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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

May 2014: 

Human Capital: 

Strategies to Help Agencies Meet Their Missions in an Era of Highly 
Constrained Resources: 

GAO-14-168: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-14-168, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Given the budgetary and long-term fiscal challenges facing the nation, 
agencies must identify options to meet their missions with fewer 
resources. However, if agencies do not pay careful attention to 
strategic workforce planning and other approaches to personnel 
management, then reduced investments in human capital can have 
lasting, detrimental effects on their capacity to meet their mission. 
GAO was asked to review the actions taken by selected agencies to 
manage their workforces and plan for future needs in an era of flat or 
declining budgets. 

This report assesses (1) key strategic human capital challenges 
federal agencies face in an era of highly constrained resources and 
identifies strategies for addressing them, and (2) the extent to which 
OPM ensures agencies have the assistance that CHCOs considered most 
important to mitigate human capital challenges. 

What GAO Found: 

GAO convened a forum of chief human capital officers (CHCO) who 
described a number of difficulties their agencies face in maintaining 
the capacity to meet their missions during lean fiscal times. GAO's 
analysis identified three broad recurring human capital challenges and 
strategies to address them. While these challenges were not new nor 
exclusively a result of constrained budgets, reduced resources 
exacerbated the challenges and also created a willingness among 
agencies to consider nontraditional strategies for addressing them, 
namely: 

1. Strengthening coordination to address a fragmented human capital 
community. Our analysis found that the federal human capital community 
is highly fragmented with multiple actors inside government informing 
and executing personnel policies and initiatives in ways that are not 
always aligned with broader, government-wide human capital efforts. 
The CHCO Council was established to improve coordination across 
federal agencies on personnel issues, but according to the CHCOs, the 
council is not carrying out this responsibility as well as it could. 
This challenge manifests itself in two ways: across organizations, 
with many actors making human capital decisions in an uncoordinated 
manner, and within agencies, excluding CHCOs and the human capital 
staff from key agency decisions. 

2. Using enterprise solutions to address shared challenges. Our 
analysis found that agencies have many common human capital 
challenges, but they tend to address these issues independently 
without looking to enterprise solutions that could resolve them more 
effectively. Across government, there are examples of agencies and the 
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) initiating enterprise solutions 
to address crosscutting issues, including the consolidation of federal 
payroll systems into shared-services centers. The CHCOs highlighted 
human resource information technology and strategic workforce planning 
as two areas that are ripe for government-wide collaboration. 

3. Creating more agile talent management to address inflexibilities in 
the current system. Our analysis found talent management tools lack 
two key ingredients for developing an agile workforce, namely the 
ability to (1) identify the skills available in their existing 
workforces, and (2) move people with specific skills to address 
emerging, temporary, or permanent needs within and across agencies. 

The CHCOs said OPM needs to do more to raise awareness and assess the 
utility of the tools and guidance it provides to agencies to address 
key human capital challenges. The CHCOs said they were either 
unfamiliar with OPM's tools and guidance or they fell short of their 
agency's needs. OPM officials said they had not evaluated the tools 
and guidance they provide to the agencies. As a result, a key resource 
for helping agencies improve the capacity of their personnel offices 
is likely being underutilized. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that OPM work with the CHCO Council to: (1) strengthen 
coordination and leadership on government-wide human capital issues, 
(2) explore expanded use of enterprise solutions to more efficiently 
and effectively address shared challenges, (3) review the extent to 
which new capabilities are needed to promote agile talent management, 
and (4) evaluate the communication strategy for and effectiveness of 
tools, guidance, or leading practices OPM provides for addressing 
human capital challenges. OPM and the CHCO Council concurred with 
GAO's recommendations. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-168]. For more 
information, contact Robert Goldenkoff at (202) 512-2757 or 
goldenkoffr@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Strengthened Coordination, Enterprise Solutions, and Agile Talent 
Management Could Help Agencies Maintain Capacity in an Era of Flat or 
Declining Budgets: 

The Human Capital Community Lacks Collaboration Needed to Address 
Fragmentation across Organizations: 

Human Capital Decisions Are Uncoordinated within Agencies: 

OPM Needs to Ensure Its Human Capital Tools and Guidance Are Meeting 
Agencies' Needs: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Interactive Graphic Information: 

Appendix III: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management: 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Related GAO Products: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: The Federal Human Capital Community is Fragmented 
(Interactive graphic): 

Figure 2: The Federal Human Capital Community Is Fragmented (Print 
Version): 

Abbreviations: 

CAO: chief acquisition officer: 

CFO: chief financial officer: 

CHCO: chief human capital officer: 

CHCO Act: Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002: 

CIO: chief information officer: 

CIOC: Chief Information Officers Council: 

CLO: chief learning officer: 

DOT: U.S. Department of Transportation: 

FDA: Food and Drug Administration: 

GPRAMA: GPRA Modernization Act: 

HCAAF: Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework: 

HR IT: Human Resources Information Technology: 

HR University: Human Resources University: 

NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration: 

NGO: nongovernmental organizations: 

NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: 

OMB: Office of Management and Budget: 

OPM: Office of Personnel Management: 

PIC: Performance Improvement Council: 

PMC: President's Management Council: 

State: Department of State: 

Treasury: Department of Treasury: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO:
441 G St. N.W. 
Washington, DC 20548: 

May 7, 2014: 

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Stephen F. Lynch: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and the Census: 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 
House of Representatives: 

The federal budget is a driving consideration in every agency action 
that affects the management of its workforce, including decisions to 
hire, retain, train, contract, oversee, acquire technology, and 
collaborate. The Budget Control Act of 2011 established a 10-year cap 
on discretionary spending through 2021, but many agencies had 
experienced flat or declining budgets for several years 
prior.[Footnote 1] In the face of limited budgets, some agencies are 
reducing hiring, limiting training, offering employee buyouts and 
providing early retirement packages. Without careful attention to 
strategic and workforce planning and other approaches to managing and 
engaging personnel, the reduced investments in human capital can have 
lasting, detrimental effects on the capacity of an agency's workforce 
to meet its mission. 

Given the likelihood that flat or declining budgets will continue to 
necessitate workforce adjustments across government, you asked us to 
review the extent and nature of actions being taken by selected 
agencies to manage their workforces and plan for future workforce 
needs. Our objectives were to (1) assess the key strategic human 
capital challenges federal agencies face in an era of highly 
constrained resources and identify strategies for addressing those 
challenges, and (2) assess the extent to which the Office of Personnel 
Management (OPM) ensures agencies have the tools, such as workforce 
planning models, guidance, and assistance, that chief human capital 
officers (CHCO) considered most important to mitigate human capital 
challenges associated with highly constrained resources. 

To answer the first objective, we convened a forum of CHCOs, deputy 
CHCOs, or their representatives from 25 of the 27 agency members of 
the CHCO Council and analyzed the CHCOs' comments to identify the key 
government-wide human capital challenges.[Footnote 2] We also reviewed 
literature and interviewed officials from nongovernmental 
organizations that study and report on federal human capital 
management issues. We examined case illustrations of leading human 
capital management practices at four federal agencies: National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC), the Department of State (State), and the Department 
of Transportation (DOT). We selected these agencies based on 
indications of their potential for overall effective human capital 
leadership, such as high Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Scores and 
attrition rates.[Footnote 3] For additional perspectives on strategies 
addressing federal human capital challenges, we reviewed our recent 
work on leading practices for strategic planning and our other 
relevant work on federal management. To answer the second objective, 
we asked the CHCOs to describe the tools and guidance OPM provides to 
address key human capital challenges identified during the CHCO forum 
session, their level of satisfaction with them, and ways those tools 
and guidance could be strengthened. We reviewed documentation of 
guidance and tools that OPM provides to agencies to assist them with 
managing the key human capital challenges articulated by the CHCO 
forum and interviewed officials from OPM. See appendix I for a more 
detailed discussion of our scope and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from January 2013 through May 2014 
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

Strategic human capital management continues to be a pervasive 
challenge facing the federal government. We first identified it as a 
high-risk area in 2001 because of the significant challenges agencies 
faced in: 

* leadership continuity and succession planning; 

* acquiring and developing staffs whose size, skills, and deployment 
met agency needs; and: 

* creating results-oriented organizational cultures.[Footnote 4] 

Although the area remained a high-risk issue in 2013, the federal 
government has made progress addressing these human capital 
challenges. For example, in 2010, OPM undertook a major initiative to 
streamline and reform the federal hiring process. Through this and 
other initiatives, OPM, along with the CHCO Council, Congress, and 
federal agencies have strengthened the federal human capital 
infrastructure. As a result of these improvements, in 2011, we 
narrowed the focus of our human capital high-risk assessment to the 
challenges remaining in closing current and emerging critical skills 
gaps. In our 2013 high-risk report, we identified skills gaps in 
several mission-critical occupations, such as human resources 
specialists, cybersecurity, contract specialists, and those in 
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics occupational groups. 
[Footnote 5] 

Congress has given OPM a key role in helping agencies strategically 
manage their human capital. Under the Chief Human Capital Officers Act 
of 2002 (CHCO Act), OPM was tasked with designing a set of systems for 
assessing the management of human capital by agencies, which is to 
include standards for, among other things, aligning an agency's human 
capital strategies with its missions, goals, and organizational 
objectives.[Footnote 6] Each CHCO advises and assists his or her 
agency on all human capital and human resources management issues, 
including selecting, developing, training, and managing a high-
quality, productive workforce in accordance with merit system 
principles. 

