Talent Management: Talent Management: From Competencies to Organizational Performance - A Look Inside The United States Internal Revenue Service

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May 8, 2008 - Consortium Benchmarking Study by the American Productivity & Quality Center. Subject Matter Expertise by the Center for Creative Leadership.

General Information and Background

Select, develop, and deploy a highly skilled, empowered, and performing work force to accomplish the Service’s mission.
—IRS Human Capital Strategy

The Internal Revenue Service is a branch of the Department of the Treasury. It is one of the world’s largest tax administrators. In 2002, for example, the IRS collected more than $2 trillion in revenue and processed more than 227 million returns. Also in 2002, the agency assisted nearly 95 million taxpayers who called the toll-free automated telephone line, wrote letters, or visited one of the more than 400 offices the IRS maintains nationwide. The IRS’ mission is to “provide America’s taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all.”

Since 1999, the IRS has been undergoing a comprehensive modernization effort by exercising new flexibilities to the standard government regulations granted by the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. This law has enabled the IRS to modernize its structure, its business practices, the processes by which it collects taxes, and its technology. In the area of human resources, the law allowed them special flexibilities to restructure their HR policies including:

• “critical pay” authority, to hire up to 40 individuals at a salary not to exceed that of the vice president of the United States;
• “work force shaping” tools, including buy outs and early retirement authority;
• “streamlined demonstration project” authority, which waive some of the restrictions that generally apply to personnel demonstration projects;
• Authority to assign employees to pay bands whereby pay would be determined according to qualifications and performance rather than longevity; and
• Authority to rate prospective employees by category rather than by strict numerical score, giving managers greater flexibility in hiring. ¹

Currently, the IRS is applying these flexibilities to implement talent management improvements in all core HR processes and has focused the change effort primarily on its executives, middle management, supervisors, and professional individual contributors. It has found the greatest success with these efforts at the executive level.

Senior Leadership Role in Talent Management
The modernization efforts quickly identified a need for senior leadership to be actively involved in designing the future organization. A critical part of this effort was revitalizing the leadership development programs in order to ensure that these reform efforts would be successful and continue in the future. As a result, senior leaders have been actively involved in talent management as architects of the future, change agents, and instructors.

Active Leadership Participation
At the IRS, the commissioner and the division leaders have the primary accountability for talent management, but the HR team actively supports and directs the talent management programs. The commissioner plays a large role in setting the direction about all resources, including talent. In particular, he hosts a meeting of the top team, the Leadership Development Executive Council, once every month to discuss overall management of the organization, including talent. The commissioner’s top team also meets twice a year to talk about leadership succession planning and management primarily focused on the executive level. In addition, each of the senior leaders is assigned one to two employees to actively coach and mentor, and they are expected to act as instructors for senior manager development programs that train approximately 25 employees per program.

Division leaders, which are equivalent to business unit leaders, have the responsibility of leading IRS resources in serving a particular segment of the tax base, for example large and mid-sized companies. They have more of a tactical role with regard to talent management. They typically spend eight to ten percent of their time focused on this topic. All division leaders are looking for exceptional people; however, talent needs will be different technically by division. In addition, the frequency in which divisional leaders gather to discuss and manage talent development processes varies by division: most meet quarterly, but some meet biannually. It also depends on whether or not the business has been given funding to hire in a specific year. 

Leadership Engagement in Talent Management
Executives are engaged in the talent management process via two committees of top-level executives (the HR Policy Council, which discusses succession planning; and the Leadership Development Executive Council, which specifically focuses on the development of leaders). Both councils, especially the latter, are responsible for setting overall policy direction (in terms of how the organization expends resources on leadership development). But it is the creation of these councils which shows the true engagement of the leadership at the IRS. As the story goes, the HR team called an all-day meeting of all the business unit leaders and their deputies to discuss leadership development at the IRS. The HR team was really unsure who would come and worried about calling the meeting. In the end, they were shocked at how many people showed up at 8 a.m. sharp and stayed the entire eight hours. The result has been a true ownership of the leadership development program by the senior leaders and they have worked diligently to develop “flagship courses”. As Trinka, from leadership and education, stated; “There’s a buzz about these courses that people want to go. The business unit leaders are telling them to go because they are the ones that designed it. They are the stewards of the budget that I use to put forward these efforts; and that is one of the hallmarks of our program: that it really is driven by the business.”

