Welcome remarks by WAEPA

The Federal Government’s most valuable asset – its people – will be a critical component to achieve its mission by empowering and developing a highly-skilled tech workforce. This session will focus on how employing the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as more effectively recruiting, retaining, upskilling, and reskilling, will allow the Federal Government to have a mission-ready workforce of the future.  

As endpoints multiplied and networks expanded geographically alongside the explosion of remote work, existing challenges around protecting sensitive data, ensuring compliance, maintaining secure communications, and managing and securing devices came into acute focus. With large-scale remote work here to stay, how can public sector leaders ensure their workforce has the correct technology and training to achieve the mission without compromising on security? This panel of government and industry leaders will delve into top cybersecurity priorities for remote work including zero trust, identity and access management, endpoint security, and cyber talent.

Rigid and outdated hiring, pay, and performance policies and practices have often hampered government’s ability to achieve its critical missions and provide services to the public. Facing historic lows in unemployment and an incredibly competitive labor market, government leaders must prioritize workforce modernization to ensure their agencies have the right workforce to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Where should they begin? During this panel, government and industry leaders will explore specific pockets of innovation across the entire public sector workforce lifecycle including recruiting, hiring, pay, performance, training, and succession planning. Experts will discuss the role technology, management, and policy have in implementing these best practices.

From attracting and retaining talent, maintaining workforce engagement, implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, modernizing human capital technology, and navigating both internal and external stakeholder relationships, all amidst complex policies and regulations, government chief human capital officers (CHCOs) have a critical but challenging role. During this spotlight session, a government CHCO will walk through her top priorities and challenges, as well as her approach to leadership. Topics may include interagency collaboration, improving the workforce experience, leveraging data in human capital management, elevating human resources to true strategic partners and more. 

Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the public sector came into sharp focus with President Biden’s 2021 executive order on the topic. Since then, agencies across government have challenged themselves to prioritize the issue and identify its unique applications for their mission area. Two years later, how are these directives progressing? This panel discussion, featuring experts from government and industry, will explore concrete strategies for implementing DEIA initiatives and discuss how to measure programs’ success. From bolstering representation to fostering a culture of belonging, promoting accessibility to addressing unconscious bias, leaders will explore how to apply DEIA principles both to the public sector workforce and the communities they serve.