The Foreign Service Journal, May 2006

went out to members of every specialty detailing the requirements.) All these schedules operate on the princi- ple that the longer a person has been in the Foreign Service, the fewer mandatory and elective requirements he or she must meet before reaching the gateway that marks the pinnacle of the profession for that group. There is a waiver policy in place regarding hardship service, largely for medical or compassionate reasons. The director general may approve these waivers on a case- by-case basis. There will also be a waiver available for members of those groups with a mandatory language requirement. That has not yet been fully developed, how- ever. Implementing the Specialist CDP For generalists, whose Career Development Program was announced more than a year ago, we have already developed and launched Career Tracker , an online, self- certifying inventory of CDP requirements and how each individual is meeting them that is accessible through HR Online and other HR Web sites. Career Tracker draws data from Employee Profile and makes it available on any of the 14 screens the user chooses to apply the data. For example, an employee’s tour history will show up on the major/minor screens that correspond to this generalist requirement, but will also show up on the hardship tour screen. We plan to launch the Career Tracker for specialist skill groups in time for the 2007 open assignments cycle that begins this fall. The person will choose by a mouse-click which tour he or she wants to use toward fulfilling a requirement. The need to choose makes the person self- certify that a given tour, in these examples, meets the requirement for a professionally-related tour, a leadership course or a hardship tour. In short, each member of the Foreign Service is responsible for showing that a career- related event or training meets a CDP requirement. Although the large number of specialist requirements and the sheer variety of specialist career paths make designing Career Tracker for them a more complex undertaking than for the generalists, we believe that the project is manage- able and will be ready on time. We have already developed for generalists, and are putting together for specialists, a document called the Playbook . Though it has nothing to do with football, the sports analogy is apt. There are many ways to get to the end zone, and the Playbook tries to outline as many of them as possible. Available through HR Online and the HR/CDA Web site, the Playbook has illustrative career histories that meet the CDP requirements for the five generalist skill groups (cones). The individual specialist groups will each have a Playbook, too, setting forth the principles and the requirements that meet them, along with illustrative commentary. Our goal is to have drafts of these new Playbooks ready for mid-summer access online, so that bidders in this fall’s assignments cycle will have them as guidebooks. The Playbook will also have an extensive set of Frequently Asked Questions drawn from the e-mails sent to the Career Development Help Desk (careerde- vhelpdesk@state.gov ). The Help Desk deals with indi- vidual questions that employees feel are not covered in the Playbook; there a knowledgeable When Actually Employed annuitant drafts responses for clearance with a small group of CDP experts. The answers then go back to the respondent. Career Development Officers may also forward questions from their clients. Both the Playbook and Career Tracker, which CDOs can access, also serve as important tools for dialogue between HR/CDA and its clients, especially those who are in time zones that make real-time communication with Washington difficult. During a videoconference earlier this year, a very senior Foreign Service specialist told Acting Director General O’Keefe that the Career Development Program made him feel like part of the Foreign Service for the first time in his career, because generalists and specialists were now being measured by the same principles. Increasing our esprit de corps is always important, because every member of the Foreign Service faces the emerging chal- lenges of 21st-century diplomacy. Enhancing our skill sets, collectively and individually, and ensuring that we all have the widest range of experience possible is the best preparation for meeting the new demands of our profes- sion. The CDP offers specialists and generalists alike the most comprehensive mechanism yet to do this. The tasks will be as varied as creating the best IT sys- tem possible in each country; maintaining the all-impor- tant contacts with staff in different ministries; or protect- ing Foreign Service families and the United States from pandemic disease threats abroad. But, in the end, the CDP will ensure that the Service is prepared to meet today’s challenges and the unforeseen crises that are sure to arise in the future, because individual Service members will be prepared and experienced. n F O C U S 36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 6