Developing a Talent Management Culture
The IRS developed a talent management culture by restructuring its guiding principals as part of the modernization effort. Based on these new guiding principles and interviews with IRS executives, the service’s leadership competency model emerged. It includes an emphasis on providing quality service, promoting accountability, fostering open communication, insisting on total integrity, and acting as “One IRS” from the customer’s point of view. The IRS developed five core management responsibilities:

1. leadership,
2. customer satisfaction,
3. employee satisfaction,
4. business results, and
5. equal employment opportunity and diversity.

Within each core management responsibility are several leadership competencies. These competencies move the IRS away from describing jobs in terms of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and toward competencies, which are described similarly, but are more concrete and behaviorally based. As described by one IRS official, “With KSAs, knowledge of something is not demonstrated. You have it by virtue of a degree or job experience. A competency is demonstratable;” ² See Figure 1 below for a list of the IRS competencies.

IRS Leadership Competencies Arrayed Under the Five Core Management Responsibilities

Leadership	Employee Satisfaction	Customer Satisfaction	Business Results	EEO and Diversity
Adaptability	Continual Learning	Customer Focus	Achievement Orientation	*Supporting Competencies
Communication*	Developing Others*	Entrepreneurship	Business Acumen
Decisiveness	Diversity Awareness*	External Awareness	Political Savvy
Integrity/ Honesty*	Group Leadership*	Influencing/ Negotiating*	Problem Solving*
Service Motivation	Teamwork	Partnering*	Technical Credibility
Strategic Thinking	Teamwork	Partnering*	Technical Credibility

Source: Strategic Human Resources, IRS Leadership Development, Human Resource Office, IRS

Figure 1
Using these responsibilities as a guide, the IRS then structured mechanisms to gather intelligence on whether its talent management program is evolving appropriately. By examining the performance reviews, 360-degree feedback, employee attitude surveys, on-the-job observations, informal feedback, and hiring criterion validation studies, the IRS is able to determine what is working and what is not and make adjustments to its talent management program. Ultimately, this drives its talent management culture.

As part of the transformation effort at the IRS, it baked the competencies into all its core HR processes. Specifically, the competency model is used for recruiting, staffing, employee development, talent gap analysis, succession planning, talent reviews, mentoring, performance management, and for pay-for-performance programs.

Finding Talent
We must have the capacity to continually “renew” our workforce, as older employees retire…and new ones leave sooner. And we must do this without compromising our high entry/retention standards. That means marketing the IRS as an employer of choice in our key external labor markets.

—IRS Recruiting Strategy

Building a Talent Brand for Recruiting
To build a brand that attracted talent, the IRS had to identify and change its image. The IRS hired a professional advertising and marketing firm to conduct market surveys in order to really understand the IRS’ image as an employer. Unfortunately, the IRS was not seen in the best light. As a result, the IRS aggressively started marketing itself to be an employer of choice given all the benefits it provides. The IRS’ brand for attracting talented resources is based on the slogan: “It all adds up!” The brand emphasizes that the IRS offers new accountants, for example, an ability to be assigned and work independently on a challenging case load, interact directly with customers, set flexible work schedules and locations, and achieve a higher degree of work/life balance. In regular accounting firms, employees require many years of experience before being assigned these types of duties or working in these types of environments. By pushing their benefits and putting faces to the IRS brand, the IRS has successfully reinvigorated the IRS’ image as an employer.

Identifying and Resolving Talent Gaps
As part of the modernization effort, the IRS realized that it would also need to greatly shift its work force toward new competencies especially around technology, while at the same time deal with a large population of employees preparing for retirement. To plan for the future and make short-term decisions, the IRS has developed a sophisticated in-house work force planning model. It has two major components: an assessment of current and future demands for resources by skill set and an assessment of current and future supply of resources by skill set. As the leader of the work force planning group stated, it is about “matching spaces with faces”.

The demand side is based on the strategic plan for the IRS as it moves through the modernization effort. The demand analysis starts by estimating return volumes by type and method. Then resources required to process the returns and provide supporting services are calculated based on productivity measures times the estimated volume of returns to be processed. Detailing the strategic plan by year, by skill set, and by location was cumbersome, but ultimately it set a definitive plan for what the IRS would need in the future.

