During panel discussions Wednesday at the Scoop News Group-produced Amazon Web Services Innovate Day, chief information security officers downplayed the Sept. 30 deadline on targets called out in the Office of Management and Budget’s zero trust architecture strategy, expressing both confidence that they will hit the goals and readiness to turn the page on the January 2022 memorandum. 

“The status of OPM zero trust is pretty darn good,” said Office of Personnel Management CISO James Saunders. While there’s work to be done at OPM on the data pillar of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s zero trust maturity model, Saunders said that “overall, I think we’re on track and on target to hit the end of this fiscal year goal.”

The Department of the Interior — and its 11 bureaus and eight offices — may not have had quite so smooth a path, but CISO Stan Lowe said the agency is in a good position with its adoption of “practical zero trust.”

“We’re always going to live in a hybrid environment where I’m going to have legacy applications,” Lowe said. “It’s an ongoing, continuous thing. It’s not a destination, it’s a journey, because technology is going to change.”

The “ongoing” nature of meeting the White House’s zero trust benchmarks was on display at Interior with its work on implementing phishing-resistant multifactor authentication — a callout under the identity pillar of the strategy. 

When Lowe, a Federal Trade Commission and Veterans Affairs alum, took over as Interior’s CISO in 2023 after several years in the private sector, he was greeted by “a lot of legacy stuff … floating around the department.” He quickly discovered that what worked for one bureau might not for another — at least in those early stages of MFA adoption.

“The requirement says ‘phishing-resistant MFA.’ Well, that wasn’t necessarily possible [for some offices], so my position on that in the beginning, until we got to the point, was any MFA is better than no MFA,” Lowe said. 

Tackling the zero trust architecture pillars has been filled with trade-offs and shifting strategies of that kind for agency CISOs. Saunders, for example, said funding was the “biggest challenge” for OPM early on, especially coming off an August 2021 OMB memo on logging that “did not come with extra money” for agencies.

A $9.9 million investment from the Technology Modernization Fund to OPM in September 2021 ultimately proved to be a game-changer in fueling the agency’s zero trust work.

Still, a lesson in budgeting and prioritization was learned. “For a lot of these new cybersecurity investments, we need to engage with our business [counterparts] because TMF is only going to support us for so long,” Saunders said. “And that’s a continuous conversation; continuous engagement was not something that was necessarily a strong suit of the cybersecurity organization at the time.”

Shane Barney, CISO at U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, described zero trust as “the world’s biggest unfunded mandate for a lot of organizations.” That changed for USCIS when “all of [the Department of Homeland Security’s] different director heads” got in a room and “actually prioritized it first — and it’s not a small amount of money,” Barney said.

“They recognized the connection between security and the business being successful,” he said, adding that zero trust essentially amounts to good “cyber hygiene.”

For any CISO given a mandate to implement agency-wide technical change, internal cultural resistance is a frequent roadblock. Lowe joked that the security organization within Interior has a reputation of putting “the ‘no’ in ‘innovation.’’ 

But Lowe is entering the zero-trust sprint to the end of fiscal 2024 feeling “pretty optimistic.” After Interior weathered the Ivanti VPN vulnerability earlier this year, the veteran CISO said he’s ready for whatever comes next in the federal government’s cybersecurity journey.  

“Having worked in organizations that are fully zero trust and having gone through that journey with those organizations, I know this is possible,” Lowe said. “It’s just gonna take some intestinal fortitude and some hard decisions along the way to be able to get this done.”

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While the astronaut process itself did not change, NASA became aware of OPM’s systems that support automation alongside continuous evaluations and improvements through the partnership between agencies, J. Patrick Sharpe, USA Hire program manager at OPM, said in an email to FedScoop. NASA is now taking advantage of features and capabilities offered by OPM-managed sites, including USAJOBS, USA Staffing and USA Hire. 

Now, according to Sharpe, the astronaut application process is fully automated and has a new “online competency-based pre-screen assessment.” Additionally, NASA has since implemented all three integration offerings from USA Staffing: request processing, new hire and data APIs. 

