Transcripts For CSPAN3 Congressional Staff Diversity Retention 20240714

Two Human Resource executives and author of three books on workplace topics testify and answer questions from committee members. The hearing is about 90 minutes. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time. In is cultivating diversity, improving retention with Congressional Staff. I recognize myself for five minutes for opening statement. One of the main ways in which we retain staff is by having it be 90 degrees in here. My apologies to each of you. Well be distributing fans to the entire audience. Today were going to talk about whats the backbone of this institution, the Congressional Staff that work here. I think i speak for all of us and those yet to come when i say we couldnt do our jobs without teams of people that work for us. Anytime i get a compliment where someone says nice job on this or that, my response is always i have a good team and i feel lucky for that. Theyre dedicated Public Servants that are here because they want to do meaningful work. They often choose careers on the hill and in the District Offices, despite long hours, occasional lack of job security. Since we work on a two year contract. And lower pay compared to what they could make in the executive branch or private sector. We are as an institution very fortunate to attract such talented people and hard working people. However, keeping them here is another story. Turnover rates are high with most positions in member offices turning over every two years or less. Of course, that isnt always a bad thing, a lot of staff leave one job on the hill for a different job on the hill. But even when taking into account the movement between different jobs, typical staffer leaves the hill after 4 or 5 years, and hear they leave after time, desire to do good and serve the public is outweighed by need for a better Work Life Balance and need to make more money, to afford housing, support families, put kids through college. That puts congress as a disadvantage, compared not only to private sector and to the executive branch, and doesnt serve the interest of the American People. Congress needs to do more to not only attract the best talent but keep the best talent, with the best backgrounds and views that exist across the country. How do you create a Work Environment that makes staff want to stay here instead of heading for the off ramp. How do we make sure we have a congress that looks like america. I thought it would be good to bring in the point person that handles Human Resources for house staff, could talk about benefits available to staff. Then i found out that person does not exist. There is not an hr point of contact for house staff. But were going to talk about benefits today, going to hear about Current Trends in employee benefits, look at what congress can do better, also going to look at what congress can do to recruit and retain diverse staff that represent america. 116th congress is the most racially, ethnically Diverse Congress in history, and the Congressional Staff should represent diversity of constituents around the country. I look forward to hearing what thoughts and recommendations witnesses and members of the committee have from proving staff retention and inclusion in the house. Thank you for being here. I invite tom graves for opening remarks. Thank you, mr. Chairman, commend you for your leadership and making staff of this institution and diversity were going to discuss a focus of this committee. Modernization doesnt just mean updating technology and improving the legislative process, it ensures the peoples house invest in a dynamic work force that reflects those we represent and does it not only in committees and offices but also on the house floor as well. Those serving on this committee represent unique districts. Northwest Washington State, northwest georgia here represented, and our constituents have different backgrounds, and unique experiences. And those that want a career in Public Service are no different. I look forward to hearing from expert Witnesses Today about how we can attract and retain a work force comprised of different voices, characteristics, experiences and skills in congress with unemployment now in our nation at lowest rate in 51 years, im looking forward to discussing how this institution can compete with the private sector in hiring and retaining some of the most talented persons in our country that ultimately help us serve the American People better. Im glad were having this conversation. Building on work this committee has already done, and we could have a conversation now to learn more about best practices from those that have been helping to change the narrative and set new trends to increasing opportunity nationwide. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. I know representative cleaver has interest in sharing owning remarks. Happy to recognize him for that purpose. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank the Ranking Member as well. I am extremely fascinated by the diversity of the nation, i am frustrated by the homogenaity in upper ranks of government and to some degree down to where we are now. And because i personally believe that there are at this moment in history only a few people who would intentionally work toward exclusion, but that leaves people who are unconsciously excluding, so thats the area that i think we can impact, and im looking forward to ways in which the panel can present that might help us deal in that realm. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thanks very much. With that, i think we will did anyone else have opening comment to make . With that, we welcome the testimony of three witnesses. First, dr. Alexander alonzo, the study for human and dr. Alonzo received his doctorate in industrial organizational psychology from Florida International university. Thanks. Is it Laura Listwood s that right . Okay. Laura listwood is the author of the loudest duck, a book that dives into diversity and ensures a fair and level Playing Field for anyone working his or her way up the ladder. She is the secretarygeneral of the council of women World Leaders which is composed of women president s, prime ministers and heads of government. The only organization in the world dedicated to women heads of state and government. She holds an mba from Harvard Business school, jd from the university of California Davis School of law. Then dr. Mitchell. He has over 15 years of experience. To date he served over 40 clients across government and commercial practices. As a heeder, dr. Mitchell is passionate about mentoring the next generation of diverse leaders. He holds a phd in organic chemistry. Sorry. Literally dont know what that means. From northwestern university, mba i real yes dont know what that means. Mba from Drexel University and from kalamazoo college. Witnesses reminded that oral testimony already five minutes. Without objection, written statements will be made part of the record and dr. Lonzo, youre now recognized for five minutes. Take it away. Thank you. My name is alex lonzo, i serve as the chief knowledge officer at the site for Human Resource management. Workers and the workplace, were shaping the way employers and employees thrive together by advancing workplace practices and maximizing human potential. As the chief knowledge officer, it is my job to understand the issues faced by employees, employers and Hr Professionals on a daily basic. I appreciate you leading by example and examining how it can reform and improve the own Employment Practices including benefits offerings. An important area that we studied and Congress Must closely examine is the use of Strategic Benefits. Hr departments and organizations invest significant resources and designing benefits packages to recruit new employees and to retain the top talent. Benefits play a role in the overall job satisfaction. The results also showed a strong correlation between benefits and retention. This underscores the importance of organizations and their need to plan their Strategic Benefits to maximize return on investment and competitive advantage. This is especially true in congress. Congressional employees often face long hours, high stress environment and under the circumstances, benefits play significant role in Employee Satisfaction and retention. A study by the Management Foundation found that 72 of congressional employees recorded benefits influence their decision to stay in their current positions. In todays labor market, benefits offerings set organizations apart when recruiting and retaining top talent. Benefit offerings are important to Congressional Staff, they have just simply not kept up with the pace of private sector benefits. Moreover, they have not met the needs of our diverse and modern workforce. Research shows improvements in the landscape and the economic landscape and increasing diversity are driving organizations to refine the benefits programs. For example, the currently five generations in the workforce with increasing racial and Ethnic Diversity across the country. Congress should examine hill staff used on work and benefits as a result. In a tight labor market, Workforce Development is supporting employees who want to upscale and employers who seek to maintain global competitiveness. 