The Pentagon wants expanded authority for interagency cyber transfers and a shorter probationary period for cyber workers in excepted service roles.
The Pentagon is requesting new authorities from Congress for fiscal year 2027 to help recruit and keep cyber talent, as it continues to face ongoing shortages in its cyber workforce.
In a legislative proposal shared with Congress earlier this month, the Department of Defense asked for the removal of obstacles that make it hard for employees to transfer between the Cyber Excepted Service (CES) and the competitive service.
The cyber interagency transfer authority currently lets employees move from the excepted service to the competitive service and back. However, some cyber workers in CES positions on permanent excepted service appointments still cannot move into competitive service or equivalent roles without having to compete as outside, non-federal applicants. The proposal would extend this transfer authority across the entire department.
“This expansion will be a key part of the DoD’s cybersecurity workforce policy, enabling seamless movement of cyber workers between these organizations, ensuring their skills, experience, and talents are used to the fullest throughout their careers,” the proposal states. “Having readily available experts ensures a quicker and more effective response during cyber incidents.”
DoD noted that applying the cyber interagency transfer authority departmentwide would not affect the fiscal 2027 budget request.
In the same legislative package, the Defense Department also proposed giving CES employees similar protections that are currently available only to competitive civil service employees.
Specifically, the department wants to provide similar overseas return rights to cyber workers in CES positions. This would allow them to take overseas assignments without risking their job back in the U.S.
The absence of these protections has prevented competitive service employees in DoD cyber roles from voluntarily switching to the CES, mainly because they could lose guaranteed return rights and other job protections.
“Currently, personnel stationed overseas whose competitive service position is converted to CES are better off declining the conversion to CES and staying in the competitive service in order to secure their return rights at the end of their tour. Without these statutory return rights, the person would lose significant rights that could prevent them from returning to their prior home, town, or state if they accept the conversion to CES,” the proposal reads. “This amendment allows for the full establishment of a CES employee population and achieves the level of effectiveness needed for the Department’s cyber offensive and defensive mission worldwide.”
The department is also looking to reduce the probationary period for CES employees from three years to two years, aligning it more closely with other personnel systems.
“A different probationary period hurts morale and can make it harder to recruit top candidates. A uniform probationary period creates a more unified workforce and makes personnel management simpler across different systems within DoD,” the proposal states.
Similarly, the Defense Department stated these workplace protections for cyber excepted service employees would not cost anything additional.
While DoD has been working to bring more workers into the CES, which offers higher salaries, personnel considering a switch to the CES have expressed concerns about limited career movement, unclear pay incentives, and uncertainty about how the system would impact their long-term career plans.
Even though the Defense Department says the CES has helped reduce the large number of vacancies in DoD’s cyber workforce, the Pentagon still has a shortage of approximately 20,000 cyber professionals.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill requiring the Pentagon to assess the progress and remaining gaps in implementing the DoD’s 2023–2027 Cyber Workforce Strategy, and to identify which elements of the current strategy should continue or be dropped. As part of the bill, the lawmakers requested detailed workforce data, including the cyber workforce size, vacancy rates, specific work roles, and other information related to personnel system metrics.
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