Im recommending we will lever the last few minutes of the state of the state speech from idaho and remind you you can watch it online. Well take you now to capitol hill for a look at a recent report on low morale and Employee Satisfaction at the department of Homeland Security. Youre watching live coverage of this subcommittee hearing on cspan 3. Unfortunately, the results indicate a strong need for improvement. This here, as has been the case since 2012, dhs ranked last out of all large federal agencies. It also ranked last out of the 7 agencies. Im concerned by the fact after a few years of minor improvements in overall morale, in 2019 employee morale decreased again. Given the Critical Mission of the department, i fear the consequences should the department not take urgent and drastic action to improve employee morale, well have greater challenge to face. I also worry about this environment affects the well being of the more than 200,000 hard working dhs employees from Border Patrol agents and officers working throughout my district to the thousands more keeping america safe. These employees deserve better. Its true that lifting morale is challenging when the Department Remains a target of criticism and scrutiny. Morale may be low because dhs employees are engaged in tough jobs on the front line. This is clearly not the whole picture. Such explanations fail to account for the fact that morale has been low. Headquarter offices and support components like the office of intelligence and analysis, the management director receive poor ratings from employees as well. Ima sits toward the bottom while other officers in the Intelligence Community have some of the highest morale government line. Even more concerning is the fact that the office of counter weapons of mass destructions, debuted on the list as the lowest ranked office. This is a failure of leadership. According to the partnership while many factors influence agts agency ranking, effective leadership is the key driver. Despite these concerns there were some bright spots that i hope we can learn from and apply dhs wide. The coast guard and u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have both consistently received high scores from employees and are currently ranked in the top 25 of all federal offices. Finally, the secret service, which is historically struggled with low employee morale has shown signs that a multiyear effort to respond to feedback from employees and their families is beginning to pay off. I understand that therecently l effort to identify and address some of the primary concerns facing employees. I hope to hear more from do you about this afternoon about these efforts as well as help Congress Might be able to act to give the Department Additional tools to improve morale. I also look forward to hearing from mr. Steer about what models throughout government the department should be looking to as it pursues these efforts. Finally, i look forward to getting an outside and objective perspective from mr. Curry about what dhs is doing well and what risks it exposes itself to under current circumstances. Before i concludes i would like to take a moment to highlight some of the work this committee has done. In 2019, i cosponsored legislation introduced by chairman thompson, the dhs morale recognition and engagement act creating the morale act. Im grateful to my republican colleagues to their support in this legislation. Thank you to the witnesses for joining the subcommittee this afternoon. The chair recognizes the ranking member. Im pleased you called this hearing today. The morale of the department of security is of the utmost importance. I thank you for being here. Dhs has been besieged with issues of low morale, high level vacancies since its inception. Some of the struggles understandable from an agency created by combining so many unique entities. Almost 17 years after its creation we need to see some Real Progress in this area. The work the department does make this is too important to ignore. Dhs employees over 200,000 individuals dedicated to protecting the homeland and American People. Its imperative to our security that those individuals are satisfied in their jobs and supported by Department Leadership and have support from the people of this country in their mission to secure the homela homeland. Survey thoughs 87 feel they do important work, 63 felt there was no consequence for employees who under performed and only 36 felt motivated by their leadership. These Employee Viewpoints are not knew. Similar numbers were reported at hearing during the obama administration. The responses to these questions show fundamental issues with the leadership of dhs and its components. While the employees value their work, they do not feel valued in the workplace. This is a problem that starts at the top. I was pleased the find out dhs has established an employee and Family Readiness council that employees face. I believe the physical attacks on the offices of immigration and Custom Enforcement and verbal attacks as well as the department as a whole members of congress and the media absolutely undermine employee morale. Every day employees striver to carry out Critical Missions to protect the people of this country. They should not be blamed for failings that we as a congress has not acted. Good morale can help drive progress and ensure mission success. Dhs needs to develop a clear vision for addressing the root causes as well as metrics to measure its success. It needs to develop ways to motivate and reward performance. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today on the causes of the low morale at dhs as well as the steps dhs should take to address it. I yield back. Thank you. Other members of the committee are reminds that under the Committee RulesOpening Statements may be submitted for the record. I now welcome our panel of witnesses and thank them for joining us today. Our first witness is chief Human Capital officer of the department of Homeland Security. She has dedicated more than 38 years to a career in public service. Two of those years in human resources. She was appointed to her current position in january 2016. Our second witness, mr. Chris curry is a director on the Homeland Security and justice team. He leads the agencys work on National Preparedness and Critical Infrastructure protection issues. Mr. Curry has been with gao since 2002 and has been the resip yen resipient of numerous agency awards. It recognizes exceptional Civil Servants and numerous development programs. Before joining the partnership he had a career spanning all three branches of government. I ask each witness to summarize his or her statements for five minutes beginning with miss angela bailey. