TMP13X02_WhitePaper_Hispanic copy

HOW CAN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IMPROVE ITS PROGRAMS FOR RECRUITING AND RETAINING HISPANIC-AMERICANS?

By John Bersentes & Mark Havard

www.TMPgovernment.com

But if you examine Hispanic participation in the federal workforce, you find a very different picture. According to the latest data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Latinos make up barely 8 percent of the federal workforce.3 This is not for lack of trying; most federal agencies have made the recruitment and retention of Hispanics an important priority. Still, despite the good-faith efforts of leading government agencies (and a handful of outstanding agency-specific exceptions), Hispanic recruitment and retention across the board in the government has—sad to say—achieved only marginal progress over the last decade.4

TMP Government teams have addressed the Hispanic recruiting challenge with success for a number of individual organizations in both the private and public sectors. Still, despite a strong track record with our agency clients, we have come to see a deeper dimension to the challenge, one that includes factors that either lie beyond the capacity of individual agencies to address on their own,

or are the result of institutional habits of practice that are often difficult to overcome. In the course of our project work, we have come to realize that much more progress is possible if we broaden the frame, if we view the Hispanic diversity challenge not merely as an agency-specific imperative, but as a mission calling on shared efforts extending across multiple agencies and departments.

As our TMP Government teams have addressed this challenge in a wide range of federal agencies, we have come to see that strategically reframing the mission makes the most sense. In the first part of this white paper, we suggest a few systemic factors—many of them beyond the reach of individual agencies—that may be impeding the government’s progress in this challenge.

1 Source: The U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hispanic/files/Internet_Hispanic_in_US_2006.pdf)

2 Statement of Sarah F. Jaggar, Senior Advisor, Partnership for Public Service, at Issues Facing Hispanics in the Federal Workforce (EEOC Meeting, October 23, 2008), p. 1. Available online at www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/meetings/10-23-08/jaggar.html. See also “Per Capita Income of U.S. Workforce Projected to Decline IF Education Doesn’t Improve.” Department of Education Issue Paper, Figure 1. Available at www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/equity.pdf.

3 Eighth Annual Report to the President on Hispanic Employment in the Federal Government (December 2008). (http://www.opm.gov/Diversity/Hispanic/ annual/reports/Dec2008/HispanicEmployment-2008.pdf)

4 Across the board, the government reports 7.8% participation by Hispanics in the government workforce. And the news gets worse: Hispanic men and women today represent only 3.6% of individuals at federal senior pay levels—a proportion that drops to 2.5% when you take political appointees out of the calculation. [Source: statement of Carlton M. Hadden, Director of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission’s Office of Federal Operations, at Issues Facing Hispanics in the Federal Workforce (EEOC Meeting, October 23, 2008), p. 2. Available online at www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/meetings/10-23-08/hadden.html.]

Abstract

Today, Hispanic-Americans are the most numerous minority group in the nation, exceeding 15 percent

of the population and growing at an unprecedented rate.1 And when it comes to employment in

the general economy, our Latino citizens make up just under 13 percent of the U.S. workforce2, a

proportion only slightly out of line with Latinos’ share of the American population.


Abstract (continued)

In the second part, we sketch out a platform of concrete activities—some agency-centered, others calling for cross-agency cooperation—that can help the government succeed in this mission. That’s what we mean by “broadening the frame.” All our recommendations have emerged from our work with clients, where we addressed the Hispanic challenge and/or broader-gauge considerations centering on inclusion. We’re confident that the innovations we suggest have the potential to enrich many other dimensions of federal human capital management beyond recruitment and beyond the Hispanic-American segment. They fall organically under TMP Government’s evolving strategic emphasis on productive inclusion as a strategic advantage in its own right.

One more introductory point: The Federal government has made remarkable progress in recruiting African-Americans into public service over the last few decades. Our general diagnosis of the Hispanic challenge today—not to mention the strategic recommendations we advance—draws on best practices and examples from successful efforts to level the playing field for African-Americans in government. They serve as both our model and our benchmark as we move forward.