The CHCO Act also established a CHCO Council, which is chaired by the 
Director of OPM, to advise and coordinate the activities of members' 
agencies on such matters as the modernization of human resources 
systems, improved quality of human resources information, and 
legislation affecting human resources operations and organizations. 
There are 27 members of the CHCO Council, including CHCOs representing 
executive departments, those designated by the Director of OPM and 
some representing multiple agencies such as agencies within the 
intelligence community. 

Workforce decisions aimed at reducing personnel costs today might have 
unforeseen implications for an agency's ability to carry out its 
mission down the road. For example, in the aftermath of agency cuts in 
the 1990s, agencies reported that the voluntary separation incentives 
or "buyouts" that were offered to employees were an effective means of 
reducing the workforce and lowering costs in the near term, but later 
caused operational problems such as the loss of institutional memory 
and expertise, increased workloads and backlogs, and skill imbalances 
over time.[Footnote 7] According to OPM, factors such as a 3-year pay 
freeze, automatic reductions from sequestration that included 
furloughs for hundreds of thousands of employees, and reductions in 
training and other areas have taken their toll on the federal 
workforce. In 2013 Employee Viewpoint Survey results, the "global 
satisfaction index" showed an 8-percentage-point decline since 2010. 
Each of the four factors that make up the global satisfaction index 
showed downward trends from last year's results: 

* job satisfaction dropped three points to 65 percent, 

* pay satisfaction was down five points to 54 percent, 

* organization satisfaction fell three points to 65 percent, and: 

* respondents that said they would recommend their organization 
declined by four points to 63 percent.[Footnote 8] 

Strengthened Coordination, Enterprise Solutions, and Agile Talent 
Management Could Help Agencies Maintain Capacity in an Era of Flat or 
Declining Budgets: 

Our analysis identified a number of difficulties that agencies face in 
maintaining the capacity to meet their missions during lean fiscal 
times. In our analysis of the CHCO comments from our forum, we 
identified three broad recurring human capital challenges: (1) lack of 
coordination in a fragmented human capital community, (2) a lack of an 
enterprise or "whole of government" approach to address crosscutting 
challenges, and (3) a lack of agile talent management. While 
recognizing that these challenges are not new or exclusively a result 
of flat or declining budgets, the CHCOs said lower budgets have 
exacerbated these issues. Because of the magnitude of these issues, 
the CHCOs said the fiscal environment also created the impetus to act 
and a willingness to consider creative and non-traditional strategies 
for addressing issues in ways that previously may not have been 
organizationally or culturally feasible. With this in mind, the CHCOs 
in our forum and our case illustration agencies identified a number of 
promising strategies and approaches to address each of the challenges. 
However, just as the challenges themselves do not manifest themselves 
the same way in every federal agency, the strategies to address them 
are not one-size-fits all, and as a result, it may be necessary for 
agencies to adapt them to their particular needs or circumstances. 

Strengthened Collaboration within the Federal Human Capital Community 
Could Help Address Fragmentation Issues: 

A key challenge we identified from our analysis of the CHCO 
discussions was that the federal human capital community is highly 
fragmented, with multiple actors both inside and outside of government 
informing and executing personnel policies and initiatives in ways 
that are not always aligned with broader, government-wide human 
capital efforts. We found this challenge manifested itself in two 
ways: (1) across organizations, with many actors making human capital 
decisions in an uncoordinated manner, and (2) within agencies, with 
CHCOs and the human capital staff not involved in key agency decisions. 

The Human Capital Community Lacks Collaboration Needed to Address 
Fragmentation across Organizations: 

As shown in figure 1, within government, the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB), OPM, the CHCO Council, and individual agencies create, 
implement, and oversee personnel initiatives. Those initiatives are 
shaped, in part, by input provided by labor unions and federal 
management councils such as the President's Management Council (PMC). 
PMC--consisting of deputy administrators, chief operating officers, 
and other leaders from major federal agencies--advises the President 
and OMB on government reform initiatives, provides performance and 
management leadership throughout the executive branch, and oversees 
implementation of government-wide management policies and programs. 
The Director of OPM chairs the CHCO Council and is a PMC member. The 
CHCOs noted that each of these actors possess its own mission, 
initiatives, agendas, chain of command, budgets, and oversight. While 
this is to be expected given their various roles and responsibilities, 
these same factors can create disincentives to collaborating to 
achieve common human capital goals. Indeed, certain human capital 
issues, such as addressing mission critical skills gaps, are 
crosscutting in nature and require the coordinated efforts of multiple 
stakeholders. 

Figure 1: The Federal Human Capital Community is Fragmented 
(Interactive graphic): 

[Refer to PDF for image: Interactive graphic in puzzle format] 

Directions: 

Place cursor on the puzzle piece to see more information about that 
actor's role in the human capital community. Remove cursor to close 
selection. 

To view print text version of this graphic, go to appendix II. 

Source: GAO analysis. 

[End of figure] 

The CHCO Council was established to improve coordination across 
federal agencies on personnel issues. Specifically, it was established 
to "advise and coordinate the activities of the agencies of its 
members on such matters as modernization of human resources systems, 
improved quality of human resources information, and legislation 
affecting human resources operations and organizations."[Footnote 9] 
However, according to the CHCOs, the council is not carrying out this 
responsibility as well as it could. For example, the CHCOs told us 
they have not fully maximized existing partnerships and organizational 
structures to elevate government-wide human capital issues within the 
administration. They illustrated this point by noting how the CHCOs 
could do more to raise the visibility of human capital issues within 
PMC. 

More broadly, the CHCOs noted that because of a lack of prioritization 
and coordination around key government-wide human capital initiatives, 
efforts to effectively inform key budget and legislative proposals 
that have implications for the federal workforce were being hampered. 
As one example, the CHCOs said there are known effects of reduced 
budgets on the federal workforce, including increased difficulty and 
deferments in recruiting, retaining, and developing employee skills. 
They explained, however, that they have not effectively used the CHCO 
Council to develop a coherent, actionable perspective or coordinated 
with OPM to deliver the perspective to Congress and OMB. To do so, the 
CHCOs offered four ideas for better informing and supporting budgetary 
and other decisions that impact the federal personnel system: (1) work 
with OPM to coordinate communication on government-wide human capital 
issues so that there is consistency, transparency, and completeness in 
information it provides to Congress and OMB; (2) discuss human capital 
initiatives in terms of how they affect the performance outcomes, 
efficiency, and effectiveness of the government; (3) regularly invite 
others within the human capital community--like leading researchers--
to discuss their perspective and analysis of human capital issues at 
CHCO Council meetings; and (4) update the CHCO Council website to 
reflect the issue areas the council has identified as the highest 
priority human capital issues and how the council is addressing them. 
These ideas are consistent with leading practices that GAO identified 
in its prior work.[Footnote 10] 

The federal government's efforts to enhance cybersecurity provide one 
example of the need for a coordinated approach to human capital 
issues. In 2011, we found there were multiple government-wide efforts 
underway to enhance the cybersecurity workforce, including initiatives 
from the Chief Information Officer's Council, OPM, the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Homeland 
Security, and others.[Footnote 11] Enhancements were needed because 
even as threats to federal information technology infrastructure and 
systems continued to grow in number and sophistication, federal 
agencies' progress in implementing key workforce planning practices 
for cybersecurity personnel was mixed.[Footnote 12] We concluded that 
better coordination was crucial to cost-effectively ensuring that the 
government has the people it needs to continue to deal with evolving 
cyber threats. We recommended agencies clarify roles and 
responsibilities, measure progress towards goals, and determine 
resources needed to accomplish agreed-upon activities. Agencies 
concurred with the majority of our recommendations and outlined steps 
to address them. For example, OPM concurred with our recommendation to 
coordinate with other agencies to consolidate and align efforts to 
define roles, responsibilities, skills, and competencies for the 
federal cybersecurity workforce. As of May 2014, we are reviewing OPM 
actions to address this recommendation. 

According to the CHCOs and OPM officials, when agencies coordinate 
their efforts they are better able to resolve government-wide 
challenges. For example, in September 2011, the CHCO Council created a 
working group that identified critical skills gaps and competency gaps 
in the federal government. OMB designated closing critical skills gaps 
as an interim cross-agency priority goal under the GPRA Modernization 
Act (GPRAMA).[Footnote 13] In 2011, we identified the need to close 
government-wide and emerging critical skills gaps in our high risk 
series.[Footnote 14] The CHCOs also cited the president's initiative 
to improve the federal recruitment and hiring process which they said 
has helped agencies reduce the time it takes to hire applicants. 

