Photo By Misha King | Nathan Wells, director of the Defense Contract Management Agency Human Capital...... read more read more
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FORT LEE, Va. - Every directorate within the Defense Contract Management Agency has a critical role in ensuring mission success. The Human Capital Directorate is no exception. Since HC’s primary task is taking care of the agency’s number one asset — its people — the directorate is in a prime position to embrace DCMA’s “one team, one voice” vision. HC’s Field Support Center has been embracing this concept even before its inception.
FSC’s top priority is taking care of, advising and supporting the DCMA workforce. It provides advisory services on almost all aspects of civilian human resources and agency-wide assistance with questions and issues related to pay and leave, onboarding, prerecruitment advisory, staffing, position management and workforce realignment and shaping efforts. FSC is the voice of the field when it comes to feedback and input on these topics, and this largely dictates how successfully HC policy and instructions are implemented.
“Our relationships with our customers in the field act as a catalyst for the policy makers in HC to make good, sound policy that can be implemented successfully out in the field,” said Nathan Wells, FSC director. “As the voice of the field, it’s key that we listen, verify and synergize the input we receive and carry it back to headquarters. We conduct multiple staff assistance visits throughout the year to synergize our customer service and ensure we can provide real human capital solutions to real human capital issues.”
Wells said his vision for the FSC is to provide first-class advisory services and solutions on all aspects of civilian human resources while continuing to build partnerships and coalitions across the agency, resulting in increased credibility, trust and support for its customers.
“Simply put, one team, one voice delivering human resource solutions with excellence,” he said, quoting HC’s new vision statement as of November 2014.
Although this vision seems straightforward, Wells said FSC’s chief challenge is ensuring continuity of civilian HR support across the agency’s global footprint while providing standardized solutions where possible and simultaneously customizing those solutions when applicable.
“It’s a balancing act,” he explained. “So, it’s absolutely critical we’re on the same page to ensure our customers get the right answer every time.”
To help him keep the scales steady, Wells has 14 team members referred to as business partners, or BPs, who are dispersed throughout headquarters and the Eastern, Central and Western regions. Three of them are strategic business partners, or SBPs, and serve as team leads in the field. One is a supervisory SBP located at headquarters.
Ernest Rivera, the FSC Central Region SBP, explained SBPs and BPs are teammates who work together to provide HR advisory services and assist the contract management offices in executing their personnel-related actions. They serve as liaisons to the field and function as key HC advisers to their regional commanders and deputies as well as that region’s individual CMO commanders and their staffs.
“We cover a wide variety of HR issues and matters that typically encompass the analysis of elements of multiple personnel specialties,” added Rivera, whose office is in Illinois. “We advise and assist the regional commander in the long-term planning for the HR program throughout the region. We also provide agency guidance and oversight for other assigned functional programs as appropriate.”
To accomplish these tasks, Rivera said SBPs and BPs always stay in step with one another to ensure they’re aware of what’s going on throughout the region and are providing full HR coverage to their DCMA employees and managers.
“We advise our customers on all personnel matters, even if it is just finding the right person to get the right answer,” elaborated Norieta Hagerty, the FSC Western Region SBP. “We facilitate good communication and positive working relationships between differing groups, supporting the mission of DCMA by making sure the right people have the right information at the right time.”
Hagerty said providing the right information at the right time starts with good communication and working relationships in-house.
“I have an amazing relationship with Ms. Miyamoto, the other business partner in my office,” she proudly said. “We both have our strengths, and we complement each other. She and I keep each other informed about what we’re working on so we can sub in for each other as needed. We also keep each other in good humor, laughing at adversity and supporting each other in stressful situations. This is true for the larger FSC team as well.”
These supportive relationships are the building blocks of operating as one team with one voice, which Hagerty said helps the agency behave this way as well.
“We bring people together,” she said. “DCMA is one team with a lot of moving parts, and I feel FSC is an essential component to keeping all the parts moving together in harmony and efficiently, particularly through our liaison duties. If our customers are taken care of, they can focus on taking care of their customers. We encourage our customers to remember, in the midst of the day-to-day tasks, the larger mission and the reason we’re all here — working as one team to support the warfighter.”
| Date Taken: | 06.25.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.25.2015 14:06 |
| Story ID: | 168129 |
| Location: | FORT LEE, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 165 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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