8.1

7.56.5

2000

2006

2011

HISPANIC REPRESENTATION IN PERMANENT FEDERAL WORKFORCE

PERCENT FEDERAL CIVILIAN WORKFORCE

Source Data: United States Of ce of Personnel Management Report 2012

SMARTPHONE OWNERSHIP, MOBILE INTERNET USE,

SOCIAL NETWORK SITE USE 2012

Smartphone

PEW Research Center

Hisp

84%

90%

46%

60%

73%

66%69%

50%

Wht Blk

Cell phone Access Web through mobile device

Social Network WebSites

2000 2002 2005 2008 2011

68%86%

49%

76%


Here are a handful of environmental and structural factors that may contribute to the government’s difficulty recruiting and retaining Hispanic-Americans.

The private sector generally offers a better deal. The corporate community appears to have mastered the Hispanic recruitment challenge. Corporations may hold the trump card here, mainly because they are able to devote more resources to Hispanic engagement programs and because of the pay premiums they can offer to talented Latino candidates. The government simply can’t keep pace on either score. The Feds aren’t empowered to offer pay incentives based on minority status, and many agencies today don’t have the budgets or staff resources to build comprehensive Hispanic recruiting/retention programs.

“Geo-Demographic” barriers discourage Hispanic participation. Most federal entry-level positions tend to be in the national capital region. In D.C., Maryland and Virginia, the Hispanic population falls well below that of many other regions. The “hireable” population is simply not that deep in Washington, despite some clustering of Hispanic blue-collar workers in Washington and its suburbs. Compounding this difficulty is a disconcerting “psychographic” factor suggested anecdotally by many recruiters: Young, job-seeking Hispanics in general are less inclined to relocate, because it means leaving their extended families for new positions away from home. In the absence of family ties here, a move to the Washington area for a government job may be inherently less attractive for some Hispanic-Americans.

Competing priorities limit available resources among individual agencies and departments. Let’s face it: Campaigns to improve Hispanic participation in the federal workforce simply cannot draw on the same driving momentum in society as the widespread movement for civil rights and equal opportunity for African-Americans. From the 1960s on, in fact, the federal government was the primary institutional driver behind this movement, and a natural leader in the crusade to roll back hiring barriers impeding black Americans.

But when it comes to Hispanics and other underserved minorities, despite the intra-agency enthusiasm of many management champions, agency funds are rarely available to mount Hispanic engagement programming on the same scale as earlier equal opportunity initiatives centering on African-Americans. Faced with other human capital imperatives, agency diversity managers, frankly, do what they can with the resources that are available to them. On the other hand, there are a few select government organizations—generally for reasons related to missions and constituencies—that do very well recruiting and retaining Hispanic-Americans.

The outside and inside factors influencing recruitment and retention of Hispanic-Americans

HISPANIC WORKFORCE POPULATION 2011

Civilian Workforce 36,346,582

Hispanic CLF 4,943,135 13.6%

Federal Workforce 2,261,000

Hispanic 157,648 8.1%

0 1,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 40,000,000

2

3

Total Minorities in Federal Workforce 662,991

BLS Data: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/01/art3full.pdf OPM Data: FY 2011 FEORP U.S. Office of Personnel Management

1

4

5


5 As reported last year by CNN in “Hispanic population boom fuels rising U.S. diversity” (www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/14/money.census.diversity/index.html)

6 http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hispanic/files/Internet_Hispanic_in_US_2006.pdf. See also the statistical tables at www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summarytables.html. See also Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn. Population Projections: 2005-2050. The Pew Hispanic Center: February 2008, p.27. Available online at www.nysun.com/pics/71104.pdf.

7 The U.S Hispanic Economy in Transition: Special Report 2008. [White Paper published by Hispanic Business magazine]: p. 5. Available for purchase at www.hispanicbusiness.com/research/hispaniceconomy.asp.

8 Statement of Carlton M. Hadden, Director of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission’s Office of Federal Operations, at Issues Facing Hispanics in the Federal Workforce (EEOC Meeting, October 23, 2008), p. 2. Available online at www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/meetings/10-23-08/hadden.html. See also Edward Flores, Jillian Medeiros, and Harry P. Pachon. Equal Employment Opportunity or Enclave Employment?: A Critique of the GAO Report on Hispanic Employment in Federal Agencies. The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute: 2007.