While the various actors within the human capital community may have 
informal or formal relationships, there is no single strategic plan 
that coordinates their efforts government-wide at a high level. 
Without a strategic plan that coordinates the various human capital 
initiatives, there is a risk that initiatives might be duplicative, 
not fully effective, or unaligned with the most pressing human capital 
challenges facing federal agencies. Key elements of a strategic plan 
include, for example, a statement of mission and goals, the strategies 
and resources needed to achieve those goals, and performance 
information to gauge progress. A strategic plan would have the 
additional benefit of providing a measure of continuity in the face of 
turnover on the part of CHCOs. According to the CHCO Council's 
executive leadership, in the past year about one-third of CHCOs have 
left their positions. By clearly articulating specific, actionable 
goals, the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in achieving 
them, and timeframes and other metrics to help ensure the entire 
effort stays on track, OPM and the CHCO Council will be better 
positioned to focus and coordinate the collective efforts of the 
federal personnel community on addressing key crosscutting human 
capital challenges. 

Human Capital Decisions Are Uncoordinated within Agencies: 

In April 2009, we concluded that top agency leaders must integrate the 
human capital function into their agencies' core planning and business 
activities.[Footnote 15] Yet, our analysis of the CHCOs' discussion 
indicated that this was not always occurring. For example, several 
CHCOs said they were either not aware of or not included in the 
strategic planning process and the setting of performance goals at 
their agency. Although the CHCO Act required CHCOs to be involved in 
performance planning, several of the CHCOs said that this was not 
happening at their agencies. The CHCOs said an agency's ability to 
achieve performance goals depends on the workforce planning strategies 
for which CHCOs are responsible. They said that if CHCOs are excluded 
from program deliberations, then agency decisions may not be fully 
informed by important data on whether the agency has the necessary 
skills, how it will obtain these skills, how long the skills will be 
needed, and how much it will cost to meet program goals. 

According to some of the CHCOs, a key reason why they are not 
consistently informing agency decision making is because their offices 
do not have the capacity for such strategic human capital management 
activities as talent management, workforce planning, and promoting 
high performance and a results-oriented culture. Instead, these 
offices remain focused on transactional human resource activities like 
benefits and processing personnel actions. As a result, agency 
decision makers often do not seek out and draw upon the expertise of 
human capital experts to inform their deliberations. The Partnership 
for Public Service reported a similar finding in 2012 when it asked 
CHCOs if their respective agency's leadership viewed the CHCO and the 
human resources staff as trusted business advisors versus transaction 
managers. Twenty-five percent of CHCOs responded "not at all" or to a 
"limited extent."[Footnote 16] Perhaps further reflecting the varying 
capabilities of agency human capital offices across government, some 
CHCOs said that agency leaders do not fully understand the potential 
for strategic human capital management and have not elevated the role 
of the human capital office to better support an agency's operations 
and mission. 

In our 2013 high risk update we found that the human resources 
specialist occupation was one of several government-wide, mission 
critical skill gaps.[Footnote 17] Under OPM's leadership, several 
steps have been taken as part of a cross agency group focused on 
improving the capacity of human resource specialists. For example, OPM 
reported that in fiscal year 2013, OPM increased registration in its 
Human Resources University (HR University) and validated career path 
guides for classification, recruitment and hiring policy, and employee 
relations. As part of our ongoing oversight of OPM's and agencies' 
efforts to close government-wide mission critical skill gaps, we will 
continue to assess the progress being made in improving the human 
capital infrastructure within agencies needed to better support 
agencies' planning and programmatic functions. 

In our case illustrations, we identified examples of how human capital 
staff partner with other agency officials to align human capital 
management with mission execution. 

* Officials at the Department of State (State) said they developed and 
shared forecasts of workforce attrition, data on emerging skills gaps 
and cost estimates for addressing them through recruiting and 
retention efforts, and similar data with program officials. As a 
result, officials said program management has a better understanding 
of the role that strategic human capital management plays in meeting 
the agency's mission. Moreover, program officials seek out and 
consider other workforce-related data when making key budget, 
acquisition, and technology investment decisions. Officials we spoke 
with said when State officials meet with congressional appropriators, 
both State's human capital and budget officials are present to 
articulate how the agency prioritizes important initiatives. 

* Human capital officials at the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration (NASA) said they developed strong relationships with 
other functional areas to elevate the role of the human capital 
function across the agency. Officials said they sought out human 
capital staff when key decisions would be made and ensured they were 
providing them with details to understand how decisions would affect 
the agency's workforce. By anticipating their needs and providing them 
valuable information, NASA officials said they demonstrated their 
value and have a trusted advisory role in the agency. 

* A senior human capital official at the Department of Transportation 
said the agency worked for a decade to incorporate workforce planning 
data into program management decision making. For example, department-
level human capital staff worked with program-level officials on how 
to obtain, use, and interpret workforce data. Department-level human 
capital staff also conducted periodic trend analysis on workforce 
information for each program division and presented the findings on 
workforce risks and potential mitigation strategies. For example, 
after identifying a unit's low employee morale survey scores and a 
high attrition rate, human capital staff worked with the unit to 
design a rotational program to provide new professional development 
opportunities aimed at improving morale and retaining key staff. 
According to this official, program division leaders find this 
analysis useful and have requested to have them more frequently. 

Enterprise Solutions Needed to Address Shared Human Capital Challenges: 

Our analysis of the CHCO's discussion identified that agencies have 
many common human capital challenges such as the need to close mission 
critical skills gaps, but they tend to work on them independently 
without looking to enterprise or "whole of government" solutions. 
Enterprise solutions, in this context, integrate the efforts of 
multiple departments and agencies to address crosscutting human 
capital challenges more effectively by leveraging their expertise, 
experience, technology, and other resources. The CHCO Council was 
established to improve coordination across federal agencies on 
personnel issues, which should include working with agencies to 
develop and implement enterprise solutions. The CHCOs identified a 
number of reasons for a lack of coordination on common problems. 
First, federal budgeting and account structures reinforce the 
prevailing tradition of controlling agency resources within a single 
agency. This process does not create incentives to share resources 
across agencies. Second, agencies may be reluctant to contribute 
resources to a government-wide approach because they may not get an 
equitable return on their investment, or may get a product that does 
not fit their needs. As a result, the CHCOs told us that agencies tend 
to work independently to address interagency human capital management 
issues and do not always fully leverage lessons learned by other 
agencies. 

More recently, however, the CHCOs said there is a greater willingness 
to work with other agencies to address crosscutting human capital 
issues. This was due, in part, to the fiscal challenges agencies are 
facing. In particular they noted that while government-wide personnel 
management challenges have specific implications for each agency, 
there are opportunities for federal agencies to leverage resources to 
more efficiently address challenges that cross agencies boundaries. As 
we concluded in our February 2014 report, agencies that collaborated 
effectively were able to leverage technological resources to share 
information and the expertise of other agency officials to improve 
their programs and control spending.[Footnote 18] 

Across government, there are a number of examples of agencies and OPM 
initiating enterprise solutions to address crosscutting issues. For 
example, shared-services centers could create economies of scale by 
centrally locating or consolidating personnel functions into a single 
service provider. In 2009, OPM completed an initiative that 
consolidated 26 federal payroll systems into four shared-service 
centers and standardized payroll policies and procedures, an effort 
they estimated would save the federal government $1.1 billion over 10 
years. Shared services also could improve the efficiency of 
administrative services within a single agency. State, for example, 
has consolidated some of its human resource functions into a shared-
services center in Charleston, South Carolina, which, according to 
State officials, has reduced real estate costs as some of these 
activities were formerly housed in the more expensive Washington, 
D.C., metro area. State's human resource shared-service's center 
administers the agency's telework, transit benefit, and employee 
retirement programs. The agency is also considering shifting more 
personnel functions to the center. 

The Department of Treasury's (Treasury) workforce-planning consortium 
is an example of an agency-led multi-agency enterprise solution. 
Treasury has shared its practices and invited speakers from other 
agencies, such as the Department of Interior, to share their workforce 
planning models with representatives from several interested agencies. 
Several CHCOs said that the consortium meetings were a useful venue to 
share information about workforce planning best practices and lessons 
learned, and furthered the development of enterprise solutions. 

OPM has also established mechanisms to facilitate the sharing of 
practices that address crosscutting human capital challenges. For 
example, OPM's Human Resources Solutions division offers a variety of 
fee-for-service products and services to help agencies in such areas 
as recruiting, hiring, performance management, and professional 
development (in January 2014, OPM announced plans to downsize this 
office because of budget constraints). Similarly, OPM's HR University 
provides free and some fee-based online resources training and 
professional development materials to HR officials across government. 
Recent HR University topics have included training and leadership 
development, hiring reform, and addressing and resolving poor 
performance. According to OPM officials, the training sessions often 
feature officials from other agencies to discuss how they have 
implemented the broader human capital initiatives. We found in 
September 2012 that many agencies independently purchase or develop 
training for the same government-wide mandated courses.[Footnote 19] 
We concluded that OPM had an opportunity to reduce duplicative and 
inefficient training investments by leveraging existing training 
resources government-wide. According to OPM officials, HR University 
provides a model that can help this coordination, resulting in cost 
savings and helping to standardize some mandatory training courses 
across government. OPM officials said that OPM is also partnering with 
the Chief Learning Officers (CLO) Council to enhance HR University's 
on-demand learning platform to create enterprise learning solutions to 
save money and increase access to training across government. 
According to OPM, this partnership will create sessions on mandatory 
training, employee onboarding, and management and leadership 
development. The CHCOs said that they could also use the CHCO 
Council's website more effectively to identify common challenges and 
to facilitate the sharing of agency leading practices to mitigate 
those challenges. The CHCO Council's executive leadership said it is 
working to update the website to show how the council is prioritizing 
issues where agencies need assistance. 

