COMMENTARY
COMMAND PERSPECTIVE
Tom Lavender, project manager at the Corps office on Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, discusses aircraft hangar construction with Lt. Gen. Scott A. Spellmon, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commanding general, April 7. To attract and retain top talent, Corps leaders must communicate clearly and offer competitive telework and remote work arrangements to staff members. (Photo by Airman 1st Class Faith Schaefer, 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs)
the situation. Further, mission command stems from the Army’s view that war is chaotic and uncertain such that no plan can account for every eventual outcome.
During the early stages of the pandemic, this approach was well suited, especially for organizations such as the Corps of Engineers, because of the variety of local conditions faced by subordinate leaders. Initially, the belief was that these responses would be stopgap measures to react and ensure mission accomplishment before resuming normal operations. Over the duration of the pandemic, however, the need for mission command has decreased as reality has set in: Te next normal will require cultural change and neces- sitates a careful and cautious approach that involves a broader audience than in years past.
The framework for such an approach already exists with Te Army People Strat- egy, which was published in October 2019. Tis strategy outlines four lines of effort: acquire, develop, employ and retain talent to achieve strategic outcomes. Addition- ally, culture is one of the three key enabling objectives and, considering that this was
written before the pandemic, the impor- tance of culture has increased drastically. Furthermore, the strategy emphasizes to leaders that the new culture must be people-focused, and it eliminates harm- ful behaviors while building trust through leaders modeling the change and commu- nicating it openly.
UNEXPECTED OPPORTUNITY The response to the pandemic and the development of the new normal is the perfect opportunity to initiate the people-focused strategy. For example, the telework policies and exemptions allowed during the pandemic effectively removed many barriers to entry for a vari- ety of individuals. Te single parent could now continue to do their job from home remotely while managing their family life. Before the pandemic they may have had to choose between work and family. Tis would either cause the organization to lose a valued member who brings a different perspective to an organization or cause an employee to build resentment at the loss of work-life balance. Te response to the pandemic and the facilitation of this people-focused culture allows all organi- zations to repair these divides between
employer and employee and create the conditions for trust to develop. Leaders can operationalize this opportunity to evolve their business practices in order to get and keep the best people in a compet- itive talent management marketplace.
One such aspect involves the fiscal pres- sures associated with maintaining and recruiting in an area that has a high cost of living. Locality pay can drive many of the business decisions within the Corps of Engineers because the Corps has some districts in very high locality pay areas. U.S. government employees receive both base pay and locality pay. Te latter is based on the expense of living in a given area. For example, the locality pay in San Francisco, where one Corps district is located, is 41.44 percent, while the local- ity pay in Chicago is 28.59 percent. Te national average is 15.95 percent. Orga- nizations in higher locality pay areas have a business incentive to reduce costs by reducing the number of employees who live and work within their local- ity pay areas. Terefore, their decisions to embrace more workplace flexibilities, such as remote work, may have wide-rang- ing impacts that force other organizations
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