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entitled 'Federal Workforce: OPM and Agencies Need to Strengthen 
Efforts to Identify and Close Mission-Critical Skills Gaps' which was 
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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

January 2015: 

Federal Workforce: 

OPM and Agencies Need to Strengthen Efforts to Identify and Close 
Mission-Critical Skills Gaps: 

GAO-15-223: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-15-223, a report to Congressional Requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Mission-critical skills gaps both within federal agencies and across 
the federal workforce pose a high risk to the nation because they 
impede the government from cost-effectively serving the public and 
achieving results. 

GAO was asked to review progress OPM has made in closing government-
wide skills gaps, achieving its cross-agency priority goal, and 
additional steps needed to better identify and address skills gaps. 
This report assesses (1) lessons learned from initial efforts to close 
critical skills gaps and how they can inform future initiatives, (2) 
what progress OPM has made in building a predictive capacity to 
identify future mission-critical skills gaps, and (3) how OPM and 
agencies are using HRstat to identify and close skills gaps. To 
address these objectives, GAO reviewed documentation; interviewed OPM 
officials; and reviewed the implementation of HRstat meetings at 
Commerce, DOE, and USAID. 

What GAO Found: 

Lessons learned from initial efforts to try to close skills gaps could 
strengthen future approaches. For example, the Chief Human Capital 
Officer (CHCO) Council Working Group (Working Group) identified skills 
gaps in six government-wide occupations, such as cybersecurity and 
auditors. Although this effort was an important step forward, GAO’s 
work has identified skills gaps in nearly two dozen occupations with 
significant programmatic impact. In some cases, such as cybersecurity, 
the skills gaps GAO identified were consistent with the Working 
Group’s findings. But GAO’s work has also identified additional skills 
gaps. For example, a decline in telecommunication expertise at 
multiple agencies contributed to delays and cost overruns of 44 
percent when those agencies were transitioning to a new network of 
telecommunications services. The Working Group did not address a more 
comprehensive list of skills gaps because of various methodological 
shortcomings that included insufficient analysis of workforce data 
early in the process. In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management 
(OPM) and the CHCO Council plan to identify and address a new set of 
government-wide skills gaps. It will be important that key lessons 
learned from the initial efforts to identify skills gaps inform this 
next round of work, including the need to (1) use a data-driven 
approach early in the process, (2) prioritize occupations using 
criteria that consider programmatic impact, and (3) consult with 
subject matter experts and other stakeholders prior to the 
identification of skills gaps in occupations. 

Key features of OPM’s efforts to predict emerging skills gaps are in 
the early planning stages. GAO has previously reported that further 
progress in closing skills gaps will depend on, among other things, 
the extent to which OPM develops a capacity to predict emerging skills 
gaps beyond those areas already identified. A re-named interagency 
group, known as the Federal Agency Skills Team, plans to strengthen 
the methodology used to identify emerging skills gaps. Additionally, 
OPM officials are discussing plans to modify OPM’s workforce database 
to capture government-wide staffing data. However, OPM will need to 
establish a schedule for modifying this database to ensure its 
implementation. OPM officials also stated that because agencies’ 
capacity to assess workforce competencies varies, OPM does not have 
government-wide data on competency gaps, which is needed to identify 
emerging cross-agency skills gaps. In conjunction with agencies’ 
CHCOs, OPM will need to strengthen agencies’ ability to assess their 
competency needs that are critical to successfully achieving their 
mission and goals. 

OPM and selected agencies that GAO reviewed-—the Departments of 
Commerce (Commerce) and Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID)—-could improve efforts to address 
skills gaps by strengthening their use of quarterly data-driven 
reviews, known as HRstat meetings. Specifically, the metrics used by 
the selected agencies during their HRstat meetings vary from agency to 
agency, making it difficult for OPM to assess agencies’ progress in 
closing skills gaps government-wide. Although it is important for 
agencies to have their own HRstat metrics, OPM should work with the 
CHCO Council to develop a core set of HRstat metrics that all agencies 
use so that OPM may have the ability to analyze skills gap data across 
the government. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that OPM (1) strengthen its methodology for identifying 
and addressing skills gaps, (2) establish a schedule and process for 
collecting government-wide staffing and competency data, and (3) 
develop a core set of metrics for use in agencies’ HRstat reviews. OPM 
generally concurred with the first and third recommendations but did 
not concur with the second recommendation because of funding 
implications. GAO acknowledges there may be funding constraints; 
however, GAO’s recommendation may help OPM address these constraints. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-223]. For more 
information, contact Robert Goldenkoff at (202) 512-2757 or 
goldenkoffr@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Lessons Learned From Initial Efforts to Close Mission-Critical Skills 
Gaps Could Strengthen Future Approaches: 