The supply side is based on an inventory of current resources by skill set and by location. Then retirement, attrition, and migration (e.g., promotion) plans were incorporated to show how the work force composition would change over time. On the supply side, the biggest problem for the IRS was that fluctuations in budget created dramatic swings in their hiring processes over time to the effect that the IRS has “binge” spikes in its resources by time of service. In addition, the IRS identified a complete lack of new hires in recent years. This approach is not sustainable over the long term, but recognizing this has assisted the IRS in focusing its supply or hiring efforts going forward toward a more stable stream of hires.

Integrating the demand and supply analysis reveals where the critical gaps occur over time. Major shifts in location and skill sets, along with an overall decline in supply that was unmatched by demand, revealed key insights into how the IRS should focus its training programs, prepare for closing facilities, and recruit going forward.

Hiring Strategies and Processes
The IRS has found internal job postings, Internet sites, and online posting boards/search engines to be highly effective sources of potential candidates. Specifically, the IRS has received a lot of accolades and awards for its Web site and has created a compelling offer for potential employees. The IRS Web site is open to the public (through the office of Personnel Management), with a specific IRS recruitment section. The Web site advertises positions and takes applications. Just having this technology-oriented process seems to attract the “right” technology savvy kind of people the IRS is looking for. Currently, the Web site is four and a half years old and gets more than a million visitors. The average visitor stay on the Web site is now twenty-two minutes. Cronin, a leader in the talent and technology management group, stated, “it was worth every dime that we invested, every ounce of resources that we used to write materials or to develop content. One thing that we heard loud and clear from all ages, experiences, and education levels was that the Web was where to be. The other thing we heard was to automate the process.” Automation of the online application process has proved more difficult, but the IRS is actively working to move its screening processes and assessments online. The IRS is now using a new technology for this automation called “Quick Hire,” which will streamline the application review process for talent.

Career fairs, newspaper advertisements, and university recruiting are the next most productive mechanisms for the IRS to identify candidates. The IRS’ formal recruitment process involves business units and engages them as recruiters, especially for technical employees. When hiring externally, interviews, resumes, references, exams, and independent outside evaluations are used to screen candidates.

The competency model is used for recruiting executives, middle management, supervisors, and professional individual contributors. Beyond competencies, key experiences and managerial potential are also considered during hiring.

Internally, once people are brought on board, a Web-based career management resource center (CMRC) provides career paths for different jobs in the organization (how employees can get from one job to another, even across business divisions) and helps employees transition to leadership. The IRS has a series of readiness programs that are part of the succession management process. For example, there is one for front-line supervisors. This is a competitive program that incorporates one year of development and involves the business units directly in the process as instructors, mentors, and coaches. These programs have been very successful in grooming talent. Embedded in all of these programs are formal classroom training, a lot of coaching and mentoring, assignments on the job, special project assignments, and also 360-degree feedback for individuals on how they are perceived as leaders. All of these processes are not specifically HR-driven; HR manages them to a large extent, but they are actually administered by partners in the business units.

The CMRC has a series of these in the major education sites and the centers have both internal and some external career counselors. These counselors are onsite and have sessions with employees and managers about career movement within the organization. The IRS also has learning resources available to employees for self-directed learning.

Critical Talent Competencies
For the IRS, transformational leadership is all about trying to get the entire organization working together toward a shared set of goals. To accomplish these goals, the IRS realized that their traditional method of picking leaders, which focused selection nearly 75 percent on technical competencies and very little on true leadership competencies, would not be successful. Instead, it now has an overt focus on building balanced leaders. In-depth analysis identified the 21 competencies discussed earlier as being critical competencies for a successful leader. However, as the IRS began to develop training programs it realized that the employee was quickly over whelmed by the sheer number of competencies needed. Additional analysis of top leaders revealed that truly only 11 were key differentiators. Within these 11 competencies, the IRS was then able to identify that the “fatal flaw” for the person may not be the competency itself, but his or her inability to demonstrate it. These underlying abilities became known as companion competencies and are now the basis of their training program for leaders. See Figure 4 for how the competencies were further analyzed.