The CHCOs highlighted human resource information technology and 
strategic workforce planning as two areas that have been long-standing 
issues ripe for cross-organizational collaboration. 

Human Resources Information Technology (HR IT). The CHCOs said 
agencies could be missing cost savings opportunities by not 
coordinating HR IT investments within and across agencies. They said 
much of the data and functionality provided by HR IT systems, such as 
personnel action processing, performance management, and compensation 
and benefits, are needed by all agencies. Additionally, the CHCOs said 
agencies are individually procuring identical systems--at times even 
at different components within a single agency--rather than leveraging 
the purchasing power of multiple agencies to negotiate better prices 
or services or use shared service centers. Several CHCOs said many HR 
IT systems are antiquated, create functional challenges, and need 
urgent upgrades. Within agencies, the CHCOs said current HR IT systems 
do not interface well to one another and they are frequently unable to 
query needed information. We found in 2013 that agencies spent more 
than $2.4 billion on 622 HR IT investments in fiscal year 2011. We 
identified hundreds of investments that provided similar functions. We 
also identified agencies that did not routinely assess their IT 
investment portfolios to identify and reduce duplicative systems. 
[Footnote 20] We concluded that without this information, the 
government may continue to maintain similar IT investments. The CHCO 
Council's executive leadership said addressing HR IT was one of the 
council's major goals for 2014. Officials said the council was 
chartering a new working group in 2014 and would leverage the efforts 
of prior OPM and CHCO efforts. 

Strategic Workforce Planning. Several of the CHCOs said agencies are 
not consistently leveraging lessons learned or collaborating to 
address difficulties they encounter with workforce planning models. We 
have found that organizations in both the public and private sectors 
use strategic workforce planning to help ensure they have the capacity 
to meet both current and future mission requirements. Preparing a 
strategic workforce plan encourages agency managers and stakeholders 
to systematically consider what is to be done, when and how it will be 
done, what skills will be needed, and how to gauge progress and 
results. In 2012 we found that some federal agencies, such as the 
Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior's 
Forest Service and the Department of Homeland Security, continue to 
struggle with developing effective strategic workforce plans.[Footnote 
21] Agencies can use a variety of models to conduct workforce 
planning, but all of the models generally share common steps including 
examining future issues that may affect the agency's ability to attain 
its strategic goals, determining skills needed to meet those goals, 
selecting and implementing human capital strategies to address issues 
and skills gaps, and evaluating the success of human capital 
strategies.[Footnote 22] Though agency approaches to workforce 
planning vary depending on agency needs and mission, the CHCOs said 
agencies are not consistently accessing or using the strategies and 
models that some agencies have found useful. Some CHCOs said a more 
systematic approach to workforce planning would be helpful, but OPM's 
workforce planning tools were too high level for their needs. 

The CHCOs and OPM discussed two tools OPM has developed to help 
agencies with workforce planning, yet the CHCOs expressed reservations 
about both. First, the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability 
Framework (HCAAF) was designed in part, according to OPM, to enable 
agencies to transform the federal workplace into high-performing 
arenas where every employee understands and is able to maximize his or 
her contribution to agency mission. While acknowledging that HCAAF 
could be used for workforce planning, some CHCOs at our forum said 
that they viewed HCAAF as a report card focused on compliance rather 
than guidance. In 2013, OPM rolled out a revised HCAAF, now known as 
the Human Capital Framework, which, according to OPM officials, should 
make the framework more flexible, more practical, easier to 
understand, and more useful to agencies. 

Second, OPM officials said they are piloting a process initiative--
HRStat--that represents, among other benefits, a promising approach to 
improved workforce planning. One of its purposes is to assist agencies 
that have little or no workforce planning capability to identify key 
human capital data for collection and analysis to understand trends 
and actions that can improve agency performance. Similar to the CHCOs' 
concerns about HCAAF, pilot agencies recommended OPM safeguard against 
using HRStat as an accountability mechanism or it will quickly become 
a compliance exercise versus a meaningful tool to engage agencies in 
performance improvement. In 2013, we concluded that data-driven 
performance review meetings-such as those used by HRStat practitioners-
should be both a leadership strategy to drive performance and a 
mechanism to hold managers accountable for diagnosing performance 
problems and identifying strategies for improvement.[Footnote 23] As 
of December 2013, 16 agencies are participating in the HRStat pilot. 
OPM officials said they plan to expand the pilot government-wide in 
2014. 

More Agile Talent Management Needed to Address Inflexibilities in the 
Current System: 

For agencies to meet their vital missions, their human capital 
policies and programs need to promote agile talent management. An 
agile workforce is, as noted in one study, one that ensures "the right 
people, with the right skills, are assigned to the right roles at the 
right time and at the right cost…" and that "can quickly be 
reconfigured to suit an organization's needs."[Footnote 24] However, 
our analysis of the CHCO forum comments found that agencies' talent 
management tools lack two key ingredients important for developing an 
agile workforce, namely the ability to: (1) identify the skills 
available in their existing workforces, and (2) to move people based 
on skills needs within the organization and across agencies. 

Greater Visibility over Skills Needed: 

The CHCOs stated that it is difficult for agencies to identify the 
range of skills within their existing workforces. According to the 
CHCOs, most federal human resources systems do not identify employee 
skills in any detail below their occupational series, title, and 
grade. As a result, the CHCOs said they do not have the information 
necessary to effectively leverage the existing skills in their 
workforce, to keep individuals with certain skills from leaving, or to 
identify what additional training or recruitment efforts to undertake. 
The CHCOs said skill visibility is also needed when forming temporary, 
cross-agency task teams to address a specific agency issue or 
challenge. 

Some agencies have developed skill inventory systems intended to 
provide skill visibility within their workforce. For example, the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture has a searchable internal tool that allows 
employees to post their skills and competencies such as foreign 
language fluency or technical certifications. Department officials 
said they use this tool to help focus their succession planning and 
training efforts on areas of need, as well as to help employees plan 
for their own career development. The Environmental Protection Agency 
officials said they are piloting an online skills marketplace to align 
people and their skills with projects. Managers post short-term detail 
opportunities requesting people with certain skills to address high-
priority agency needs. We previously recommended that the Food and 
Drug Administration (FDA) develop a skills inventory as part of its 
human resources information technology modernization efforts. In 
September 2013, FDA completed a skills inventory tool designed to 
inform the agency's recruitment and retention programs.[Footnote 25] 

Greater Skills Mobility Needed within and across Agencies: 

The CHCOs reported that a lack of staff mobility in the civil service 
structure makes it difficult for agencies to align their workforces 
with evolving missions. The CHCOs said job qualifications often 
emphasize experience over the underlying skills needed, making it 
challenging to transfer individuals across occupations or agencies. In 
contrast, if the occupational structure was broader and more focused 
on skills or competencies, it would be easier to transfer qualified 
individuals who have the necessary core skills and who could then be 
easily trained on the mission-specific aspects of the position. 

The CHCOs said increasing staff mobility could improve agencies' 
ability to meet emerging or temporary mission needs more cost 
effectively than hiring employees. The CHCOs said there has been some 
success at transferring individuals during times of crisis. For 
example, in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf 
of Mexico, several agencies were involved with cleanup efforts. But 
the CHCOs said there were other opportunities for agencies to share 
employees within and across organizational boundaries. For example, 
staff mobility could help agencies better address interagency goals 
and challenges, or to plan or implement short-term or one-time 
initiatives. Increased mobility could also be used to permanently 
transfer employees whose skills are surplus at one agency to other 
agencies with a shortage of those skills. 