Some agencies may be focusing too restrictively on Spanish-speaking positions and bilingual skills. Break down the government’s current roster of Hispanic employees and you will find a disconcerting reality: They tend to cluster in public interface positions that call for fluency in Spanish, as well as in low-paying service jobs, like maintenance and food service.8 In the first instance, we’re suggesting that some agency recruiters (mostly in agencies that need to recruit aggressively for bilingual positions) may unconsciously put bilingual qualifications first when they evaluate any Hispanic-American candidate. The result is that they may unconsciously filter non-Spanish speaking Hispanics out of consideration for ‘mainstream’ positions that don’t require Spanish language skills.

We realize that this element is potentially controversial, and are not suggesting that conscious prejudice plays any part in this cycle (if it exists). But we are suggesting that maybe unconscious habits of mind among hiring officials could be channeling Hispanic candidates into the constituent-interface track and not be considering these candidates carefully enough for mainstream positions, regardless of whether or not they fit the bilingual mold.

Agency human capital resources are often spread too thin for a comprehensive, full employee life-cycle angle on the Hispanic challenge. It’s the rare individual agency or department that elevates the full cycle of Hispanic recruitment, retention and development to a top-level institutional initiative. We have been privileged to encounter and assist a few agencies that have set out to elicit engaged collaboration among senior leadership,

The outside and inside factors influencing recruitment and retention of Hispanic-Americans (continued)

Hispanic-American Population Trends

Hispanic-Americans are the largest and fastest growing minority segment in the U.S. By all predictions, this trend will continue at least through the first half of this century. As of its last estimate (2007)5, the U.S. Census Bureau pegs the median age of U.S. Hispanics at 27.7 years, compared to 36.8 years for the rest of the population. And almost 34 percent of U.S. Hispanics are younger than 18; for the population as a whole, only 25 percent of Americans are under 18. By 2050, again according to the Census Bureau, Hispanic-Americans will make up nearly 25 percent of our total population.6

These predictions promise significant implications for our culture and economy—not to mention the U.S. labor market. Overall employment numbers in the U.S. are already showing the impact of this accelerating demographic shift. Since 1980, the American labor force has grown by more than 41 percent. A third of this increase is accounted for by Hispanics.7

Human capital professionals in the corporate world appear to be dealing effectively with this groundswell of Hispanics in the general workforce, and are diligently preparing for the new HR imperatives it will bring. As we point out in this white paper, the government has been less successful. So far.


the agency management team, hiring managers and their operating components, and all units in the agency HR infrastructure. It seems to us that an agency that adopts this kind of vertically integrated organizational strategy would have an advantage in recruiting all diversity classes, not just Hispanic-Americans.

There’s another type of integration that might also help at the agency level: effectively integrating its recruitment outreach thematically by underscoring:

• Thefullemploymentlifecycleattheagency,and

• Theagency’scommitmenttoproductiveinclusionofall diversity classes in the workplace community.

Agencies that approach the Hispanic/diversity recruitment challenge from all of these integrative perspectives, it seems to us, stand a much better chance of success than agencies that revert to standard “checklist” practices of minority hiring.

There’snocomprehensivegovernment-wideinitiativefor meeting this challenge. Up until now, agencies have tended to go it alone rather than teaming with other agencies to succeed in the Hispanic recruitment mission. While surely this is due to budgetary constraints (as well as something of a competitive dimension, owing to the perceived scarcity of Hispanic candidates), it’s a less than effective way to tackle the challenge.

In some agencies’ HR infrastructure, recruiting resources are limited and/or distributed across multiple initiatives. The result: Hispanic recruitment and retention may not attract its full measure of managerial, budgetary and strategic attention. And while many agencies have enthusiastic and influential individual champions for the Hispanic cause, others can find themselves without the resources or allies to gain real purchase on the challenge.

One alternative is a broad, collective effort across agency boundaries. If insularity and interagency competitiveness can be set aside and budget barriers cleared, this approach could create empowering economies of scale, not to mention bringing individual, agency-based champions together on the same team, where their collective talent, energy and enthusiasm can be harnessed and channeled.

