Page 43 - FCW, June/July 2021

The goal is to offer DHS officials the flexibility to hire cybersecurity professionals more quickly and allow employees to move more easily within DHS, between agencies, and in and out of the private sector.
own regulatory structure).
The goal is to offer DHS officials the
flexibility to hire cybersecurity profes- sionals more quickly and allow employ- ees to move more easily within DHS, between agencies, and in and out of the private sector.
Many hiring practices in the civil service depend on the government’s ability to clearly define and anticipate all aspects of a person’s job, but that is not possible in the cybersecurity realm. Instead, Hoadley said CTMS’ designers are basing the system on private-sector hiring practices.
Accordingly, the new system will emphasize the skills employees need to have to perform well, and it will do away with having candidates rate their own expertise, a common practice in federal hiring, in favor of having them
demonstrate their skills — for instance, in a simulated work setting.
DHS is also planning to fix chronic compensation issues. Pay scales like the General Schedule aren’t necessarily market-sensitive for cybersecurity talent, Hoadley said. Therefore, the alternative compensation approach will better align pay rates with the value of cybersecurity skills in the marketplace and be tethered to skills rather than education.
Regarding the 2014 law, Hoadley said, “Congress was most interested in the department’s ability to really recruit and retain the type of talent that it takes to execute our cybersecurity mission in the 21st century, acknowledging that cyber- security threats continue to change and evolve, technology continues to change and evolve, and we need to be able to keep pace with other cybersecurity
employers as we compete for a limited pool of talent.”
CTMS will operate under applicable labor laws that make “many cybersecu- rity employees...ineligible to join a bar- gaining unit,” he added.
The American Federation of Gov- ernment Employees, the largest union representing government employees, declined to comment for this article.
Even if DHS doesn’t meet its hiring goal this year, bringing CTMS online will mean an update that is long overdue. “You can’t really take that World War II foundation and think about: How do you hire and manage with agility cyber- security professionals in the 21st cen- tury?” Hoadley said. “It takes a different foundation, so that’s what we’ve been thinking about, and that’s what we’re hoping to put in place with CTMS.” ■
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