Former DLA Human Resources director inducted into Hall of Fame

Courtesy Photo | Former DLA Human Resources Director Jeff Neal will be inducted into the DLA Hall of Fame in a July 31 ceremony.  

FORT BELVOIR, VA, UNITED STATES

07.24.2014

Story by Beth Reece    

Defense Logistics Agency   

Note: This is the first of five features on the five former DLA team members being inducted into the agency’s Hall of Fame in a July 31 ceremony.

FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Jeff Neal had just become director of Defense Logistics Agency Human Resources in July 2000 when he discovered employees expected more than they were getting from his staff.

“It seemed there was a complete disconnect between the people providing services and the recipients of those services. I got calls every day from people complaining about how bad human resources services were,” Neal said.

The problem was not his employees, Neal said, but the recent mandate that all defense agencies regionalize HR services. The model led to separate personnel processes at each DLA activity. It also increased the time it took to fill vacant positions to more than 110 days and raised the cost of providing HR services.

“The model that was developed was doomed to fail. There was no way it was going to work, and it basically broke HR in DLA,” he said.

Neal steered the agency away from failure by pushing regionalization to what he believed was the next logical conclusion. He created a central DLA Human Resources Operations Center with small on-site offices in areas with large concentrations of employees.

“In 11 months, we reduced the time it took to fill positions to 62 days, and we cut the cost of HR services by 28 percent. What we ended up doing was turning HR into something that really worked. It got to the point where I never heard complaints because people were happy with the quality of support they were getting,” Neal said.

The agency will celebrate Neal’s lasting contributions to human resources by inducting him into the DLA Hall of Fame July 31. According to his citation, Neal identified more than $50 million in administrative and operational savings between July 2000 and the time he left DLA in June 2009.

“In the history of DLA, Jeff Neal has a permanent place among the most innovative managers ever serving his country through the Senior Executive Service,” the citation states.

Janet Hoffheins was in charge of the Human Resources Operations Center when Neal transformed the activity. She called him a “true visionary.”

“His transformation efforts are still achieving savings today and have propelled us into a human resources leadership role in DoD,” said Hoffheins, who is now the administrator of DLA Human Resources Services, which handles things like retirement, benefits and training.

The Enterprise Leader Development and Corporate Intern programs are examples of Neal-inspired initiatives still being widely used throughout DLA. Another is the DLA Culture Survey, which leaders continue to use to gauge employees’ opinions on life and work at DLA so they can make improvements.

Neal also had a key part in the rollout of the agency’s Enterprise Business System. EBS modernized the information technology systems DLA employees use to conduct business, but it dramatically changed the way those employees did their work.

“There were about 5,000 people who needed training as a result of this, and there was a lot of change management that needed to be done. We became the DLA face of that and worked closely with Accenture, the prime contractor on the project, to ensure employees got what they needed to adapt to the new system,” he said.

Leaders from other directorates at DLA Headquarters gradually began to view the DLA Human Resources team as more than personnel experts.

“People started to see us as a strategic partner,” Neal said.

He also attracted DLA employees with experience in such areas as logistics operations to his team to begin supporting major business initiatives such as Continuous Process Improvement and audit readiness.

“I wanted to have a mix of people in HR who understood HR rules and regulations and people who understood the actual business of DLA so we could become more responsive in supporting the agency’s overall mission,” Neal added.

Though he said he’s proud of his contributions to the agency, Neal lauded his employees for making his ideas successful.

“We had a really amazing team of good people who worked incredibly hard to make HR what it is today,” he said.

He also said he is proud of the relationship he forged with the American Federation of Government Employees when the master labor agreement was renegotiated in 2003 and 2006-2007.

“Because of that relationship, the union didn’t stand in the way of what we were trying to do with business modernization. They worked with us to find ways to do it and make certain there wasn’t an adverse impact on employees as a result,” Neal said.

Though he left the agency in June 2009 to become the human capital officer for the Department of Homeland Security, Neal still sings DLA’s praises.

“If the entire federal government was like DLA, it would be unbelievable, because DLA is a really amazing agency,” he said.

• Date Taken: 07.24.2014
• Date Posted: 07.31.2014 14:57
• Story ID: 137862
• Location: FORT BELVOIR, VA, US