Of course, government-wide task forces to analyze the challenge are a critical (and all too familiar) first step, but up until now they haven’t demonstrated the power to implement collective solutions. Luckily, today’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is a leading champion of collective, government-wide common action among agencies. It is developing similar programs to coordinate recruiting pools of special talent, like technology and finance, for multiple agencies to draw on. A similar initiative for Hispanic recruiting could go far to address the current challenge.

We realize that many of the influential factors we suggest above are likely to stir discussion and controversy. It’s important to regard them as topics for consideration, not hard formulas. We want to inspire more dialogue on this topic, and ultimately spur progress on this very serious challenge. The section that follows should figure constructively in that discussion.

The outside and inside factors influencing recruitment and retention of Hispanic-Americans (continued)


In our view, if there’s a magic bullet in answering this challenge, it emerges from the interaction of four factors:

• Top-downinspiration

• Acommon-causespirit

• Aconsolidatedapproachtothefullemploymentlifecycle—both within a given agency and government-wide

• Enlistmentofemergingelectronictechnologyandsocial media to enhance two-way communication between hiring agency and candidate

In our platform of potentially helpful innovations, we start with practices that can be implemented within individual agencies, and then widen the frame to suggest collaborative approaches with other agencies or even government-wide. Many of the tools and tactics that we suggest are drawn from two relatively new wrinkles in government recruiting, branding and social marketing. These approaches, implemented to support a comprehensive approach to the challenge, have the potential to change the game significantly.

Here’s our platform of recommendations, addressed directly to federal human capital planners.

1. Check out what your corporate counterparts are doing. Look carefully at private sector approaches and select the ones likely to work in the unique environment of government recruiting. It’s certainly true that corporations have a more profit-oriented motivation for building a staff that “looks like America” as well as much deeper pockets than federal agencies. Even so, many of their best practices—particularly those that rely on social media and one-to-one engagement—can be emulated by government agencies without busting the recruitment budget.

Anyone interested in surveying commercial best practices for Hispanic recruiting should start with the handful of magazine and institutional rankings of Best Places to Work for Hispanics. Here are two excellent examples:

• DiversityInc. (http://www.diversityincbestpractices.com/bp/ page.php?441)

• LatinaStyle (http://www.latinastyle.com/latina50.html)

[NOTE: On the government side, the Partnership for Public Service also ranks in the Best Places to Work for Hispanics9 based on OPM survey results of self-declared Hispanics working at individual federal agencies.]

For a helpful starting point in a more thorough scan, sample the Web Careers sections of leading corporations for specific tips about how they go about their Hispanic and general diversity recruiting programs. Better yet, dig deeper—beyond the dedicated Careers sections if necessary—to discover how these organizations portray their people and their working cultures online, and how they capture the ‘feel’ of the workplace for Hispanics and other diversity segments.

Also look for helpful models in the corporation’s use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. Are Hispanic interests covered there? Most important: How do these

Practical innovations for improving Hispanic recruiting and retention

9 Available at http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/demographics/large/hispanic_09

•• Smartphone Ownership 86% of Latinos say they own a smartphone, similar to that of whites (84%) and blacks (90%).

•••• Online MarketOnline Market Hispanic online market grew 13% from April 2010 – 2011 and Hispanics make up 14.5% of total U.S. online market.

•• Internet UsageInternet Usage Nearly eight-in-ten (78%) Latino adults go online at least occasionally, compared with 87% of whites and 78% of blacks.

•• Social Media TrendSocial Media Trend 84% of Latino Internet users ages 18 to 29 use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the highest rate among Latinos.

Latinos and Technology Adoption

$

Souce data: PEW Hispanic Center National Survey of Latinos 2012


commercial practitioners prompt individuals to opt-in to a one-on-one dialogue with a corporate recruiter or a volunteer employee-mentor?

2. Make the Web your primary anchor for engagement … and branding. Your agency’s website is not just the outside world’s window into your mission and programs; it can also be a window into your working culture, and can serve as your workforce’s primary internal communications portal to boot.