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the department of Homeland Security sustained efforts to enhance employee morale and engagement. Dhs employees are on the nations front line performing extremely difficult work under challenging conditions. Think of our transportation Security Officers screening frantic passenger who is are trying the make flights home knowing that one second of inattention to jeopardize their lives or fema employees leaving their families to deploy to a disaster cite or Border Patrol agents trying to manage an overwhelming volume number of immigrants. Or one of our coast guard employees who worked and should be credited for saving 75 lives. Its all difficult and often thankless work. This is why we see dhs Employee Engagement as a team effort. Our scores reflect the hard work that all levels of the department have undertaken to meet the dmeneeds of our talent and dedicated work force. Our Union Leaders take personal time to take a fallen agents little boy to a baseball practice and employees volunteer to assist colleagues to extra assignments and peer support. Perhaps this is why the dhs Employee Engagement index improved again by two Percentage Points in 2019 and by nine points since 2015. During the same period, the government wide score increased only 4 Percentage Points. In 20719, positive responses increased on 55 of the 71 questions. Opm shows us as one of the most improved three large agts sis and gao rated our efforts as a result of our continued improvement. The corner stone is the collective support including the dhs Employee Engagement committee. This progress is the result of paying attention to feds data and reaching out to employees to solicit feedback on root causes of dissatisfaction. Its a textbook example and it has paid off. In 2018, cites receiving the support experienced an 8 increase in the eei and in 2019, cites improve e sites improve. In one case by 15 Percentage Points. We have instituted leadership and employee and Family Readiness or efr. Its designed to build a more robust infrastructure of support for employees and their families. In 2019 our efr council began work on the top five issues our employees experience on the daily basis. We continue on these in 2020 plus we have added two mu focus areas, social connectedness and wellness. My office will continue to enhance our efforts and support the Department Leadership. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and department would not be successful without your support and the support of our braver men and women who sacrifice each day to make our country safe. I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your testimony. I recognize mr. Curry to summarize your statement for five minutes. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I want to say from the beginning we have tremendous respect for the men and women at dhs and the hard work they do every day. I know that nobody cares more about this problem than the leadership or the department. Since 2003, dhs has been on our high risk list. A big part of that is because of Human Capital management challenges. A big part within the Human Capital area has been employee morale and the things that lead up to what creates a persons morale. Over the last five years, particularly, we have seen a number of positive changes in this area. We have seen dhs make steady progress and do it in years when sometimes other Government Agencies have seen a decrease. They are making slow and steady progress but obviously theres a lot more that needs to be done. Theyve done this by implementing a number of recommendations across a number of agencies. For example, they have implemented our recommendations to develop Employee Engagement plans. Not just the whole department but the components themselves that identify the root causes of morale issues. These root causes buried. A lot of these have to do with Management Issues. Do i trust my supervisor . Do i think our agency has the ability to hire the people to do the jobs . These are the things we see across government. A lot dont have the level of moral that dhs has now. I also want to say as was said, dhs morale scores are still toward the bottom of large departments. I think you have to look within dhs to really get a better sense of those numbers. The department is huge. The components are so varied and different and different in size too. What plagues tsa will be different in who the coast guard faces. Its been around for many years and has a strong leadership culture. Its understandable they will get to the point where they face morale issues. Theres a few things i want to point to moving forward that we need to focus oun mon moving fo. The Human Capital and morale issues be held at the same standard of accountability as the mission side. Otherwise, they will not have the incentive to address the issues like they will on a mission side. Also, i think there needs to be a focus on a few specific components. The focus needs to be where the most impact can be made. Lastly, i think you need to continue oversight in terms of these tooel types and the components and really to drive this home. