Seamless strategic workforce realignment in a high-stakes environment

Challenge

A U.S. federal law enforcement agency needed to relocate personnel and functions from the Washington, D.C. area to a southern state—all while maintaining operational continuity. The agency’s mission-critical nature meant that any disruption to operations was unacceptable.

The relocation effort was part of a broader realignment initiative to optimize resources and enhance collaboration by collocating functions together into a larger space. 

Agency leaders needed to:

1. Calculate the number of positions potentially impacted by the relocation by unit
2. Determine the number of people and the number of vacancies within each relocation unit
3. Identify and attribute relevant details of each unit
4. Integrate and rationalize data reported from and collected at multiple organizational levels

To simplify, integrate, and analyze the data needed for the relocation, the agency turned to Guidehouse for assistance.

Approach

Through proactive engagement, innovative thinking, and data-driven solutions, our team developed a comprehensive strategy to facilitate the seamless transition of personnel and functions. Our approach included:

• Stakeholder engagement: Building strong partnerships with agency divisions to understand mission needs and workforce requirements
• Data-driven decision-making: Designing and deploying a dynamic dashboard to track relocation metrics such as acceptance rates, unit-level movement, and individual progress through the relocation process
• Customer-centric support: Providing tailored relocation guidance and support to employees, ensuring transparency and responsiveness throughout the transition
• Strategic workforce planning: Collaborating with leadership to shape the future workforce by aligning talent with mission priorities and emerging threats
• Automation development: Creating and maintaining automation products to streamline manual tracking and reporting efforts and reduce administrative burdens
• Data accuracy refinement: Pulling and collating data from five distinct sources—vacancy data reports, funded staffing level data, hard-to-fill position reports, reconstitution documents, and combined divisional SharePoint lists—to yield a more accurate, inclusive picture for decision-making
• Process improvements: Establishing documented, deliberate processes developed from lessons learned that could be consistently applied across all current and future efforts regardless of changes in impacted populations

Impact

These efforts have laid the foundation for a future-ready workforce and resulted in:

• Enhanced visibility: The relocation dashboard is providing real-time insights across 600+ positions and 40+ different cost codes identified for potential personnel movement—enabling leadership across nine divisions to make informed decisions and adjust strategies as needed. 
• Improved acceptance rates: Through targeted engagement and support, we’ve increased employee buy-in and reduced attrition risks. Enhancing communication through timely, consistent automated letter generation and employee notifications is vital to influencing acceptance.
• Mission continuity: By aligning relocation timelines with operational demands, the agency has maintained uninterrupted mission execution.
• Workforce optimization: Thanks to the strategic realignment, the agency can now better position its talent to address emerging threats and national security priorities.
• Data accuracy: Consistent, reliable data reporting is preventing the risks associated with erroneous notification of unimpacted populations. It ensures that space and resources are being properly appropriated to sustain the realignment as it occurs and it balances vacancies and workforce gaps to minimize negative impacts.

As the relocation effort continues, the team expects to deepen its impact across customer care, data tracking, and stakeholder engagement—helping build a resilient, future-ready workforce that remains ahead of threats no matter where the mission takes them.