IRS Leadership Competency Model and “Great” Leader Concept

IRS Core Responsibilities	Leadership Competencies Associated with Core Responsibilities	Key Competencies that Differentiate “Great” IRS Leaders	Companion Competencies to Develop Key Competencies
Leadership	Adaptability	Communication*	Strategic Thinking
	Communication*
	Decisiveness	Service Motivation
	Integrity/Honesty*
	Service Motivation	Strategic Thinking
	Strategic Thinking
Employee Satisfaction	Continual Learning	Developing Others*	Group Leadership*
	Developing Others*
	Diversity Awareness*	Influencing/Negotiating*
	Group Leadership*
	Teamwork
Customer Satisfaction	Customer Focus	External Awareness	External Awareness
	Entrepreneurship
	External Awareness
	Influencing/Negotiating*	Influencing/Negotiating*	Partnering*
	Partnering*
Business Results	Achievement Orientation	Business Acumen	Problem Solving
	Business Acumen
	Political Savvy	Political Savvy
	Problem Solving*	Problem Solving*
	Technical Credibility	Technical Credibility
EEO/Diversity	* = Competencies supporting EEO/Diversity	* = Competencies supporting EEO/Diversity	* = Competencies supporting EEO/Diversity

 

Figure 4

By focusing on companion competencies, the IRS found that just a 2 percent improvement in the executive’s companion competencies yielded a 5 percent improvement in his or her target competency scores from his or her 360 reviews and indirectly improved several other competencies (creating a “halo” effect) to easily increase overall perceived effectiveness to the 90th percentile and employee engagement to about 80 percent.

Although a standard curriculum has been developed, each person in the program is evaluated individually by a 360-degree assessment to determine its specific areas of strength and weakness. Then the program is tailored to meet their needs either by enhancing the competency directly or by enhancing a companion competency.

Assessing Internal Talent
Internally, the IRS relies on 360-degree feedback, performance appraisals, tests, assessment centers, and breadth and depth of experience to select the best candidates based on past performance and future potential. A 360-degree assessment is used to inform managers about how they are doing and how they are perceived by a variety of individuals. The 360-degree feedback is hosted on an external Web site through the Hay group. The IRS also evaluates people on a regular basis through yearly performance appraisals. As part of the annual performance appraisal, critical job elements that are used for employees are linked directly to a balanced measurement system so that the organization looks at how behaviors play out against customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and business results. The same yearly appraisals are conducted for managers, based on core leadership responsibilities that include the three balanced measures mentioned above plus a specific topic on measurement and another on EEO/diversity.

The IRS has a three-step process for selecting talent. The first step is evaluation of managerial potential facilitated by completing the managerial potential form. This form is required to be completed by all managers at the end of a rating period, on request, or on their own initiative. The managerial potential form assesses behaviors associated with the competencies required at the next higher leadership level. Assessment centers evaluate a candidate’s future potential as an employee performing the function being hired for. If the evaluation shows an overall “ready now” rating then they move to Step 2 where preparations are made for the management selection program. This includes technical competency job profiling by the applicant. Finally, if technical competency is achieved, then an application package is created which includes an application form/resume, technical competency narrative, current appraisal, and evaluation of managerial potential. An optional interview is then held and a total score for both general and technical competencies is calculated. Based on these results, an announcement is made about their potential to move to the next level.

The IRS has found that the assessment center model along with associated course work, to be highly effective methods to build talent within the IRS. Supported by coaching, job rotations, giving stretch assignments, 360-degree feedback, and concrete succession planning, these processes provide a fertile ground for generating an on-going stream of talented employees.

Tailoring Talent Management Processes for Different Demographics
To attract and retain an older employee base, the IRS has focused on allowing agents a lot of flexibility/creativity in how they conduct their cases. Today, approximately 30 to 40 percent of new hires come in as experienced hires that are 45 years old or older.

To maximize the value of the younger generations that spend, on average, three to five years at a company the IRS focused on significantly shortening their training cycle. Today, rather than three years of basic training, the IRS provides 16 months and extensive use of e-learning tools.

Driving Talent to Performance
By successfully linking its job requirements, training programs, and performance measurement system to competencies, the IRS has a clear focus on what competencies it will grow. As a result, employees clearly see why they are learning a skill, how it will help them in a future job, and how they will be evaluated on this skill. The result is a powerful engine for improvement.

Development Programs
IRS’ strategy for education is: “More complex tax work will require better educated employees. However, business and operational imperatives mandate that we leverage learning technologies to help them quickly achieve and maintain full technical competence…without adversely impacting service levels and quality.” As part of this strategy, the IRS specifically wanted to shift nearly 70 percent of its $120 million budget from travel to delivery. To accomplish this goal, the core leadership curriculum includes a variety of leadership development approaches focused on competency-based experiential learning including:

• classroom and electronic education,
• planned development assignments,
• coaching and mentoring,
• business-related challenges, and
• leadership simulations.

