Part 2: Resilience in a time of pandemic

Photo By Eileen Hernandez | This timeline illustrates the steps the Defense Finance and Accounting Service took at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning December 2019 through March 2021.  

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, UNITED STATES

04.19.2021

Story by Christopher Allbright 

Defense Finance and Accounting Service

INDIANAPOLIS, April 19, 2021 – As we take a deeper, more introspective look into the year of COVID-19, we continue to acknowledge the resiliency of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and its employees.

Tony Hullinger, Strategy and Support deputy director, ended part 1 of this series by stating, "DFAS never missed a beat as we seamlessly transitioned to a virtual environment, remained resilient in supporting the mission to our customers despite a myriad of changes and requests that came our way, and always ensured the safety, security, and well-being of our workforce the whole way."

After watching the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local communities where DFAS sites were located, DFAS leadership decided in March 2020 to shift a majority of the 11,500 DFAS employees to a full time telework environment.

Leadership addressed multiple challenges while keeping its employees safe and continuing the mission of DFAS. Principal Deputy Director Jonathan Witter said that the challenges of the past year were also opportunities.

"When a lot of people think of 2020, they think of it as the pandemic, and that's true, but I think of it as a year of incredible innovation." Continuing, Witter stated "as we faced challenges with how to do things, people would come up with solutions."

Direct Impact on Finance Operations
A number of laws and relief packages were passed to help U.S. citizens including military members, retirees and annuitants, and Federal employees.

Within DFAS, the challenge was to respond to the newly passed legislation that impacted DFAS employees and customers. "We had to respond to laws quickly and implement them," Witter said. "When it came to the types of sick leave for COVID-19, it was important to create those flexibilities for people."

The situation required a "Team of Teams partnership" across directorate lines. Director for Finance Standards and Customer Services Cathy Van Hoesen echoed the need to respond to "rapidly changing guidelines and requirements impacting pay and entitlements. I am so proud of the contributions from the team of teams at DFAS to ensure COVID-related pay and leave changes were quickly implemented for military, civilians, and non-appropriated fund employees."

According to Van Hoesen, ESS partnered across DFAS to implement pay and leave changes. She pointed to successes during this past year that had positive impacts on our DFAS customers such as:
• Ensuring banking centers were taking appropriate action while still meeting local needs.
• Adapting transaction code and processing changes to ensure proper accruals, deductions, and payments to service members.
• Processing payments to over 2,500 military members to help defray out-of-pocket lodging costs incurred by the sudden movement restriction.
• Responding to the Special Leave Accrual by developing and implementing system requirements and emergency approval to enable the provision of special leave accrual to military members due to difficult circumstances associated with COVID-19.

Van Hoesen indicated there was a collaborative effort among the directorates for Retired Pay, Military Pay, and Debt and Claims "to ensure timely pay for reservists/guardsmen called to support efforts, minimizing the risk of dual compensation and stress to warfighters and families. This team went above and beyond to partner across the federal space to proactively obtain guidance, develop detailed requirements, implement changes, and communicate with our customers. Their efforts ensured DFAS led the way in supporting warfighters and civilians during this difficult period."

Pivot and Adjust
Throughout the summer, DFAS continued its mission-focused operation tempo. That rhythm included three-a-day meetings with senior leadership, site representatives, the Disaster Management Team and the DFAS director.

"Every day, we were looking across the agency at operations," Witter said, "Were we seeing decrements in productivity? Were we seeing areas of challenge? By-and-large, productivity numbers stayed high." He went on to say that across the board, many people's efforts contributed to successful operations over the past year.

While the senior leadership team was looking at the overall picture, both Witter and the Deputy Director for Operations Aaron Gillison, said the site directors were key in monitoring what was happening at all DFAS locations.

"The site directors set a tone of optimism and focus to bring hope and to cheer employees on and constantly address morale," Witter said. "They were incredibly focused on how our people were doing and what was happening in our communities, and how we were serving the customer."

Both Witter and the Strategy, Policy, and Requirements Director, Michael Leist, acknowledged the herculean efforts of Information Technology and Human Resources to pivot and adjust to the ever-changing needs and requirements of the mission.

Witter credited the DFAS community's total collaboration, working with one another within teams and directorates and coordinating to get the job done.

"Whether it was IT working to put us in new capabilities, or our sites working with the contingency planning office, or our general employees working with customers, it was phenomenal to see the collaboration," Witter said, adding that the agency's relationship with the employee union has also been strong throughout the period.

