introduction

Introduction

Wander the back roads and forgotten paths, keeping your destination in your heart like the fixed point of a compass.- Hallmark

In January, 1995, the employees of the National Park Service were introduced to a new servicewide Employee Training and Development Strategy. It identified nearly 250 job titles in 16 different career fields. The subsequent Career Planning and Tracking Kit, issued in May, 1996, identified the skills needed to perform those jobs and categorized them into entry, developmental and full-performance levels. The move to competency-based training recognized not only the diversity of employees and the jobs that they hold, but also the myriad ways that employees acquire the skills necessary to perform those jobs.

As unique as each job is, there are certain skills needed by all employees, in every field and at every level. These "Universal Competencies" (UCs) were deemed to include Mission Comprehension, Agency Orientation, Resource Stewardship, NPS Operations, Fundamental Values, Communication Skills, Problem-solving Skills and Individual Development and Planning (See Appendix 1 for descriptions). Many of these skills may be acquired through self-paced modules that can be taken at the employee's duty station; through interaction with peers; and other on-the-job developmental opportunities. Other skills by their nature mandate classroom interaction..

In 1997, in consultation with Regional Employee Development Officers and the Servicewide Training Managers for each of the career fields, two training opportunities that addressed these skills were developed. The first opportunity, later named Compass I: With Orientation Comes Direction, is a self-paced package that can be completed at the employee's duty station, and delivers three of the UCs (Mission Comprehension, Agency Orientation, and Individual Development and Planning). Compass I takes from 16-40 hours to complete, depending on the participant. The second opportunity, Compass II: Today's Leaders, Tomorrow's Legends, takes the form of a traditional field and classroom course and addresses the remaining UCs. After several test runs, the courses were introduced servicewide in September 1997. As of September 1999, 35 Compass II courses had been presented for 829 participants.

The Compass program was created to fill a void between the cessation of traditional orientation programs (circa 1994) and the creation of the Core Curriculum of the Universal Competencies. Both Compass I and Compass II will be subsumed into this new, more comprehensive and strenuous curriculum. Eighty percent of the Core Curriculum is expected to be available to all employees early in 2000, the the remaining twent percent coming on line in early fiscal year 2001.