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to the questions. Thank you for your testimony. I recognize mr. Steer to summarize his statement for five minutes. Thank you so much. I cant imagine better Opening Statements than both your chairwoman and your ranking member, crenshaw. I thought they were Pitch Perfect and exactly right. This is fantastic that youre having this hearing. I want to start by highlighting that i think miss bailey is easily one of the best capital officers and is doing fabulous work. One of the most important things i can advocate for is continued focus on the good and not just the bad. The more you can do to service the good, the more you will do to address the bad. Lots of good things are happening. Since 2015 the department has come up nine points. All those things need to be encouraged and reenforced. I want to focus on 12 or 10 ideas that can make it even better. Finding ways to move more aggressively. Part of it is building on things that are there. I want to point to leadership in the secret service. No one better for that position. He turned it around. I think theres a lot more me can do. You heard from chris. He would be fantastic for you to do this on an annual basis. If theres a regular set of hearings, leadership know this is priority for your perspective and they will pay more attention to that. The normal course is one of the powers you have in your oversight is to direct attention and focus on the good things. Number two would be to hold leaders accountable. Most political appointees are selected because they are policy experts and not necessarily have a lot of management expertise. Having performance plans for political appointees as for career employees would have an example of things you could use to direct things that are management oriented and hold them accountable. Number three, we need to provide continuity in the Senior Management ranks that doesnt exist today. We ought to be creative and think about igs. They dont turn over every administration. We can think about operational versus policy stidecisions. Creating contine ining continui management positions would have phenomenal impacts. Gao has a 15year term. Thats the kind of thing you need in management positions. You need to provide budget stability. Shutdowns are the worse. Its craziness burning down your own house. Got do change that. We also dont need crs and thats something again in krongkron congresss house. Career folks are there day in and day out. They need to be invested in ways that dont happen much. It comes real late and can be improved. Number seven, you need to improve Senior Leaders have management experience. They are running huge organizations. Eight, enhance the Leadership Development of career work force. Nine, work on the culture of recognition and ten i want to end on this piece which is you pointed this out, you need to have president ial appointee, confirmed people in place in greater numbers. Dhs is the agency with the fewest number of Senate Confirmed positions even though the fema director was confirmed today. That created another vacancy in the organization. Theyre at 41 . Very challenging for any organization. Phenomenal people can be in those jobs. Theyre the substitute teacher if theyre in the acting capacity. We need to look at that issue as well. Thank you. Impeccably timed. That was well done. One thing i did not say because its the least important is my name is pronounced sire. I apologize. Ive been called much worse. Thats all right. Thank you so much. Thank you for steering me in the right direction. I will now recognize myself for questions. According to the best places to work produced by the partnership republic, the department of Homeland Security has ranked last among all large federal agencies. What are you reactions and do you believe the department suffers from low morale . I appreciate the question. As well as we Pay Attention to fed scores in total. We pivot off and look at the root causes. Ive had ive gone down to the border several times. Ive gone down to the fema installation, to tsa, to a variety of places. I sat down with employees and really talked to them. Do you believe that dhs does suffer from low morale . I believe that we have room for improvement. As far as from a morale stand point, one of the other things we also look at is the fact that as was mentioned is 86 of our employees will put in the extra effort to get the job done and they believer in the mission they are doing. Even despite everything they are doing, the conditions, the difficult work, and sometimes thankless job they have, they still come to work and try to do the best they can. Its clear you have some exceptional employees. Do you feel like thats a set of full and complete explanation for the low morale challenges . No way. I think theres a lot of agencies across government that have extremely Difficult Missions and are under intense public and congressional scrutiny too. Its not enough to chalk the reasons up to those reasons. What we see in the root cause analysis and the responses to the survey is there are a lot of poor Management Issues that comes in play here. These are core Management Issues that all agency, private and public face. I think dhs made a lot of progress maturing. I think where they are with the scores now show they have a long way to go. Mr. Stire, do you have anything to add . I think the real issue is leadership. We see about twothirds of the employee scores are driven by perception of leadership. I think thats where the biggest gain can be made here. Really important to get kudos to the good things they have done already and understand were talking about an aggregate. You have components that are exceptional and you have ones that are struggling more. Pulling that apart is very valuable. The other piece i would suggest is even within those components when you pull them apart, you can actually see huge variations. That tells you a lot about what actually is possible. Just a mind exercise. If you took over component at dhs at their highest score over the rankings we have done, they would be at 15 points higher. We know theres a higher ceiling. What are the risks associated with not going back to that high ceiling or finding those moments for increased morale . This is one of the things i wanted to mention is sometimes it tends to be a tendency to look at Human Capital matters and morale separately from the mission and they are not separate. Its been proven that places that have much higher morale and Employee Engagements do better work, more productive and have less turnover which is a huge problem in customs and Border Protection with agent turnover. Morale has a huge impact on the mission. Thank you. Ill yields my time for now. The chair recognizes ranking member, gentleman from texas. Thank you. I