How a leading health research agency can bolster its workforce
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H, is a tiny agency with only 118 employees and needs a more organized approach.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H, is a tiny agency with only 118 employees. Its personnel needs are highly specific, though. ARPA-H has used a variety of strategies to get the people it needs. The Government Accountability Office found that the agency needs a more organized approach. Candice Wright, GAO’s director of science, technology assessment and analytics, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin for more.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin: There is special considerations you have found in general for these small, scientific or highly specialized agencies that you would think people would be the path to their door. But it’s pretty tough for them, isn’t it?
Candice Wright: It certainly is. As you mentioned, these are really highly specialized personnel that they’re looking for, people who have these highly specialized niche skills in various scientific disciplines. The agency is looking for people who are multidisciplinary. And oftentimes what they’re finding is that while these are really unique individuals, they’re often competing with the private sector for this kind of talent.
Tom Temin: All right. And you looked at the makeup of the workforce and on one sense, it looks great. It’s 50-50 men and women, but it’s 80% white, 14% Asian and 5% Black or African American. They have been trying to find sources of employees to become more diverse.
Candice Wright: Indeed, when Congress established the agency, it directed them to ensure that they recruit a diverse workforce. And this can be especially important as the agency is going to be focusing on a wide range of different health issues, focusing on different populations, different communities. And so it’s really important to ensure that they have a workforce that is representative of the various groups that they will be serving and supporting and having people who also reflect those communities as well so that they can better understand the needs, better understand the circumstances that they’re facing and be able to reach them. And so what we found in our work is that the agency certainly has had challenges, as you noted, with the numbers in reaching candidates who may be more diverse. And part of this they’ve explained is that it’s because there’s a really small talent pool of such individuals. When you think about the highly specialized niche skills that the agency is looking to hire for its scientific workforce. There’s already a limited pool of individuals there and then couple that with the need to have a diverse workforce. That certainly makes it even more challenging. So the agency has done a couple of different things where they have partnered with various institutions such as historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving institutions. They have attended different conferences, really in an effort to try to promote the opportunities that are available at the agency and to entice individuals who have those kinds of skill sets to consider working at the agency.
Tom Temin: Because they do make highly specific scientific-related grants and contracts. And so it sounds like this is something you just can’t get any contracting officer from somewhere in the government or grant-making officer because you are dealing with such specific subjects that the grant or the program manager on the behalf of ARPA-H really needs to know that topic. Well, it’s not just generic type of grantmaking.
Candice Wright: Right. So the mission of the agency when it was established in 2022 is to develop really transformative, innovative solutions, helping to identify where they can break ground with new research breakthroughs or technology advancements to improve these health outcomes on chronic health issues like cancer prevention and treatment, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases and so much more. And so what the agency is looking for individuals who really can chart a new path. So not just following the existing research activities that have been happening over the years, but really those folks who are visionary, who will bring these really innovative approaches to bear. And so with that, you really need talent that has those really specialized skills in order to be able to help the agency achieve its mission.
Tom Temin: We’re speaking with Candice Wright. She is director of science, technology assessment and analytics at the Government Accountability Office. And so what are some of the best practices for small scientific agencies? And there’s a lot of them throughout the government. When you add them up, what are considered best practices for HR and personnel recruitment there?
Candice Wright: So at GAO, we’ve certainly had human capital management as one of the long-standing management challenges facing federal agencies and continues to be that way, especially as agencies struggle to fill mission-critical gaps in the science and tech space. One of the things that’s really important is that agencies make use of the available hiring authorities and pay flexibilities that are afforded to them. And I’ll give ARPA-H credit and the fact that it has been using those authorities and flexibilities as it has recruited a scientific workforce. That being said, we think it’s really important that the agency is really intentional and strategic and how they’re planning to go about to get the talent that they needed. And part of that involves having an established workforce planning process.
Tom Temin: And what are the elements of that type of process?
Candice Wright: Well, such a process really requires them to sit down and think about identifying what kinds of individuals that they need, where might they be able to acquire the talent that they need, thinking about the skills. Importantly, how will they identify the skills, what different creative approaches they may need to take to identify the talent? But then also, once they are executing on the plan, making sure that they have a process in which to collect data and not just collect the data, but also assess the data to see how they’re doing, how their efforts, whether or not their efforts are effective, whether or not they’re achieving their intended objectives so that they can then use an evidence-based approach to determine their progress and make any adjustments as needed. We think that it’s important for them to have this workforce planning process that will identify, again, those skills where they’re going to find those folks and then how they’re going to bring them on board, but then also what additional flexibilities they may need to consider and take advantage of to be able to attract the talent, but also importantly to retain the talent because that will be another really big piece of the puzzle.
Tom Temin: Program managers at ARPA-H as many other of the RPAs and so forth is a limited-time type of job. People come in to be a program manager and, I think, two or three years is what you’ve got. And that’s understood at the outset. So is one of the challenges perhaps convincing people of whatever ethnic background, for example, to leave somewhere where they might have a really great thing going to relocate to ARPA-H, knowing that it’s temporary. For example, in Washington, there’s Howard University — leading medical research institution. But would someone want to leave a great job there to go to ARPA-H If they can’t come back again?
Candice Wright: So I’ll note that the program manager positions, while they are term-limited, typically up to three years with the option to renew, those are just one of the many positions available. So there’s a range of other positions at different levels within the agency. I think that certainly there’s the excitement of and prestige of being able to be part of a new agency. The agency’s only 2 1/2 years old. And so it’s a really exciting opportunity that people might find attractive to be part of a new agency that’s really looking to enter into these uncharted territories with respect to health research and health and medical technologies. And so that in and of itself can be an exciting opportunity. In addition to hiring people outside of the agency, they’re also outside of the federal government, I should say, there are also opportunities to look at bringing people from other agencies. So transfers, there can also be authorities, which agencies actually use to bring back former federal employees as well, who may find the opportunity appealing and want to contribute to the agency’s mission. So there are a range of different ways in which they can acquire the talent. And again, I’ll know that the program managers are just one of the many positions available that is term-limited, but other positions are not necessarily so.
Tom Temin: Right. So people that have retired from, say, NIH or CDC, places like that, already have been in HHS, that would be something they could look at more carefully?
Candice Wright: Those could be certainly part of the pipeline.
Tom Temin: And then summarize your main recommendations. You had three of them and it looks like they accepted them.
Candice Wright: Yeah, So the agency concurred, certainly in our discussions with them, they had noted the fact that they were new and they didn’t yet have enough data, but we did realize that they have hired more than half of their plant scientific workforce. And so it’s a really good point to take a look at what’s worked, how it’s comparing to what their planned objectives and outcomes are and then see what additional adjustments of any may be needed. So certainly having that workforce planning process is a really important first step. And then combining that with collecting and assessing data on their efforts to see how they’re doing and to then be able to use that information to inform future decisions.
Tom Temin: Basic good practice, in other words?
Candice Wright: Standard management practices, certainly.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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