Policy Analyst II OBO-1

Place of Performance: Arlington VA (Hybrid 2+ days on-site)

SCOPE:  : Maasai is seeking a Policy Analyst with specific background in policy analysis and policy formulation who also can review proposed legislation and assess impact.

All TMG employees will need to meet the requirements set forth in Executive Order 14042 and the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force Guidance requiring all covered contractor personnel to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:

• Must be a U.S. citizen.
• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field.
• Active Secret Clearance
• Must have expert knowledge of agency-wide laws, federal regulations, policies, programs, and operations.
• Knowledge of the Department’s authorities, governing legislations, policy issues, goals, and objectives.
• Knowledge of pertinent research and analytical methodology and ability to apply such techniques to policy issues, such as: performing extensive inquiry into a wide variety of significant issues, problems, or proposals; determining data sources and relevance of findings and synthesizing information; evaluating tentative study findings and drawing logical conclusions; identifying omissions, questionable assumptions, or inadequate data in the analytical work of others; and conducting cost benefit analysis, survey methods and regression analysis.
• Skill in effectively communicating highly complex technical material or highly complex issues that may have controversial findings, or both, using language appropriate to specialists and/or non-specialists, facilitating the formulation of a decision.
• Mastery of analytical tools and methodology to develop and implement DOS/OBO laws, policies, and regulations.
• Ability to understand general administrative and program policies, and management and organizational theories. Within the context of broad regulatory guidelines, recommend improvements such as refining and developing guidelines that are more specific.
• Assist policy makers in developing, evaluating, analyzing, and interpreting policies to resolve complex problems of agency wide significance and impact.
• Resolve complex policy questions and provides a basis for major decisions that affect OBO activities and operations.
• Work consists of a wide range of projects and studies involving broad and in-depth analysis and evaluation of not always clearly related facts, practices and issues, to enhance operational effectiveness, and productivity for major aspects of substantive mission-oriented programs.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Analyzes policy and serves as an advisor to RM/P Office Director and as a resource to OBO offices. Researches and analyzes existing, emerging, and new policies and supports the development of OBO policy and other component and office policies. Coordinates with appropriate OBO offices, DOS components and other federal agencies to gather and compile relevant data for benchmarking and maintains knowledge of OBO operations that may influence policy; facilitates a variety of sessions, working groups, forums, and meetings to identify and solve policy gaps and problems. Prepares relevant policy documents resulting from receiving sensitive information and direct feedback from leadership on policy, program direction, strategy, future organizational designs, as well as legislative and budgetary proposals. In furtherance of these responsibilities, the contractor performs tasks and assignments that typically include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:

 PDs, SOPs, and P&PDs: Conduct a current-state analysis for all OBO policy directives (PD), Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and Policy and Procedural Directives (P&PD), those that are both active and in draft status.

Review and update both active and draft PDs and SOPs to ensure policy language is still relevant and accurate and that they adhere to the updated 2020 templates.

• Review PDs to ensure any necessary corresponding SOPs are drafted and complete. Draft and publish any missing SOPs.
• If the scope of any of the active PDs and SOPs pertain to programs impacting overseas posts and other bureaus rather than only internal to OBO, publish in FAM/FAH.
• Review P&PDs to identify those that are obsolete, those that should be modified and transposed into PDs and SOPs, those that should be incorporated in the FAM/FAH.
• Review and update the active P&PDs to ensure policy language is still relevant and accurate and convert to PDs and SOPs using the proper updated templates.
• Review both active and rescinded P&PDs to ensure that both PDs and SOPs have been converted to the new format. (In some cases, P&PDs were transposed into PDs, but the corresponding procedures have not been transposed into SOPs.) Draft and publish any missing SOPs.
• If the scope of any of the active P&PDs pertain to programs impacting overseas posts and other bureaus rather than only internal to OBO, publish in FAM/FAH.
• Support drafting offices and divisions in developing SOPs that are logical, describe linear procedures (checklists and /or process flows) to support implementing corresponding policies. Ensure procedures establish clarity on the various roles in that workflow, including process steps, and decision points, required approvals gates.
• Identify gaps in policy or duplicative policies and address accordingly.
• Develop and recommend a governance and maintenance approach, including a review of the existing high-level organizational themes/categories structure for policy documents (i.e.: project or functional themes and categories for each theme) to validate existing structure or propose new structure Recommend a long-term storage format, e.g., document library.

FAM/FAH:

• Conduct a current-state analysis of existing 15 FAM through comparison of content to all OBO-managed programs and organizational structure, identifying and addressing gaps in policies, obsolete and/or duplicative (either within 15 FAM or in other Bureaus’ FAM chapters) policies.
• Develop and implement plan for drafting new FAM subchapters and, if necessary, structural updates to the 15 FAM volume.
• Extract procedural content from 15 FAM and transpose into accompanying draft FAHs, collaborating with subject-matter offices to ensure accuracy.
• Develop and recommend a governance and maintenance approach

DECISION MAKING/JUDGEMENT: This position involves projects and/or assignments requiring considerable decision-making authority regarding procedures, processes, plans, and schedules. Ability to work independently or in a team setting is necessary.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS/WORK ENVIRONMENT:  The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Needs ability to use a keyboard to enter and retrieve data. .
• Must be able to lift 5-20 pounds.
• Remaining in a stationary position, often standing, or sitting for prolonged periods.
• Moving about to accomplish tasks or moving from one worksite to another.
• Local travel may be required.