87 of employers report Offering Professional Development opportunities as a benefit and 14 organizations say they increased their investment in professional development offerings. More than 90 of organizations offer some paid leave of some type to employees and 34 offer Maternity Leave and 30 offer paternity leave. Remote work continues to be one of most popular benefits and as a result, working options of all types are on the rise. Limited time for family and friends, alternative schedules are an attractive option for Congressional Staff. A growing number of employers have begun to offer Student Loan Repayment benefits to the employees. The annual benefit survey shows employer provided repayment doubled since 2018. Some offices currently offer student load repayment. There is assistance including expanding the benefits of student load repayment. Education assistance is important tool for employers to attract the best employees and build an educated Diverse Workforce especially in a situation or a Work Environment such as this where you have the best of all talent. Health Care Coverage is the corner stone of employer provided benefits which i discussed further in my written testimony. Benefits offerings are critical to securing top talent, it is equally important that congress address inclusion and diversity when discussing a modern workforce. Capitol hill staff so reflect a Diverse Workforce. The employment process for capitol hill is vastly different than the private sector. Congress should explore the implementation of a management system. While also keeping an eye toward effective people manager development as an important part of a great culture. Mr. Chairman and vice chair graves, thank you again for allowing me to share my experience and the views on the importance of benefits as well as inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Congress can lead by example by communicating the true value of benefits and inclusion and diversity. What happens in washington, d. C. , will in fact impact other workplaces. And we truly believe that creating better workplace policies leads to better workplaces and in turn a better world. I welcome your questions. You may have to hit the button on the microphone. You can only work through that three times with me. Thats all right. Thank you, chairman. You may have forgotten because the sweat, i clouding all my judgement and i forgot about inorganic chemistry. So were good. Restart the clock. I was doing a stick here. Thank you. Thank you distinguished members of the committee. Thank you very much for allowing me to testify. My name is Laura Listwood. I think we know diversity and inclusion are keys to better Decision Making effective policy and innovation. We know also that it works only when problems are simple and communication is easy and the environment is not changing. You must have this if the problems are complex, the communication is not easy, and the environment is changing. You must have this. And its about the number of people who are diverse on your staffs, with he know that. And tracking those numbers and hiring retaining advancing. But its no the just about that. Its not about what i call the noahs arc approach to diversity which is if we could only just get two of each in the ark, well have the diversity. But thats a problem. And well explain a little bit. So we do know the value of diversity and inclusion, creativity, innovation, different perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, talents, ideas. Think about your congressional baseball team. You dont want all catchers on your team. They also avoid the risk of homogenous thinking, also known as group think. It avoids the overreliance on dominant Group Members perspectives. It signals trust and institutions by representing reflection of america and connecting to communities. Yes, it is about race and gender. But also about socioeconomics, disabilities, Sexual Orientation and identity, language, sports, religion, education, background, family status, military status, language, nationality and could go on. Theyre tools to ensure better shugss. Bought are some of the challenges . I mentioned noahs ark. The problem with that is that if the draft in the ark is lookith giraffe is looking at the zeeb rashgs youre funny looking, how do you do anything with that stupid short neck of yours, thats a problem. We have unconscious beliefs and perspectives and preferences and associations and roles and archetypes about who people are. We also have the challenge of confirmation bias. Which is whatever it is i believe i will sort the incoming information to confirm that which i already believe. So, for example, we know from research if you have a nonanglo name, youre going have to send out 50 more resumes to get the same response to someone with an anglo name. We also know that if you send the same resume out with the female name and male name, you get different responses for that. We also know that dominant groups are assumed to be competent until they show theyre incompetent and nondominant groups are assumed to be incompetent until they prove theyre competent. Question know these things. We also have the elephant and mouse theory about things which is if youre the elephant in the room, what do you need to know about the mouse . Not much. If youre the mouse in the room, what do you need to know about the elephant . Everything. So by and large, dominant groups are not necessarily as in tune with nondominant groups. We also know that like gravitates to like. And like avoids not like. Some organizations that i have worked with dont necessarily have an intake problem but they all have an upgrade problem. So you may be getting Diverse People into the organization and into your staffs, but they may or may not be getting into the senior staff positions. We have realso know that home homogenous groups dont come to better solutions. Het row genius groups come to better solutions, they just dont think they did. Diversity turns out to be more complex. There is the challenge of avoiding the illusion of inclusion which is that just because you have some programs around Diversity Inclusion, it doesnt necessarily mean your organization is fair. So some of the tools that i think are valuable, central Human Resource and diversity effort which can help overcome unconscious bias, create consistency in recruiting and developing and training, creating an office of diversity and inclusion which i know happened is a strong step. Pay interns to avoid socioeconomic exclusion, get referrals from minority groups, understand why people leave and why they stay. Learn about other representative bodies efforts on diversity through organizations like the interparliamentary union. Think about the rooney rule, the man field rule which is law firms committing to hire 30 women and minority leaders for significant leadership positions. Creating things like a resume bank and having