Bringing human capital to the forefront at USDA: the HR director of a major federal department offers a case illustration of how human capital management is supporting the goals of the President's management agenda

Public Manager, The, Summer, 2003 by Joe Colantuoni

Linking Performance to Strategic Goals

One of the first steps we took at USDA was to link performance to organizational goals and the department's mission in our most prestigious award, the Honor Award. USDA recently completed the first appraisal period of a new performance management system for the SES. The standards reflect mission outcomes and business results. We are looking at establishing the same linkage for managers and eventually all employees. The performance results assist us in identifying developmental needs.

Assuring Accountability

Faced with the need for an accountability system, our people rose to the challenge. We had a core team of five people who volunteered to develop a system. They delivered an accountability plan that clearly ties to the agency's strategic goals, measures results, and names individuals responsible for delivering products. The team wanted to ensure that a data-driven, results-oriented process guided human capital planning and that the approach led to periodic human capital analysis. The team collaborated with HR professionals from the department, mission areas, and agencies, as well as PMA leaders to develop the plan.

We mapped our system of performance measures, data sources, reporting requirements, accountable officials, risks and challenges, risk mitigation strategies, and timelines associated with action strategies. As a result of our efforts, we have had a number of agencies visit us to learn about our system.

We believe that we are well on our way, but none of this could have been possible without taking the time to put together really good plans, involving our stakeholders, communicating with all principals, and of course having top management support.

Joe Colantuoni is the acting human resources director at the Department of Agriculture.