One way of increasing staff mobility mentioned by the CHCOs was 
through rotational opportunities. We concluded that effective 
interagency rotational assignments can achieve collaboration-related 
results--such as building interagency networks--but such programs must 
be a "win-win" for the individuals and organizations involved to be 
effective. For example, rotational programs must address issues 
related to the employee's career progression, the temporary 
diminishment of the home organization's workforce capabilities, and--
particularly in an era of highly constrained resources--the reluctance 
of managers to let their high performers go on interagency rotations. 
[Footnote 26] 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials said they use internal 
rotations to respond to emergency situations and to meet emerging 
agency needs. For example, in response to the 2011 earthquake and 
tsunami that damaged the nuclear power reactors at the Fukushima 
Daiichi facility in Japan, NRC used the rotation program to deploy 
staff from its regional offices to understand the lessons from 
Fukushima and review its own regulatory approach to ensuring the 
safety of America's reactors. Officials said NRC's rotational program 
contributed to the agency's ability to identify the people and skills 
needed to address the rapid response to the event. They also said they 
use internal rotational assignments to develop greater overall 
capability of the staff to better accomplish the mission of the 
agency. In rotational assignments at NRC, employees are generally 
assigned to other functions and components within the agency for 6 
months or less to broaden staff capabilities. According to NRC, 
support from senior leadership for staff rotations is critical. 
Officials said the Executive Director for Operations, NRC's chief 
operations officer, helps create a cultural environment that 
encourages supervisors to allow staff to rotate to other areas, 
recognizing the long-term benefits to the agency. NRC reports that 
these internal rotational assignments not only help improve the 
agency's workforce capabilities, but also allow interested employees 
an opportunity to gain new experiences and responsibilities that are 
important factors for maintaining employee satisfaction and retention. 

In March 2014, OPM and the Environmental Protection Agency launched 
GovConnect, a pilot program intended to model a more mobile, agile, 
and skilled workforce. Through GovConnect, agencies will volunteer to 
pilot three models: (1) GovProject, a management-driven model to 
support rapid deployment of cross-agency action teams to respond to 
complex problems, (2) GovStart, an employee-driven model enabling 
individuals with desired skillsets to identify and support initiatives 
through part-time teams, and (3) GovCloud, a skill deployment system 
assigning individuals on a project-by-project basis to address 
critical skills gaps. 

OPM Needs to Ensure Its Human Capital Tools and Guidance Are Meeting 
Agencies' Needs: 

OPM makes available a range of different human capital tools, such as 
workforce planning models and guidance in a variety of different 
formats. According to OPM, it is responsible for assisting agencies 
with all aspects of human capital management. In this capacity, OPM 
provides tools and guidance to agencies through multiple formats, 
including its website, webinars, in-person training, and policies and 
user feedback in some cases. Moreover, OPM officials said they are 
increasingly providing training through webcasts that agencies can 
post on their internal sites to encourage human capital staff to view. 
However, the CHCOs said OPM needed to do more to raise awareness and 
assess the utility of the tools and guidance it provides to agencies. 
The CHCOs said they were either unfamiliar with the tools or guidance, 
or they fell short of their agency's needs. As a result, a key 
resource for helping agencies improve the capacity of their personnel 
offices is likely being underutilized. 

For example, the CHCOs identified three areas where additional 
outreach and evaluation of existing tools would be helpful: (1) 
applying classification standards, (2) aligning employee performance 
with organizational goals, and (3) workforce planning. OPM said it 
meets quarterly with agency classification officials to discuss 
classification standards and assist with agency classification 
questions--including classifying evolving occupations. An OPM official 
said OPM offers guidance and tools for agencies to align agency 
strategic goals with individual performance goals and plans including 
a handbook and corresponding HR University course on OPM's website. 

However, in applying classification standards, the CHCOs said they 
could use more help aligning classification standards with position 
descriptions than currently provided. They noted that it was difficult 
to write position descriptions for evolving occupations, such as those 
related to technology, and some agency missions require new skills 
that are hard to obtain within the existing classification standards. 
Despite these quarterly meetings, CHCOs said they are not always aware 
of updated policy and guidance and therefore some agencies continue to 
use the outdated standards. The CHCOs said if the position description 
and job announcements are based on outdated standards, they are less 
likely to reflect the specific skills needed, making it challenging 
for agencies to recruit and hire the right individuals. Similarly, 
CHCOs said it was difficult for agencies to align agency strategic 
goals with individual performance goals and plans. They stated that 
they needed additional assistance from OPM to effectively implement 
this guidance. Finally, CHCOs said OPM evaluates agencies' workforce 
planning and understands the challenges that remain in agencies, but 
is not doing enough to identify and share effective workforce planning 
practices across the government. 

OPM officials acknowledged that OPM had not evaluated the tools and 
guidance it provided to agencies on these issues, did not know the 
extent to which the CHCOs were unfamiliar with the tools and guidance, 
or if the tools and guidance were meeting agency requirements. OPM 
officials also said that in some cases, the tools were newly developed 
and their effectiveness could not yet be measured. Program evaluation 
guidance states that evaluations can play a key role in program 
planning, management, and oversight by providing feedback--on both 
program design and execution--to program managers, among 
others.[Footnote 27] Going forward, consistent with OPM's mission to 
assist agencies' human capital efforts, it will be important for OPM 
to better understand whether and how agencies use the assistance it 
provides. Indeed, soliciting feedback on such topics as content, 
delivery method, and timing would help ensure that this important 
information was being fully utilized. 

Conclusions: 

Current fiscal pressures are spurring agencies to consider creative 
and innovative approaches that might have been dismissed in the past. 
With respect to strategic human capital management, the CHCOs we spoke 
with identified a range of federal human capital management 
challenges, many of which have been long-standing across government. 
At the same time, they also highlighted a newfound urgency and 
willingness to collaborate across agency boundaries to address those 
challenges. While not an exhaustive list, the CHCOs' three overarching 
human capital challenges-
-(1) lack of coordination in a fragmented human capital community, (2) 
limited enterprise or "whole of government" approaches to address 
crosscutting challenges, such as HR IT and workforce planning, and (3) 
a lack of agile talent management--represent an important framework to 
begin prioritizing and modernizing current human capital management 
practices to meet the agencies' missions. Moreover, given the 
magnitude of the government's personnel challenges and agencies' 
limited resources, it is critical that OPM's investments in tools, 
guidance, and other resources are meeting agencies' needs and are 
being fully utilized. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To create a more effective human capital system that is more 
responsive to managing priorities and future workforce needs, we 
recommend that the Director of OPM, in conjunction with the CHCO 
Council, take the following four actions: 

1. Strengthen OPM's coordination and leadership of government-wide 
human capital issues to ensure government-wide initiatives are 
coordinated, decision makers have all relevant information, and there 
is greater continuity in the human capital community for key reforms. 
Such actions could include: 

* developing a government-wide human capital strategic plan that, 
among other things, would establish strategic priorities, time frames, 
responsibilities, and metrics to better align the efforts of members 
of the federal human capital community with government-wide human 
capital goals and issues; and: 

* coordinating communication on government-wide human capital issues 
with other members of the human capital community so that there is 
greater consistency, transparency, and completeness in exchanging and 
using information by stakeholders and decision makers. 

2. Explore the feasibility of expanded use of enterprise solutions to 
more efficiently and effectively address shared or government-wide 
human capital challenges. Such actions could include: 

* seeking cost savings and improved functionality through coordinated 
government-wide HR IT planning and acquisition, 

* seeking agency input to ensure OPM's workforce planning tools 
provide effective guidance for agencies, and: 

* sharing workforce planning lessons learned and successful models 
across the government. 

3. Review the extent to which new capabilities are needed to promote 
agile talent management. Such actions could include developing or 
sharing: 

* tools, resources, and methods to help identify skills gaps and 
surpluses that can inform agency recruitment, retention, and training 
needs; and: 

* mechanisms for increasing staff mobility within an agency and 
government-wide to assist agencies in aligning their workforces with 
evolving needs. 

4. Ensure agencies are getting the guidance and tools that they need 
by evaluating the communication strategy for and effectiveness of 
relevant tools, guidance, or leading practices created by OPM or the 
agencies to address crosscutting human capital management challenges. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this product to the Director of OPM for 
comment. In the written comments of the Acting Associate Director for 
Employee Services, which are reproduced in appendix III, OPM 
incorporated comments from the CHCO Council. OPM and the CHCO Council 
concurred with our recommendations. OPM also provided technical 
comments, which were incorporated as appropriate. 

With respect to the coordination of government-wide human capital 
initiatives, OPM provided examples of working groups and other efforts 
to address issues such as closing skills gaps and developing HRStat, 
many of which are described in our report. Further, although the CHCO 
Council agreed that more could be done to coordinate, share resources, 
and explore talent management strategies, the CHCO Council disagreed 
with our finding that the human capital community was highly 
fragmented. Our analysis of the comments made by the CHCO Council 
found that the human capital community is fragmented and that our 
recommendation for a government-wide human capital strategic plan 
could help to coordinate these efforts to ensure initiatives were not 
duplicative and were aligned with the most pressing human capital 
challenges. A government-wide strategic plan should include input from 
the many participants in the human capital community--reflecting the 
different perspectives, missions, and resources of these organizations. 

In response to our recommendation for greater enterprise solutions, 
OPM said that in 2014 it began working with the CHCO Council to refine 
the strategic workforce planning method that the CHCO Council will use 
to identify enterprise-wide occupations and competencies for continued 
focus, and that all agencies will use to identify and close their own 
internal skill gaps. When developing these tools, OPM should consider 
agencies' capacity to implement them to ensure they are put to their 
best use. Further, OPM also said its March 2014 Strategic Information 
Technology Plan provides a strategy for aligning human capital systems 
and steps in the human capital life cycle. Given the past barriers to 
developing enterprise solutions for HR IT--such as agency specific 
resources and priorities--it will be critical that this new effort 
leverages the lessons learned from past efforts and individual 
agencies HR IT systems. In response to our recommendation for greater 
agile talent management, OPM provided information about GovConnect, a 
pilot program launched in March 2014 and intended to create a talent 
exchange and networking capabilities within agencies. We revised the 
report to reflect this effort. 

