Employee Conversions to the Cyber Excepted Service: Assessing Factors and Characteristics Related to Personnel Conversion Decisions

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knapp, David

Contributor:

Beaghley, Sina

Schwam, Daniel

Schwindt, Karen

Language:

English

Other Title:

Employee Conversions to the Cyber Excepted Service

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, Calif. RAND Corporation 2021

Summary:

In 2016, Congress created the Cyber Excepted Service (CES), which granted the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) flexibilities in setting compensation aimed at supporting the recruitment and retention of personnel critical to the DoD cyber mission. The CES is a distinct personnel system within the federal government and initially was primarily composed of employees voluntarily converting from other personnel systems. Despite limited differences between the competitive service and the CES, a substantial number of employees expressed some concerns and uncertainty regarding converting to the newly created CES, and more than a third of those eligible did not convert. In this report, researchers analyze the characteristics of both employees that choose to convert and employees that choose not to convert to the Cyber Excepted Service. Researchers use these findings to offer recommendations aimed at promoting informed CES conversion decisions for organizations, such as the Army and Air Force Cyber Commands, that will convert to the CES in future.