At the first level, your website is the anchor of your agency’s “brand,” i.e., the de-facto position of esteem (or lack thereof) that it commands among key stakeholders and the general public. Your agency brand is a vital driving factor in promoting your agency as a place to work—and specifically (if you choose) as a welcoming employer for Hispanic-Americans. Champion the visible presence of Latinos (as well as other diversity classes) on your site, and highlight internal affinity groups for Hispanic employees.

Do you see and hear successful Latinos on your site? Can your visitors share their success through photo imagery, not to mention authentic quotes, sound bites and video? You can energize this process for all your employees by incorporating more rich media tools, including user-generated video, into your online presence. We would be pleased to direct you to many government examples where our TMP Government teams have worked with agencies to integrate this sense of inclusion in action on the Web and in other rich media modes.

And don’t fall behind other leading federal agencies by neglecting Web 2.0 tools and technologies as a medium for engaging both general audiences and job candidates. A quick scan of high-visibility agency websites will supply great examples of how to use tools like Twitter and Facebook to promote both your agency’s image and status as a great place to work. Remember, these tools give you a great platform for highlighting your Hispanic programs

and for establishing follow-up one-to-one dialogues with qualified individuals, including Latinos, who express interest.

3. Go mobile. Don’t neglect this emerging mode for Web engagement and email communications, which most analysts expect to surpass the traditional Internet in traffic over the next few years. Many companies are pioneering these mobile recruiting applications. With help from TMP, UPS, for example, has paired outgoing text messaging with a mobile website where interested candidates could use their cell phones to view video clips of UPS team members at work and to share detailed background information on their experience with UPS recruiters. Several government agencies, with our assistance, have used similar mobile approaches to collect resumes or (among other functions) organize live job events for Hispanic and other diverse candidates. All you need is the opt-in cell phone numbers of candidates.

Another emerging means for engaging qualified candidates via mobile is to embed a two-dimensional QR code10 in your print materials (brochures, ads in college newspapers, etc.). Candidates need only photograph this bar code with their cell phones to establish a text path or Web connection with you. The “coolness” factor of this approach makes it a successful means for establishing relationships with candidates. Again, this is a technique applicable to all segments, but when implemented to support your Hispanic outreach can yield impressive dividends.

4. Adopt a “big-picture” diversity strategy, and frame it in the context of the complete employment lifecycle. We are convinced that some of the shortcomings in recruiting Hispanic-Americans have resulted from too much specialization, e.g., inordinate emphasis on bilingualism and a segmented, overtargeted approach focusing too narrowly on discrete diversity classes rather than the inclusion challenge as a whole. This overtargeting can seem piecemeal and mechanical if it’s used exclusively by an agency.

Practical innovations for improving Hispanic recruiting and retention (continued)

10 For basic information on QR codes, see Wikipedia’s entry on the topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code).


Don’t mistake our point here. We’re not recommending that segmented recruitment targeting be eliminated. Just try balancing it with more “big picture” emphasis on your agency’s commitment to productive inclusion—the synergy achieved through the coequal participation of all segments. This sets a more constructive tone. It redirects attention to the culture as a whole, fostering a vision of a collaborative ecosystem, rather than an assemblage of “recruitable” parts. It’s also a more inspiring basis for the employment brand you promote for your agency.

Just as you emphasize inclusion as an agency or departmental commitment, you should not neglect a thorough emphasis in your recruiting “materials” and on the Web on well-depicted, real-life (or even hypothetical)recruitment-to-retirement lifecycles of Hispanic and other minority candidates. Recruits need to see what’s in store for them on the job as they accrue experience.

A global technology (Fortune 500) firm enlisted TMP’s help in building such a website (in this case as the anchor for its intranet communications). Inclusion has since become a critical driver in its global business strategy.

5. Make sure you count and assess. This practice is anything but innovative, but it’s important enough for us to repeat it here. Implement reliable methods for assessing your progress in diversity and Hispanic recruitment/retention. Quantitative means are the minimum required. Also consider qualitative modes, like focus groups and surveys of (at the least) your Hispanic workforce. Surveys, in particular, are extraordinarily simple to implement online. Consider conducting your own brief inclusion climate surveys as a regular, yearly feature (restricting the frequency will minimize ‘survey fatigue’ in the workforce).

