DISA lays out ‘Workforce 2025’ plan to increase worker skills

WASHINGTON — A new framework unveiled today by the Defense Information Systems Agency aims to upskill the agency’s workforce in order to meet challenges faced by foreign adversaries like China.

“Of all the cyber threats the United States and its allies face, those emanating from China are at the top of the list,” DISA Director Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner said in a statement. “If we focus solely on the technology required to do this and forget about the people who operate it, we will become stagnant and outpaced.”

“Workforce 2025 is, at its heart, a strategy designed to enhance the skills and talents of current employees while ensuring DISA onboards new talent and invests in the professional development of both throughout their careers,” Skinner added. “The goal of the strategy is to lay a foundation for employee success that sets the standard for excellence for years to come.”

The plan, dubbed “Workforce 2025,” comes at a time when the agency is embarking on a whole agency reorganization to better keep up with threats faced by China. As part of the reorganization, the agency is designating its various offices to J codes. For example, a brand new J-2 “intelligence function” will be established for the agency. 

The framework of Workforce 2025 includes four lines of effort, starting with incorporating “new training tools, activities and programs” for its employees. Under that effort, employees will get access to the Defense Department chief information officer’s library and engage in “tabletop exercises based on real-world events,” among other things. 

The second line of effort is a focus on expanding employees’ knowledge through hosting “informal rotations into functional areas to allow employees to learn new and specific skills” and developing “structured agency placement process to quickly leverage skills gained by employee participation in advanced leadership development programs.”

A third line of effort involves improving the agency’s hybrid work environment for employees, modernizing its offices and creating a free “on-premises lab environment to experiment and learn.” Through the last line of effort, DISA is also trying to “elevate” its brand in order to recruit more talent and leverage external partnerships.

DISA unveiled its strategy at a time when the Defense Department is also working to retain its own cyber workforce through a new strategy aimed at retaining its employees. DoD wants all the military services to get on board with the new strategy, which lays out efforts the department will take to develop its cyber talent pipeline.