializations, cones and other subdivisions that we have.
AFSA conducted a couple of surveys last year to all entry-
level and mid-level officers asking them what they thought
their profession was, what requirements, were there any core
values, was there anything? And the responses that we got were
all over the place. It was very evident that there was no
unified set of commonly held values or understanding about what
the professional requirements were.
We think that these surveys should be followed up on and
that the department needs to develop a process that involves
both top down and bottom up input into developing this kind of
a sort of common culture. I think it once existed in the
Foreign Service. It has diminished for a variety of reasons and
I think it is very important today, and AFSA believes that this
needs to be reestablished and we would look forward to having a
role in this process. But it is something that has to be
participatory and has to be both top down and bottom up in our
view.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. This is my final question for
this panel. What are your top three recommendations for
addressing employee training and education at the State
Department?
Mr. Neumann. My first one--
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Neumann.
Mr. Neumann. Thank you. My first one, Senator Akaka, is the
continuation of personnel growth and the second is funding.
When we did the report in 2008 that you supported us on, the
report on A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future, you will
remember, sir, that we documented a broken diplomacy. Thirty
percent of our language-designated positions lacked qualified
officers, there were staffing gaps, and so on.
If resources are reduced, if the Foreign Service is cut, as
some recommend, then we will go back to a broken diplomacy
incapable of meeting the Nation's security demands overseas. I
think perhaps I should have said that our first recommendation
is that diplomacy as a whole be looked at as a part of national
security. If we do not do that, I think the specific
recommendations fall.
The second is people. The third is money. Recognizing that
there have to be cuts, I would say. Where there are cuts they,
in our recommendation, should be heavy on the program side, as
painful as some of those will be to their individual program
constituencies, because programs can be made up fairly quickly
when the economic situation improves.
But problems in the institution take years and years to
rectify. The last 2 years you have helped push the funding that
has allowed this increase in training positions. But it takes 2
years to train an Arabic-language qualified officer to the same
level we train in 6 months in French, and you have to back up
from that to, of course, from funding decisions, to the
allocation, to the development of programs, to the recruitment
of people, to putting them in a program.
So undoing the problems of the past is not something we
have accomplished yet. We are on the path to it. If we cease
the path we will cease the progress. Thank you very much, sir.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. I think the first would be a clearer
definition of what we are training for, what we really need to
be doing. Beyond the very broad definition that appears, I
think, in the State Department's annual training plan today,
which talks about the purpose of the department's training, is
to develop the men and women our Nation requires to fulfill our
leadership role in world affairs and advance and defend United
States interests, and that is at a sort of 35,000-foot level.
I think we need a clear definition of what that means
operationally in order to get all the training, professional
education right and make sure that we are doing the right
things in an era of scare resources.
Second, greater focus on the needs of the institution as
opposed to the individual. I have benefited myself from--as an
individual, I have loved my career, every bit of it. I am not
sure it was always the thing that was in the best interest of
the institution.
And more on creating multi-functional officers. I am not
sure that we can afford anymore to have specialization, cone-
based specialization. I think the more we can encourage multi-
functional officers who are multi-capable, the better off we
will be.
And then finally, more focus on education that conveys
knowledge in addition to the skills that we need to develop as
diplomats.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. This has been helpful to our
Committee and I want to say thank you very much for your
responses, and I want to thank all of our witnesses today.
It is clear to me that State has made great efforts to
equip its workforce to meet 21st Century challenges. However,
more work needs to be done. Many of the recommendations
discussed today are contingent upon Congress passing an
appropriations bill. The Senate currently is considering
continuing resolutions for the rest of fiscal year 2011 that
would meet House Republicans half way thus far.
I hope we work quickly to finalize these appropriations. I
am committed to working with State and stakeholders like the
Academy and AFSA to support your efforts to enhance State
Department training. Again, I want to say thank you.
The hearing record will be open for 1 week for additional
statements or questions other members may have. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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