FORT LEE, Va. –
Defense Contract Management Agency senior leaders are focused on addressing employee concerns related to performance and discipline.
In the 2020 Defense Organizational Climate Survey, also known as DEOCS, agency employees voiced concerns that disciplinary issues are not always addressed. Senior leaders have been working to address this concern in an initiative known as the discipline line of effort.
“They don’t see poor performers or bad conduct being disciplined, and they don’t know what actions were taken, or if they were taken,” said Michael Shields, the Technical Directorate’s Quality Assurance executive director. “As you can imagine, this is a delicate topic. We celebrate accomplishments in public and deal with discipline in private.”
Shields, the initiative’s champion, said the agency is committed to ensuring employees trust that appropriate action is taken when there are performance or conduct issues.
“DCMA does track conduct and performance action metrics. This initiative helps us to build trust that discipline is fairly administered through data collection, analysis and reporting to the workforce,” said Shields.
The Total Force Directorate serves as the lead internal organization committed to transparency in collecting the performance management data by sending out the results of the annual performance management activities. As a result of the DEOCS feedback, conduct and performance actions are now listed as an item under the “What's Hot” tab on the Total Force Directorate’s homepage, https://360.intranet.dcma.mil/Directorate/PH-TF/SitePages/Home.aspx (log-in required).
The link takes employees to the Total Force Labor Employee Relations page. From there, employees can select the conduct and performance actions link under the “What’s Hot” tab to view the conduct and performance slides.
“The slides are scheduled to be posted quarterly and will give the conduct and performance action metrics across the agency,” said Shields. “But senior leaders want to emphasize that discipline and performance improvement is conducted primarily between the supervisor and the employee, with input from Labor Employee Relations, General Council, and other advisors as required.”
Shields’ discipline line of effort co-champions are Cory Rosenberger, chief of staff, and Karen Schultheis, acting Information Technology Directorate executive director and chief information officer.
Read more on DCMA's response and actions to the DEOCS survey Here.