Finally, in response to our recommendation that OPM should do more to 
evaluate the communication strategy and effectiveness of the tools and 
guidance provided to agencies, OPM said it would expand its 
collaboration with agencies to design and deliver the tools agencies 
need through use of the LAB@OPM, OPM's innovation lab. We recently 
reported that OPM needs clear and specific outcome measures to help 
meet its goals of enhancing skills in innovation and supporting 
project-based problem solving. Otherwise, OPM's innovation lab efforts 
may not be able to demonstrate the types of results initially 
envisioned. It will be important for OPM to understand how the tools 
and guidance it develops through the innovation lab and other methods 
are being used by agencies.[Footnote 28] 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In addition, the report 
will be available at no charge on the GAO website at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report please 
contact me at (202) 512-2757 or goldenkoffr@gao.gov. Contact points 
for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be 
found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix III. 

Signed by: 

Robert Goldenkoff: 
Director: 
Strategic Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

To assess the key strategic human capital challenges federal agencies 
face in an era of highly constrained resources and identify effective 
strategies for addressing them, we convened an expert panel of Chief 
Human Capital Officers (CHCO) or their designees from agencies of the 
CHCO Council. Throughout this report, we refer to the expert panel as 
the "CHCO forum." Twenty-five of the 27 CHCO Council members 
participated in the forum. The Small Agency Council and the Department 
of Labor did not send a CHCO, Deputy CHCO, or representative to the 
forum. 

Participants in the forum were asked: (1) to identify and prioritize 
the key strategic human capital challenges federal agencies face in an 
era of flat or declining budgets and effective practices for 
addressing them, and (2) the extent to which the Office of Personnel 
Management (OPM) ensures agencies have the tools and guidance needed 
to mitigate human capital challenges associated with flat or declining 
budgets and whether agencies find these useful. Through a facilitated 
discussion, CHCOs identified five challenges in meeting long-term 
workforce needs in an era of limited budgets. To prioritize the list 
of challenges, we used a nominal group technique in which CHCOs scored 
each challenge from one (most important) to five (least important). 
After prioritizing the list of challenges, the full forum was broken 
out into smaller subgroups for facilitated discussions of (1) the 
reasons for the challenge, (2) effective strategies for addressing it, 
and (3) OPM's role in helping to mitigate it. Break-out groups 
consisted of representation from at least three agencies and CHCOs 
were able to self-select the discussion group in which they wished to 
participate. Upon completion of the facilitated discussion, a 
representative from each group reported a summary of key discussion 
points to the larger group for comment and refinement. 

We used the long-table method to analyze the forum discussion, 
including the results of the sub-group discussions as compared to the 
requirements of OPM and the CHCO Council, discussions with 
nongovernmental groups and relevant literature. Through this analysis, 
we collaboratively identified the major themes through repeated 
analysis and discussion of detailed notes from the main forum and 
subgroup sessions. We used this method to identify the major human 
capital challenges discussed in the forum. We also used it for forum 
discussions related to the strategies for addressing human capital 
management problems, and to assess OPM's role in providing assistance 
to mitigate the challenges. For additional perspectives on strategies 
addressing federal human capital challenges, we reviewed our recent 
work on leading practices for collaboration and our other relevant 
work on federal management. 

As a complement to the human capital management challenges and 
strategies presented at the CHCO forum, we reviewed literature and 
interviewed nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that study federal 
human capital management issues. The NGOs included the Partnership for 
Public Service, the National Academy of Public Administration, IBM 
Center for the Business of Government, the Senior Executive 
Association, and the International Public Management Association for 
Human Resources. We also interviewed experts from academia and 
reviewed prior GAO reports. We selected the NGOs and experts we 
interviewed by conducting a literature search and reviewing human 
capital research to identify those who had published relevant work. In 
some cases, interviewees referred us to other organizations or 
individuals that had particular expertise on a particular topic. 

We developed case illustrations of leading human capital management 
practices at four federal agencies. In selecting case study agencies, 
we considered quantitative and qualitative criteria including: (1) 
trends in discretionary budgets (real dollars) from fiscal years 2004 
to 2011 to identify agencies with flat or declining budgets, (2) 
retirement and voluntary resignation rates from fiscal years 2010 to 
2011, (3) agency rankings for employee satisfaction with strategic 
management and leadership on the 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint 
Survey, and (4) expert recommendations from the NGO interviews. Based 
on these criteria, we selected the following agencies for case study: 
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, the Department of State, and the Department of 
Transportation. 

To assess the extent to which OPM ensures agencies have the tools, 
such as workforce planning models, guidance, and assistance that the 
CHCOs considered most important to mitigate human capital challenges 
associated with highly constrained resources, we asked the CHCOs to 
describe the tools and guidance OPM provides to address key human 
capital challenges identified during the CHCO forum session, their 
level of satisfaction with them, and ways those tools and guidance 
could be strengthened. We reviewed documentation of guidance and tools 
that OPM provides to agencies to assist them with managing the key 
human capital challenges articulated by the CHCO forum. We also 
interviewed OPM officials about mechanisms they use to: (1) identify 
the need for new guidance and tools from agencies, and (2) collect 
feedback from agencies about the usefulness of existing guidance and 
tools. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Interactive Graphic Information: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Text on Graphic: Office of Management and Budget; 
Rollover Text on Graphic: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB): 
(1) works with executive agencies to prepare the President's budget 
request; (2) oversees agency performance, federal procurement, 
financial management, information technology; and (3) coordinates and 
reviews all significant federal regulations by executive agencies. 

Text on Graphic: Chief Human Capital Officers Council; 
Rollover Text on Graphic: The Chief Human Capital Officers Council 
(CHCO Council) advises and coordinates the activities of members' 
agencies on such matters as: 
* the modernization of human resources systems; 
* improved quality of human resources information, and; 
* legislation affecting human resources operations and organizations; 
The council is chaired by the Director of OPM, vice-chaired by the 
Deputy Director for Management at OMB, and comprised of the CHCOs at 
federal departments and others designated by the Director of OPM. 

Text on Graphic: Office of Personnel Management; 
Rollover Text on Graphic: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 
provides human resources, leadership, and support to federal agencies 
to recruit and hire, to train and motivate employees, and to promote 
an inclusive workforce defined by diverse perspectives. OPM develops 
policy for federal human resources departments and ensures it is 
properly implemented. 

Text on Graphic: Federal Agencies/Chief Human Capital Officers; 
Rollover Text on Graphic: The Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002, 
enacted as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 107-
296) on November 25, 2002, required the heads of 24 executive 
departments and agencies to appoint or designate CHCOs. Each CHCO 
advises and assists his or her agency on all human resources management 
issues, including selecting, developing, training, and managing a high-
quality, productive workforce in accordance with merit system 
principles. Some agencies beyond those 24 executive departments also 
have CHCOs. 

Text on Graphic: Labor Unions; 
Rollover Text on Graphic: Labor unions allow employees to bargain with 
agency management over many matters affecting working conditions. Some 
unions also coordinate legislative and political action programs to 
monitor issues that impact the government workforce. 

Text on Graphic: Federal Management Councils; 
Rollover Text on Graphic: 
Presidential Management Council (PMC): Chaired by the Deputy Director 
for Management of OMB, PMC consists of chief operating officers of 
executive branch agencies, the OPM Director, the General Services 
Administration Administrator, and others. PMC advises the President 
and OMB on government reform initiatives, provides performance and 
management leadership throughout the executive branch, and oversees 
implementation of government-wide management policies and programs; 
Chief Acquisition Officers (CAO) Council: Chaired by the Deputy 
Director for Management at OMB and includes CAOs and defense 
procurement executives. The CAO Council is the principal interagency 
forum for monitoring and improving the federal acquisition system; 
Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Council: Chaired by Deputy Director for 
Management at OMB and CFOs from the agencies identified under the Chief 
Financial Officers Act of 1990, as amended, CFOC works to improve 
financial management in the U.S. Government; 
Chief Information Officers Council (CIOC): Chaired by Deputy Director 
for Management at OMB and includes CIOs from agencies identified under 
the CFO Act. CIOC serves as the principal interagency forum for 
improving practices in the design, acquisition, modernization, use, 
development, sharing, and performance of federal government agency 
information resources; 
Performance Improvement Council (PIC): Chaired by Deputy Director for 
Management at OMB and includes performance improvement officers from 
the agencies identified under the CFO Act. PIC facilitates information 
exchange among agencies of practices that have led to performance 
improvement within programs, agencies or across agencies. 

Source: GAO analysis. 