transparent widely available job postings is very important to attract Different Groups. And understand that certain words when youre attracting certain people dont work for others f youre looking for a highly competitive super war yoshgs you may get a few people. You may be excluding a few people also. Make sure Diverse Voices are heard and understand and use tools to create a level Playing Field. Understand what i call the power of the mirror, knowing what is you can be by who it is you see. As a brief aside, i run a counsel of womens heads of government, the 76. And when i talk to president of iceland, she said she after she had been in office for eight years, going around the country and she noticed that for the children under 8, they all thought only a woman could be president of iceland. And the boys had to ask if they could be president of iceland because they had never seen it. So obviously most importantly, having a strong committed leadership this is the number one requirement on the path to a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Thank you for letting me testify and i welcome your questions. Thank you. Dr. Mitchell . Youre now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you, chairman. Vice president graves and other members of the select committee. Im honored to have the opportunity to share the experiences today. Again, my name is dr. Mitchell, im a principle with our government and Public Services practice and currently i serve as our chief inclusion officer for the consulting practice. At deloit, weve been leaders in diversity and inclusion since the aeearly 90s, we think of different backgrounds and attributes and perspectives that we bring to the table. For example, im one of nine siblings raised by a single mother in a family of factory workers. I was the first member of my family to obtain a phd in inorganic chemistry, and we nailed it and become a principle at a Global Professional services firm. Ultimately, the aspects are substantially more complex than the zriptor africanamerican male. Our employees an your Staff Members are similar with different roles, hobbies and affiliation thats shape who they are and how they see the world. Inclusion is leave ranching all of those things which make each of us unique and in a twha encourages us to be authentic and know that were valued. In our experience, based upon serving clients, there are four areas that might help you in your efforts that id like to share today. Firstly, recruiting must be a top priority. We know that teams with diverse backgrounds and experiences are able to generate Creative Solutions for the most complex challenges we face as a nation. And you must extend that to the way that you recruit as well. What we do internally and one of our most successful efforts was eluded to earlier and that is our inclusion blitz. In that particular effort, we had diverse candidates of nontraditional backgrounds that were screened by others with nontraditional backgrounds so that they could obtain a view of their full potential unincumbered by potential bias. We established a market leading approach by engaging our people which we call inclusion councils. Theyre local Office Groups that bring together people from different parts of the business with different backgrounds and experience. This allows people in areas that are less diverse to mingle with those that are more diverse, share best practice and create a common culture that benefits all. Thirdly, mentorship and sponsorship are key aspects to our culture and are critical for retaining a Diverse Workforce. Personally, in my first two weeks at the firm, i interacted with the partner who became a mentor, told me that he thought that i would be successful within the firm and that he was going to do everything within his power to help me achieve what i could potentially achieve. I tried to pay that forward and we established that fair and robust Sponsorship Program that just recently one of my initial sponsors is recently promoting to managing director which im incredibly proud of. More so than anything else, it proves that tactics that we put in place and the path that were on will lead us to be successful and continue to be able to do so in the future. There are tips, tricks, guidance, such that people can create inclusive teams in such a way that they are allowing our staff to operate in a way that they are unincumbered by potential biases that may limit their full potential. There is inclusion across many organizations. I would like to discuss, you know, one thing that is relevant to congress. I find more and more that strong inclusive cultures include a element of purpose and dedication to the greater good. Purpose driven work is one of the top factors that todays workforce is seeking. Few organizations have a strong purpose as congress and its an Outstanding Foundation for all of your efforts Going Forward. When it comes to diversity and inclusion, there is no one size fits all model. Much like each of your offices and the districts that you represent, every organization is unique characteristics that must be taken into account. Our venues like today, best practices are being shared is invaluable to advancing the goal of diversity and inclusion and im happy to help in any way possible. Thank you, chairman for providing this opportunity to share our experiences and im happy to address any questions. Stuck the landing, right at five minutes, well done. Were going to roll into questions and ill start by recognizing myself for five minutes. We have to make recommendations to the broader body around whether were talking about benefits or diversity and inclusion. Put us put yourselves in our shoes. What can we do to help in the United States house . Ill start off and argue that the same thing i would argue with any employer and from our perspective, we approach this as recommendation thats we would make to any employer provide benefit strategy or any strategy involving Workforce Development or anything that has to do with retention of top talent. The other thing we recommend is really to take a data driven approach when thinking about what it is that is the best solution given your philosophy around talent. If your philosophy around talent is to retain top talent, and to attract that top talent, then you have to build the systems that support that whether it is through recruitment strategy or whether it be through recruitment tools or Talent Management systems as a whole. Who screens resumes and recognizes different experiences. They have different backgrounds than the person applying for a position. So from a very tactical standpoint, having a more focused perspective on how resumes are screened and shared across different opportunities is absolutely key. I would also add in addition to what was being said there is that when you do interviews with potential Staff Members that the interviewers are diverse themselves. Not to ensure that youre getting a wider range of questions with reference to job descriptions, i would recommend that you perhaps get some people here who have companies that do this kind of algorithm work that can help you think about how you create job descriptions so that they dont advance some groups and disadvantage other groups. And then obviously to reaffirm what was said, making sure you have data bases. Making sure that you have metrics and accountability for all of your efforts. Dr. Alonzo, he mentioned in your written testimony and spoke briefly about employee benefits, you know, including things like not coming into the office and working remotely or Maternity Leave, can you talk about other things that might fit under the category of creative benefits that we ought to be thinking about that might maybe not be budget busters but might positively impact the ability of people feel values and stick around . Absolutely. Theyre professional development and the investment in professional development. When we think about a highly skilled and talented workforce, its the opportunity to engage in a variety of different professional Development Opportunities, some that are more geared towards