The government reorganization plan expands on an idea the administration has raised several time previously, to “reskill” federal employees who otherwise would face losing their jobs, suggesting that as one means of responding to the government’s shortfalls in cybersecurity and other IT-related positions.
The White House budget of earlier this year had suggested that some of the money in its proposed $1 billion performance rewards and incentives fund be used for “reskilling and redeploying existing workers to keep pace with an environment of change.” Similarly, the later President’s Management Agenda stressed the need to “more efficiently use the people we have, through reskilling and redeployment efforts, and matching employees to important and meaningful work.”
The reorganization plan speaks in similar terms, saying that “in addition to hiring new cybersecurity talent, the government must look for opportunities to maximize the potential of its existing workforce. This includes efforts to reskill employees whose skills have become less relevant due to automation.”
It adds details including that OMB, DHS, and OPM “will build aptitude and skills assessments to identify and select current government staff who can be reskilled to fill critically-needed cybersecurity jobs. By reskilling the current workforce, agencies will be able to quickly shift its workforce into the highest-priority vacancy gaps.”
It said that OMB and DHS “will establish a job reskilling work plan by the first quarter of FY 2019,” meaning this fall, and will then “update the CIO Council on a quarterly basis on the implementation of the reskilling work plan.”