OPM's Efforts to Predict Emerging Mission-Critical Skills Gaps Are in 
the Early Planning Stages: 

OPM and Selected Agencies Could Improve Efforts to Address Skills Gaps 
by Strengthening Data-Driven Reviews: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management: 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Sub-goal Groups' Plans Generally Met Three of Six Key 
Practices for Project Planning: 

Table 2: Metrics Reported during HRstat in Quarter 3 of Fiscal Year 
2014 That Are Relevant to Closing Skills Gaps - Across All Selected 
Agencies: 

Figure: 

Figure 1: Percentage of Career Permanent Employees on Board as of 
September 30, 2013, Eligible to Retire by 2018 by Agency: 

Abbreviations: 

CAP: Cross-Agency Priority: 

CHCO: Chief Human Capital Officer: 

Commerce: Department of Commerce: 

DOE: Department of Energy: 

EHRI: Enterprise Human Resources Integration: 

FAST: Federal Agency Skills Team: 

GPRAMA: GPRA Modernization Act of 2010: 

GSA: General Services Administration: 

Interior: Department of Interior: 

IT: information technology: 

MCO: mission-critical occupation: 

OMB: Office of Management and Budget: 

OPM: Office of Personnel Management: 

SHCM: strategic human capital management: 

STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: 

USAID: U.S. Agency for International Development: 

[End of section] 

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

January 30, 2015: 

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

The Honorable Stephen Lynch: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on National Security: 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 
House of Representatives: 

Skills gaps within the federal workforce can significantly impact 
agencies' ability to serve the public and achieve their missions. For 
example, a lack of seasoned acquisition staff--whose responsibilities 
include procuring services, evaluating price proposals, and 
administering contracts--may contribute to significant delays in 
purchasing mission-critical goods and services, such as medical 
supplies, engineering support, and program management.[Footnote 1] 
Likewise, as we noted in our earlier work, an information technology 
(IT) workforce without the appropriate competencies could impede the 
development of the multimillion-dollar information systems needed to 
conduct federal IT projects.[Footnote 2] 

An agency's skills gap can manifest itself in a variety of ways. For 
the purposes of this report, a skills gap may consist of one or more 
of the following: a (1) "staffing gap," in which an agency has an 
insufficient number of individuals to complete its work, such as a 
lack of contracting officers within its workforce; and/or a (2) 
"competency gap," in which an agency has individuals without the 
appropriate skills, abilities, or behaviors to successfully perform 
the work, such as an information technology workforce without up-to-
date cybersecurity skills.[Footnote 3] 

Because skills gaps within individual federal agencies--as well as 
across the federal workforce--can lead to costly, less-efficient 
government, we designated addressing agencies' mission-critical skills 
gaps as a high-risk area in February 2011.[Footnote 4] At that time, 
we noted that strategic human capital management--a GAO high-risk 
issue since 2001--seemed to be improving in some respects because of 
actions taken by Congress, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), 
and individual agencies. However, we also noted that considerable work 
was still needed going forward to identify and address skills gaps. 

In response, OPM and agencies launched several initiatives. For 
example, in September 2011, OPM and the Chief Human Capital Officer 
(CHCO) Council established an interagency working group (Working 
Group) to identify and mitigate selected skills gaps in mission-
critical occupations (MCO) and has thus far identified skills gaps in 
six areas: information technology/cybersecurity, contract 
specialist/acquisition, economist, human resource specialist, auditor, 
and the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) 
functional community. 

In the President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget, released in February 2012, 
the Working Group's efforts were designated as an interim, two-year 
Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) goal.[Footnote 5] More recently, the 
President's Fiscal Year 2015 budget established closing skills gaps in 
the government-wide human resource workforce an OPM Agency Priority 
Goal. In addition, to promote agency leadership's use of data to 
improve human capital management, in May 2012, OPM launched HRstat--a 
quarterly data-driven review led by each agency's CHCO--to review 
performance metrics related to human resource goals, such as goals for 
closing skills gaps.[Footnote 6] OPM expects to implement HRstat 
government-wide in 2015. 