career rather than the actual benefits or rather than the actual business that one is in really has a real impact in terms of making sure that youre retaining top talent. So when i think specifically about your question, what i really point to is professional Development Opportunities and some that are well outside the scope of what you might think. Whether whether Data Analytics or in other settings or skill sets. I know im a little short on time to be able to ask another question. Why dont i move on to vice chair graves for five minutes for him to ask questions. As much as i want to ask dr. Mitchell about compounds that dont include Carbon Hydrogen bonds. Vice chair graves. You have to love google. Yeah. I want to take a second and expand on an idea that miss listwood brought up. You referenced Hr Department. I recognize that all thee of you have that were 435 unique operating entities with unique budgets and talking about staff retention, that also impacts those making hiring decisions. So you have a person that is evaluating in a certain way and there is certain work involved. Maybe you can help us understand is that possible to have one unique Hr Department that assist all 435 offices . Is that possible in this institution or do we need to learn and team other entities how to do this and this would be brought up and if can you comment on that . Certainly, centralized entity can assist in these 435 businesses that you have. In other words, they can be ones who help identify the best practices. They can bring experts in to help. They can, perhaps, do diversity audits for your office, to help you see what it is that you may need to think about. They could potentially help you think about where what i mentioned what pools youre fishing from. You know, and to expand the number of pools. I think you can get some consistency across the 435 and with the understanding that each office is going to have its own particular perspective on what it wants and what it needs. But to help ensure that you are not doing unconscious bias kinds of things as we discussed. Just to give you those tools to improve that which youre already trying to do. I would encourage you since the rooney rule is brought up, you can have a office that acts as a referee to provide guidance that is used individually across the entire body. I think that starting as a referee is a good initial step forward that can provide some consistency and start to move you along that particular path to see how much additional change is needed. And that can be a light weight solution that you put in place there. All right. Any thoughts . Well, im an Organizational Psychologist by training so my natural tend ency is to say it depends. The answer is always it depends. However, what i will say is in this case, i think it is exactly as my colleagues here have described. The 435 offices can deliver the philosophy and strat xwi as far as moiment, Recruitment Retention that they want to carry out or execute. So when i think of this i think about setting a foundational set of rules or a role, i should say, that relate specifically to a centralized hr function but that only enable or allow or unlock the ability to unleash potential. Thats really helpful. I hope the committee thinks about this more. In a political environment, all of us are we attain this position through an election. Oftentimes when that happens, the persons that lead your office there have come from your campaign potentially and may not have much if any experience as it relates to establishing a new office that has multimillion dollar budget and up to, you know, 20 employees or so. And then there is the challenge and if you have any thoughts on this, it will be helpful. You have your District Office and staff and you have your d. C. Office staff too that are sometimes very different or obviously very different roles. But they come if different hiring pools as well. And could a single h. R. Department centralized here be able to accomplish both of those tasks. Any thoughts on that . Have you given any thought to that . As i listen, well, we could certainly be a resource for you. To help you identify what organizations might be useful for you in your district. For example, to find more diverse jobs. So i can see that as certainly a value. Yes, you have those kinds of disparities between d. C. And your particular and also i would encourage thinking about diversity as a much broader sense of what diversity is. Youre looking for who is going to give me the different perspectives i need . Whos world view is different than my world view . Whos going to ask questions that perhaps wouldnt get asked otherwise . And so thats part of the mix of who you want in your organization. I think a central joyed groized help you get to that goal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, manchester city. Thank you for being here today. My son is an actor and the reason hes getting a lot of work now is that the new rules governed by the actors guild and the reason you see so much diversity in commercials is that theyre not allowed now to select people for roles that are not primarily based on personality. In other words, you dont need to get anybody to play michael jackson. Michael joerd an Michael Jordan to sell his underwear. Nobody is going to do that. But if you need a man and woman, they cant say we want two white a white man and woman. They have to get two people and thats what if they start doing otherwise, they violating contracts. And so if you noticed the commercials that theyre am coming out with now, a few years ago there that would have never have happened. The other thing that im asking i would like for you to because it connects. I thought about an office of inclusion and diversity, inclusion and retention under the os pisses of house administration. And they collect resumes of individuals from all over the country and one thing you have to do the civil rights laws allow for us to hire methodists. You cant discriminate. You have to hire an atheist. You know, you can hire methodist if youre catholic. What you cant do is say i want Blake Catholic or a latino catholic. So this office would have all of them and you can, you know, obviously if youre democrat, you can say i want a democratic legislative director. And this would be the Central Place where that would take place, race neutral and gender neutral and you just ask and they send it out. Here are ten people that fit what you have asked for. Most people know the womans name from a mans nanl who we can pass the hawes. But i really, im interested in, you know, tearing that up and repairing it. Any of you. Im happy to start. I think the notion that you pulled together that you spoke of centralized office that would hold and have resumes to extend the reach of the candidates here in specific offices and the network. That is something that seems reasonable. I have in my experience done both resume reviews that are blind with that march name and also with those names. They train unconscious bias have not noticed substantial difference between the two. So thats just one piece that i would offer to you is that that might be a step but i think that training of the people who are interviewing and screening resumes and understanding the backgrounds may be sufficient. I would add that in temperatures of resume review and specifically in thinking about how you go about reviewing resumes, it is much more powerful not to focus on unconscious bias training and frame of reference training but also to focus on what it is that people managers and people who are actually hiring managers make decisions around when reviewing resumes. So its not enough to focus on the centralized screening of reviews, its much more powerful to focus on the hiring magers are looking to do and review. In many cases that, is much more powerful than the initial screen itself. I would also add the blind resume technique, there is also now something known as bunching theory which is if you bring a group of resumes together youre more than likely to appoint a Different Group of people. That is what youre talking about. It