want to start with flexibility in hiring and firing and the major issues. Theres a course and issue with under we are formers and how you deal with that and how under performers can sapp tsap the mo and energy. Maybe you can address that and how that does affect morale. Ill leave it to the rest of the panel as well. Theres no doubt that under performers affect the morale of a work force. Itssupervisor issue, its a colleague issue as well. One of the things we accomplished as a disciplinary that i cochair with chief must havem huffman. Make sure were not just consistent but were handling those things in a timely fashion so theyre not just hanging out there. Nothing is worse than us not just taking the action but then not doing it in a timely fashion. Its something that we are dogged about in making sure we address. If theres an action that would warrant removal of that employee, how long does it generally take to fire that employee . We looked into that. It can take anywhere from 120 to 240 days to actually remove an employee. What about hiring . Whats the ability in hiring . How would that improve dhs morale . One of the things weve introduced is the dhs enhanced hiring act and one of it has a two prong approach to it that would help us with to enhance our flexibility with hiring. One iss multiple way for veterans to be hired. We would love to consolidate that down to one so we can hire any veteran whether at a military transition center, university, black out event. Where ever were at, our abilities to hire a veteran. We talk to our own veteran Service Organizations and we talked to the National Veterans organizations as well with regard to this because we really think its important we have the ability to hire veterans as efficiently as possible. We have the ability through any source to be able to hire the rest of our employees. Thats kpaexcellent. Well come back to that. Do you have anything to add to the hiring and firing pling flexibility . I think your bill u allows people we know are vetted doesnt have to undergo vetting again. Hiring and firing, those are very con kreecrete things. Organizations that have a Strong Performance culture where even if you cant fire people, it takes a year to fire someone, if they know their leaders are giving real feedback that makes a huge difference for peoples morale too. I think this is deeply entwined with the morale of the organization. Their Mission Based organizations and having the right people doing the work well is fundamental to your connection to the ability to get stuff doene. I do think these are issues that ought to be focused on. Its an important step in the right direction. On the higher side its way, way too challenging. On the firing side, one thing i would advocate for is both instances this is, in my view, the core part is a management problem add opposed to a rule problem. Managers are selected for their capabilities around hiring and firing people, giving good performance feedback and not held accountable for it. There are some ways you might do things that are easier to change the overall system. One proposal weve had is you have a year typical probation period. After that year you become nonprobationary. Our perspective is why. Shouldnt there be confirmed by manager that you meet the qualifications to stay rather than done by default. Thank you. I yields back. The chair will recognize other members for questions they wish to ask witnesses. In accordance with our rules i will recognize members in the hearing based on seniority alternating between majority and minorit minority. Those members coming in later will be recognized later. Thank you. Miss bailey, you did you take the survey . Yes. The first question on the survey says would you recommend your organization as a good place to work . Absolutely. The second question is considering everything how satisfied you with your job. Very satisfied, neither satisfied, dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Very satisfied. How satisfied are you with your organization . Very satisfied. Why do you think your responses are so very different than those of your colleagues in your department where you work in your part of the organization given that it ranked so low . Any idea . One part of this is that i think my scores are reflective of many employees in dhs. You have uscis, coast guard who have some of the highest ranking component scores. You have secret service thats gone up 15 points. Im asking specifically about dhss management director which houses the office of Human Capital officer. Is that where you work . Yes. Its ranked in the bottom 25 of federal offices and employee morale decreased over the last two years. Im asking why you think your responses are so very different than your colleagues. Do you have any idea why that might be the case . One of the things we really need to do is dig in deeper from the management level. I will tell you we spend a tremendous amount of our time looking at the components and seeing where they are addressing their root causes. One of the areas that i would like to focus my intention is digging in deeper into that issue. Why are my scores this way because i have fantastic leadership that supports me every step of the way. The money i need with regard to employee Family Readiness programs. I have top level support for what were trying to do. Thats the viewpoint i see. Are those efforts that are being made now the ones you have mentioned that you want to see . Do you know if theres something being done on that to dig deepe deeper . Absolutely. They are being deployed across the department. Okay. You testified in your Opening Statement that workers are simply doing their job. Do you remember saying that . Yes. Well, employees in the department have been asked to carry out policies, some of which they dont agree with. What do you think that does to employee morale . As employees of the department of Homeland Security, it is our responsibility to carry out the policies of the administration. Do you think carrying out policies decreases employee morale . I believe there are areas in which we can work with our employees to help them better understand our policies, to ensure they are able to carry those out to the best of