Breaking down how Trusted Workforce will improve productivity for Personnel Security offices
Moving Beyond Periodic Reinvestigations
Getting rid of periodic reinvestigations is a clearly huge time savings for Personnel Security offices – and besides, the long time period between investigations was just too long (5 years) and thus, really ineffective for ensuring the suitability of the federal workforce on a continual basis.
Continuous Evaluation and the Increased Agency Workload
Of course, we’re replacing periodic reinvestigations with CE/CV, which will be an ongoing process: Background Investigation Service Providers (DCSA being by far the largest) are the ones doing the continual monitoring for relevant events and information, but the individual (hiring) agencies must process them, determine what to do about them, communicate with the Subject and others, and report their actions; it will be a lot of work, and when an agency implements CE/CV for their low-risk workers (TW 2.0), the increase in work may be overwhelming. Another question: will CE/CV really gather all the information of concern that was gathered in the reinvestigation process? We know that CE/CV information will be timelier, but will its scope be as broad? Think of the various people who were proactively contacted and interviewed during a reinvestigation.
Increasing Productivity Through Technology
The obvious answer to how agencies can effectively deal with an increased workload without a proportional increase in personnel is to increase productivity. And the way to do that is with better technology – increased automation and more automated interfaces. Because Personnel Security is a critical component of both Human Resources and Security, the agency background investigation/clearance system can be integrated with organizational HR and Security systems as part of an enterprise approach, which typically produces notable productivity increases. Of course, the Agency’s Personnel Security system needs to interface with all DCSA systems and there are a variety of third-party system API’s that can benefit Personnel Security. To help agencies be successful with Trusted Workforce, there are also several API’s that DCSA can implement and make available that will save agencies quite a bit of time. In short, effective use of technology can solve the workload challenge.
Addressing Potential Information Gaps
About the potential gaps in information: we are optimistic that the PAC’s long-term plan will be effective. We understand that there is a plan to implement an annual questionnaire and review process that will include reaching out to the Subject’s supervisor to check for potential issues, including issues that are regularly addressed as part of insider threat awareness. Especially considering that there is to be a greater in-office presence, this ought to go a long way in covering potential gaps in information. Routine, day-in, day-out in-person interaction and supervision, and a new evaluation process involving Personnel Security seems promising as a supplement to CE/CV.