Training, Technology Keeps Pace
In any regular year, employees transition into and out of the organization. Current employees need training, even during the pandemic. Witter credited Human Resources, Human Capital and the Learning and Development teams for continuing "unabated with some ingenuity."

"We needed to be able to continue to train people in a virtual environment. Our folks learned to overcome that and use some of the tools for training. Bringing on new employees virtually was something that we hadn't done, at least not at this order of magnitude," Witter said. "We moved to a virtual onboarding of employees which was new territory."

Picking up the workload and shifting locations, DFAS employees continued their mission from their living rooms, dining rooms, or home offices with many using tools they hadn't used before. "We proved that we could be resilient and innovative in this and so many other areas," Witter said.

As the year continued, so did the need to have more access to collaboration tools to ensure people could connect. Information Technology worked diligently to provide an increasing array of technology that included Commercial Virtual Remote/Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect, Microsoft Skype, and others.

The Human Side
DFAS employees and their families were not immune to the effects of the virus. The ability to meet their needs was paramount in leadership decisions.

Supervisors were the vital link between employees and leadership in assessing the team, branch, and directorate levels. "We had to track incidences of exposure (to COVID-19), that way, we could respond quickly in keeping the workplace safe and taking care of people," Witter said.

Otelia Anderson, an action officer in the Systems Implementation Office of ESS, said the biggest challenge for her was to continue to work while dealing with the death of friends from COVID-19 and five of her immediate family members who contracted the virus. Not knowing how her loved ones' health situations would be resolved and global uncertainty had the potential to make teleworking seem even more isolating. Anderson said "solitude of teleworking" made interacting and even socializing with coworkers challenging.
Despite being in separate locations, she said communication among her team increased, including a special "amazing" Christmas event that helped bring them together. Being in a sustained crisis mode helped bring out her team's "care and concern for each other and their families."

"We had to ensure that no missions lacked any area of attention and there were no gaps in customer service or the mission," Anderson said. "I learned that I'm able to adapt to whatever situation arises, and I have the ability to overcome the fear of the unknown and to be able to encourage others."

J.C. Woodring of Corporate Communications echoed the sentiment by stating, "I love my family, but I miss my team." He added, "Technology has great ways to keep us connected, but it's just not the same."

He said employees "proved we can be effective working in a remote environment, and in some ways more effective than being in an office." However, he added he's looking forward to rejoining the regular work-life rhythm of being on location and allowing home to be a place away from the office.

Return Plan Evolving
After more than a year of being in a near fulltime telework environment, the question on many people's minds is, "When do we go back to the sites?" DFAS Senior leaders are working on a "return to site" plan, but they are proceeding cautiously. "We're not in a hurry to go back to business-as-usual at our sites, bases, and posts," said Gillison. "I have three words that guide me: Safety. Safety. Safety."

As DFAS senior leadership prepares for a return to site, they are doing much of the same types of information gathering that brought them to this place a year ago:
• What is happening in the world, the nation, and local communities where DFAS sites are located?
• What are instructions from the federal government and Defense Department?
• What are health agencies at all levels reporting?
• What is the status of schools, daycares, and businesses?
• How is the vaccine rollout going?

Just as the move to maximum telework involved some key "triggers," so will the return. "We're focused on the next phases when we can return to some semblance of 'normal,' which may look different from site to site," said the Support Services Director, Altaf Hussain. According to Hussain, sites must have a "logistical and administrative" framework to be considered operational, including cafeterias at larger locations.

Vaccinations are important to the continued emphasis on safety, and Hussain noted that "we're trying to up the percentage" of people who have the opportunity to be vaccinated through partnerships with providers near DFAS locations.

Gillison shared that they've partnered with the National Guard in Indiana, Ohio and Maine as well as the Air National Guard in New York and the military-sponsored site in Cleveland to make vaccinations available to our workforce. The partnerships have resulted in several thousand employee volunteers receiving at least the first of two doses of the vaccine.

Since March 2020, DFAS has learned some lessons about operating in this extreme environment, particularly the technological advances that will carry over into the "new normal," according to Gillison, who further noted that "Throughout the year, we proved that with the clarity of instruction and standard operating procedures, we can continue to improve our processes and how we serve our customers."

As one of the world’s largest finance and accounting operations, DFAS supports military and civilian customers. Our mission emphasizes the importance of DFAS’ role as a primary contributor in standardizing and improving finance and accounting activities across the DoD. Our strategy supports our efforts to provide superior services to our customers now and in the future.

• Date Taken: 04.19.2021
• Date Posted: 04.19.2021 15:23
• Story ID: 394198
• Location: INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, US