McLean, VA - May 6, 2010 —Dismayed by the Federal government’s challenges in recruit and retain Hispanic-Americans, two senior consultants at TMP Government, LLC, have taken a close look at the Federal government‘s track record in recruiting and retaining Hispanic-Americans.
In a TMP Government white paper entitled “How can the Federal government improve its programs for recruiting and retaining Hispanic-Americans?”, the authors propose a slate of bold initiatives to assist the government in adding members of America’s fastest growing minority group to federal job rolls.
The authors, TMP Senior VP Mark Havard and lead diversity analyst John Bersentes, suggest six reasons why the Feds’ recruiting track record with Hispanics may be less-than-ideal. They propose seven steps for jump-starting significant improvements in the years to come.
While Bersentes and Havard acknowledge that judging the government’s apparent lack of substantive progress on this front may seem like an indictment of many good-faith initiatives, they point to the most obvious symptom of how serious the challenge is becoming. Today Hispanic-Americans make up more than 15% of the nation’s population, but they constitute less than 8% of the Federal workforce and barely 3% among senior leadership ranks.
“There’s a disconnect here,” said Bersentes, “especially when you compare the impressive progress Federal agencies have made in recruiting and retaining African-Americans.”
So why this puzzling lack of progress with Hispanics? The authors suggest a number of factors, from competition by private industry, to “geo-demographic” barriers, to a too-narrow focus by government recruiters on Spanish language skills when they evaluate Hispanic-American job candidates.
“But perhaps the most telling reasons,” said Havard, “are the shortage of Federal HR personnel and funding to devote serious attention to this challenge, plus the need to inspire even more support and vocal involvement among high-ranking Federal officials.”
“Right now this may be an under-the-radar issue,” added Bersentes, “but can we afford to downplay it in years to come—especially when Hispanic-Americans reach 25% of the population by mid-century? This is a fairness issue that runs completely counter to the ideals of the nation.”
In the article, the authors offer a cogent prescription for turning the situation around. Among their suggestions: a consolidated, government-wide initiative, possibly under the leadership of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to coordinate the efforts of multiple agencies to recruit and retain Hispanics. This approach, according to the authors, would add economies of scale to the effort, and also go a long way toward transforming today’s inter-agency competition for talented Hispanic-Americans into common-cause cooperation.
“How can the Federal government improve its programs for recruiting and retaining Hispanic-Americans” is available at http://www.tmpgovernment.com/whitepapers.aspx.
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