[End of figure] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management: 

United States Office of Personnel Management: 
Employee Service: 
Washington, DC 20415: 

April 24, 2014: 

Robert Goldenkoff: 
Director, Strategic Issues: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO): 
441 G St., NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Goldenkoff: 

We have reviewed your draft report titled, "Human Capital: Strategies 
to Help Agencies Meet Their Missions in an Era of Highly Constrained 
Resources (GAO-14-168)" and are in concurrence with the findings and 
recommendations identified in the report. The findings and 
recommendations in the GAO report support and validate the need for 
the programs that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is 
currently implementing in partnership with the U.S. Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB), the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) 
Council, and the 26 cabinet level agencies. We recognize that even the 
most well run programs can benefit from an external evaluation and we 
appreciate the input of the GAO as we continue to work to enhance our 
programs. Specific responses to your recommendations are provided
below. 

Response to Recommendations: 

Finding #1: Strengthening coordination to address a fragmented human 
capital community. 

Our analysis found that the federal human capital community is highly 
fragmented, with multiple actors inside government informing and 
executing personnel policies and initiatives in ways that are not 
always aligned with broader, government-wide human capital efforts. 
The CHCO Council was established to improve coordination across 
federal agencies on personnel issues, but according to CHCOs, the 
council is not carrying out this responsibility as well as it could. 
This challenge manifests itself in two ways: across organizations, 
with many actors making human capital decisions in an uncoordinated 
manner, and within agencies, excluding CHCOs and the human capital 
staff from key agency decisions. 

Recommendation #1: 

Strengthen their coordination and leadership of government-wide human 
capital issues to ensure government-wide initiatives are coordinated, 
decision makers have all relevant information, and there is greater 
continuity in the human capital community for key reforms. Such 
actions could include: 

* Developing a government-wide human capital strategic plan that, 
among other things would establish strategic priorities, timeframes, 
responsibilities, and metrics to better align the efforts of members 
of the federal human capital community with government-wide human 
capital goals and issues; and; 

* Coordinating communication on government-wide human capital issues 
with other members of the human capital community so that there is 
greater consistency, transparency, and completeness in exchanging and 
using information by stakeholders and decision-makers. 

CHCO Council Response: Concur: 

The CHCO Council collectively concurs with the findings in GAO's draft 
report. While we agree that more can be done to coordinate, share 
resources and explore agile talent management strategies, the CHCOs 
believe that the characterization of the human capital community as
"highly fragmented" is incorrect and overly broad. To the contrary, 
the CHCO Council members, OPM and OMB have been exploring new models 
of coordination and continue to find new ways to produce more 
meaningful and long lasting improvements. 

Rather than have OPM require all Departments and Agencies to pursue 
the same goals with the same strategies, where the measure of progress 
is rigid compliance, our community is quickly progressing toward a 
mature model. By working together, we (l) collectively identify an 
area to address, (2) examine current promising practices to develop 
general strategies, (3) use data to identify natural next steps and 
provide context for the challenges ahead, and (4) allow CHCOs and 
their component-level partners to take ownership and implement plans 
most likely to drive real change and progress. At the April 2014 CHCO 
Council meeting, we discussed how to best articulate this new model to 
audiences such as the media, the public and GAO. We look forward
to continuing our work together. 

OPM Response: Concur. 

OPM's approach to government-wide human capital initiatives is 
specifically designed to build coordination and collaboration 
mechanisms across the human resources (HR) community as well as 
between CHCOs and other agency leaders. For example, OPM formed CHCO 
Council working groups on HR Information Technology (HRIT) 
consolidation and skills gap closure to assure CHCO and agency leader 
views and priorities were integrated into the design of these 
initiatives. For each occupation identified in the skills gap closure 
initiative, OPM collaborated with OMB to identify occupational leaders 
who have led within their respective communities. With OPM support, 
the occupational leaders identified led the design of human capital 
strategies to close skills gaps in their occupations. For several of 
these occupations, OPM has convened meetings of occupational leaders 
and their CHCO counterparts - along with other stakeholders to jointly 
design effective skills gap closure strategies. OPM has also created 
collaboration communities around key initiatives including HRStat, in 
order to strengthen coordination and collaboration not just between 
OPM and agencies but across the agencies as a community and between 
CHCOs and their Performance Improvement Officers. For HRStat, for 
example, OPM designed the agency pilots to bring mentors from the 
Performance Improvement Council and agency CHCO representatives to 
assist agencies piloting HRStat for the first time. 

Finding #2: Using enterprise solutions to address shared challenges.
Our analysis found that agencies have many common human capital 
challenges, but they tend to address these issues independently 
without looking to enterprise solutions that could resolve them more 
effectively. Across government, there are examples of agencies and the 
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) initiating enterprise solutions 
to address crosscutting issues, including the consolidation of federal 
payroll systems into shared-service centers. CHCOs highlighted human 
resource information technology and strategic workforce planning as two
areas that are ripe for government-wide collaboration. 

Recommendation #2: 

Explore the feasibility of expanded use of enterprise solutions to 
more efficiently and effectively address shared or government-wide 
human capital challenges. Such actions could include: 

* Seeking cost saving and improved functionality through coordinated 
governmentwide HR IT planning and acquisition, and; 

* Seeking agency input to ensure OPM's workforce planning lessons 
learned and successful models across the government. 

OPM Response: Concur. 

OPM is actively pursuing enterprise strategies for strategic workforce 
planning, HRIT, learning and development, recruitment and hiring and 
other key HR service delivery areas. 

* Strategic workforce planning: In 2011-2012, OPM partnered with the 
CHCO Council to design an enterprise approach to identifying current 
and projected skills gaps, and OPM has led cross-agency efforts to 
close skills gaps in shared occupations and competencies. As a result 
of this effort, six occupations and seven competencies were identified 
for government-wide focus, and OPM has partnered with agency CHCOs and 
occupational leaders to design and implement gap closure strategies. 
In 2014, OPM begun working with the CHCO Council Skills Gaps Working 
Group to continue refining the strategic workforce planning method 
that the Council will use to identify enterprise-wide occupations and 
competencies for continued focus, and that all agencies will use to
identify and close their own internal skills gaps. 

* HRIT: In March 2014, OPM released its Strategic Information 
Technology Plan. The plan devises a comprehensive strategy that aligns 
human capital systems and processes to the human capital life cycle 
(i.e., from resume to retirement). Furthermore, this integrated
approach will create enterprise solutions that achieve cost savings, 
improved functionality and a coordinated government-wide HRIT plan as 
the approach includes a customer-centric model in the design. 
Additionally, the Strategic Information Technology Plan includes a 
progressive policy-driven plan that adopts forward-thinking principles 
of agile IT policy and data analytics that is informed by anticipated 
changes to the workforce through the use of foresight techniques. OPM 
continues to work closely with the HR Line of Business (HRLOB) and the 
CHCO Council to develop recommendations to improve the service 
delivery model for the shared service centers. This collaborative 
partnership includes cross-coordination between the HRLOB/CHCO
Council and OPM's Strategic Information Technology Plan to ensure 
seamless communication, improved functionality, reductions in costs 
and improved delivery of services. 

* Learning and development: OPM is partnering with the Chief Learning 
Officers (CLO) Council to build on the highly successful HR University 
[hyperlink, http://www.hru.gov] to create enterprise learning 
solutions that save money and increase employee access to high quality 
training across government. Developed by the CHCO Council with OPM's 
leadership and continued maintenance, HR University is the one-stop 
training and development resource for the federal HR community, and 
provides a single, agreed upon career map, competency model, and 
curriculum framework for all federal HR training. To date, HR 
University has saved over $100 million in taxpayer funds by preventing
agencies from duplicating investment in training design and delivery, 
and enabling agencies to share training with each other within the 
common curriculum framework. OPM is working with the CLO Council to 
create similar one-stop course sharing solutions for additional 
occupations, as well as mandatory training, onboarding and 
management/leadership development. In addition, OPM recently announced 
the first enterprise agreement with a major university (University of 
Maryland's University College) to provide discounted tuition for 
federal employees and their legal dependents. OPM is working to 
replicate this agreement with other universities and colleges to
increase employees' access to high quality education, and to make the 
federal government an attractive employer. 

Finding #3: Creating more agile talent management to address 
inflexibilities in the current system. 

Our analysis found talent management tools lack two key ingredients 
for developing an agile workforce, namely the ability to (1) identify 
the skills available in their existing workforces, and (2) move people 
with specific skills to address emerging, temporary or permanent needs 
within and across agencies. 

Recommendation #3: 

Review the extent to which new capabilities are needed to promote 
agile talent management. Such actions could include developing or 
sharing: 

* Tools, resources, and methods to help identify skills gaps and 
surpluses that can inform agency recruitment, retention, and training 
needs; and; 

* Mechanisms for increasing staff mobility within an agency and 
government-wide to assist agencies in aligning their workforces with 
evolving needs. 

OPM Response: Concur. 

OPM is creating innovative approaches to agile talent management, 
through leadership of the GovConnect initiative as well as rollout of 
the revised Human Capital Framework. 

