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The Federal workforce is changing. A quarter of this workforce is now over the age of 55.
This is also true at the Department of the Interior, which employs over 70,000 people
across the country. As the older generation of workers retires and new employees are hired,
the Department of the Interior is committed to recruiting people that represent the diversity
of the American public.
Please welcome Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar.
In August of 2010, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, issued an inclusive workplace
statement and strategy. Outlined is the necessity to create a more inclusive government agency
that quote, “better reflects the diverse face of America.” John Burden, the Interior’s
first ever Chief Diversity Officer, is already providing innovative strategies for implementing
diversity.
I think, more than anything, it’s different this time because everyone is involved. We’re
starting to work past our legacy, our, I should say, our unsuccessful attempts at getting
this done. And I think we are because our training programs are designed to give our
managers and supervisors a much deeper understanding of what diversity is, what it isn’t, and
more importantly, teaching our leaders how to guide people towards achieving it. The
Secretary signed that because he truly believes that we can and we will get diversity right
this time. But he knows that the only way we can do that is by making it everyone’s
business. In other words, everyone has to see themselves in this effort, something for
everyone.
The statement is a major step in the Interior’s effort, and this commitment is being translated
into action by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast Region, where a number
of efforts are ongoing, such as creating entry-level positions, training supervisors, and recruiting
interns for a number of programs.
The Secretary’s statement on inclusivity and diversity is very important to Region
5, the Northeast Region of the Fish and Wildlife Service. We take it very seriously and we
try to implement and incorporate principles of both of those statements very much so in
the work that we do. Diversity and creating an inclusive workplace is everybody’s responsibility,
so we want to provide tools to our managers and supervisors so that they can help their
own employees in their workstations with these efforts and skillsets so that it will be a
better and diverse workplace. We are growing the cadre of folks who are going through the
Diversity Change Agent Program, which is being offered through the Department of the Interior.
These folks, we are hoping, are very influential amongst their peers and they’re getting
training, hands-on training, on how to talk openly with folks and create an atmosphere
that is more inclusive so that we can have, when we do enhance our diverse recruitment,
it’s a place where people want to stay and work. One of those is, we’re in our fourth
year of the CDIP Program, the Career Discovery Internship Program. We started out with 20
students, and now we have 62. The word’s getting out, and I believe now by having positions,
entry level positions, that students know, if you go through this program, and you’re
the best and the brightest, and you show us that you can do the work, that we’ll try
the best we can and in most cases we are able to provide a place for them to land in one
of the programs.
The CDIP Program is the Career Discovery Internship Program, and it’s designed to introduce
culturally and ethnically diverse students into the Fish and Wildlife Service. We started
the CDIP Program to do a couple things. We want to one, diversify our workforce, give
our managers the opportunity of working with diverse interns, and ultimately we want to
produce more citizens in society that have a better understanding of what we do in conservation.
And we feel as though that is very important, we have a responsibility to the resource,
as well as our community.
The Student Conservation Association, an American Conservation Corps, has been working in conjunction
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create the Career Discovery Internship Program,
which provides students with hands-on experience in stewardship. Gabe Harper is a 2009 alumnus
of the CDIP Program.
I got my start coming out of class my senior year in college and I saw the flier with the
opportunity listed and I just thought it would be a great opportunity. I always had a love
for animals and the great outdoors, even though I’m coming up from Atlanta, Georgia inner
cities, I never really had much opportunity to go hiking and camping, and really explore
as much as I would like to. So I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to get
my feet wet, so to speak, and little did I know how much that was going to happen.
We’re seeing the Service focus on diversity like I’ve never seen it before. And it’s
from the bottom to the top in the Fish and Wildlife Service. From all levels. And you
see folks being very excited about getting out and doing the recruitment. Folks getting
very excited about mentoring students who have never seen these things before in conservation.
People that I would have thought would back away are stepping forward and trying to mentor
some of these students. And it’s very important because retention is one of the biggest holes
we’ve had throughout the Service. And that’s changing. And I’m seeing that everywhere
that I turn in the Fish and Wildlife Service.
It’s too late at the time of selection when you want to become a diverse organization.
It’s all about the recruitment, it’s getting people interested in who we are as an agency,
the mission that we’re trying to achieve, and have them want to come work with us. No
matter where they are, or where they are from, who they are, to come work for us. We need
to get an earlier age, try to reach these younger folks in the schools and their families
and go out to different urban areas and connect with different people because the folks that
are already outside doing those outside things know about us, we need to connect with the
majority of folks that don’t. And so the lessons learned are don’t always go to our
traditional places and our traditional publics and start early, start younger, and create
a workplace that people not only want to come to, but they want to stay.