is a training issue to make sure that when youre screening, youre not just screening for cultural fit. Because thats, you know, a term that can be used to exclude people. Thank you. Mr. Woodall. Thank you. Kint help but notice were spending a lot of time talking about recruiting talented staff and retaining talented staff. There is no discussion about recruiting congressmen and retaining talented congressman. I say that tongue and cheek. My question is give me a parallel to what it is we do here in our 435 jobs. I could be kmeetly without talent and get elected. Theyre going to check the box. Thats going to create a bias for what they believe in me. Then i have to find folks who have a different level of trust and commitment in that. Easy to find folks who believe in deloit. Hard to find somebody who believes in that new freshman congressman what wasnt supposed to win to begin with. What is the parallel . Rather than asking you all to give me the answers, who has a similar situation and theyre already doing it well today . So i actually have given this thought. And the closest parallel that i can think of when it comes to the private sector is actually the Health Care Industry and especially the industry involved with physicians and residence in general. You have unique situation that is similar and talking about the top talent in their particular field. Youre talking about individuals that have to pull together an office in many cases as far as private practice, whether it is within a Health Care System or outside a Health Care System and they have to engage in entrepreneurship and leadership with no training. So when i think specifically about how theyre going about that, much of what that industry is doing is looking specifically at how they build those types of Training Programs through the colleges and focus and train and build better physicians but not just better physicians, better leaders. So thats where i would turn to first if i was to think about it. The only extension i would say to that, because i kmeetly agree, is that you can look into instance thats have Partnership Structures, right . At its core. If you have institution thats have Partnership Structures and have people that have made partner based upon a set of skills who now must be leaders and business owners. Its analogous. Now you got me wondering if i go start looking at deloit partners one by one. Ill see a Different Group of young people attracted to be your mentee than folks attracted to that less ambitious partner down the hall from you. Tell me, thinking about diversify, if i look down the row here, sii dont see a host e diversity. Gray hair is not in practice here. Do we in the industry, are we ranking diversity . You talked about noahs ark. Were going get to everybody here. Is there a if im trying to do better, and i genuinely believe folks are trying to do better, is there a hierarchy . Do better with race first. And then do better with socioeconomic and then do better with age. Is there a measuring stick for success . Ill jump in here, congressman. There is no measuring stick or ranking. I think what weve seen is there is a strong emphasis on compliance and when thinking about compliance, there are certain characteristics that are regulated. And retire us to be compliant. I think when we see is that as an industry, were seeing a Great Movement towards more than just visual diversity. And so were seeing a lot of that, even as it relates to new technologies and artificial intel sequence and bias thats enter artificial intelligence. She said in her testimony, Diversity Inclusion signals in mings including a desire to embrace america. I worry that were going to create a Compliance Culture as opposed to a performance culture. We talk about family medical leave. We talk about parental leave. We dont talk a lot about sabbatical leave. I cant sell that to my constituents back home. But that is my problem. I want people who give it everything and then by definition, you take care of themselves more in ways that they may not ask that same thing of. Is there do i have an analogous burnout retention model i can look to . Certainly some industries do much the same thing. You know, youre working 24 7, if you will. And some organizations have developed these kinds of off ramp and on ramp kinds of approaches to it. It allows them to stay connected with the organization, stay up and current with what is going on. But step off for a bit and then come back to the organization. So that might be a practice that might be of interest. So let me talk about compensation. A lot of people assume, however, in this case, i think it really is an issue. This is a crazy expensive town. People start out low 30s, one bedroom apartment is, take that entire gross solry woualary wou a apartment. When i first got elected, i came here for a fundraiser for another colleague. It was a Young Professional Group there. About 100 people in the couple group of people i was talking to, they explained to me how everyone here makes more than a member of congress. Because they all work on the outside. It was a fundraising group. And thats a reality. We have a lot of outside groups that can hire people away at higher salaries, salaries here for even our most senior folks are tied to our salaries. They cant exceed our salaries by rule. On the outside, they dont have the limits. We have an increase with our office accounts. I know theres a lot of other factors in retaining folks. You brought up a lot of those. But just raw compensation, can we just talk about that a little bit and get a little idea on your thoughts . Do you want to start . Certainly. Our position is really that factors need to be accounted for. When we look at the science, what really stands out is fair evaluation of competencible factors. So in my mind, the natural recommendation that i would make to any employer which wh trying to be xpetive is think specifically about what are the factors and how you counteract that . Now total compensation is broader. It includes benefits when you think about this from an hr perspective. It doesnt just stop at true compensation or pay or wages. What i would argue is critical is having a Fair Assessment of what is competencible in some way and how those factors play a role. And match that specifically to the skill set and the roles and responsibilities that one might have in their specific role. Whether or not that actually happens and whether or not there is a true blue classification system that fits that, certainly thats something that centralized hr function could take up. Anyone else . You want to address the issue . Just speaking frankly, my this is at the end of my comments as well just with respect to there is aspects of compensation that will always be there. And what i do and what we frequently do as an organization is talk about mission. And, for example, i have a number of practitioners who work for me now who will be leaving the firm to go work on campaigns. So its less than compensation. There are people who have been willing to make the sacrifices because they believe in governance and they believe in what you do. I think when you look at the research, yes, compensation is absolutely cry tear yachlt i think you cant afoid that. But in addition to that, you could have greatest amount of compensation. You could be paying people extraordinary amount of money. But if theyre not seeing personal growth, you know, if theyre not seeing if theyre seeing themselves xlued potentially, they dont see stretch assignments given to them, you get my point. So people will leave even in the face of very good compensation. So i think it is a balance. It is a mix. It is a challenge. I dont think anyone is going to deny you that as a point. I think there are other ingredients that can be put to play. And we give people crazy long hours, too. Added benefit within the job. So often i think most people who seem to have an entry path into our offices come as being interns because they get exposure. They meet people and many people i talk to, thats how they started. But, of course, its been unpaid until now. Now we