Sharpe noted that once the cycle is done for 2024 astronauts, both OPM and NASA plan to review the application process and determine any necessary changes or improvements. Significantly, OPM reported having added online interviewing capabilities and accessible mobile assessments to USA Hire specifically over the past year, and “will be working with NASA and other federal agencies in the near future to fully implement these capabilities as part of the hiring process,” according to Sharpe.

“USAJOBS continuously works to assess and improve the user experience using human centered design methodology,” Sharpe said. “USAJOBS improved the application experience for all federal occupations, including the astronaut candidate, by implementing a new user interface explaining the application process more clearly and clarifying the required application materials.”

Sharpe said that the modernized approach for the astronaut application process in concert with the pre-screen assessment “reduced burden on NASA’s HR staff and allied the Astronaut Office to focus on the highest quality candidates in the applicant pool for further evaluation.”

This is the second time that NASA and OPM have teamed up for the astronaut application process, the first being in 2020 when OPM reportedly assisted with a manual review of applications for NASA’s partially automated application process.

Sharpe said that because of the “success of the 2020 application cycle,” NASA decided to partner with OPM for 2024. 

For the astronaut position, OPM reported that NASA received over 12,000 applicants during the 2020 cycle. The space agency then selected 10 applicants from the original pool, according to a release shared with FedScoop. 

“NASA’s maximization of USA Staffing’s data and interconnection capabilities has increased automation, transparency, data quality and enhanced the overall hiring manager and HR user experience throughout the hiring process,” Sharpe said in the email.

The hiring systems for federal agencies go through “extensive usability testing” as part of the evaluation and review of the technology and processes for each site, according to Sharpe. 

Sharpe shared that USA Staffing is currently working on new capabilities for high-volume hiring; he reported that the staffing system is collaborating with multiple agencies to support and understand the challenges that come with high-volume hiring. 

USA Staffing is looking to design new tools so HR professionals and hiring managers can more efficiently hire at scale. The new capabilities, according to Sharpe, will include expanded integrations for personnel processing and tracking systems, the ability for agency leaders to establish hiring goals and provide data to track progress. 

Sharpe said that these changes will help those responsible for hiring to have data flow across systems “without duplicative effort and reducing the risk of human error.” 

By providing data and offering the ability to establish hiring goals, Sharpe said agencies can report to Congress and identify areas in need of improvement as well as find “creative ways to connect high-quality applicants for federal jobs with managers who have the legal authority to hire them.”

NASA did not respond to FedScoop’s request for comment by the time of publication.

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The Telework Transparency Act from Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, would require agencies to collect data on telework and monitor how the policies affect both agency performance and decisions on federal property. The bill, shared first with FedScoop, is intended to reveal the pros and cons of telework in the post-pandemic era. 

“Federal agencies must track and consider the impact of telework on their ability to deliver services, recruit and retain talent, and ensure office operations are cost-efficient,” Peters said in a statement. “My bipartisan bill will require agencies to gather accurate data on telework policies to provide more transparency and help ensure federal agencies are effectively carrying out their missions for the American people.” 

Referring to telework as a “remote lifestyle,” Ernst said in a statement that the practice “comes at the expense of the people federal agencies are meant to serve.” 

“For too long, Americans have been on hold while bureaucrats phone it in,” she said. “My bipartisan bill will provide full transparency into the inefficiencies of telework, so taxpayers are no longer on the hook for expensive wasted space at federal headquarters and misspent locality pay.” 

Though the Office of Personnel Management publishes a yearly report on agency telework practices, the agency said in its fiscal year 2022 report that data is more than a year old at the time of reporting and is often inaccurate and inconsistent.

Improved data collection is a major component of the legislation, which calls on agencies to use automated systems to track employees’ telework. The bill also requires OPM to set quality data standards and create and maintain a publicly available tool that shares agency telework data, using “data visualization or other data presentation techniques to support strategic executive agency workforce planning and talent management objectives.”