The core leadership curriculum is tiered by an employee’s level in the organization and is customized to meet their specific needs, but maintains a central theme throughout the training.

Critical Factors of the IRS Leadership Development Program ³

• Private-Public Partnership—The IRS works with several private-sector vendors to conduct training sessions with external consultants and selected IRS executives forming an instructor team. This partnership has proven to be a successful one in that the participants benefit from the external expertise of private consultants combined with the practical experience of seasoned IRS executives.
• Continuum of Leadership Development—The IRS provides leadership development programs for its entire spectrum of managers, assuring their ability to continue professional development throughout their career life cycle from employee to executive. This tiered approach to leadership offers an organizational succession plan as well as an opportunity for managers to structure their own career plans. The same leadership competency model is stressed and practiced in all levels of training, but selected competencies are emphasized at each leadership level.
• Developing Leaders from Within the Organization—The IRS places great importance on developing existing resources, including human resources. The designers and implementers of the program believe that with the right tools, any employee can become a “great” leader in the IRS.
• Courses Designed for Aspiring, New, and Experienced Managers—At each step in the leadership development program, courses are offered to assist aspiring and new managers to develop their leadership skills as well as maintain and build the leadership skills of experienced managers at each level. This blend of instruction contributes to the continuum of leadership development in a career life cycle from employee to executive and ensures that leaders at all levels are prepared to meet the challenges of the organization.
• Internal OD Consultants Complement IRS Leadership Development Efforts—Internal organization development (OD) consultants formed into client teams and a service-wide facilitator cadre maintain a corporate focus to serve the strategic and operational business consulting needs of individual operating divisions and the IRS as a whole. Key corporate initiatives include workforce transition, human capital strategy, corporate coaching strategy, and process measures. Consultants trained as executive coaches provide one-on-one support to improve the overall effectiveness of key leaders.
• Evaluation is Competency Based—Competencies are Linked to IRS Challenges—The entire leadership development program is tied to leadership competencies as is management selection, individual performance evaluation, and recognition. Efforts are made to assure that training courses draw clear lines from leadership competencies to current business challenges. By doing so, these leaders can set goals, meet challenges, and develop the behaviors associated with critical leadership competencies. In addition, the role of managers as agents of employee development (coaching) is stressed in all programs.
• Organizational Support and Idea Champions—There is strong organizational support for the program —both at the top of the organization and throughout the ranks of employees. The program designers and implementers do not need to rely on advertising methods to solicit participants, as there are many idea champions throughout the organization that refer participants to the programs.
• IRS is a leader in Leadership Development—As a result of the IRS’s efforts to link value-based competencies to management selection, leadership development, performance evaluation, and recognition as well as providing a tiered leadership development program, this agency has established itself as a leader in its own right. Public and private organizations now look to the IRS for direction in developing their own leadership development and succession planning programs.

Retention Strategies
The IRS’ success shines through in their turnover numbers which is less than five percent overall, and rises only slightly to between 5 and 10 percent for new hires (e.g., less than five years) and managers at all levels. In addition, more than 75 percent of executives are developed internally.

To generate these low turnover rates, the IRS provides retention bonuses for executives close to retirement and competitive pay schedules for upper management. In addition, the IRS works to provide flexible work schedules and locations to enable employees to find a high quality of life. The IRS also work hard to inspire new hires by providing significant responsibility quickly and enabling them to work independently.

Linking and Leveraging to Build Talent
At the core of the IRS’ performance evaluations is its core responsibilities. “By linking core management responsibilities with leadership competencies, the IRS can assess results-based on performance commitments (e.g., business goals) against the competency-based behaviors used to attain them. ³” The managers actively map their activities and progress against this matrix and they know that it will have a direct impact on their promotion planning. As a result, their business tactics exemplify the leadership behaviors the IRS is endorsing on a regular basis.

Workplace Culture
To bolster performance by its best talent, the IRS is one of the first government agencies to be allowed to do pay banding, which enabled them to pay based on performance rather than time with the organization. In addition, it totally revamped the performance management system to include balanced measures. Now the IRS has a traditional bell curve for their performance system lifecycle.

