FORT KNOX, Ky. — Creating an agile, transparent, customer-centered workforce that supports more than 4 million people across the enterprise is the U.S. Army Human Resources Command’s priority as it moves into the future.
To begin attaining that goal, HRC hosted its first Conversation with Industry conference at the Gen. George Patton Museum on April 26 during which senior leaders shared their vision of what the future at HRC will look like.
“For us this is really about a partnership,” said Brig. Gen. Gregory Johnson, The adjutant general of the U.S. Army. “We understand where we want to go, but in a lot of cases we do not fully understand where we can go. So, this partnership that we are asking for is to help shape this vision as we move forward. And the very bottom line is how do we better our services to Soldiers and commanders in the U.S. Army.”
Conversation with Industry included presentations as well as opportunities for participants to meet senior leaders and network with one another. Among the topics were HRC’s mission, modernization efforts, data requirements, improving the customer experience and innovation concepts.
“The Conversation with Industry event gives us the opportunity to not only explain to industry our values — transparency, agility, customer-centric — but it gives us a chance to model it,” said Mike Carroll, HRC director of acquisitions.
More than 186 representatives from 150 different companies of all sizes attended in person while approximately 300 members of industry listened to the discussion online.
HRC’s mission
The scope of HRC’s support is huge — 1.3 million active-duty Soldiers, Guardsmen and Reservists, along with some 3 million retirees, veterans and Family members spread across the world. Establishing an organization focused on service excellence that prepares HRC and ensures the Army’s readiness and competitive edge to fight and win the nation’s wars well into the future is what the command is working diligently toward.
Throughout the lifetime of a Soldier, the command handles all Army personnel services and manages records and data long after the Soldier transitions into civilian life. HRC also services unit talent needs. These touchpoints, or interactions, are governed by Army and Department of Defense policy that have a direct impact on the impressions its customers — Soldiers, retirees, veterans and Family members — have of the Army and how the service takes care of its own.
“We are talking about that Soldier’s relationship with the Army,” said Lt. Col. JD Swinney, HRC commander’s initiatives group. “We are also talking about what stories does that Soldier tell about the Army to [his or her] social network, while serving and after that Soldier leaves the Army.”
Improving HRC’s interactions with its customers is a critical component in the Army’s ability to recruit and retain troops thus preserving the future of the service, Swinney said.
“Never has the Human Resources Command been more ready for change than we are right now,” Johnson said. “All of this is being looked at and executed in the environment that we are operating in right now — about 23% of Americans qualify right now for the all-volunteer force and the propensity is one in nine to serve — and that demands that we change. The demand for change is how we interact with Soldiers, their Families and veterans in defense of the ability of the Army to continue with the all-volunteer force.”
Through engagement with industry leaders, HRC hopes to create the impetus for a collaborative environment that not only allows potential industry partners to shape future proposals on how they might meet the command’s emerging technological requirements but to also share the latest best practices in the field of human resources and provide cooperative research for improvements.
“How we interact, how we discuss, how we make people feel safe, how we update Soldiers on what is going on — all that really, really matters much more now than it ever has before,” Johnson said. “The need for some of this is generational and some of it is the pressure of the current environment.”
Improving Army human resources
The customer-centered HRC of the future requires a well-trained workforce enabled with tools and systems that can translate data into a complete story of an issue or unit requirement. These modernized tools can also assist in informing the Soldier who is tracking a particular action.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge also is comfort, Swinney said.
The knowledge shared with Soldiers about their particular actions or situations provide transparency, which establishes trust in the organization and the Army.
“What we need to do is standardize service, have standards of service, manage expectations and provide visibility on where a Soldier’s action is, what is going to happen to it and what the next steps are so that people trust our system,” said Col. Kristin Saling, HRC director of innovation.
Realizing this vision of the future will require the workforce to do more with current staffing, Swinney said.
“We will not get there without the efficiencies that come with various technologies that allow us to do the job we are doing now more efficiently and putting people where only people can do certain things like customer interactions,” he said.
Saling said industry partners can assist HRC in reaching this goal not only with various types of service contracts but also by bringing in experts in the field of human resources, through forums where best practices are shared and providing opportunities for staff to train with industry so they can bring new ideas and new ways of doing business to the organization.
“We want to take care of our Soldiers and we want to give our people the best tools possible and the best capabilities to take care of Soldiers,” she said. “It’s all about how we are putting the people back in the people enterprise.”
Innovation
“Our focus is on customer service and getting Soldier journeys mapped, getting the right matrix in place and figuring out how we can use technology and best practices to improve our processes,” Saling said.
The Army has already fielded predictive models it uses in advanced analytics to much success, but not everyone who uses human resources data at HRC is a data analyst.
“It’s not necessarily about the data, if I send you a spreadsheet full of ones and zeroes that does not really get after the answer to the question,” she said. “Not everyone knows how to interpret that and there is a lot of work needed to make that data useable.”
Introducing intelligent forms of automation that pull information directly from databases and translate it into useable information is a component vital to the success of HRC’s modernization effort and will create much needed efficiencies.
For instance, if HRC already has a Soldier’s data, the Soldier should not have to provide all that information on a form each time service is needed, Saling said.
“You should be able to log in with your common access card and have access to your data,” she said. “We should be able to just pull that data in and ask you for a couple of new elements and let’s go.”
This would bring HRC closer to the level of service where Soldiers can use online self-service for simple transactions and elevate problems as needed, she said, which frees the staff to work through the most difficult problems some Soldiers have.
Better understanding of data will also assist HRC in improving strategic workforce planning the Army needs to remain ready.
“We are postured in a very unique space at HRC because we have the officer and enlisted hiring markets,” Saling said. “We are seeing the requirements from commanders coming up from the field and we are going to start seeing those more as capabilities are fielded.”
This improved understanding of the data will improve HRC’s ability to match commanders’ emerging requirements with the knowledge and skills found in the officer and enlisted hiring markets along with what the Army is putting together on a large-scale level to ensure the service is ready to fight the nation’s wars.
Sustaining relationships
The April 26 Conversation with Industry is the first of what Carroll hopes to be a biannual event that will solidify HRC’s relationship with its industry partners as the command continues to forge ahead with its modernization effort.
“The feedback from all involved in this event has been overwhelmingly positive,” Carroll said. “Whether it’s our mission partners from Army Contracting Command-Rock Island, Illinois, our HRC teammates or our industry partners, everyone sees the value of the transparency we have provided.”
It is critical for those within the government to understand the rules do put limits on certain engagements, he said, but those same regulations do encourage early exchange of information with industry partners.
“It’s important that we understand our left and right limits, but we also can bring in a variety of voices to help us solve the complex problems we face every day,” Carroll said. “This type of early engagement is critical to helping us formulate a more actionable requirement, remove hidden cost drivers, and ensure an appropriate return on investment with HRC funds.”