You asked us to review the progress made by OPM in closing government-
wide skills gaps and achieving its CAP goal, as well as what 
additional steps, if any, are needed to better identify and address 
skills gaps. This report assesses (1) lessons learned from initial 
efforts to close critical skills gaps and how they can inform future 
initiatives; (2) what progress OPM has made in building a predictive 
capacity to identify future mission-critical skills gaps; and (3) how 
OPM and selected agencies are using HRstat to identify and close 
skills gaps. 

To accomplish the first objective, we observed the Working Group's 
meetings from July 2011 to August 2012 to understand the process it 
used to identify government-wide skills gaps in MCOs. We also reviewed 
documentation, such as status reports, that described the Working 
Group's activities, and our reports from October 2010 to May 2014 to 
identify skills gaps that we determined were causing programmatic 
impacts at agencies across the federal government.[Footnote 7] 
Moreover, we reviewed planning documents for addressing skills gaps in 
the six MCOs identified by the Working Group for such things as their 
alignment with key practices for project planning that we identified 
through a literature review. The criteria were drawn from our prior 
work assessing project planning, our guide for key practices in 
project schedules, and our criteria for removing issues from our high-
risk list.[Footnote 8] In particular, we assessed whether the planning 
documents included the following elements relevant to closing skills 
gaps: (1) identifying root causes, (2) establishing objectives, (3) 
developing specific actions, (4) assigning roles and responsibilities, 
(5) planning duration of actions, and (6) using outcome-oriented 
performance metrics. To determine progress made toward the interim CAP 
goal for closing skills gaps, we reviewed documentation, such as 
quarterly status updates. We also interviewed OPM and agency officials 
who design strategies to close skills gaps that OPM and the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) designated as the focus of the CAP goal. 

To accomplish the second objective, we reviewed documentation, such as 
strategic plans, containing information about ongoing OPM initiatives 
that could build the predictive capacity within OPM to identify future 
mission-critical skills gaps. We also interviewed OPM officials who 
were implementing these initiatives to learn more about the status of 
OPM's efforts. 

To accomplish the third objective, we selected a nongeneralizable 
sample of three agencies--the Departments of Commerce (Commerce) and 
Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Agency for International Development 
(USAID)--from among the 24 agencies that had implemented HRstat at the 
time of our review. We selected these agencies because they had one or 
more of the following: (1) multiple skills gaps that we and the 
Working Group identified; (2) skills gaps in any of the four 
occupations that we or the Working Group most frequently identified 
(STEM, acquisition, human resources, and cybersecurity); and (3) large 
proportions of their workforces in each of those occupations. Also, 
the selected agencies were among the first to implement HRstat and 
therefore had the most experience implementing the HRstat process at 
the time of our review. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2014 to January 2015 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: 

Mission-critical skills gaps within specific federal agencies as well 
as across the federal workforce pose a high risk to the nation because 
they impede the government from cost effectively serving the public 
and achieving results. We first designated strategic human capital 
management across the government as a high-risk issue in 2001 because 
of the federal government's long-standing lack of a consistent 
approach to human capital management. In February 2011, we narrowed 
the focus of this high-risk issue to the need for agencies to close 
mission-critical skills gaps. At that time, we noted that agencies 
faced challenges effectively and efficiently meeting their missions 
across a number of areas, including acquisition management and foreign 
language capabilities.[Footnote 9] 

Trends in federal workforce retirement threaten to aggravate the 
problem of skills gaps. As Figure 1 shows, 30 percent of all career 
permanent employees who were on board as of September 30, 2013, will 
be eligible to retire by 2018. Moreover, some agencies such as the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business 
Administration will have particularly high retirement eligibility 
rates by 2018. 

Figure 1: Percentage of Career Permanent Employees on Board as of 
September 30, 2013, Eligible to Retire by 2018 by Agency: 

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Government-wide retirement eligibility rate: 30.1%. 

Agriculture: 35%; 
Commerce: 29%; 
Defense: 28%; 
Education: 32%; 
Energy: 35%; 
Health and Human Services: 30%; 
Homeland Security: 22%; 
Housing and Urban Development: 44%; 
Justice: 31%; 
Labor: 33%; 
State: 29%; 
Interior: 37%; 
Treasury: 37%; 
Transportation: 39%; 
Veterans Affairs: 31%; 
General Services Administration: 35%; 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration:; 35%; 
National Science Foundation: 38%; 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: 35%; 
Office of Personnel Management: 28%; 
Small Business Administration: 41%; 
Social Security Administration: 31%; 
United States Agency for International Development: 30%; 
Environmental Protection Agency: 39%; 
Non-CFO Act agencies: 32%. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from the OPM Enterprise Human Resources 
Integration Statistical Data Mart. GAO-15-223. 