Gauging the Results of Talent Management
Gauging by the public response to the modernization efforts, the results have been tremendous. Specifically, “the Corporate Leadership Council, Partnership for Public Service, Linkage, Inc. and Johns Hopkins University have identified the IRS leadership development, succession planning, and organization development programs as ‘best practice.’ Numerous private and public sector organizations benchmark our programs, and we have presented the IRS model at a variety of local, regional, and national professional conferences. ⁴” In addition, ASTD has recently recognized the IRS with the “Inaugural Best” award as a learning organization, which has to do with learning as well as development in general.

Measuring the Results and Impact of Talent Management
The IRS has a dashboard of measures that track leadership curriculum quantity, quality, and impact. Some of the specific measures include the number of managers trained, the cost for training (per hour), the number of managers selected out of readiness programs, and Level I and III training measures. The 360-degree assessments are designed to get at drivers of future successful performance for managers. The IRS has had a fair amount of success in employee satisfaction (from 50 percent to 60 percent in three years). The IRS also looks at external indicators of customer satisfaction.

The organization also looks at: attrition, level I training feedback, level III (transfer of learning back to the job) training feedback, whether or not the IRS is recognized by those outside or inside government (the IRS has been recognized for such things as e-learning, innovation, and leadership development), and IRS HR representatives have spoken at various conferences about their practices.

Accountability for Talent Management
A formal evaluation of the talent management processes occurs annually; the outcome of which is communicated to the business units through meetings and through incorporation into the business performance reviews and the strategic assessment phase of the strategic planning and budgeting process.

The training program is governed by the Leadership Development Executive Council, which has each operating division commissioner and their deputy as members. The council meets monthly to guide the leadership development framework and ensure the strategic business investment in training is producing results, which has not been a problem for this program. In 2003, feedback on the level I programs overall was very high at 4.65 out of 5.0⁵. Given the program’s success, funding levels have remained stable despite challenging budget times.

Lessons Learned
Part of the IRS’ modernization effort was to supply a blueprint for other government agencies on how to conduct a transformation. To support this effort, a series of guides ⁶ were developed and these are the lessons learned from the HR team:

1. It is important to accompany flexibilities with measures that enhance chances for effective implementation. Foremost among these is the appointment of a leader who has an interest in and knowledge about management issues as well as the fortitude to promote new organizational values and processes. Also key are the resources to enable the retention of contractors and consultants to both provide technical expertise and drive the change process internally.
2. The accomplishments of IRS are in no small part attributable to the creation of a knowledgeable, engaged, and effective leadership cadre. This cadre was built, not born. Commissioner Rossotti and Deputy Commissioner Wenzel effectively leveraged the structural changes to redefine jobs and to put in place a set of players who actively supported the transformation. The critical pay authority, as well as the job recompetition, was critical in this regard.
3. An early determination to have an open and transparent implementation process proved vitally important. Important stakeholders, including those representing IRS employees, were involved in all key HR policy decisions through the Human Resources Executive Committee. This helped promote acceptance among employees.
4. The comprehensiveness and coherence of the program were critical factors. The overriding lesson of the IRS experience is the importance of an integrated, coherent, and comprehensive organizational strategy in support of which an HRM system can be designed. By employing the various devices identified in this report, Commissioner Rossotti and the top leadership team ensured that the HRM changes were consistent with and in support of the organizational changes. Whether or not they personally supported all the changes, employees and managers throughout the organization understood the direction that Rossotti was taking the organization and the rationale behind it.

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¹ Source: Thompson, James R. “Modernizing Human Resource Management in the Federal Government: The IRS Model.” April 2003
² Source: Thompson, James R. “Modernizing Human Resource Management in the Federal Government: The IRS Model,” April 2003
³ Source: “Leadership Development for the Taxman: Continuing to use leadership as a driver for organizational reform,” IRS publication
⁴ Source: “Leadership Development for the Taxman: Continuing to use leadership as a driver for organizational reform,” IRS publication
⁵ Source: “Strategic Human Resources: Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness” IRS internal document
⁶ Source: “Leadership Development for the Taxman: Continuing to use leadership as a driver for organizational reform,” IRS publication

IRS Hosts
Jim Trinka, leadership and education
Napoleon Avery, human capital strategy and HR life cycle framework
Jackie Whitaker, Tina Handley, and Carolyn Lee: human capital planning and measures
Julia Cronin, talent and technology management
Linda McCullar, leadership and education
Mary Slagle, personnel policy
Deb Nelson, executive services
Alice Ronk, organizational change