The Office of Budget and Management’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy, or OFPP, has issued a memorandum that establishes a blueprint to recruit, develop and retain contracting professionals.
The memo, released on Wednesday, outlines recruitment and retention initiatives, including establishing an acquisition workforce advisory committee, requiring the development of strategic workforce plans at each agency, conducting leadership and soft skills training across the contracting workforce, and helping chief human capital officers and chief financial officers develop strategic workforce plans and retention programs.
Chartered under the Federal Acquisition Institute’s board of directors, the advisory committee will comprise experts and thought leaders from federal agencies to guide efforts to address key issues, share best practices and remove hiring roadblocks.
According to the document, the federal government relies on the contracting workforce to purchase goods and services, making it the most important element of the federal acquisition system. However, the memo cited research stating that the number of early contracting professional careers lags behind the number of early careers for federal professionals.
Sustaining the acquisition workforce will support the implementation of the OFFP’s Better Contracting Initiative, or BCI, which promotes an enterprise-wide approach to buying common goods and services to get better value from high-risk and other high-priority contracts, among other benefits.