Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary at the Department of Defense and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, signed a multiyear strategy in February that establishes the principles for how DOD will develop a workforce that could help carry out the department’s cybersecurity missions.
The 2023-2027 DOD Cyber Workforce Strategy will identify and classify cyber workforce challenges using four human capital pillars: identification, recruitment, development and retention, DOD said Thursday.
The execution of the strategy seeks to accomplish four goals and the first two are implementing consistent capability evaluation and analysis processes to stay ahead of force needs and developing an enterprise-wide talent management program to better align force capabilities with future and existing requirements.
The other two goals are facilitating a cultural shift to optimize department-wide personnel management activities and promoting collaboration and partnerships to improve capability development, operational effectiveness and career-broadening experiences.
An implementation plan will be circulated by the department that outlines a list of activities to meet the goals of the strategy and key performance indicators for use in assessing the impact of the activities outlined in the strategy.
The department’s chief information officer developed the strategy in collaboration with the other component heads within the office of the secretary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Cyber Command and service branches to align cyber-linked human capital efforts with the 2022 National Defense Strategy.
