Agency Snapshot: 
Department of Health and Human Services

The Department of Health and Human Services has an on-board workforce of 85,451 employees at the end of the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2011. Like other agencies, the Department of Health and Human Services is streamlining and improving the end-to-end hiring process to create a better experience for applicants, managers, and human resources specialists. The agency is also working to create appropriate training opportunities, promote work-life balance tools, provide appropriate benefits, and recognize excellent performance for its workforce. This website shows the different initiatives underway and progress being made in pursuit of the government-wide human resources agenda. 

Applicant Satisfaction with the Application Process

Applicant satisfaction with the application process is about more than the speed of hiring. It also depends on how cumbersome and long the application is, whether the application questions appear relevant, and applicant awareness of their status during the process. To learn more about these factors, the Chief Human Capital Officers developed an applicant survey that asks applicants to assess the application process on a 1-10 point scale. The results of this survey for applicants, by agency, are shown here only for agencies with a minimum of 30 responses in a given quarter. As of the end of Q2 FY11, the applicant satisfaction survey is now being sent to a randomly selected 50 percent sample of USAJOBS applicants who complete and submit their application. This is an increase from a randomly selected 5 percent sample size in previous quarters. As a consequence, agencies should see a significant increase in their number of applicant responses.

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Manager Satisfaction with Applicants

While speeding and easing the application process is critical, a well-functioning hiring process needs to find the best match for open positions in the government. To assess the quality of that match, the Chief Human Capital Officers also developed a survey to ask Federal managers how satisfied they are with the applicants referred to fill an opening. The Chief Human Capital Officers’ Managers’ Satisfaction Survey asks about the managers’ experience on a 1-10 point scale of their perception of workforce planning, interaction with and level of support from Human Resources, their involvement with reviewing applications, interviewing applicants and selecting final candidates, applicant quality, and their knowledge and use of hiring flexibilities. The chart presented here shows the average manager satisfaction based on applicants being referred with the skills to perform the job by agency, only for those agencies with a minimum of 30 responses in a given quarter.

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Time to Hire

 

The Administration’s objective is to create an efficient hiring process.  As part of this objective, Federal agencies are working to reduce the time it takes to hire new employees. In 2009, 24 cabinet-level departments and independent agencies mapped their hiring processes and estimated the average days to hire from the time the hiring manager validates the need for the position to the time of entry on duty (EOD). These departments and agencies began reporting the average length of their hiring processes (time to hire) in December 2009. At that time, the average time to hire was approximately 122 days (calculated as an un-weighted average, meaning the volume of hires for each agency was not weighted). In 2010, OPM assisted agencies with the implementation of President Obama’s Hiring Reform Initiative. Agencies succeeded in reducing time to hire and, in 2010, reached an un-weighted average of 105 days -- a reduction of almost 15 percent in less than a year. 

Agencies demonstrated varying capacity to maintain strong data systems and calculate time to hire consistently.  As a result, a working group of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council partnered with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to develop consistent guidelines for calculating time to hire results.  OPM used these guidelines to validate agency calculations and to help agencies better examine their processes and metrics.  Based on this work, OPM will use a weighted average (an agency with a greater number of hires is weighted more heavily than an agency with fewer hires) to more accurately calculate time to hire across the Government.  Based on these two calculations, the 2011 un-weighted time to hire average is 109 days and the weighted time to hire average is 93 days. While the un-weighted average of 109 is higher than the 2010 un-weighted average of 105, the increase in time to hire actually reflects greater consistency and accuracy in the reporting from prior years.  Through OPM’s and the CHCOC’s improved guidance, agencies have achieved better integrity and validation of the data reported.  The weighted time to hire calculation will be used exclusively in 2012. The improved guidance can be viewed here.

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Building an Inclusive Workplace

Agencies are continuing to work to recruit people of all backgrounds and create an inclusive environment. Agencies are promoting policies and practices to ensure all segments of society, including people with disabilities and veterans, have an opportunity for employment and advancement. The table here shows information on the agency workforce as well as new hires in the third quarter of FY11.
No. of Employees in Q3 FY11No. of New Hires in Q3 FY11% of Employees that are Veterans in Q3 FY11% of New Hires that are Veterans in Q1-Q3 FY11% of Employees with Disabilities in Q3 FY11% of New Hires with Disabilities in Q1-Q3 FY11
85,4516,9236.45.96.49.1
These data are from the OPM EHRI-SDM. Individual Departments may have additional, updated data for their respective agencies.