* Part of the Second Term Management Agenda's Engagement pillar, 
GovConnect is using a pilot approach to create talent exchange and 
networking capabilities within agencies, with the goal of integrating 
talent exchange across agencies to give employees access to rotational 
assignment opportunities across government. GovConnect's goal is to 
increase managers' ability to close immediate skills gaps through 
redeployment of internal talent, and to increase employee engagement 
by providing project-based learning opportunities. 

* In 2012, OPM launched a complete review and revision of the Human 
Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework (HCAAF), which 
establishes the systems, standards and metrics required for federal 
strategic human capital management. Based on best practices from 
across government as well as private industry, the revised Human 
Capital Framework (HCF) provides adaptive human capital management 
systems and practices designed to increase agility across the federal 
enterprise. Developed through a cross-agency and cross-sector
partnership, the HCF frames talent management as a fundamentally open 
system, in which HR systems must be designed to adapt quickly to 
changing mission requirements and environmental factors. The 
forthcoming HCF resource center provides specific tools for managers, 
employees and HR practitioners to apply agile workforce management 
practices in their agencies. 

Finding #4: Raise awareness and assess the utility of the tools and 
guidance it provides to agencies to address key human capital 
challenges. 

CHCOs said they were either unfamiliar with OPM's tools and guidance 
or they fell short of their agency's needs. OPM officials said they 
had not evaluated the tools and guidance they provide to the agencies. 
As a result, a key resource for helping agencies improve the capacity of
their personnel offices is likely being underutilized. 

Recommendation #4: 

Ensure agencies are getting the guidance and tools that they need by 
evaluating the communication strategy for and effectiveness of 
relevant tools, guidance, or leading practices created by OPM or the 
agencies to address crosscutting human capital management challenges. 

OPM response: Concur. 

OPM collaborates with agencies on the design and delivery of tools, 
training and resources. For example, the forthcoming RCF resource 
center was developed in partnership with agency representatives. OPM 
is committed to continued collaboration with agencies to identify agency
need for tools, training and resources; and to design products toward 
agency end users. OPM plans to use the LAB@OPM to facilitate this 
collaborative approach, drawing on the innovation lab's unique 
expertise in applying the discipline of Human Centered Design to 
policy, program and product development. 

Technical comments to the draft report are enclosed. Unless otherwise 
noted, the suggested provisions are meant to provide technical 
accuracy. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Mark Reinhold: 
Acting Associate Director: 
Employee Services: 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Robert Goldenkoff, (202) 512-2757 or goldenkoffr@gao.gov. 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Chelsa Gurkin, Assistant 
Director; Shea Bader, Analyst-in-Charge; Jeffrey DeMarco; Karin 
Fangman; Rebecca Rose O'Connor; Terry Richardson; and Rebecca Shea 
made major contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

Federal Workforce: Recent Trends in Federal Civilian Employment and 
Compensation. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-215]. 
Washington, D.C.: Jan. 29, 2014. 

Federal Employees: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Performance 
Management Pilot. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-755]. 
Washington, D.C.: Sept. 12, 2013. 

2013 Annual Report: Actions Needed to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, 
and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-279SP]. Washington, D.C.: Apr. 9, 
2013. 

High-Risk Series: An Update. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283]. Washington, D.C.: February 
2013. 

Human Capital Management: Effectively Implementing Reforms and Closing 
Critical Skills Gaps are Key to Addressing Federal Workforce 
Challenges. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-1023T]. 
Washington, D.C.: Sept. 19, 2012. 

Federal Training Investments: OPM and Agencies Can Do More to Ensure 
Cost-Effective Decisions. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-878]. Washington, D.C.: Sept. 17, 
2012. 

Human Capital: HHS and EPA Can Improve Practices Under Special Hiring 
Authorities.[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-692]. 
Washington, D.C.: July 9, 2012. 

Cybersecurity and Human Capital: Initiatives Need Better Planning and 
Coordination. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-8]. 
Washington, D.C.: Nov. 29, 2011. 

Information Technology: OMB Needs to Improve Its Guidance on Its 
Investments. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-826]. 
Washington, D.C.: Sept. 29, 2011. 

Federal Work/Life Programs: Agencies Generally Satisfied with OPM 
Assistance, but More Tracking and Information Sharing Needed. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-137]. Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 16, 2010. 

Human Capital: Transforming Federal Recruiting and Hiring Efforts. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-762T]. Washington, 
D.C.: May 8, 2008. 

Human Capital: Selected Agencies' Statutory Authorities Could Offer 
Options in Developing a Framework for Governmentwide Reform. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-398R]. Washington, 
D.C.: Apr. 21, 2005. 

Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Workforce Planning. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39]. Washington, D.C.: 
Dec.11, 2003. 

High-Risk Series: Strategic Human Capital Management. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-120]. Washington, D.C.: January 
2003. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] Pub. L. No. 112-25, 125 Stat. 240. In December 2013, the 
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 extended the sequestration of direct 
spending to fiscal years 2022 and 2023 and revised discretionary 
spending limits established under the Budget Control Act of 2011. Pub. 
L. No. 113-67, div. A, title I, subtitle A, § 101, 127 Stat. 1165, 
1166-1169. 

[2] Of the 27 CHCOs invited, the Small Agency Council and the 
Department of Labor did not send a CHCO, deputy CHCO or representative 
to the forum. 

[3] The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey is a tool offered by OPM 
that measures employees' perceptions of whether, and to what extent, 
conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in 
their agencies. 

[4] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-263] (Washington, D.C.: January 
2001). 

[5] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283] (Washington, D.C.: February 
2013). 

[6] Title XIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-
296, 116 Stat. 2135, 2287-2300 (Nov. 25, 2002). 

[7] GAO, Federal Downsizing: Better Workforce and Strategic Planning 
Could Have Made Buyouts More Effective, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-96-62] (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 26, 
1996). 

[8] Office of Personnel Management, Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey 
Results: Employees Influencing Change, 2013 Governmentwide Management 
Report. ii and 29 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 8, 2013). 

[9] Pub. L. No. 107-296, § 1303(b), 5 U.S.C. § 1401, note. 

[10] GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance 
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 
2005). 

[11] GAO, Cybersecurity Human Capital: Initiatives Need Better 
Planning and Coordination, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-8] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 29, 
2011). 

[12] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283]. 

[13] Pub. L. No. 111-352, 124 Stat. 3866 (Jan. 4, 2011). GPRAMA 
updated the statutory framework for performance management in the 
federal government established under the Government Performance and 
Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), Pub. L. No. 103-62, 107 Stat. 285 (Aug. 3, 
1993). 

[14] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278] (Washington, D.C.: February 
2011). 

[15] GAO, Human Capital: Sustained Attention to Strategic Human 
Capital Management Needed, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-632T] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 22, 
2009). 

[16] Partnership for Public Service, Bracing for Change: Chief Human 
Capital Officers Rethink Business as Usual (Washington, D.C.: August 
2012). 

[17] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283]. 

[18] GAO, Managing for Results: Implementation Approaches Used to 
Enhance Collaboration in Interagency Groups, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-220] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 14, 
2014). 

[19] GAO, Federal Training Investments: Office of Personnel Management 
and Agencies Can Do More to Ensure Cost-Effective Decisions, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-878] (Washington, D.C.: 
Sept. 17, 2012). 

[20] GAO, Information Technology: OMB and Agencies Need to Focus 
Continued Attention on Eliminating Duplicative Investments, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-685T] (Washington, 
D.C.: June 11, 2013). 

[21] GAO, Workforce Planning: Interior, EPA, and the Forest Service 
Should Strengthen Linkages to Their Strategic Plans and Improve 
Evaluation, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-413] 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2010). 

[22] GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Workforce 
Planning, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39] 
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003). 

[23] GAO, Managing for Results: Data-Driven Performance Reviews Show 
Promise But Agencies Should Explore How to Involve Other Relevant 
Agencies, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-228] 
(Washington D.C.: Feb. 27, 2013). 

[24] Rebecca L. Ray, Charles Mitchell, Amy Lui Abel, Patti Phillips of 
The Conference Board; and Emily Lawson, Bryan Hancock, Allison Watson, 
and Brooke Weddle of McKinsey & Company. The State of Human Capital 
2012: False Summit: Why the Human Capital Function Still Has Far to 
Go. Report Number: TCB_R-1501-12-RR (McKinsey & Company and The 
Conference Board, October 2012), 13. 

[25] GAO, Information Technology: FDA Needs to Establish Key Plans and 
Processes for Guiding Systems Modernization Efforts, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-523] (Washington, D.C.: June 2, 
2009). The recommendation was closed as implemented. 

[26] GAO, Interagency Collaboration: State and Army Personnel Rotation 
Programs Can Build on Positive Results with Additional Preparation and 
Evaluation, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-386] 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 9, 2012). 

[27] GAO, Program Evaluation: Strategies to Facilitate Agencies' Use 
of Evaluation in Program Management and Policy Making, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-570] (Washington, D.C.: June 26, 
2013). 

[28] GAO, Office of Personnel Management: Agency Needs to Improve 
Outcome Measures to Demonstrate the Value of Its Innovation Lab, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-306]. (Washington, 
D.C.: March 31, 2014). 

[End of section] 

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