their ability. Lets talk about the separation of women and children. How has the policy of separating women and children from their parents affected dhs employee morale . You just said lets help them understand why they should do that. Theres a good example of policy that we heard people did not agree with. They had to carry it out. How do you explain to that employee and say, this is why you should be doing this and this is why its good policy. One of the things we do is really do sit down with the employees and just have a conversation with regard to the policies. Make sure they are able to carry out im asking a very specific question. Its a very specific question. Do you think that employees who had to carry out this inhumane policy to separate children from their parents, do you think that helped employee morale . Its a yes or no. No without the data to look at that. You dont know the data about the impact that it had on children and parents and what that has done to employees. You, yourself, mentioned that these employees are mothers and fathers. You dont think there was an impact . That there was an employee who has children to see these children ripped away from their parents as parents themselves. You want to see data on that . Really. Thats kind of sad because you just got to look at parents and ask them and your coworkers. Theres not data to look at here. Theres plenty of data about the impa Mental Health impacts this has had on children and parents. If kwyou dont start by identifying that, thats a concern. With that i yields back. The chair now recognizes for five minutes the gentleman from louisiana. Thank you. I dont know if my mike is on. The liepghts not functioning. Thank you for appearing today. I have a couple of pages to my questions so were going to move rather quickly. One is references the responsibility of inflammatory rhetoric coming out of this body and how that might affect morale. Let me ask if its yes or no across the board. Have any of you been a member of the military or member of Paramilitary Organization like the police force . Madame. Lets me clarify the outside of administration have you worked or been in the field. Its not a derogatory question. You just need to clarify. No, sir. No. Let me share with you that my experience and i believe my veteran colleagues on this committee would likely agree that morale has a tendency to be unit specific or Company Specific when measured generally and platoon specific or individual specific. Theres always that guy thats the light of the group and la increase morale to his colleague, his brothers and sisters that hes served with. The vastness of dhs and how its structured or not structured im going to get to. Before i get there, lets talk about inflammatory statements. Members of this congress, for example, made accusations that dhs was intentionally killing young immigrant children, made comments that dhs exists within a cultural of violence and racism. Made comments that dhs is a rogue agency operating beyond the bounds of the law. Made comments that dhs is running concentration camps along the southern u. S. Border. On top of that, months of denial that a crisis at our southern border even existed followed by months of delay to issue supplemental funding to address it. I ask the panel, yes or no, do you acknowledge the vetriol from elected officials has contributed to the very morale that were discussing . Do you think demonizing rhetoric coming from members of congress and shared heavily by the media can have damaging affects . Yes. Ive seen personal affects of it. Mr. Curry. I dont have any way of measuring it but i dont see how it could help. Mr. Stire. Public figures that integrate Civil Servants will cause low morale. Thank you. Moving quickly to my next phase. Of the 17 agencies that you state that dhs haranks 17 of lae agencies and your matrix that you measured, does dhs have the dubious distinction of being the only large agency thats never before fully authorized by this congress . I believe that is correct. I believe you are correct in your answer, sir. Thank you. 115th congress under chairman mccall we passed a bill through this house granting full authorization for dhs which didnt go anywhere and many members of the congress, my colleagues across the aisle voted against that full authorization. And it could not get past closer in the senate to get to the floor vote. So dhs, in your Opening Statement, you said operation over an overabundance of committees with jurisdiction over dhs. This is precisely what full authorization of dhs would exist because it currently exists as a fractured agency reflective of the many agencies that existed prior to the manifestation of dhs. And you have jurisdiction across eight or nine committees rather than focused on one Central Control and command and one committee, which should be this committee, madam chair, this committee as a whole with oversight responsibilities for dhs. So i would suggest to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that we focus on fixing the problems that we know to exist, that we should function as a congress and bring full authorization to dhs, and address the words that we use out of this body to discuss these men and women. Madam chair, i yield. Thank you very much. And were going to do a second round of questions if folks want to stick around. And i appreciate the comment in terms of focusing on the things we can change. And with that, mr. Stier, you mentioned in your opening comments some of the improvements that have been made through components like the coast guard, cisa, as well as the secret service. Ku provide some highlights and top lines for Lessons Learned there that might be applied more departmentwide . Certainly, and i think it again comes down to leaders who are doing great jobs. And i would point out that he may have been the first nonsecret Service Agent to become the head of the component and he turned it around and did a fabulous job. It underscores another of the recommendations, which would be if you had someone like that who was there for five, seven, eight years, i think you would see all kinds of great things that could happen. And it begins with the point that chris made, which is recognition