Council Meeting

Held Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Host: Ms. Bonita White

INTRODUCTION

Ms. Delia L. Johnson, Co-Chair and Director, Office of Civil Rights for International Broadcasting Bureau, opened the meeting with a few remarks and then asked the attendees to give their names, agencies, and positions. She thanked Bonita White, Director, EEO Programs, DHHS, for sponsoring this meeting.

GAO Report on the Complaints Process 
 
Gerard S. Burke, Senior Analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, provided an update on a GAO study of the federal EEO complaint process mandated under Section 206(a) of the No
FEAR Act of 2002. GAO’s primary approach for conducting the study will be a two-part web survey designed to solicit the views of a diverse group of 56 EEO practitioners, including EEOC
administrative judges, EEOC appellate attorneys, plaintiffs’ attorneys, agency counsel, EEO investigators, and EEO counselors and mediators. The survey will ask EEO practitioners to identify factors they
believe impede the EEO complaint process and to propose suggestions to address those factors. GAO will deploy the survey during the next few weeks to EEO practitioners from 18 agencies (including
EEOC). It plans to issue a report on the study in December 2007.
 
MSPB Presentation 
 
Steve Nelson, Director, Office of Policy and Evaluation at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, gave a presentation entitled “Causes and Cures of Under-Representation.”
 
Mr. Nelson stressed the need to change the assessment practices in use today, if agencies want to achieve different diversity results. For example, he pointed to the anemic increase in the Hispanic
representation in the federal sector in past years. He suggested the use of quality assessment practices as better predictors of success in jobs, instead of relying on years of experience and/or grade point
average. In addition, he recommended the judicious use of available recruitment authorities which must be tied to agency accountability for using these authorities appropriately and for the results those
authorities yield.
 
To view Mr. Nelson’s PowerPoint presentation, click on MSPB Presentation 07. In addition, Mr. Nelson made reference to two MSPB reports that are helpful to increase the diversity in the federal
workforce: Building a High-Quality Workforce, The Federal Career Intern Program and Reforming Federal Hiring, Beyond Faster and Cheaper. Both reports can be downloaded by going to
http://www.mspb.gov/studies/mspbstudiespage.html.
 
Mariam Harvey, Director, Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Treasury, asked whether Mr. Nelson had shown his presentation to the Chief Human Capital Officers
(CHCO) Council. He indicated that he had not, but that he would be speaking to OPM officials shortly about it.