As civilian workforce shrinks, DISA turns to automation

BlackHays

10 hours ago

Originally published As civilian workforce shrinks, DISA turns to automation on May 8, 2025 03:44 by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2025/05/as-civilian-workforce-shrinks-disa-turns-to-automation/ at Federal News Network

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/DISA-contracts-102418-e1687379763793-1024x576.jpg

The Defense Information Systems Agency — like the rest of the Defense Department — is grappling with a mass exodus of civilian employees due to the Deferred Resignation Program and early retirements. In response, DISA leadership is turning to automation and artificial intelligence to offset the impact of workforce reductions.

“The way I look at it is yes, we have to give up people to DRP and to Voluntary Retirement Authority, because that’s what they want and I’m not going to be the one to get in their way. Just like Gen. [Paul] Stanton said, if they want that, we should allow them to do it,” Jeff Marshall, DISA’s J9 Hosting and Compute Director, told reporters at AFCEA TechNet Cyber.

“What do we do in the meantime, we look at how we get more effective. What can we automate better? Where can we get efficiencies there? How can we use AI and ML in order to do that with fewer people and quicker and be able to combine that along with everything else that we’re doing in order to be a compact yet efficient organization?” he added.

Marshall said the agency is about to launch an exercise where various teams will use generative AI tools to identify challenges within their offices, explore potential solutions, and prioritize two to three high impact use cases.

The goal, Marshall said, is to pinpoint areas where emerging technologies can deliver the greatest return — or, as he put it, “the best juice for the squeeze.”

Those priorities will then guide prototyping effort, though no timeline has been set.

“It’s an urgency need. But based on how everything is going lately, it’s hard for me to pin that down and say we’re going to do things by this time,” Marshall said.

Given current staffing shortfalls, DISA is also focusing on training and upskilling its existing workforce as part of developing what Marshall called the “technician of the future.”

The goal is to ensure DISA employees are equipped to manage increasingly complex tasks, such as supporting multiple cloud service provider environments for the agency’s customers.

In the past year, the agency hired a chief learning officer to help review position descriptions across the agency and identify which technical roles are good candidates for upskilling. From there, she is developing internal course requirements, timelines and a centralized portal where employees can view the courses they need to advance or transition into more specialized roles.

JWCC 2.0 delays

Workforce reductions are also impacting the rollout of the next iteration of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability.

The Defense Department has already made over 107 task orders under JWCC — a significant milestone for the department. The JWCC contract could be worth up to $9 billion over 10 years if DoD decides to exercise all its available options.

The Defense Department started talking about what is next for JWCC back in 2023. Last year, Les Benito, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Hosting and Compute Center’s chief of product development and management, told reporters the department was working on identifying additional requirements that needed to be included in the next contract.

While DISA is still aiming to meet the 18-month rollout goal set earlier this year, Marshall said JWCC 2.0 is “slightly behind” schedule due to recent civilian workforce reductions.

“I think that we’ll be able to get on track within the next year for that and be able to keep going after it as far as putting together what we’re actually looking for out of the contract. But right now, we’re still gathering the demand signal of what the combatant commands, military services, and defense agencies and field activities are looking for from it.” said Marshal.

In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department was preparing to reduce its civilian workforce by 5% to 8%, and announced that approximately 5,400 probationary employees would be laid off. The Defense Department is currently offering civilians the deferred resignation program and Voluntary Early Retirement Authority to help the DoD reach that goal and before it initiates a reduction in force.

Originally published Federal News Network