that fundamentally the mission is about people, the mission is about having people who are the right folks in the job, who are supported in doing what they care about. One other i think stat that weve not yet cited, which i think is phenomenally powerful and its true at dhs and across the entire government, is that the people are there for the mission. So its close to 94 of the dhs workforce would go the extra mile in order to get the job done. Whats interesting is nasa is the Number One Agency and those numbers are not fundamentally different. The mission commitment numbers are the same. Its really the leadership numbers that change. So you asked for specific examples and i think it begins at the top. It begins with leaders who see this as a primary part of their function, and its about creating that relationship of trust with the workforce so that they are able to believe that their voice is being heard and being responded to in a fundament fundamental way. So a lot of this seems straightforward and basic, but its also not done all that often. Thank you. Mr. Currie, do you have anything to add . I would like to piggy back off of the issue of trust. I think one of the things weve notice in components that have increased the scores is that theres been a concerted effort by the leadership to listen to the employees and not just listen to the employees, but actually show them how theyre implementing their suggestions and implementing their feedback, because that builds trust. And theres a lot of very specific things you can do to address that. Thank you, mr. Currie. Ms. Bailey, can you explain any efforts that you have ongoing to listen to the employees and then show that you are responding to their feedback . Yes, absolutely. I think one of them is our employee and Family Readiness initiatives, actually, its something i would really like to talk about. Because the scores really only tell you a bit of the picture. Going down and actually sitting down with the employees and talking to them and trying to understand what it is that really could help them not just on the job, but also help them as a whole person. And so some of the things that weve really looked at is the general stress. When youre out on the border and i have witnessed agents whose hands are shaking a theyre trying to inprocess a 6yearold that they found abandoned in the desert. I have witnessed when i have not witnessed, but i get the suicides that come across my desk. Just today right before i came in here, another Border Patrol agent died. And so seeing all of these kinds of things, we know that we have to treat this issue as the whole person. And so its not just about the employee. And im sorry, i just want to make sure. Can you specifically, how youve shown that youre responding to employee feedback. So in meeting with them, we know that general stress, dealing with their personal relationship issues, weve delivered training for them, mindfulness training to help them with stress. Weve delivered stronger bonds training to help them with their personal relationships, weve delivered Financial Literacy to help them with their financial concerns. Weve also created a Mental Health website to help them with their Mental Health, as well as introduce them to Employee Assistance programs and dependent care as well. So those are examples of how weve listened to them and weve deployed what theyve asked for. And just quickly, one of the main concerns that was highlighted was the failure in leadership opportunity and creating training within leadership. So can you explain any plans you have for new programs within that space . Yes, absolutely. So with regard to Leadership Development, its not just about our ses. We have fantastic programs for our ses. In fact, some of the best ive seen in my 38 years. One of the other things that were doing is trying to go down much deeper into the organization and provide Leadership Development training for all of our employees. So we have things called joint fellows programs, joint duty programs, bridges programs that help. So the point is that what were really trying to do is create a leadership cadre with every leadership program, not just our leadership. My time is expired, i recognize my colleague, the gentleman from texas, mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, and regarding the question assuming it was asked in good faith, about the decrease in morale because policies needed to be implemented by the administration, its worth pointing out that the child separation policy was ended in june of 2018, and yet 2019 we had a decrease in ice and cbp morale. I dont yell at agents, i talk to them. I talk to hundreds of them. Its pretty obvious to me what worries them and the fact that people are literally attacking ice facilities and verbally attacking them from the highest places in government. Its pretty obvious what keeps them awake at night. But back to what is working, i mentioned before i wanted to get to the black hat hiring. A lot of people dont realize what that is, but that involves cyber workforce, which is extremely important, considering what will inevitably be an increase in cyberattacks on the homeland and as we engage with actors like china, russia, iran and nonstate actors and the need to protect our infrastructure and private industry. So tell me about black hat hiring and how thats increasing our hiring flexibility and helpful towards Homeland Security. Yes. Congressman. One of the things that we did, and thank you to congress, is we received title 6 authority which gave us the authority to look at our Cybersecurity Workforce and recreate everything about the way that we recruit, hire, retain, compensate our cyber workforce. We have taken absolute full advantage of that, giving us the opportunity now to be able to go into some of these different conferences, hold job hiring events at that point and be able to hire these folks on the spot. Were able to do market sensitive pay so that we can pay them in accordance with what they should be paid and not be tied to the antiquated gs system. We will also eliminate the classification and the qualification. Its based on a 1929 system that doesnt work for anybody, and so instead what were going to do and weve