have a small amount. But its a pittance is really what we have right now. So were actual i had doing it based on financial need. We ask people to fill something out. Were still underpaying them significantly. Can you address that since that does seem to be the most common intake facility how we can address that part of compensation . Youre the expert in this area. Again, i point to what it is that we want to compensate and how we go about compensating it and what is valued. We talk about intrinsic motivateors. In my mind, i holook to startin compensation and say how do we offset that if its not something that were necessarily happy with. Find ways to hit that motivational sweet shot. Thank you. Dr. Alonzo, he spoke about a Talent Management system. And our philosophy around a Talent Management system, could you please give us an idea of what that might look like here . Very briefly. I look at how do we develop our resources. What im referring to is how do we give them the skills they need today as well as the skills they need in the future . How do we develop a centralized system so there is learning, development and people manager devel development ais kro the board. And with people managers, how do we develop them so that they are able to lead from day one . And is that something that you could see us doing in 435 different offices . Or would that require a centralized place it sounds like . I can see a scenario where it will be centralized. It can be done at 435 different businesses as long as you set one common core standard. Thank you. Dr. Mitchell, weve heard, you know, about the importance of benefits and recruiting and retraining staff. I noi th i know we focus on the student debt accumulating and challenge thats young people have in even going to college. Can you talk about any programs you know where the benefit of tuition payment up front, because i used to be at a Community College system and sometimes, you know, getting companies to invest in their employees, sometimes we try to get them to do the tuition up front rather than the benefit after because the individuals cant get the funds to start with. Any programs with tuition up front and retention afterwards when you invest in that employee or student . Whether or not thats anything you can envision here . Slightly a slight deviation from that. What is common in a number of areas has been Tuition Reimbursement as people are taking courses in and of themselves. That is relatively typical. That involves people taking the loans but theyre able to pay them back immediately depending oen what different employers are doing. Its becoming more and more common with respect to consultants and, in fact, its more and more common for consultants to advance the payments further and further up front. And you have found whether sherm or, is it working . Is it helping with, you know, excellent staff retention . I definitely believe it is helping with retention. Particularly youre allowing your workforce as weve talked about a few minutes ago develop new skills and see a path for them Going Forward and feel the investment that youre making in them. Is it helping with recruiting . Do you have an opinion . Its just not something that is common enough to really have a real beat on what the trend is. What i say is there is evidence from an anecdotal perspective that speaks to the fact that it is helping retention. It is serving as some measure of recruitment bonus if you will. There is value in terms of being able to lock in reasonable approaches to retaining top talent. Dr. Listwood, i would like to ask briefly about mentoring program. You may or may not know that we run through the womens congressional policy institute and girls brought 21 girls this year. I participated and taking your daughters to work. And so kaly from indianapolis came and sat with me in hearings and throughout the day. And she asked spectacular questions and she got excited. This is kaly from indianapolis. Can you talk to me a little bit about how the exposure mentoring programs and what more we can be doing. Only 21 girls came. Because girls of indianapolis paid i dont know if they paid for her or if her parents or mother paid for her or father, you know, but how do we get more young people to contemplate life here . What you gave is an amazing experience. She was amazing. Im sure she was. And what you did is give her the possibility of thinking of other things what she could potentially be which she might not have had that. Mentoring programs are extraordinarily important. I think bringing them to scale as you describe it is sometimes limited by resources. Nevertheless, you can encourage your local constituency groups to create more mentoring programs, perhaps giving your help to them. So that within your own congressional district, you got good vibrant mentoring programs going on. I do want to make one small point around this in organizations. This is work where they discovered for corporations that women are overmentored and undersponsored. Would you tllike to quickly define that even though my time is up. Mentoring is providing the ideas, the interaction as youve been doing. Sponsoring is basically im going to sign the check that says you should take that im going to back you in a position. You are know, im going to be the one that endorses you to take that other position. I say we have to put mary in there. And i will guarantee that mary is going to be successful. So guarantee program if you will. And its very different because mentoring is more like to not like or potentially and sponsoring is quite like to like. Got you. Thank you so much. I yield back. Thanks. Here we go. Thank you for holding this and thank you to our panel. For the past 15 years, ive been active in the movement to increase diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. With the Philadelphia Bar association, with the Large Law Firm that i used to be at. So im trying to see what concepts weve been using there that might translate. One of the big ones was that leadership had to come leadership had to be fully onboard that, if it was just talk or just words, they had to walk the walk. Dr. Mitchell, can you speak to your experience and how that might translate here . I think that statement that you made is correct. And particularly when you think about millennials and workforce, they sense absence of leadership or empty words very, very quickly. What weve done is making sure that leerdship walks the walk is tie our personal performance metrics to different vie verse ti and inclusion activities. Focused on mentoring people who look different than or have different backgrounds than yourself and a variety of other things. So to make sure that youre doing more than just that empty talk, i think when it comes to accountability such as performance and evaluation, it becomes much, much more deliberate. So that leads to my next question. How do you measure success . Im hearing resistance to a lot of measuring. So what kind of metrics might we look at . Like the one you just mentioned. Actually demonstrated mentoring with people who do not look like yourself or have different backgrounds. So i would actually like to address this question in large part because i think one what dr. Mitchell cited is absolutely a valuable point. The approach you described is incontrovertible. The leadership has to be involved in inclusion and diversity. One thing that we have seen is the rise of diversity officers and inclusion officers and offices as a whole and we speak to one thing that we like to highlight is ultimately its your executive leader and your executive leadership that actually drives diversity and inclusion. So when thinking about what it is that one should look for, its that leader that ceo or president that is going to be your chief inclusion officer or chief diversity officer. It doesnt rest with one office. Relegating it to one office is not effective. To your question about metrics, i look specifically not just at what candidates awe tract, but i would also recommend looking at what kind of usage rates there are around professional development. What