This position is located on the Training Staff of the Office of Financial Management (OFM), Veteran Benefits Administration (VBA). The Training Staff was created to design, develop, and implement technical skills and competency-based training programs across the OFM and Support Services Division (SSD) enterprise.

Duties

Specific duties include: Develops and manages consistent processes for OFM's training programs and training systems that comply with requirements and expectations for federal agencies to improve information available for employee development action planning, focus training resources more effectively, promote data-driven decision-making, and provide world-class service to Veterans, service members, and beneficiaries as well as administration employees and representatives. Provides senior-level expertise and develops resources to educate OFM Training Division leadership and personnel on training evaluation and learning effectiveness principles and methodologies in order to develop and strengthen skills across the VBA training community. Manages, updates, and executes OFM's training program evaluation plans to ensure recurring training evaluation efforts align with leading practices, and complies with VBA's annually published, Strategy for Evaluating Employee Training within VA's Veterans Benefits Administration. Performs problem-solving and develop courses of action and decision briefs on existing and new OFM Training Division programs and projects, based on evaluation activity results and agency priorities. This includes the inclusion of non-OFM-authored training content into curriculum and competency-based training systems. Provides expertise in Human Performance Improvement/Human Performance Technology (HPI/HPT) and Instructional Systems Design (ISD) and works closely with the training community to provide continuous, collaborative support to VBA's Support Services Division and OFM divisions/staffs. Collaborates and provides expertise to staff resources necessary to create the work products that will result in ISD-based training products. Staff resources include a multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts from the field and VBA Central Office organizations. Assures that project/program management principles are in use and proper controls are maintained to permit accurate forecasting of schedules, costs, and resource needs for planning and coordination of training initiatives and programs. Develops project schedules and supports the integrated master schedule to plan and coordinate the use of the subject matter experts' and others' time. Manages and provides expertise and support for concurrent training-related initiatives for VBA personnel in Support Services Division and OFM. Develops project goals, set expectations, and product outcomes to meet VBA deadlines for implementation of training. Develops cost estimates and Plans of Action and Milestones (POA&M). Manages program-level issues which apply to multiple programs, such as information systems requirements, interface with organizational metrics, business process changes, acquisition strategies, risk assessment, and life cycle support. Prepares position papers and top-level briefings for business line or support function staff directors and OFM senior leadership recommending alternative strategies of instruction to fulfill development or training needs of VBA's Support Services Division and OFM divisions/staffs. Collaborates with OFM divisions to develop division/staff-level annual training plans. Prepares training manuals and materials in collaboration with the Training Team; provides consistency in the delivery of content across the organization and uses approved SOPs to modify and update training as needed; manages approved training materials on SharePoint for agency employees. Work Schedule: Full time, Monday through Friday, 8 am - 4:30 pm Compressed/Flexible: Available Telework: Available Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Instructional Systems Specialist; 41906-0 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not Authorized

Requirements

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• You may be required to serve a probationary period
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement:08/21/2024. TIME-IN-GRADE REQUIREMENT: Applicants who are current Federal employees, former Federal employees applying for reinstatement, or a current federal employee applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment must meet time in grade requirements. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. NOTE: This does not apply to Non-Federal Applicants, or applicants applying for consideration under Non-Competitive Authority (i.e.... "30% or more Disability", VRA, and/or Schedule A). To verify your eligibility, you must submit a copy of your most recent Notification of Personnel Action, Standard Form 50 (SF-50). You must provide a copy of your most recent SF-50 that indicates proof of status, and shows Time in Grade (for example, you were a career or career-conditional employee) and identifies your position title, series, grade, step, salary, tenure, and type of service (Competitive or Excepted). If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must also submit your most recent promotion or within-grade increase in addition to your recent SF-50. If you previously held a higher grade, you must also submit any SF-50 showing that grade. DO NOT submit Award SF-50's and/or General Adjustment SF-50's as they cannot be used to prove time-in-grade. For a GS-14 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-13 level. NOTE: Applicants must meet both the Basic Requirement and the Specialized Experience as stated below. INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT: To be considered, you MUST possess the following: Degree: that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours appropriate to the work of the position to be filled. The course work must have included study in at least four of the following five areas: Learning theory, psychology of learning, educational psychology: Study of learning theories as they relate to the systematic design, development, and validation of instructional material. Instructional design practices: Study of the principles and techniques used in designing training programs, developing design strategy and models, and applying design methods to the improvement of instructional effectiveness. Educational evaluation: Study of the techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of instructional/educational programs, including developing written and performance tests and survey instruments, and determining reliability and validity of evaluation instruments. Instructional product development: Study of the techniques appropriate for developing training materials, including identifying learner characteristics, specifying objectives, applying training strategy, validating training materials, and evaluating training. Computers in education and training: Study of the application of computers in education and training, including selecting appropriate computer software. MINIMUM QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENT: You may qualify based on your experience as described below: GS-14 Grade Level: Specialized Experience: To qualify for this position at the GS 14 level, applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-13 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include but are not limited to: (1) providing management advisory and consultant services on a wide range of training related matters; (2) assessing training needs to develop training materials and curriculum, and evaluation of training results; (3) analyzing training programs to provide recommendations for improvement. Please Note: There is no provision to substitute education for experience at the GS-14 grade level. Volunteer Experience: Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Full vs. Part-Time Employment: Full-time employment is considered to be at least 35 hours per week. Part-time experience will be credited on a pro-rated basis; when including part-time employment in your resume you must specify the average hours worked per week. Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary but involves the use of a personal computer so a degree of manual dexterity and visual acuity sufficient to use these tools is required. Some slight physical effort is required in that the incumbent lifts and carries reference books, working papers, and similar items to and from meetings. A moderate amount of standing and walking is required in getting to and from meeting places away from the worksite. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at http://://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Education

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to be credited towards qualifications. Provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
All education claimed by applicants will be verified upon appointment. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript to receive credit.

Contacts

• Address VBA Human Resources Center - Central Office 810 Vermont Ave NW Washington, DC 20420 US
• Name: Brittani Freeman
• Phone: (443) 354-0767
• Email: [email protected]