[End of figure] 

Various factors affect when eligible individuals actually retire, 
which can be seen in the number of new retirement claims received by 
OPM each month. In October 2014, OPM was hit with a surge in new 
retirement claims--10,155, the highest number since February 2014. 
However, in the intervening months, there was considerable fluctuation 
in new claims. Some amount of retirement and other forms of attrition 
can be beneficial because it creates opportunities to bring fresh 
skills on board and allows organizations to restructure themselves to 
better meet program goals and fiscal realities.[Footnote 10] 
Nevertheless, if turnover is not strategically managed and monitored 
and succession plans are not in place, gaps can develop in an agency's 
institutional knowledge and leadership as experienced employees retire. 

In addition to a potential wave of employee retirements, other human-
capital related risks are threatening the performance of federal 
agencies, including current budget and long-term fiscal pressures, 
declining levels of employee satisfaction, and the changing nature of 
federal work with an increasing number of positions requiring advanced 
degrees and other skills. 

Effectively addressing mission-critical skills gaps requires a multi-
faceted response from OPM and agencies. In February 2013, we noted 
that OPM and agencies would need to use a strategic approach that (1) 
involves top management, employees, and other stakeholders; (2) 
identifies the critical skills and competencies that will be needed to 
achieve current and future programmatic results; (3) develops 
strategies that are tailored to address skills gaps; (4) builds the 
internal capability needed to address administrative, training, and 
other requirements important to support workforce planning strategies; 
and (5) includes plans to monitor and evaluate progress toward closing 
skills gaps and meeting other human capital goals using a variety of 
appropriate metrics.[Footnote 11] We also noted that further progress 
in closing skills gaps will depend on, among other things, the extent 
to which OPM develops a predictive capacity to identify newly emerging 
skills gaps beyond those areas already identified. 

Lessons Learned From Initial Efforts to Close Mission-Critical Skills 
Gaps Could Strengthen Future Approaches: 

Working Group's Effort Yields Three Key Lessons for Identifying Skills 
Gaps: 

Based on its deliberations from September 2011 through March 2012, the 
CHCO Council Working Group (Working Group) identified skills gaps in 
six government-wide, mission-critical occupations (MCO): 
cybersecurity, auditor, human resources specialist, contract 
specialist, economist, and the STEM family. It also identified mission-
critical competencies, including data analysis, strategic thinking, 
influencing and negotiating, problem solving, and grants management 
competencies. As part of these deliberations, individual agencies 
identified agency-specific MCOs and were responsible for designing 
strategies to close skills gaps in those occupations. 

Although this effort was an important step forward, because of various 
methodological shortcomings, the Working Group did not address a more 
comprehensive list of mission-critical skills gaps. As we discuss 
later in this report, in 2015, OPM plans to identify a new set of 
MCOs. Going forward, it will be important for OPM and the CHCO Council 
to use lessons learned from its initial efforts to inform this next 
round of work. Specifically, the Working Group's experience 
underscores the importance of (1) using a robust, data-driven approach 
to identify potential MCOs early in the process; (2) prioritizing 
occupations using criteria that consider programmatic impact; and (3) 
consulting with subject matter experts and other stakeholders prior to 
identifying MCOs. 

Since 2011, our work has identified skills gaps in nearly two dozen 
occupations across the government. In some cases, such as 
cybersecurity, the gaps we identified were affecting multiple agencies 
and were consistent with the Working Group's findings.[Footnote 12] 
But our work also identified additional skills gaps, both government-
wide and agency specific, that were having a significant programmatic 
impact, such as: 

* Oil and Gas Management. In January 2014, we found that hiring and 
retention challenges at the Department of Interior (Interior) have 
resulted in fewer inspections of oil and gas facilities, which 
according to officials results in an increased risk to human health 
and safety due to a spill or accident.[Footnote 13] In 2012, 
Interior's Bureau of Land Management had an attrition rate among 
petroleum engineers that, according to OPM data, is more than double 
the average federal attrition rate. Although Congress has provided 
Interior with the authority to establish higher minimum rates of basic 
pay for key inspection occupations, we noted in January 2014 that it 
was uncertain how Interior would address staffing shortfalls over 
time. Interior generally agreed with our recommendation that it should 
systematically collect data on hiring times for key oil and gas 
positions, ensure the accuracy of the data, analyze the data to 
identify the causes of delays, and expedite the hiring process. In 
response to our recommendation, Interior stated that its bureaus have 
begun a more systematic collection and analysis of hiring data to 
identify the causes of delays and to help expedite the hiring process. 