is it that youre seeing that is usage rate base upon various diversity characters sticks that make it clear you have an inclusive environment and people are using all the professional Development Available to them . Okay. If i could add. Sure. Obviously top leadership is most important around this. And they have to actually behave. They have to, you know, they cant just say that theyre for diversity and then look at the direct reports and you see something that didnt look like this. They also need to ensure that their team, that their staff also is going down the organizational hierarchy. I think its also important for Senior Leadership to ask the right questions. You know. If not, why not questions. And, okay, i didnt see any women on the slate as an example. Why not . Come back to me when you have more diverse slate. I also think its important for the Senior Leadership and the top leaders to keep on top of what is the Current Research around Diversity Inclusion. Does this apply to our organization . Performance evaluations. There is performance and there is conversation style. Sharp elbows. There is communication styles. Were evaluated in that way. Now what i would say to the ceo if i had that information, i want to know what my Company Looks like. W. That kind of data. Are were very keerous ceo i think is extraordinarily important in this area. We have multiple ceos. And there is some kind of leadership above that looking at that which leads me to another tactic that worked well in the law firm environment. There are individuals here and we have recognition does that help. We certainly found the depreciation and recognition. The reverse being shame. Also to make it clear to our potential Staff Members where they would like to go and work with. I yield back. Im going to invite members of the committee who have more questions to dive in. Congress is a little bit unique than a lot of agencies. There is the gs scale. You have a specific job tight well a certain job description. Someone may and work their way up and then also from a tenure. I want to get your reaction. Something we should be looking at and not looking at. It all depends on how you want to use or employee that particular type of system. And this are employers and when i speak to federal agencies specifically about this particular topic. There is late 2000s or the early 2000s and should we compensate . I think it all speaks to what is your intended goal and your intended purpose . If you think it will in fact help a retention issue or support a retention issue or help someone be a better manager of Congressional Staff as they cycle in and out, certainly that is a reason to follow that. But, you know, an estimation one way or another as to where it fits depends on what the intended purpose really is. Okay. I wanted to get your impression on the idea of an Hr Department or at least an hr kind of lead point of contact within the congress. Your thoughts on that and the types it seems like the types of functions that could be done should such an office exist would be things like maintaining a resume bank or sharing best practices on everything from diversity to retention with the 435 independent contractors who work here or even mr. Hoyer when he came on member day testified around certify kags or compliance certificates on everything from ada accessibility to gold star for being a veterans hiring office or what have you to being a central repository for collecting some of this information for how were doing. Its hard to actually figure out how to make improvements when we dont have great information on benchmarks. In thoughts on any of what i just said. Reactions. Whats good, bad, ugly. Could i add onto that . Weve been toying with the idea of having a tool kit. Having a package to hand to people if you could add that to the mix. I wouldnt be a good consultant if i wasnt centralized with tool kits. Youre talk about doing some of these things that scale and share best practices which i think is really key to make forward progress. I think for many organizationers lets p orga s organizations, they would look at the system or failure and say why is this particular entity going so well. B what can questiwe learn to brin others up. You have this opportunity up. Who is implementing and implementing it well. Thats what a Central Group could help you do. A group could be someone to unleash potential for the officers. I dont think it will regulate or mandate or anything like that. I think of it as someone who will help track the trends and help you institute a culture that youre seeking. I think theres rial a resource to the 435 offices as were describing it. Very good. I found it interesting, you mentioned five general rags in the workplace. Could you quickly, for the record, at this point in time, what are those five generations and what are the challenges we ought to be thinking about because we have multigenerations of members. We have, i think its less so in the work force quite frankly for the most part. What is it that we either can or could be recommending as a body as to how we deal with that . Doi not pretoends be i do to be a generational researcher. When we think about this, theres about 1 of the work force that consists of traditionalists. Then youve got baby boomers who are moving out and somewhere between 6 and 7 of the work force. How much . 6 to 7 . Thats all. Some of us are working too hard. Really . Only six to seven. Six to seven. Then you have about 30 of the the work force thats general x then millennials and the rest bringing up the clear is your gen z or i generation. I mean those that were born with an iphone in their hand. What we see is that theres some of them here. A few. I have a few at home. With that in mind, what we see is really theres an opportunity to customize the employment experience for those individuals. Its not about dealing with differences amongst the general ra generations but foster better communication depending upon the generational realityre, if you will. How do we tailor what it is we offer from whether its benefits, compositioensationcom fit the our work force. Thank you. Anyone else want to comment or know more that youd like to share about the generations piece of hr. If i could share the unconscious bias part around that. Its the senior people really think about the more junior people. Or what the more junior people think about the senior people. That will permeate into how you interview people. The candidates you choose is based on the unconscious believes about who people are in the different generations. You can have the different generations but if i think this particular generation is entitled or impatient and doesnt know anything about technology, im going to embed those things in my own head and im going to distinguish how i think about people. Thats more of a psychological element to this generational issue. Anything, dr. Mitchell . No. I think thats a bigger issue here that we might appreciate and want to admit. I think its in every workplace. I didnt realize we were up to five. Im in that upper and that why im slowing down in 18 months. Thank you. I yield back. Two quick questions. Thinking about the comments about folks gear themselves toward compliance. I have a real fear which to try to start checking boxes because we all want to be successful. Has anybody modelled the were not going to check five boks but we want you to goat out of three here. Im thinking about married, single. You can have different opinions on tax policy than otherwise. Youll have different opinions southeast, knot west youll have different opinions. Military service, no military service. Single parent, dual family. The list is infinite. I need all of those opinions. I dont think of the folks in my staff as the delivers of those opinions. Ill call experts at the cdc for health care information. As it comes to come pieing my staff. Is there a checklist. Is isnt a checklist but a try to get three out of ten that recognizes if we start listing diversity that that list goes on for ever. If youre going back to my question, i want to do a good job but i cant