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The Program Analyst SME, Workforce & Organizational Effectiveness is a senior leadership role embedded in the Program Management Office (PMO) and reporting directly to the Program Manager. This position serves as the program’s strategic advisor, integrator, and operator for people-related functions, with a primary mandate to drive culture change, strengthen manager capability, and improve the day-to-day experience of staff. The Program Analyst SME ensures that the program’s approximately 440-person workforce is positioned, developed, and engaged to meet current contract performance requirements, support recompetes, and enable future growth. This is not a traditional HR role and not a recruiting role; rather, it is a PMO leadership position that requires recruiting awareness, and strong interpersonal judgment in order to shape a high-performing, healthy organization in close partnership with corporate functions.
The Program Analyst SME functions as an extension of the Program Manager and serves as a trusted advisor to the PM, Deputy Program Managers, and all leads, supervisors, and managers across the program. Success in this role will be reflected in measurable improvements in manager consistency, employee development visibility, and workforce stability across the program.
Core Responsibilities
Manager Enablement & Leadership Development
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Serve as the primary architect of manager effectiveness, establishing expectations and standards for how managers lead, communicate, and support their teams.
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Coach and support leads, supervisors, and managers in effective 1:1 practice, performance conversations, feedback delivery, recognition, and team health management.
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Establish, monitor, and continuously improve a program standard for quality monthly 1:1s across the management chain, including cadence expectations, discussion guides, and manager accountability mechanisms.
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Assess manager adoption and effectiveness of 1:1 practice through feedback, check-ins, and workforce indicators, and implement corrective coaching where consistency or quality is lacking.
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Develop and distribute standardized tools, templates, and playbooks to help managers prepare for recurring people interactions, including 1:1s, performance check-ins, corrective actions, and recognition.
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Identify and address leadership gaps across the management chain through structured development activities, peer learning forums, and targeted coaching.
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Serve as a confidential sounding board for managers navigating complex employee situations, escalating to HR when appropriate while maintaining ownership of program culture within the PMO.
Career Pathing & Employee Development
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Build and maintain a clear, credible development and mobility framework that enables staff to see a future on program and equips managers to have meaningful career conversations.
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Design and maintain formal career pathways within the program across functional tracks, including technical, operational, program management, and security/cyber.
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Ensure staff can identify at least one realistic growth path within the program, including progression within role, advancement to broader responsibility, or movement into adjacent functional tracks.
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Partner with managers to translate career pathways into practical employee development conversations and visible next-step opportunities.
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Partner with GDIT Learning & Development and HR to connect program staff with relevant training, certifications, and upskilling resources.
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Drive the program’s upskilling strategy aligned to evolving scope areas, including cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, AI/ML-adjacent operations, and enterprise IT services.
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Support succession readiness by identifying high-potential staff and building individualized development plans with their managers.
Workforce Planning & Strategic Staffing
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Own the program-level view of workforce health and future needs, turning data into staffing and development decisions that support contract execution and recompete positioning.
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Lead strategic workforce planning across CONUS and OCONUS footprint, including headcount modeling, skill gap analysis, and attrition risk assessment.
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Maintain a workforce health dashboard tracking key metrics such as attrition trends, bench strength, critical role coverage, clearance pipeline, and key person dependencies.
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Monitor leading indicators of attrition risk and employee disengagement, and proactively advise program leadership on retention actions before issues result in avoidable turnover.
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Analyze resignation patterns, hotspots, and workforce sentiment trends to reduce surprise attrition and improve continuity in mission-critical roles.
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Coordinate with Program Control and DPMs to align staffing levels to contract CLINs, budget, and performance obligations.
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Support recompete efforts by documenting workforce maturity, staffing model rationale, and organizational design artifacts for proposal volumes.
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Integrate workforce planning outputs with the broader organizational consolidation strategy.
Organizational Change Management (OCM) & Communications
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Lead organizational change and internal communications so staff understand what is changing, why it matters, and how it affects them, reducing confusion, resistance, and churn during transitions.
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Own and execute internal communications strategy, including manager-level messaging, all-hands content, program updates, and morale initiatives.
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Integrate with OCM planning and execution for major program transitions, including organizational restructuring, site integrations, technology rollouts, and contract transitions.
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Develop and maintain a multi-channel communications matrix aligned to program leadership cadence and the needs of distributed CONUS/OCONUS staff.
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Design and execute morale and engagement programs in coordination with leadership, including milestone recognition, town halls, and site-specific activities.
Corporate & Program Partner Integration
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Serve as the program’s integrator with GDIT corporate functions, ensuring needs are clearly represented while maintaining appropriate boundaries with formal HR authorities.
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Serve as the program’s primary liaison to GDIT corporate Human Resources, Program Support, Learning & Development, and Talent Acquisition.
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Stay current on GDIT corporate policy changes, HR programs, Performance Compass updates, and benefits/compensation developments, synthesizing and sharing relevant information with program managers in a timely and actionable manner.
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Coordinate with Talent Acquisition on active recruiting actions, including key personnel hiring and workforce pipeline development, while ensuring recruiting remains an enabling function and not the core focus of the role.
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Represent program workforce needs in corporate-level forums and escalate systemic barriers to leadership.
Required Qualifications:
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Bachelor of Science in Business Management
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15+ years of progressive experience in Program management, human capital, organizational effectiveness, workforce strategy, and related leadership roles within a government IT or defense contracting environment.
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Demonstrated PMO experience with direct accountability for people-related program functions such as workforce planning, OCM, communications, manager enablement, and or talent development.
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10+ years of experience coaching and enabling managers, leading culture or behavior change initiatives, and improving employee engagement on complex, large-scale programs.
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Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex program dynamics into clear messaging for diverse audiences.
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Experience partnering with corporate HR, Learning & Development, and Talent Acquisition in a matrixed organization.
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Strong judgment, discretion, and interpersonal effectiveness when handling sensitive employee and leadership matters.
Preferred Qualifications:
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Experience supporting federal proposal or capture efforts, including workforce/staffing volumes, org charts, and management approach narratives.
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Experience managing or supporting a program of 500+ personnel across geographically distributed sites.
This position directly supports recompete readiness by providing a live, documentable workforce strategy and culture narrative that demonstrates management maturity to the government customer. The incumbent may be designated as Key Personnel or Significant Personnel and the artifacts produced in this role, including workforce plans, career frameworks, OCM plans, internal communications materials, and workforce health metrics, will directly support the Management Volume and Past Performance narratives.
GDIT is Your Place
At GDIT, the mission is our purpose, and our people are at the center of everything we do.
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Growth: AI-powered career tool that identifies career steps and learning opportunities
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Support: An internal mobility team focused on helping you achieve your career goals
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Rewards: Comprehensive benefits and wellness packages, 401K with company match, and competitive pay and paid time off
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Community: Award-winning culture of innovation and a military-friendly workplace
OWN YOUR OPPORTUNITY
Explore a career in program management at GDIT and you’ll find endless opportunities to grow alongside colleagues who share your passion for the mission and delivering results.