* Telecommunications. In December 2013, we found that a decline in 
telecommunication expertise across multiple agencies compounded the 
General Services Administration's (GSA) challenges in transitioning 
those agencies to a new network of telecommunications services, 
contributing to delays and cost overruns of 44 percent.[Footnote 14] 
Moreover, according to GSA, customer agencies are concerned that the 
shortage of telecommunications specialists will get worse because 
there are not enough to replace experienced workers nearing 
retirement. GSA has yet to fully study the issue of addressing mission-
critical skills gaps and agreed that understanding expertise 
shortfalls would be useful for future transition planning purposes. 
Officials from GSA and OPM agreed with our recommendation on the need 
to better examine potential government-wide telecommunications 
expertise shortfalls and have agreed to coordinate on efforts to do 
so. While this recommendation was still open at the time of our 
review, GSA's Office of Human Resources Management plans to take 
several actions such as identifying and validating technical 
competencies, developing competency models, and performing a workforce 
assessment against the models. 

A Data-Driven Approach Could Help OPM and Agencies Identify a More 
Complete Set of Mission-Critical Occupations: 

Working Group officials observed that a lesson learned from their MCO 
selection process was that they did not use workforce information and 
data analytics sufficiently early in the process. Instead, to identify 
an initial list of MCOs, the Working Group started with an 
environmental scan that consisted of our reports and academic studies. 
The Working Group used data analytics, such as the levels of attrition 
within an occupation, only after it had identified the initial set of 
MCOs.[Footnote 15] This approach only supported the selection of MCOs 
the Working Group already made and did not subject the full range of 
federal occupations to the same analytical criteria. As part of our 
development of our 2013 High-Risk report, we discussed this approach 
with the Working Group's leadership, specifically questioning why the 
Working Group did not use workforce data as the starting point for its 
selection process.[Footnote 16] Subsequently, as part of a June 2013 
discussion of lessons learned, Working Group officials concluded that 
the MCO selection process would have benefited from analyzing staffing 
gap data and associated trends prior to identifying an initial set of 
MCOs. These officials determined that using these workforce data would 
have given the Working Group a better sense of which occupations had 
the biggest skills gaps. 

Prioritization Criteria Should Consider Potential Programmatic Impact: 

In February 2012, to help prioritize their efforts, Working Group 
officials limited the scope of their work by creating criteria that at 
least half of the 24 CHCO Council agencies needed to report having a 
skills gap in that occupation, and that those agencies collectively 
needed to employ at least 95 percent of the occupation's workforce. 
Working Group officials explained that limiting the number of MCOs 
using these criteria enabled them to focus on occupations found in 
most agencies. The officials also noted that it was important to 
establish a threshold for the number of agencies with a given skills 
gap so that the Working Group could focus resources on addressing 
skills gaps that had the greatest reach across the government. 
Officials added that skills gaps that existed at only a few agencies 
were the agencies' responsibility to address. 

While we recognize the importance of prioritizing MCOs to a manageable 
number, the Working Group's approach overlooked skills gaps that may 
not have met the criteria but still had the potential for significant 
programmatic impact. For example, in August 2014, we found that, in 
part because of staffing shortages, the Department of Justice's Bureau 
of Prisons was not activating new prison facilities in a timely 
manner, thereby aggravating the problem of prison overcrowding. 
[Footnote 17] Additionally, we found in December 2013 that the 
Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration lacked 
a plan to have sufficient safety inspectors to carry out oversight of 
such initiatives as positive train control--a communications system 
designed to prevent events like train-to-train collisions.[Footnote 
18] Indeed, Working Group officials later recognized that establishing 
such a strict standard for a government-wide MCO resulted in 
eliminating from consideration other important occupations, such as 
nurses and financial analysts. Because the Working Group's selection 
criteria created such a strict and narrow standard for government-wide 
skills gaps, its efforts failed to capture the broader range of skills 
gaps that were affecting agencies' abilities to meet their missions. 
As we note later in this report, OPM's proposed methodology for 
selecting a new set of MCOs does not include such a strict definition 
for government-wide skills gaps. 

