Human Capital: Opportunities Exist to Build on Recent Progress to Strengthen DOD's Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan
GAO-09-235
Published: Feb 10, 2009. Publicly Released: Feb 10, 2009.
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Highlights
Having the right number of civilian personnel with the right skills is critical to achieving the Department of Defense's (DOD) mission. With more than 50 percent of its civilian workforce (about 700,000 civilians) eligible to retire in the next few years, DOD may be faced with deciding how to fill numerous mission-critical positions--some involving senior leadership. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 requires DOD to develop a strategic human capital plan, update it annually through 2010, and address eight requirements. GAO previously found that DOD's 2007 plan did not meet most requirements. The 2007 NDAA added nine requirements to the annual update to shape DOD's senior leader workforce. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which DOD's 2008 update addressed (1) the 2006 human capital planning requirements, (2) the 2007 senior leader requirements, and (3) key factors that may affect civilian workforce planning. GAO analyzed the update, compared it with the requirements, and reviewed factors identified in the update and prior GAO work.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To continue the progress DOD has made with its human capital strategic planning efforts, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to task the newly established program management office, which is responsible for addressing the requirements of the FY 2006 NDAA, to develop a performance plan that includes establishing implementation goals and time frames, measuring performance, and aligning activities with resources. |
In accordance with our recommendation that DOD develop a performance plan that includes establishing implementation goals and time frames, and measuring performance, DOD, in its 2012 update to its strategic workforce plan included implementation goals and time frames for improving its strategic workforce planning capabilities in order to fully meet mandated strategic planning requirements. Specifically, DOD's 2012 plan identified goals to be met by fiscal year 2015 such as developing and acquiring tools to assess competencies, monitoring the implementation and effectiveness of strategies to close gaps, and identifying lessons learned to improve data collection, forecasting, and workforce analysis. DOD's 2012 plan also identified 18 goals intended to facilitate addressing all the mandated strategic workforce planning requirements by 2015. Additionally, DOD's 2012 update to its strategic workforce plan also included performance measures for tracking the implementation of the plan. Specifically, the plan included four measures to assess the department's progress in implementing and refining the overall strategic workforce plan: (1) percent of managers reporting they have the talent they need to meet mission requirements, (2), percent difference between mission-critical occupation actual end-strength and target end-strength, (3) percent of workforce planning key milestones in the rolling wave model completed by each mission-critical occupations, and (4) number of mission-critical occupation competency models developed. These efforts address the intent of our recommendation that DOD develop a performance plan for its strategic workforce plan and, as a result, DOD will be in a better position to meet mandated strategic workforce planning requirements.
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| Department of Defense | To continue the progress DOD has made with its human capital strategic planning efforts, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to task the newly established executive management office, which is responsible for addressing the requirements of the FY 2007 NDAA, to develop a performance plan that includes establishing implementation goals and time frames, measuring performance, and aligning activities with resources. |
In accordance with our recommendation that DOD develop a performance plan that includes establishing implementation goals and time frames, and measuring performance, DOD, in its 2012 update to its strategic workforce plan DOD included implementation goals and time frames for improving its strategic workforce planning capabilities in order to fully meet mandated strategic planning requirements. Specifically, DOD's 2012 plan identified goals to be met by fiscal year 2015 such as developing and acquiring tools to assess competencies, monitoring the implementation and effectiveness of strategies to close gaps, and identifying lessons learned to improve data collection, forecasting, and workforce analysis. DOD's 2012 plan also identifies 18 goals intended to facilitate addressing all the mandated strategic workforce planning requirements by 2015. Additionally, DOD's 2012 update to its strategic workforce plan also included performance measures for tracking the implementation of the plan. Specifically, the plan included four measures to assess the department's progress in implementing and refining the overall strategic workforce plan: (1) percent of managers reporting they have the talent they need to meet mission requirements, (2), percent difference between mission-critical occupation actual end-strength and target end-strength, (3) percent of workforce planning key milestones in the rolling wave model completed by each mission-critical occupations, and (4) number of mission-critical occupation competency models developed. These efforts address the intent of our recommendation that DOD develop a performance plan for its strategic workforce plan and, as a result, DOD will be in a better position to meet mandated strategic workforce planning requirements.
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| Department of Defense | To continue the progress DOD has made with its human capital strategic planning efforts, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to incorporate, in future updates to its strategic human capital plan, strategies for addressing factors that could significantly affect DOD's civilian workforce plans--including contractor roles and the effect contractors have on requirements for DOD's civilian workforce. |
DOD's latest strategic workforce plan did not address specific factors that could significantly affect DOD's civilian workforce plans. Specifically, DOD's 2010-2018 update to its strategic workforce plan did not address contractor roles and the effect contractors have on requirements as stated in the recommendation. DOD expects to issue its next workforce plan in September 2013. At that time, we will begin our assessment to determine if DOD addressed the specific factors from our recommendation.
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