FDA Policy/General

FDA Seeking to Improve Hiring Process for New Staff

David McFarland

— 2 min read
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FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb says an FDA Hiring Initiative will reimagine the agency’s hiring practices and procedures with the goal of attracting, recruiting, and hiring and retaining professionals who support FDA’s mission. Writing in an FDA Voice blog post, Gottlieb says a comprehensive evaluation of hiring practices and procedures has identified the root causes of the agency’s current challenges and provides a roadmap for the future, including a pilot project early next year.

The evaluation’s findings were: 

  •          process and policy documentation is incomplete;
  • ·        the end-to-end hiring process suffers from substantial complexity;
  •          unclear positions and responsibilities for the numerous parties involved across the process amplify the process complexity, generate executional confusion, and dilute accountability;
  •          the technology and systems underpinning the process do not support process transparency, end-user experience, or efficient process execution; and
  • ·        there is a lack of meaningful, collaborative, open, and strategic dialog between the Office of Human Resources and CDER and CBER, further exacerbating the identified issues.

The report notes that of 657 FY 2016 new hire survey respondents, only 34% were satisfied with the hiring process overall. Only 11% of CDER and 6% of CBER hiring managers felt that recruiting and hiring processes are standardized and consistent. And only 31% of CDER and CBER hiring managers were “very satisfied” with the quality of their hires.

The evaluation report says the 2018 controlled pilot that tests a completely new and redesigned higher process should test a number of elements, including: 

  •          an optimized, clean-sheet process design focused on minimizing handoffs, eliminating unnecessary process steps, and reducing total time to hire;
  •          reevaluation and use of flexibilities embedded in current hiring authorities and policies, including those related to employee performance, appraisal, training and development, attendance and leave, and benefits;
  •          identification and use of talent sources;
  •          targeted investments to build human resources capabilities in communication, timeliness, and personal initiative;
  •          testing of reconfigured stakeholder positions aimed at having human resources provide a more sophisticated service to the Centers and reducing the number of human resources contacts a hiring manager must interact with throughout the process; and
  •          an enhanced effort to meet user requirements for enabling technologies, thereby supporting meaningful workflow tracking and streamlining time intensive steps.

 “Once the pilot is launched,” the report says, “it should undergo an iterative evaluation process, based on the pilot findings and the five hallmarks of success—timeliness, accuracy, customer service, employee satisfaction, and quality.”

Gottlieb says the new, more efficient approach in the pilot will focus on hiring several critical occupations in the medical product areas to support commitments of PDUFA and BsUFA.

“As part of the initiative,” he writes, “we’ve established a Scientific Staffing team that will focus on recruiting scientists and conducting a proactive outreach to professional associations and academia. Our scientific recruitment team will develop digital and social media tools, which will provide FDA with modern recruitment and outreach techniques. These efforts combined with the successes of the hiring pilot will yield a future state of efficient, consistent processes that helps us get the right people in the right roles to achieve results.”

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