Agencies would also be charged with monitoring the use of federal buildings and gauging how telework impacts a variety of performance-related tasks, such as customer service, operational costs, investments in technology and recruitment and retention.

The introduction of Peters and Ernst’s legislation comes amid an increasingly concerted push across Washington, D.C., for federal workers to get back to the office. The White House has reportedly leaned on Cabinet secretaries to expedite the transition back to in-person work, while D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser continues to urge the Biden administration to force the issue. 

During a November hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, several agency officials reported rising rates of in-person work, while also making the case for continued telework flexibility.

“Regardless of where our employees are located, they are working,” Oren “Hank” McKnelly, executive counselor at the Social Security Administration, said during the hearing. “Telework is not one size fits all.”

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The CDO Council, which was established by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, is scheduled to close up shop next January, which could make Dalboe and King the potential last leaders of the group tasked with improving federal government data operations and decision-making unless new legislation is passed extending its charter.

Before taking on the role of FERC’s first CDO, Dalboe served as the director of data operations in the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, where she was the point person on the creation of the agency’s cloud-based Integrated Data Platform and Enterprise Dashboard.

Prior to her time with the HHS watchdog, Dalboe was the Department of Homeland Security’s chief data architect and director of enterprise data management.

King moved to his current role at DOE in July 2023 after two-plus years as the CDO and associate commissioner for the Social Security Administration’s Office of Analytics and Improvements. Before that, King spent a decade at DHS in systems modernization and information integration positions.

Dalboe steps into the role of chair vacated by Ted Kaouk, who spent more than three and a half years in the job. Kaouk, who served as CDO at the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Agriculture, transitioned in December to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where he serves as CDO and director of the agency’s Division of Data.

King takes over for Dan Morgan, longtime CDO and assistant chief information officer for data services at the Department of Transportation. 

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During a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing, Jennifer Pahlka, former U.S. deputy chief technology officer within the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said that federal agencies require support to add and encourage AI tech talent, which involves reducing burdens on agencies for hiring processes. Pahlka said that while OPM’s memo that authorizes direct hire authority removes some red tape for agencies, it does not help agencies that have to run separate hiring processes for open positions. 

In an interview with FedScoop after the hearing, Pahlka said that the government needs to “pair mandates with enablement,” and that it is critical to both hire AI talent and upskill existing federal employees. 

“In government, we invest orders of magnitude less than we should and upskilling our people. We should be training folks, not on compliance issues, like how to comply” with the White House’s AI executive order, Pahlka said. “We should be having a huge investment in fundamentals of core digital work as a foundation, including training on AI. We could do a lot more than we’re doing now and we still wouldn’t be doing enough.”

As for next steps, Pahlka said that some existing tools can help these AI recruitment efforts, like Subject Matter Expert Qualifying Assessments, or SME-QAs, which already support a streamlined approach to hiring. If paired with pool hiring, Pahlka said the government could bring on “great people, quickly.”

“We have to recognize that just changing a policy is insufficient; the engagement and education has to go along with it and sometimes it’s very hard to do,” Pahlka told FedScoop. “OPM doesn’t really have the resources. The philanthropy world needs to step up and see this as a critical issue and say, ‘how can we help with all of that stuff that’s hard for a constrained agency to do so that we can get the people we need in government?’”

Pahlka said that she “would love to see a super honest, frank conversation between folks on the Hill and folks in an agency,” where they discuss what barriers to hiring could be removed. 

Noting that she was not able to discuss it during the hearing, Pahlka said that the government’s approach to funding needs to change from a “once and done” procurement philosophy to longer-term maintenance of projects and funding programs. 

She stated that the timeline for funding projects often runs for a year or two, then faces large layoffs before the project becomes neglected during operation and maintenance time. Then, the government calls for modernization efforts for said project. 

“AI is going to make that even more critical. We can just buy something and then be done with it,” Pahlka said. “We need a competency, ongoing, to work with the AI. It’s consistent with what I’m saying overall, which is the thing that we needed to do in the Internet era, that is work that is still undone now, really needs to be done because of AI.”

