C O R P O R A T I O N
Research Report
KEY FINDINGS
■ Employees expressed concern that they lacked information on issues such as the targeted
local market supplement amount, interchange agreements to allow applications to non-CES
jobs at different organizations, and who approves individual flexible pay settings.
■ Employees also were uncertain about how the CES would affect their particular career path.
■ Some civilians conflated the CES with other excepted services that make it easier to hire—
and fire—employees.
■ Subject-matter experts reported hearing that administrative and human resources staff were
worried about stovepiping into cyber-related jobs and that employees near retirement were
less concerned about CES benefits as they felt those benefits would not apply to them.
■ Subject-matter experts observed that younger workers and workers in cyber-related career
paths were more likely to convert to the CES.
DAVID KNAPP, SINA BEAGHLEY, KAREN SCHWINDT, DANIEL SCHWAM
Employee Conversions to the
Cyber Excepted Service
Assessing Factors and Characteristics Related
to Personnel Conversion Decisions
C
ongress created the Cyber Excepted Service (CES) in Section 1107 of the 2016 National
Defense Authorization Act (Pub. L. 114-92, 2015). The authorities in this section were
intended to attract and retain high-caliber personnel critical to the Department of Defense
(DoD) cyber warfare mission (U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 2015).
The CES is a distinct personnel system within the federal government. It was initially composed
of employees transferring into it from other personnel systems—a process we refer to as a CES con-
version. In creating the CES, Congress made CES conversion voluntary for most current employees.
In this report, we evaluate the characteristics of employees who chose to convert to the CES, as
well as factors that might have influenced other personnel not to convert. Five DoD organizations
have gone through the voluntary conversion process to date, and others—including Army Cyber
Command (ARCYBER) and Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER)—will convert their positions
in the coming years. This report is intended to inform future DoD efforts to convert employees to
the CES by characterizing which factors are associated with conversion and providing recommenda-
