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DOD Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Strengthen Civilian Human Capital Strategic Planning and Integration with Military Personnel and Sourcing Decisions

GAO-03-475 Published: Mar 28, 2003. Publicly Released: Mar 28, 2003.
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Highlights

The Department of Defense's (DOD) civilian employees play key roles in such areas as defense policy, intelligence, finance, acquisitions, and weapon systems maintenance. Although downsized 38 percent between fiscal years 1989 and 2002, this workforce has taken on greater roles as a result of DOD's restructuring and transformation. Responding to congressional concerns about the quality and quantity of, and the strategic planning for the civilian workforce, GAO determined the following for DOD, the military services, and selected defense agencies: (1) the extent of top-level leadership involvement in civilian strategic planning; (2) whether elements in civilian strategic plans are aligned to the overall mission, focused on results, and based on current and future civilian workforce data; and (3) whether civilian and military personnel strategic plans or sourcing initiatives were integrated.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense To improve human capital strategic planning for the DOD civilian workforce, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to improve future revisions and updates to the DOD department-wide strategic human capital plan by more explicitly aligning with DOD's overarching mission, including results-oriented performance measures, and focusing on future workforce needs. To accomplish this, the revisions and updates should be developed in collaboration with top DOD and component officials and civilian and military human capital leaders.
Closed – Not Implemented
According to DAMIS, the recommendation does not recognize that the DOD Civilian Human Resources Strategic Plan imparts the Department's direction, with its vision, values, principles, critical success goals and objectives, and that it is based on DOD's challenges as defined in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The original version of this strategic plan was explicitly aligned with DOD's overall mission in that it was based on the recommendations of the Defense Science Board and the QDR. The Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civilian Personnel Policy) represented the civilian Human Resource community on the QDR and the Senior Steering Group in the development of the Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan contains detailed performance indicators and measures. DOD achievements against these standards are reported quarterly to the Office of Management and Budget. In addition, the current version of the strategic plan recognizes the need for results-oriented performance measures and in particular, Objective 4 requires that measures be developed for critical indicators of human resources success. Revisions and updates to the Strategic Plan have been, and will continue to be developed in collaboration with the Components, but must remain at a level of specificity to allow for the Components' varying missions and workforce needs. However, it is a Component responsibility to develop its strategic plan and outcomes to dovetail into the overarching DOD plan.
Department of Defense To improve human capital strategic planning for the DOD civilian workforce, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to direct the military services and the defense agencies to align their strategic human capital plans with the mission, goals, objectives, and measures included in the department-wide strategic human capital plan and provide guidance to these components on this alignment.
Closed – Implemented
DOD provided a copy of its fiscal year (FY) 2004 DOD Civilian Human Resources (HR) Strategic Execution Plan. It includes 51 performance measures that are aligned to DOD's seven strategic goals. As with the basic Department-wide Strategic Plan of 2002, the annual Execution Plan is a collaborative effort of DOD HR Directors. The starting point from which the basic strategic plan was built came from the Quadrennial Defense-Review and Readiness. The existing strategic plans for the services, DLA and Washington Headquarters Services were consulted, and the Office of Personnel Management's vision for the Federal government's human resources strategic focus was reviewed. In addition to collaborative planning, USD(P&R) conducts periodic joint meetings to evaluate progress toward meeting DOD goals and jointly adjusting the Execution Plan as required. A September29, 2003 USD(P&R) memorandum to the Service HR Directors, forwarded the DOD HR Performance Measures for review and comment in order to ensure a corporate approach to the measurement process. Measures were fine-tuned and incorporated into the FY04 Execution Plan. USD(P&R) also linked the DOD Civilian HR Strategic Plan to budget and legislative processes to ensure that the HR Strategic Plan drives planning, programming, budgeting, execution, and legislative activities. A September 30, 2003 memorandum to DOD HR Directors, describes the budget and legislative cycles, and presents a framework for linking HR Strategic Plan initiatives to these critical cycles. On October 27, 2003, the USD(P&R) requested Service Secretaries and Directors of Defense Agencies to review and report the progress made on the President's Management Agenda initiatives, one of which is Strategic Management of Human Capital.
Department of Defense To improve human capital strategic planning for the DOD civilian workforce, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to define the future civilian workforce, identifying the characteristics (i.e., the skills and competencies, number, deployment, etc.) of personnel needed in the context of the total force and determine the workforce gaps that need to be addressed through human capital initiatives.
Closed – Implemented
As part of the reporting required for the President's Management Agenda Scorecard, information on the future civilian workforce is provided twice a year to the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management.
Department of Defense To improve human capital strategic planning for the DOD civilian workforce, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to assign a high priority to and set a target date for developing a department-wide human capital strategic plan that integrates both military and civilian workforces and takes into account contractor roles and sourcing initiatives.
Closed – Not Implemented
DOD non-concurs with this recommendation. The Department stated that it has both a military and civilian strategic plan, and that the use of contractors is just another tool to accomplish the mission, not a separate workforce, with separate needs to manage. The Department, however, continues to assess its core functions as part of planning for outsourcing and managing its workforce of military, government civilian, and contractor personnel.

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Topics

Agency missionsCivilian employeesDownsizingHuman capitalLabor forcePersonnel managementStaff utilizationStrategic planningHuman resources managementU.S. Army