New DoD CWF Strategy to address workforce shortage, support broader talent management lifecycle
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released the 2023-2027 DoD Cyber Workforce (CWF) Strategy, which sets the foundation for how the DoD will foster a cyber workforce capable of executing the Department’s complex and varied cyber missions. The DoD CWF Strategy will enable the DoD to close workforce development gaps, resource workforce management and development initiatives, stay at the forefront of technological advances, securely and rapidly deliver resilient systems, and transform into a data-centric enterprise with optimized workforce analytics.
According to a statement released Thursday by the DoD, Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of defense signed the 2023-2027 DoD CWF Strategy on Feb. 27. The DoD CIO developed this strategy in coordination with other Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Component heads, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Cyberspace Command, and the military services to provide focus to cyber-related human capital initiatives in alignment with the 2022 National Defense Strategy. The strategy sets the foundation for how the Department will foster a cyber workforce capable of executing the Department’s complex and varied cyber missions.
The DoD CWF Strategy utilizes four human capital pillars— Identification, Recruitment, Development, and Retention—to identify and group cyber workforce challenges. The four pillars also catalyze targeted workforce goals, which aid the Department in unifying efforts to achieve the mission and vision of this strategy.
Identification includes those processes of determining workforce needs or requirements and the potential or incumbent workforce to meet them; recruitment helps with identifying and attracting the talent needed to meet mission requirements and the process of evaluating the effectiveness of recruiting efforts; development works on understanding individual and team performance requirements and providing the necessary opportunities and resources to satisfy those performance requirements; and retention includes the incentive programs the Department employs to retain talent and the process of evaluating the effectiveness of the incentive programs.
The four workforce goals include executing consistent capability assessment and analysis processes to stay ahead of force needs, establishing an enterprise-wide talent management program to better align force capabilities with current and future requirements, facilitating a cultural shift to optimize Department-wide personnel management activities, and fostering collaboration and partnerships to enhance capability development, operational effectiveness, and career broadening experiences.
A forthcoming implementation plan will outline a prioritized list of implementation activities the DoD CIO will lead and pursue over a multi-year period, to achieve the goals and objectives of the strategy. The DoD CWF Strategy, along with the implementation plan, will enable the Department to identify and qualify its military and civilian personnel while also developing plans for recruiting and retaining a highly effective cyber workforce.
“The scope and pace of malicious cyber activities continues to grow, even after the COVID-19 pandemic created a significant amount of disruption and resulted in lasting impacts on the global work environment,” John Sherman, DoD CIO, wrote in the DoD CWF Strategy document. “State actors and affiliated hacker groups have increased their attacks targeting the federal government and private industry. Some recent cyber attacks from foreign actors that threaten the Nation’s security are the SolarWinds hack, which was directed by the Russian Intelligence Service, the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline by a Russia-linked cybercrime group, and cyber espionage and other malicious cyber operations targeting a range of government and private-sector organizations across industries from Iranian-linked hackers. To combat current and future cyber threats and attacks, the DoD must employ an agile, highly skilled, and diverse cyber workforce,” he added.
The Department must also expand its cyber workforce with various roles and develop talent to securely build, operate and maintain its digital and critical infrastructures and protect and defend ‘our’ data against cyber adversaries at home and abroad, Sherman continued. “However, there is a recognized shortage of skilled cyber personnel that could potentially impact operational readiness across the Department and put national security at risk. Despite the vast expansion of cyber educational and experiential opportunities, the Nation’s cyber talent pipeline remains limited.”
Sherman outlines that the Department joins other government agencies, industry, and academia to address the cyber talent pipeline challenge. While working collaboratively with these entities, the DoD faces fierce competition within the labor market to secure the necessary highly skilled experts from the nation’s finite talent sources. In light of this competition, the Department must foster an environment of innovation coupled with cutting-edge technology to produce and enable a world-class workforce ready to meet all current and future cyber challenges.
Sherman said finally that the DoD CWF Strategy must incorporate the disparate workforce supporting DoD within the evolving and expanding cyber domain. 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 must drive unity of effort across organizations. He added specific actions describing the required coordination that will be included in the forthcoming implementation plan in support of the strategy.
The DoD CWF Strategy will underpin the department’s efforts to close workforce management gaps such as limited developmental positions and training opportunities, resource workforce management, and development initiatives in line with updated capability planning guidance, while also staying at the forefront of technological advances including AI, cloud, cyber, data, secure software development, embedded systems, quantum computing, advanced cryptography, and zero-trust.
The Strategy also looks into securely and rapidly delivering resilient systems, while transforming into a data-centric organization with optimized data analytics to build cyber workforce requirements and proactively address the cyber workforce at the speed and scale for operational advantage.
The Department strives to be an ‘employer of choice’ among cyber professionals and works to attract the best cyber warriors, given our unique and important mission set. Now more than ever, “it is essential that we expand our cyber workforce with diverse roles and develop talent to securely build, operate and maintain our digital and critical infrastructures and protect and defend our data against cyber adversaries at home and abroad,” the document assesses.
As the DoD looks to the future, the DoD CWF Strategy lays the foundation for how the Department will establish the direction and supporting mechanisms for the unified management of different communities and workforce types that make up the cyber workforce. This will ensure the Department is strongly positioned and equipped to identify, recruit, retain, and develop the cyber talent necessary to match the requirements created by emerging technology, tactics and procedures (TTPs) in this transformational, digital age.
To overcome identified challenges, “we will align our strategic goals and implementation efforts to four human capital management pillars, which will provide the foundation for unified management and empowerment of the DoD cyber workforce,” the strategy document said.
The four human capital pillars provide the foundation to support the accomplishment of the goals and objectives identified in the DoD CWF Strategy. The structure provides unification of effort for implementation by the various stakeholders and communities that make up and support the DoD cyber workforce. It identifies various areas that represent department-wide challenges, including a lack of common criteria regarding cyber workforce requirements (Identification); the need for targeted identification of candidates based on skills to fill capability gaps (Recruitment); limited availability of capability assessment and enhancement programs (Development); and attrition of highly skilled personnel within an already limited pipeline of talent (Retention).
To resolve the challenges, the DoD is taking an enterprise-wide approach to implementing workforce development initiatives aligned to each strategic goal, the DoD CWF Strategy document outlined.
In conclusion, the DoD CWF Strategy sets the direction for the Department to develop and grow the cyber workforce in a unified and intentional manner, bridging the gap between the current state of the cyber workforce and the outcome described in the strategic vision. It provides a unifying direction for the Department in identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining high-demand cyber talent capable of achieving and sustaining dominance in a highly contested domain.
Furthermore, the DoD CWS Strategy identifies targeted workforce goals and objectives, which in conjunction with the forthcoming implementation plan, will support the DoD in achieving the enclosed mission and vision. The current and future state of the Department’s cyber workforce and capabilities is crucial in building, securing, operating, defending, and protecting DoD and U.S. cyberspace resources, conducting related intelligence activities, enabling future operations, preserving the nation’s well-being, and projecting power in and through cyberspace.
Last month, the DoD published the DoD Manual (DoDM) 8140.03 Cyberspace Workforce Qualification & Management Program, the third issuance of the DoD 8140 policy series. The Cyber Workforce Qualification Program modernizes DoD talent management, allowing for more targeted and flexible approaches within the cyber human capital lifecycle.
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