worked with our subject Matter Experts to make sure that the capabilities that were going to hire folks for actually match the mission in which we have a need for. So with that and i have full support of cisa, as well as our cio community, and we will implement that this year. How many more employees do you expect to hire under that new program . I think roughly im not sure its going to be more employees. More so its going to be that were going to start well, let me put it this way, we will hire probably 150 this year, add another 350 next year. And mostly under cisa. Yes. Mostly cisa and then our ciso community thats our chief Information Community officer community throughout the department. One question thats come up to me before is thinking outside the box here, and the ability of Border Patrol and i. C. E. , there to be more flexibility between switching between Border Patrol and i. C. E. Namely because of the locational preference, sort of like if you think of the military and shore duty versus sea duty. Has there been any discussion of that . Is that feasible at all and would that help morale . Yeah, actually, and we track all of that. So one of the things that weve done for cbp, because youre absolutely right. After serving so much time on the border, its kind of like a deployment, and then we have a Rotation Program in which they can opt to go to a different location. Or i. C. E. Has a lot of more urban locations, so that way their spouses and families have opportunities that they might not have had on a border town. And so we have a lot of those. We also have instituted retention incentives, as well as special pay, critical pay. Everything that we can think of to ensure that they are given what they need to do the job. Excellent. I have limited time left. Recently there was i think a win for paid family leave in the federal government. How do you anticipate that playing out with both morale and also readiness . Well, i think it goes into effect in october, and so opm will regulate it and well have to see with that. But i think its just like any other flexibility. Today they can use family medical leave act, they can use sick leave, annual leave, a variety of leave. And so i think well manage it the same way we do every other flexibility. And i dont anticipate that were going to have a lot of difficulty because well at least be able to plan hopefully nine months in advance, right, that we can plan for the readiness that well feed to address. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you. I now recognize for five minutes the gentle woman from california. Thank you. Mr. Stier and mr. Currie, the u. S. Secret service is one of the departments, one of the areas that had been experiencing some negative morale, bad morale, maybe the best way to state it is a decrease in morale. And for the last several years theres been a turnaround there. The u. S. Secret service director, mr. Randolph was part of the turnaround and was there when that was occurring. I want to talk a little bit about when you denigrate employees. The president of the United States was doing that with the director of the u. S. Secret service while he was turning it around. He ridiculed him, calling him names before he fired him. What do you think that does to employee morale . Well, as i said when i answered mr. Higgins, i dont think it can help, but i think employee morale, frankly, is a lot more complicated when youre looking at an agency across 15,000 to 20,000 people. There are just a number of factors that go into how people answer that survey. I understand. Im trying to ask, you dont do you think theres a negative impact when the president of the United States is basically calling names of the director of the u. S. Secret service who has been turning around the secret service to increase morale . Well, maam, i dont have any data showing what sort of impact that has on morale across such a large organization. It certainly doesnt help morale, but i think there are so many factors that go into individuals morale as a component, that i think its a difficult question to answer. Mr. Stier, do you have an opinion . I think theres no question that when Senior Leaders in any aspect of our society, but certainly ones that are actually running the government, have negative things to say about their employees or Civil Servants that are there as career meritbased employees its a bad thing. Thank you for saying that. We need to understand that this is a problem that weve seen not just now, but its one that weve seen for decades. And i think its a mistake, because fundamentally these are folks that are working for the American People. Theyre working not for any particular policy that the political leaders decide, theyre working on the basis of supporting the constitution of the United States. So fundamentally one of the things that we do as an organization is a service to america medals where we try to highlight Great Stories of federal employees. Were actually getting nominations right now. We would welcome nominations from any of you on the panel. We need to create a culture of recognition. In any view, focus on the good, youre going to create more uplift. Mr. Stier, there are currently 13 senior positions vacant from the secretary to the deputy secretary to the heads of cbp is i. C. E. Most of these roles with filled by acting officials. Yes. What effect does a lack of permanent leadership have in an organizations ability to promote that positive change youre talking about . The metaphor for me, its like the substitute teacher. You can be an amazing educator, but if youre the substitute teacher you dont yourself perceive your job as the longterm difficult problems and those on the outside, the class, the children, other teachers dont see you as that longterm partner, either. So it is diminishes the ability of leadership to do their job well. And its a mistake. So i would say that part of the problem here is a systemic one. We have 1,200 Senate Confirmed positions. Thats too many to get through the senate. So one of the things we would advocate for is fewer senate positions and then taking the operating ones like the under secretary for management away from the policy ones and trying to create longterm