Priority Open Recommendations: Office of Personnel Management
Fast Facts
Each year, we make more than 1,000 recommendations to help improve the federal government. We alert department heads to the recommendations where they can save the most money, address issues on our High Risk List, or significantly improve government operations.
This report outlines our 18 priority open recommendations for the Office of Personnel Management as of April 2019.
For example, we recommend ways to better address federal employee misconduct and improve the employee review process.
Since our previous letter in March 2018, OPM implemented 3 of our priority recommendations.
Graphic showing that this report discusses GAO's 2019 priority recommendations for the Office of Personnel Management
Highlights
What GAO Found
In March 2018, GAO identified 16 open priority recommendations for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Since then, OPM has implemented 3 of those recommendations by, among other things, taking actions to help agencies address workforce challenges and strengthen the government's ability to compete in the labor market.
In April 2019, GAO identified 5 additional open priority recommendations for OPM, bringing the total number to 18. These recommendations involve the following areas:
- addressing mission critical skills gaps.
- delivering agencies' missions in an era of constrained resources.
- improving the federal classification system.
- making hiring and special pay authorities more effective.
- improving Enterprise Human Resource Integration payroll data.
- addressing employee misconduct and improving performance management.
- strengthening controls over IT systems.
OPM's continued attention to these issues could lead to significant improvements in government operations.
Why GAO Did This Study
Priority recommendations are open GAO recommendations that warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies because their implementation could save large amounts of money; improve congressional and/or executive branch decision making on major issues; eliminate mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or ensure that programs comply with laws and that funds are legally spent, among other benefits. Since 2015, GAO has sent letters to selected agencies to highlight the importance of implementing such recommendations.
For more information, contact Yvonne Jones at (202) 512-2717 or jonesy@gao.gov.