There are external sources that can help you here as well. The diversity group rankings11 derived by the Partnership for Public Service can save you a lot of effort both in

assessing what your diversity populations feel about your culture, and in benchmarking your success against that of other agencies.

6.Enlistoutsidepartnerswithskininthegame. This is another tried-and-true, but essential, recommendation. There are a number of nonprofit organizations specializing in Hispanic matters. These include:

For more organizations, consult HispanicBusiness’ 2009 Top Nonprofit Organizations (http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?idx=154448&page=1&cat=&more=). Not all espouse missions relevant to the recruitment of Hispanics, but the listing will provide insight into the wide scope of Hispanic interest groups, and may suggest a few innovative allies.

All of these organizations are as interested as the most diligent federal recruiter in improving opportunities for Hispanics in government. They can help you organize events, internships and other programs.


11 Available at http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/demographics/large/hispanic_09

• NationalHispanicLeadershipAgenda (http://www.nationalhispanicleadership.org/)

• HispanicAssociationonCorporate Responsibility (http://www.hacr.org)

• SocietyofHispanicProfessionalEngineers (http://oneshpe.shpe.org/wps/portal/national)

• NationalSocietyofHispanicMBAs (http://www.nshmba.org)

• HispanicAssociationofColleges&Universities (http://www.hacu.net)

• AssociationofLatinoProfessionalsinFinanceand Accounting (http://www.alpfa.org/)

• HispanicAmericanPoliceCommandOfficersAssociation (http://www.hapcoa.com/)


7. Join forces with other agencies. If your Hispanic engagement efforts are not yielding significant results, try recruiting other agencies with similar needs into common-cause programming. Implementing multiagency consortia or, better, an OPM-centralized initiative, can mean critical economies of scale for participating agencies. (Thereafter, interagency competition for the best candidates becomes a productive and creative process, not the illusory and strategy-sapping pursuit it is today, where it dissipates the energy to innovate rather than inspires it.)

The most daunting challenge in this particular recommendation: Someone has to start the ball rolling. Is this an individual agency, a multiagency department or OPM itself? Developing a common-cause program has to originate in the enthusiasm, inspiration and bureaucratic energy of its key champions. It seems to us that if the government’s Hispanic recruitment track record is as deficient as it seems to be, and if Hispanic recruitment is as important as everyone claims that it is, this is motivation enough to jump-start a common-cause initiative.

We make these suggestions for improvement as key elements in TMP Government’s evolving emphasis on diversity and inclusion. You will hear (and, if you are a client, see) much more from us in the months to come.

Here’sourplatformofrecommendations,addresseddirectly to federal human capital planners:

1. Check out what your corporate counterparts are doing.

2. Make the Web your primary anchor for engagement … and branding.

3. Go mobile.

4. Adopt a “big-picture” diversity strategy, and frame it in the context of the complete employment lifecycle.

5. Make sure you count and assess.

6. Enlist outside partners with skin in the game.

7. Join forces with other agencies.


22

040455

60707

0002002

0000

000

00

55

3322010

• 25M Hispanic visitors

• 24M Hispanic visitors24M Hispanic visitors

• 22M Hispanic visitors22M Hispanic visitors

•• 18M Hispanic visitors18M Hispanic visitors

•• 18M Hispanic visitors18M Hispanic visitors

• 3.2M Hispanic visitors

•• 2.8M Hispanic visitors 2 8M Hispanic visitors

Souce of data: comScore Media Metrix

HISPANIC ONLINE MARKET TRENDS

Yahoo.com80% Hispanic reach, 35% Annual Hispanic growth

Google.com 77% Hispanic reach, 15% Annual Hispanic growth

Facebook.com 70% Hispanic reach, 125% Annual Hispanic growth

YouTube.com 58% Hispanic reach, 25% Annual Hispanic growth

MSN.com 58% Hispanic reach, 17% Annual Hispanic growth

Twitter.com 10% Hispanic reach, 22% Annual Hispanic growth

Linkedin.com 9% Hispanic reach, 53% Annual Hispanic growth


Since the initial release of this white paper, it has been publishedintheU.S.OfficeofPersonnelManagement’s(OPM) reports that the percent of Hispanics in the federal workforce increased in FY 2011. In addition, President Obama issued Executive Order 13583–Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce.