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The CFTC announced in late December that Kaouk, who confirmed the move on LinkedIn, would join its Division of Data as its chief data officer and director. John Coughlan, who was already working within the agency, was also promoted and will serve as the CFTC’s first chief data scientist. The chairman of the agency, Rostin Behnam, noted that their new roles came as CFTC upskills its data science staff. 

“The massive shifts in financial markets driven by advances in technology put the CFTC at the center of a new era of financial data, empowering us to more efficiently and effectively execute our mission,” Behnam said in a statement. “With these new critical hires, the CFTC is upskilling our data science staff, and increasing capacity and capability to be at the forefront of market innovations. We now have the team in place to set a strategy with concrete benchmarks and a clear path forward.”

In a posting published to USAJobs, OPM said that the agency’s next chief data officer is expected to serve both as the agency’s chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO) and its responsible artificial intelligence official (RAIO).

Following the Biden administration’s wide-ranging executive order on artificial intelligence, many federal agencies have begun to appoint people to the new CAIO position, though they don’t need to formally name someone until 60 days after the Office of Management and Budget finalizes guidance for federal agency use of AI. The RAIO role was established under a 2020 Trump administration executive order on AI, though its associated responsibilities are supposed to be subsumed under the CAIO role. 

FedScoop is tracking agencies’ CAIOs as they’re announced here. OPM didn’t respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

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The FEVS survey asks a wide range of questions about the state of government work, including workload, remote work arrangements and efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. 

More than 600,000 workers at more than 80 executive agencies participated in the poll, which constitutes the largest survey of government workers. Contractors, political appointees and non-federal employees are not eligible to participate.

“This year’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey highlights that federal employees remain remarkably resilient, increasingly engaged, and value diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workplace,” OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said in a statement. 

“These encouraging results provide opportunities for agencies to build momentum and support their workforce to leverage workplace flexibilities, continue advancing DEIA, and remain motivated to continue delivering for the American people,” she added. 

OPM specifically pointed to the survey’s employee engagement index, which, at 72 percent, inched up 1 percentage point from 2022. The agency also noted that satisfaction with employees’ respective organization and willingness to recommend their agencies are up, compared to last year. Participation in the survey is at 39 percent of the government workers invited, which is up from 35 percent in 2022.

This past spring, OPM released a new dashboard to share access to FEVS and other agency data. 

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In an interview with FedScoop on the sidelines of ACT-IAC’s Imagine Nation ELC23 event in Pennsylvania, Kiran Ahuja, director of OPM, described the coming proposal as “far-reaching” and said it will focus on where pay needs to be and “flexibilities” that the government can incorporate. 

The proposal will come as the latest effort by the Biden administration to close the cyber workforce gap in the public and private sectors. In July, the administration released a cyber workforce and education strategy that included a goal to strengthen the federal cyber workforce.

“We are in a couple of days releasing a proposal where we have really looked at what has worked for the DHS model to create equity across government,” Ahuja said, pointing to the flexibility that agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense have with pay.

“Right now, we have a very inequitable system where DHS and DOD have a certain level of compensation, how they’re able to manage the workforce, how they rank performance, all of that, and it really hurts other agencies. And that’s a big complaint that we’ve heard of,” Ahuja said. 

The coming proposal is an effort in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the National Cyber Director, and would need the support of stakeholders across the federal government and Congress, Ahuja said. 

She stressed the importance of congressional support to ensure agencies have “a budget to be able to compete.” That doesn’t happen with the current budget, Ahuja said. “There just has to be this realization that we think these issues are important.”

Ahuja said she’s seen agencies come to dead ends with trying to pursue separate pay tables for subsets of their workforce, such as cyber and IT positions. “Unless you’re able to get those resources, they’re not able to do it,” Ahuja said. 

OPM has already been encouraging agencies to come to them and request special salary rates for a block of their workforce if they’re experiencing recruitment or retention issues. The coming “comprehensive” proposal is more of that, she said.

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