McCaul Hearing Reveals Poor Leadership Driving Low Morale at DHS
"People do not leave jobs, they leave bad leaders" – Adm. Thad Allen
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7aUL_ke7xE
Washington, D.C. – A lack of quality leadership in the Department of Homeland Security is the primary contributor to morale levels that are among the lowest in the federal government. This was the consensus of a range of homeland security and human resource experts who testified before a homeland security oversight hearing chaired by Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX).
"The purpose of this hearing is not to beat down on the department about this. It's how to constructively fix the problem," Chairman McCaul said. "It's often referred to as a step child or a whipping boy and that's not what we want the department to be. The mission is too important – to protect the lives of Americans."
Two federal surveys, Federal Viewpoints and Best Places to Work, found that DHS ranks 31 out of 33 federal organizations for best places to work. It further found that only 37% of DHS's 200,000 employees believe senior leaders motivate them, and that only 37% are satisfied with their senior leaders' policies and practices. Among DHS agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard scored the highest level of job satisfaction. The Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, TSA, FEMA and ICE had the lowest scores.
"ICE’s top negative result was employees’ perception that pay raises did not depend on how well employees perform their jobs," testified David Maurer of the Government Accountability Office.
"People do not leave jobs, they leave bad leaders," testified U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen (Ret.). "The first and most important thing that we can do about employee morale, and there is not even a close second, is the best quality front line leadership supervision. Frontline supervisors are the most important impact on moral and employee retention."
Admiral Allen, who was appointed by the President to oversee cleanup operations of the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, recommended a multi-tier leadership program under development at DHS needs to be formalized and needs support with a permanent budget line item that creates predictability and consistency so the program is implemented.
Admiral Allen emphasized structural challenges that continue to exist for ICE resulting from merging established customs and immigration officers.
"You have different grade structures, different levels for what are journey men grades, you have different ways to test the costs that are associated with that,” Admiral Allen said, describing years of turmoil to standardize the grade structure and pay scale of legacy employees. “Employees see that. That is not de facto leadership, but they tend to aggregate that all in their impressions of the commitment of the organization to them.”
DHS's Chief Human Capital Officer, Catherine Emerson, told the committee that DHS is responding to the low scores with a three-pronged strategy to improve employee morale. It includes prioritizing employee engagement; improving employee training, recognition and inclusion; and strengthening management's leadership skills.
Rep. McCaul said DHS is moving forward writing plans to improve employee morale but they must turn them into actions, and assess and monitor the results.
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