Implementation of Executive Order No. 14035: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce in Hawai’i
Partner organizations: White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders
Team members: Caylee Butler (mechanical engineering ’23), Dylan Moroney (biomedical engineering ’23), Mitchell Sirois (mathematics ’23), Charlie Snow (computer science ’23)
Watch the team’s final presentation.
Executive Summary:
Introduction and Background
The federal workforce is not representative of the country’s diversity. To address this, President Joseph Biden has issued multiple executive orders, one of which is the impetus of this project. Executive Order 14035: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce defines the goals of the presidency to increase the workforce representation of underserved communities and establishes the method for the creation of regional teams to achieve this goal (Federal Register, 2021). This project’s focus is representation within Region IX, particularly Hawai’i, and the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities that live there. The issuing of E.O. 14035 not only addresses a number of campaign promises related to representation, but also focuses on the tangible benefits that diversity brings to a workforce. Research shows that the inclusion of people from disparate backgrounds leads to more workplace creativity and innovation, as well as increased problem solving capabilities (Horwitz, 2007). Additionally, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (2009) notes that having a more diverse federal workforce increases trust in the government. However, there are many obstacles to obtaining federal jobs, one being the USAJOBS platform.
USAJOBS, located at usajobs.gov, is the federal government’s online public recruitment platform. All publicly available jobs and positions are required to be posted to USAJOBS by their agencies and all applications must go through the USAJOBS website (Llorens, 2007). This places USAJOBS as the focal point of the application process and any problems it has will affect nearly the entire federal workforce and any prospective applicants. However, the Office of Personnel Management (2017) stated that many agencies relied too heavily on USAJOBS and that recruitment was suffering as a result.
These issues are highlighted within Hawai’i as a major concern is ensuring that the federal workforce is reflective of the population, particularly with respect to AANHPI communities, to ensure all members of the community have access to well-paying jobs irrespective of race or ethnicity. Many members of AANHPI communities experience lower than average representation in the federal workforce and lower per capita income. Native Hawaiians, in particular, generally are underrepresented in the highest paying sectors and overrepresented in some of the most dangerous jobs.
Research Methods
Screenshots from two of the videos the team produced
To help address the federal employment gap among members of AANHPI communities, our project’s goal was to develop a toolkit and training program in Hawai’i. This toolkit will be directed towards encouraging AANHPI individuals to apply for federal jobs and provide guidance on and during the application process. To fulfill our goal we had three main objectives to accomplish:
1. Understand commonalities in the experiences of employees and job seekers with the federal application process to identify barriers for applicants.
2. Identify characteristics of successful and unsuccessful applications to advise prospective applicants on how to best complete the application process.
3. Develop a toolkit that will help increase local AANHPI representation in Hawaiian federal jobs.
To accomplish our goal, we conducted interviews with federal employees, job seekers, and employees directly involved with the application process. Additionally, we analyzed existing videos on the USAJOBS YouTube and used all this information to design, draft, and create our training videos.
Results
Through our research, our team made the following findings:
Objective 1
- Applicants often find the federal application process confusing and advised us that completing an application without help from a current federal employee would be nearly impossible.
- Applicants often have trouble creating a resume for federal applications. Federal resumes are much different from resumes for private-sector jobs, and require much more information, which makes them much longer.
- Applicants often have trouble with the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) assessment, which is a required component of many applications. We learned that many applicants may be reluctant to rate themselves as experts in certain fields, often for cultural reasons.
- Applicants sometimes become confused by certain wording within the job listing, saying it is too bureaucratic or technical.
- Those who succeeded in obtaining federal jobs often had very specific details and information in their resumes and had help from someone who had previously obtained a federal job and had already gone through the application process.
Objective 2
- The federal hiring process is very complex. Applications undergo three levels of review by an automated system, a centralized hiring authority, and finally the hiring managers of the agency that posted the vacancy.
Objective 3
- Many of the currently available videos are over five years old and are long and unengaging.
Informational flyer providing resume tips
We used these findings along with discussions with the Region IX working group to design a series of videos that are intended to be both shorter and more modern than the current USAJOBS videos. Additionally, we focused on topics not covered in the original videos, such as how federal resumes differ from private sector ones and how to create them, as opposed to just explaining how and where to upload a resume with a note to read the job description carefully.
Synthesis & Recommendations
We discovered a number of obstacles faced by applicants, especially those without federal connections. Many interviewees strongly advised that applicants speak to someone familiar with the general application process, however for many people this is not possible. Our recommendations for the Region IX working group are meant to make it easier for those without federal connections to gain an insider perspective on the application process and better understand it.
For the Region IX working group, our main recommendation is to produce videos based on our scripts and storyboards. We recommend posting these videos on the USAJOBS.gov YouTube channels. The next step would be to implement outreach programs with community centers and schools to distribute these videos. These programs will consist of weekly seminars, information sessions, and the distribution of informational flyers and videos.
Our main recommendation for stakeholders involved in USAJOBS.gov and those who create the job listings are to change the resume requirements and the KSAs. The automated process that parses the resume is very specific, and can sometimes filter out qualified applicants. Making the automated process more lenient will make the application process more equitable for applicants without federal connections. For the KSAs, we found that the definition of “expert” was commonly misunderstood by applicants, and believe that replacing it with a word with less cultural significance will benefit both employers and applicants. Questions that ask the applicant to identify as an expert could instead be replaced with a question asking if the applicant has the ability to teach another individual the skill. We finally recommend that a study be conducted to better understand language that may be perceived as bureaucratic or technical.
Conclusion
Although our goal is for these videos to be disseminated in ways that are particularly accessible for AANHPI communities, these videos should prove helpful for all applicants. In particular, these videos should be helpful for applicants without federal connections.