continuity among them. One of the best things this committee could do for the department of Homeland Security is to keep text alice in the job as the confirmed individual in there for a lengthy period of time. You would see huge improvement. So creating that as a structural option would be fantastic. I yield back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. Higgins. Thank you, madam chair. Mr. Bailey, would you clarify for the committee and for the American People watching, the survey that were referring to across the agencies of dhs, how exactly is that survey administered to employees . The federal Viewpoint Survey is administered it goes out by opm to every employee who is on the roles by i think its october 1st. So its online . It is online. Sit mandatory or voluntary. Its voluntary. And in your experience, do thoeks that are unhappy make a little more noise than folks that are unhappy . We make a tremendous effort to make sure everybody fills out the employee viewpoint. What kind of effort . A great deal of encouragement . You said its voluntary. Yeah, so sometimes we hold contests, we do different things. We have leadership really support. So at the field level as a creative interaction, within that unit to encourage participation in the survey . Yes. It gives us valuable information that allows us to have at least have a jumpingoff point. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify for all of us and for those watching that this is a voluntary survey and dhs is doing its best to force it, to permeate it through the entire agency. Its quite a challenge to get everyone to fill out that survey, isnt it . Yes, it is absolutely a challenge, because not everybody has a computer. Its not washington, d. C. So thank god. Pulling a tso off the line to take this can be a little bit challenging. But we figured out a way to do it. So let me ask your opinion about stress, mr. Stier. Generally speaking, sit your experience that when an individual is in a period of stress theyll be less satisfied with their job, especially if thats the cornerstone of whats creating the stress, they would be less satisfied with their job or more satisfied . Im going to just offer you a quick anecdote and give you an answer that may not be what youre expecting. When we first did the work rankings the very first year, the office of management and budget was the number one ranked budget. Number one overall Employee Engagement, they were the last on work life balance. And the reason they were number one is they were working as hard as possible, working like dogs, but they knew that what they did was important and they felt important. So i would say to you it depends on the nature of the stress. This is a missionoriented workforce. They care about what theyre doing. Sometimes stress is part and parcel of achieving mission and then its going to be okay. If its stress for wrong reasons when you dont know who your boss is going to be, when you dont have the information you need to do your job well, if you dont know that youre going to get the help that you need, that kind of stress not good for morale. In the department of Homeland Security, some of the stresses were dealing with are a complex, woefrven web of challes for the men and women youre dealing with on the border, remote areas, difficult to have opportunities for family there. Youre dealing with incredible volumes of crossings on the border that weve never seen before. The types of crossings have certainly changed over the course of the last several years. So if one and ill leave you with this question, mr. Stier, is my remaining time. If any reasonable person could have projected the kind of volumes of crossings that were dealing with on the border and the totality of circumstance that dhs is dealing with, and if one would have presumed five, six years ago, that the department would still remain not fully authorized by congress, would a reasonable perspective from five or six years ago have projected a decline in morale, a challenge in morale within the agency based upon what were dealing with right now . I think its entirely dependent upon the leadership. So im with you on the issue of the only recommendation from the 9 1 commission that hasnt been enacted is the one youre describing, which is congress should create a mirror to the executive branch. So entire with you that that creates a lot of trouble for the department to have multiple oversight bodies. There should be one. But i would say to you that all the challenges youre describing, good leaders can manage them and good leaders that are both political and career that have continuity, because again i think its the shortterm nature of the leadership that is a source point of a lot of the challenge, would be able to manage the kinds of difficulties youre describing. Excellent. Very thoughtful and insightful answers. Mad many chair, i yield. Thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you. And i thank all of the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their question. Before adjoining, i ask unanimous consent to submit two statements. The first is from the union which represents custom and Border Protection officers, and the second is from the federation employees who represents nearly 100,000 dhs employees. Without objection, so admitted. The members of the Sub Committee may have additional questions for the witnesses and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Without objection, the committee record shall be kept open for ten days. Having no further business, the Sub Committee stands adjourned. And an update on the impeachment of President Trump. Today House Speaker nancy pelosi announced the house would appoint and vote on impeachment managers during wednesday aens house session. The approval of the manages will also automatically send the two articles of impeachment against President Trump to the senate. The senate will then sit as a jury to adjudicate the two charges. Abuse of power and obstruction of congress. A twothirds majority of senators will be required to convict President Trump and remove him from office. You can watch the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan 2 and cover all of our impeachment coverage at