The percentage of Hispanics in the federal workforce increased in FY 2011 from 2010, according to a recent report prepared by OPM. According to the Eleventh Annual Report to the President on Hispanic Employment in the Federal Government, Hispanics represented 8.1 percent of the federal workforce in 2011, up from 8 percent in 2010. The proportion of Hispanic new hires into the Senior Executive Service also increased from 2.7 percent in FY 2010 to 5.4 percent in FY 2011.

The agency that employed the largest percentage of Hispanic workers was the Department of Homeland Security, with nearly 21 percent of its total workforce identified as Hispanic. The Social Security Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of the Treasury also employed a significant proportion of Hispanic employees, with 14.3 percent, 13.4 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively. Five agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the State Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services, reported a decrease in their percentage of Hispanics in their workforces.

According to the report, OPM Director John Berry established the Hispanic Council on Federal Employment in February 2011. The council is charged with advising John Berry on practices that will help remove barriers that would hinder the hiring or recruitment of Hispanics to the federal workforce. While at the same time, OPM’s USA Staffing Applicant Tracking System is now able to capture RNO (race and national origin) data for the 63 percent of candidates who volunteer that information. Agencies that are looking to develop and implement a more comprehensive, integrated and strategic focus on diversity and inclusion will find this white paper of value.

Addendum

10 The full report is available here: http://www.opm.gov/diversityandinclusion/reports/hispanic/HispanicReport2011_July2012.pdf

Hispanic

Minorities in FY 2011 represented 34.2 percent of the total federal workforce.

Hispanic employment in the federal government has steadily increased over the last decade.

Black Asian/Pacific

AmericanIndian/Alaska Native

White

Source Data: United States Of ce of Personnel Management Report 2012

HISPANIC REPRESENTATION IN FEDERAL WORKFORCE

DISTRIBUTION OF PERMANENT FEDERALEMPLOYEES

2 0 0 0

FEDERALWORKFORCE

6.5%

2 0 1 1

FEDERALWORKFORCE

8.1%

Homeland Security 20.9%

14.3%

13.4%

9.1%

8.7%

6.8%

37,966

Social Security Admin. 9,349

EEO 328

U.S. Treasury 9,527

Justice 9,884

Veterans Affairs 20,095

0 100 500 10,000 40,000

1

2

3

4

5

6

18%18%

8.1%8.1%

65.8%65.8%

5.9%5.9% 2%2%


Mark Havard is Senior Vice President of TMP Government, focusing on developing marketing programs to support the human capital programs of government clients. Based in Washington, D.C., Mark is frequently called on by TMP clients nationwide for his expertise in interactive engagement and workplace cultures. Before taking on his current role, Mark oversaw client development throughout North America for TMP’s advertising division. He holds a master’s degree in education/labor relations as well as a bachelor’s in political science/public administration from Virginia Tech. You can reach him at [email protected].

John Bersentes is TMP’s Vice President of Business Development, specializing in the federal government space. An expert in social marketing, multicultural outreach and online engagement, John manages TMP’s efforts to keep federal human capital leaders abreast of relevant new practices and technologies for workplace enrichment and inclusion. During the last decade, John has helped develop and launch leading diversity niche job boards like HireDiversity.com and WorkplaceDiversity.com. He is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara. He can be reached at [email protected].

TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications (www.tmp.com) is North America’s largest independent recruitment advertising agency and the only recruitment advertising agency recognized among the top 50 U.S. interactive agencies. We are a single source for companies to communicate their employment offerings in order to recruit and retain the best talent. Through online and traditional communications, ROI campaign management services, creative and brand management, diversity enrichment and media planning, TMP delivers Solutions with an Interactive Edge, achieving industry-specific results across virtually every sector in business and government. Headquartered in New York City with offices throughout North America and affiliates around the globe, TMP continues to set the standard for measurable and cost-effective HR communications.

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