Workforce Planning in the Intelligence Community: A Retrospective

Abstract : Soon after the events of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community began a decade-long effort to reconstitute a workforce that was downsized considerably following the end of the Cold War, resulting in a loss not only of personnel but also of critical capability. Early efforts to rebuild this workforce focused primarily on getting more people on board to respond to growing near-term demands related to the terrorist threat. Before long, however, the community faced criticism from congressional oversight committees about the rapid and what to some seemed chaotic growth of the intelligence workforce. The need to address these concerns motivated efforts to develop and apply a more strategic approach to workforce planning in the intelligence community. The need to make far-reaching changes in a workforce with a wide diversity of elements proved challenging, but the chief human capital officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence made considerable headway in identifying community-wide workforce issues and tools to facilitate more-effective workforce planning in the future. As the Obama administration enters its second term and the potential for budget cuts looms, it is an opportune time to examine the progress made within the intelligence community in workforce planning. This report chronicles intelligence community efforts over more than half a decade to improve community-wide workforce planning and management. It should be of interest to anyone concerned with workforce planning in the U.S. intelligence community. Beyond the intelligence community, the need to manage human resources in today's environment of constrained resources suggests that the lessons learned and workforce-planning tools described in this report should have applicability across the federal government to anyone who manages a large human capital portfolio. The appendix contains a 21-page analysis of Department of Defense military intelligence personnel.