In new cyber workforce strategy, DoD hopes ‘bold’ retention initiatives keep talent coming back

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s biggest challenge when it comes to developing its cyber workforce isn’t attracting personnel, it’s retaining them. And with a long-awaited cyber workforce strategy finally released today taking direct aim at that problem, the real question is whether DoD can effectively implement it.

The DoD Cyber Workforce Strategy [PDF] is meant to guide the Defense Department on how to close its cyber workforce development gaps and retain talent from now until fiscal 2027. In a briefing with reporters today ahead of the strategy’s release, Mark Gorak, DoD chief information office’s principal director for resources and analysis, said DoD has “chosen to be bold” with the new strategy. 

“Everyone recognizes our shortages and our problem,” Gorak said. “So we’re going to try new things and we’re going to try innovative things, which, not all will work. and that’s okay. My thinking is, again, we haven’t kept pace with what we’ve been doing now. So let’s try some new things and try to make those work.”

The strategy, some of which was revealed last month as Breaking Defense reported, outlines four “human capital pillars,” or broad goals: identifying workforce requirements, recruiting talent, developing talent to meet mission requirements and retaining talent. 

That last effort is DoD’s biggest struggle when it comes to the cyber workforce because it can’t compete with the private sector on salary, Gorak said today. So they’re not going to, exactly.

“So we have to compete on mission and other tangibles to the department — leadership, organizational culture, mission is the key there,” he said. “However, it’s okay, because…the United States needs this talent, corporations need this talent and we need theirs. So I view it as a partnership between the department and federal agencies and industry, private sector, that we all work together.”

As part of creating that “flow” between industry and DoD, the strategy calls for DoD to pilot an “apprenticeship program to develop dedicated employment exchanges with the private sector,” or as Gorak put it, maintain the relationships with DoD personnel who might leave the private sector and then want to come back to the Pentagon.

The strategy also notes that DoD has started implementing “new authorities for the workforce to provide flexibility in the management and maturity of current and future workforce members.”

RELATED: DoD’s New Cyber Workforce Strategy Creates New AI, Data-Focused Work Roles

There needs to be a “cultural shift” within DoD in how it acquires and manages talent in order to overcome recruitment and retention challenges, said Patrick Johnson, director of the DoD CIO’s workforce innovation directorate.

The strategy notes that the cyber talent pipeline is still limited and DoD must expand the workforce with diverse roles. As part of that push, the new strategy calls for developing an enterprise-wide talent management program to unify the workforce under a “common umbrella” and shifting how it attracts talent to include previously “untapped or under-represented sources of talent.”

“Cyber work roles are performed by a mix of DoD civilian employees in the competitive service and excepted service, military officers and enlisted personnel and contracted support personnel,” the strategy says. “This strategy must drive unity of effort across organizations.”

The Pentagon has been hyping up the release of the cyber workforce strategy for months and is now in the process of implementing the efforts laid out within the document. Those are currently in their initial stages and a separate implementation plan will be released “soon,” Gorak said. 

According to the strategy, when it comes to implementation, DoD “must continue to mature and measure these initiatives to advance the agility and capability of the cyber forcework across the DoD enterprise, at the component level and within individual commands.” The strategy instructs DoD to establish a “Cyber Workforce Development Fund” to accelerate its implementation and review existing authorities to attract a broader pool of talent.

Gorak added that the DoD CIO’s office is currently trying to get all the military services engaged and incentivized to get on board with the new strategy.

In a lead up to the strategy’s release, DoD published Manual 8140.03, the Cyberspace Workforce Qualification and Management Program. The memo, signed on Feb. 13, establishes baseline standards for the qualification of DoD’s cyberspace workforce and includes new artificial intelligence, software and data-focused work roles. 

Gorak said DoD CIO’s office worked with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and the Under Secretary of Researching and Engineering Office to develop those work roles. 

“So with that framework, we’re able to work and identify the workforce we have to have specific targets, for instance, for incentives, and also to clearly show within the work roles are shortages,” he said.