People First and Mission Always With NASA Chief Human Capital Officer Jane Datta

In this episode of Redefining HR, I speak with NASA’s chief human capital officer, Jane Datta. We discuss her career, leading the people team at one of the world’s most recognized organizations and NASA’s approach to recruiting in a high-volume environment. We also talk about the effects of the Great Resignation and why NASA puts people first. 

Jane has been with NASA since 2009 and became chief human capital officer — equivalent to a chief HR officer — in January 2020, right before the pandemic hit. Her road to NASA was a long one that included a deliberate turn toward HR. Early in her career, Jane went to business school before deciding that HR, with “this nice combination of being analytical and creative and very-people focused,” was the right move for her.

“All my experience to that point had been in people-focused roles and organizations,”  Jane says. “And so I knew that’s what I needed, and so that’s what I pursued.”

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People Before the Mission

NASA’s mission teams are structured a bit differently than most. They are focused on long-term, high-impact projects that need to be executed with intention. That’s why Jane and her HR team are intentional about how they talk about NASA’s missions and people.

The HR team used to talk about “Mission first, people always,” but Jane and her team decided to change that around to “People first, mission always.” 

“You sort of don’t have a mission without people,” Jane says. “And a lot of times that gets lost, especially when you see pictures of all these wonderful things going around in space and helicopters on Mars, and it’s easy to forget that all came from the people who made it happen.”

The curiosity, creativity, analytical and intuitive traits of NASA’s employees empower everything the agency does. 

“In human capital, with the employee-driven programs, knowing that the workforce is first, we’re really thinking of what workforce we need and how to make sure that they are engaged and have what they need to bring their full selves to work,” Jane says. “It just made sense to have the motto that way around.” 

Talent Support for Multiyear Missions

Much of NASA’s work involves extensive, multiyear missions, which can be challenging for HR when designing and building people strategies. NASA looks for a combination of stability and agility in its workforce, where its best people stick around but can also move to new projects as needed.

“We have engineers [who] might have worked on a specific program for a while but actually are very transferable over to other types of work,” she says. “I think we have a sense of what I would call skilled athletes, if you will, that you can move around to do different things within reasonable boundaries.”

While NASA still has missions that last for decades, it also operates in a faster-moving ecosystem or partners and contractors that requires agility and adaptation.

“One of the ways that we have addressed that is, we’ve kind of adopted this idea that some of our workforce needs to be more project-based,” she says. “And so that they don’t come necessarily with the expectation of being at NASA for their entire careers — or, perhaps better said, being in roles for long periods of time.”

Securing Talent During the Great Resignation

Everyone was affected by the Great Resignation. And while NASA was less affected by attrition than many employers, the agency still had to confront tough conversations around what people expect out of their jobs.

”We weren’t insulated from the impacts of all the debates around the future of work,” Jane says, “and the balancing of your work life with your other responsibilities, and the degree to which you feel connected to what you are doing and needing to have some flexibility in choices.”

NASA took these conversations seriously. The agency understood that to be an employer of choice, it had to proceed with intention.

“I know that our employees care about this, and if we don’t pay attention, I think they’ll let us know,” Jane says. “And in one way or another, whether that’s ‘I leave the agency’ or ‘I just let you know.’ And we need to listen. And that’s why I think we’re not fully insulated, nor should we be from what that was all about.”

People in This Episode

• Jane Datta: LinkedIn