tell how to measure success. I have not seen a checklist or a yardstick that would get exactly what youre targeting because so much of it is dependent upon what the outcomes are. In many respects i think that pushes toward cognitive diversity is much more critical rather than try iing that i hava black male on the staff team. I do think there are nuances there depending on your outcome. Is neuro diversity the same as cognitive diversity . Correct me if im wrong with the phds on both sides of me are more like are you an introvert, are you an extrovert . Are you a rational thinker or motive versus the cognitive diversity which is what are peoples world view. What are they bringing to you so you dont make a decision that missed out on a huge issue that you should have known about. Diversity around what your skill sets are and experience. For instance, for many years we have seen research around bio data or bigraphical data that sets apart information that helps enhance your diversity or inclusi inclusion. Were not looking for individuals that are black from a specific region but rather somebody who has an appearance as Law Enforcement or having been a pilot or Something Like that. In 2010, we kicked off the federal employees, all congressional employees out of the federal Health Care System and said you have to go into a separate Health Care System because you happen to work for congress. You used about a rigorous, not top down but you said as a consultant i have to support a centralized process. Thank you. Well have a completely different set of rules to achieve our ends. Is it obvious whether replicating what the federal government does helps with retenti retention. I would not say theres consensus. I would argue it has to suit what your strategic objectives are and what youre looking for as an organization and as the house. Right now the situation in terms of Employee Health care is they are required to be on the d. C. Exchange including the staff in our District Offices which if youre from Washington State covered under the d. C. Exchanges may be challenging. Do you have a perspective on whether thats a good idea or bad idea . Ill wade into this one a little bit. Keeping in mind that my experiences predominantly private sector, i argue that every employer, whomever they may be whether its a collection of 435 employers or a Broader Organization or collection of those. What id argue is you need to look another what it is that best suits the needs of your employee. It starts with serving Congressional Staff to see how you build the best possible Health Package for them. When thinking specifically about what we recommends to private sector employers, thats where we begin and then we start to ask them to consider what are the best brokered benefits that exist for them and what are the best solutions given their strategic spending in this area and what it is that they have allotted to them as an organization from a financial resource perspective. . Just spit balling here, for the sake of discussion, giving options like if you come work in a congressional office, you have the option of being on the federal Employee Health plan that every other federal employee is on or the d. C. Exchange because there may be some districts where they dont have enough providers that are covered under the Georgia Exchange or there may not be a Georgia Exchange or an option of being on the state exchange. That type of situation where you could give them an option. Any reaction to that . Does that seem, that sounds reasonable or your bonkers . I would never say youre bonkers but i will tell you thats beyond my area of expertise and i would connect with your staff on that. Its very important to know why people leave. To true lip know why people lea truly know why people leave. One third left for a higher paying job. Onethird left for a same paying job and onethird left for a lower paying job. It may or may not be an option problem that youre dealing with or it may be. Unless you really do and create those kinds of exit interviews that allow you to understand the dynamics of whats going on, i think your spit balling. If you find somebody with this parallel, we didnt put our staff on the d. C. Exchange because we were trying to figure out what was best. We was trying to find out whats best for us politically and whatever calculation we made that. Its great to sit and listen to you all talk about how we could do better for our staff. If only that was our goal . Knowing that it really is our goal in our heart even if we cant live that out politically. If you stumble across those ideas that could get us the most bang for the least amount of political buck, im willing to stay youre bonkers. Get us the most bang for the staff for the constituent ire. I expect you would have a view on that and come across those things. I would value that submission at a later date. Thank you. Thank you. The staff sellers are connected to ours. The American Public hate us and so until we can figure out a way to make the American Public at a minimum just say were okay or tolerate. Thats a good word. Tolerate us then theres always going to be any hesitation to raise the congressional salaries which means that the staff numbers are stuck. The federal courts were attached the federal judges had their salary attached to us. They filed suit and warned everybody they were going to win the suit because judges are the judges. They did. They got 15 years back salary. Court ordered and salary set 25 higher than ours. So maybe the Staff Members need to sue us. I think we have a weird situation. The reality is that we have to figure out a way for congress to function. You cant fix it but gain the respect of the American Public. Maybe we quit talking about each other. Maybe we ought to quit saying nasty things. I dont know. That might be going ftoo far. The bottom line in all of this, none of this will be helpful if the American Public hates us. You can always end it with dont you agree and then its a question. Very good. Id like to thank each of our witnesses for their testimony today. Without objection all members will have five legislative days within which to submit additional written questions for the witnesses. I ask our witnesses to respond as promptly as youre able. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit extraneous materials into the record and with that this hearing is adjourned. Thanks everybody. Feel free to go cool down. Join us later today when South Carolina democratic whip jim clyburn holds his annual fish free. More than 20 candidates will be meeting with primary voters. Watch that live tonight at 9 00 eastern on cspan. On sunday, democratic president ial candidate and vermont senator Bernie Sanders hold a town hall at Clinton College in rockhill, South Carolina. You can see that live at 3 00 p. M. On cspan. Online at cspan. Org or listen live with the free cspan radio app. Join American History tv sunday when we mark the 50th anniversary of the stone wall riots. A key turning point of the Gay Rights Movement starting at 8 30 a. M. Eastern. Hell answer viewer calls an tweets from the stone Wall National monument in new yorks greenwich village. At 4 00 p. M. On real america, two gay rights films. First the 1968 film the second largest minority. We are homosexual human beings and homosexual american citizens. Everybody always remembers the first word in both of those phrases. Very conveniently overlooked the second and third words in each of those phrases. American citizens and human beings. Followed by the 1970 film, gay and proud. Tell me how you feel about it here. Beautiful. Fantastic. How many years have you been a homosexual . I was born homosexual. Has the new movement given you added pride . Yes. I was sorry not to see there was a politician here with us today. I think lindsay should have made it a point to be here today and some of the gay organizing movement themselves. The house will be in order. For 40 years cspan has been provided america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Hearing now on congressional accountability. Former u. S. Senator from south