Early Stakeholder Input Can Help Improve the Identification of Skills 
Gaps: 

Our principles for effective strategic workforce planning note that 
agencies should involve stakeholders in developing and implementing 
future workforce strategies.[Footnote 19] However, the Working Group 
did not thoroughly consult occupational experts from other interagency 
councils or organizations prior to identifying MCOs. Instead, Working 
Group officials only considered consulting relevant stakeholders to 
discuss strategies for addressing skills gaps at a March 2012 meeting--
after the Working Group had already identified preliminary MCOs for 
selection. As a result, stakeholders could only provide advice on 
decisions already made rather than help with the initial screening of 
MCOs. As one example, members of the Council of Inspectors General on 
Integrity and Efficiency--an Executive Branch interagency council 
devoted, in part, to providing training for federal auditors--told us 
that they had not been consulted about the existence of skills gaps in 
the auditor occupation and were initially unsure why the auditor 
occupation was designated by the Working Group as an MCO for skills 
gap closure.[Footnote 20] A Working Group official indicated at a 
January 2012 meeting that the Working Group had sufficient subject 
matter experts internally, and verification of MCO selection with 
outside experts could lead to competing lists of MCOs and could expend 
significant resources. As a result of this limited outreach, however, 
the Working Group missed an opportunity to leverage the expertise of 
key outside stakeholders to get a more complete assessment of the need 
to close skills gaps. As we describe later in this report, OPM has 
recognized this deficiency and is proposing a methodology for a new 
interagency working group that incorporates more input from subject 
matter experts when identifying emerging skills gaps. 

Efforts to Address Skills Gaps Are Underway with Mixed Results: 

OPM Provided Resources and Visibility to Efforts to Close Skills Gaps: 

OPM and the Working Group have made important progress in creating an 
infrastructure to address the six mission-critical skill gaps they 
identified. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires OMB 
to coordinate with agencies to develop cross-agency priority (CAP) 
goals to improve the performance and management of the federal 
government in several areas, including human capital management. 
[Footnote 21] The fiscal year 2013 budget--released in February 2012--
designated OPM as leader of a two-year interim CAP goal to close 
skills gaps by 50 percent in three-to-five MCOs by September 30, 2013. 
[Footnote 22] As goal leader, the Director of OPM appointed key 
federal officials from each of the six government-wide mission-
critical occupations to serve as sub-goal leaders for each of the six 
MCOs identified by the Working Group. At the time of our review, the 
sub-goal co-leaders for the cybersecurity workforce, for example, were 
the Assistant Director for Cybersecurity at the White House Office of 
Science and Technology Policy and the Lead for the National Initiative 
for Cybersecurity Education within the Department of Commerce's 
National Institute of Standards and Technology. Likewise, the sub-goal 
leader for the economist workforce is the Assistant Secretary for 
Economic Policy and Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of the 
Treasury. 

In working within their occupational communities, the sub-goal leaders 
selected specific strategies to decrease skills gaps in the 
occupational communities they represent. Multiple sub-goal leaders 
indicated that the quarterly meetings and availability of OPM staff 
and their human resources expertise provided visibility and resources 
to sub-goal leaders' efforts to close skills gaps in their MCOs. For 
example, Auditor sub-goal leaders told us that the OPM Director 
assisted in conducting a study of government-wide recruitment and 
hiring of auditors. In partnership with OPM and stakeholders from the 
federal audit community, Auditor sub-goal leaders found that the 
current qualifications for federal auditors do not align with the 
nature of federal audit work. To address this challenge, OPM is 
studying how to change the qualifications for federal auditor 
positions to improve agencies' experiences with recruiting and hiring 
qualified candidates for that occupation. 

The meetings and performance reviews by OPM and sub-goal groups 
demonstrate high-level leadership commitment to address mission-
critical skills gaps. We have maintained that removing skills gaps as 
a high-risk issue across the government will depend in part on the 
extent to which OPM and agencies involve top management and include 
plans to monitor and evaluate progress toward closing skills gaps. 
[Footnote 23] The President's fiscal year 2015 budget, released in 
March 2014, includes a four-year human capital management CAP goal to 
(1) create a culture of excellence and engagement to enable higher 
performance, (2) build a world-class federal management team starting 
with the Senior Executive Service, and (3) enable agencies to hire the 
best talent from all segments of society. While these CAP goal 
elements contain workforce planning strategies and metrics relevant to 
closing skills gaps, there are no overall performance targets for 
closing skills gaps, and closing skills gaps is no longer an explicit 
goal. 

Throughout the time period when closing skills gaps was an explicit 
CAP goal, top officials at OPM held the sub-goal groups accountable 
for making progress by holding quarterly performance review meetings. 
OPM also used these meetings to discuss challenges the sub-goal 
leaders were facing and to field requests from sub-goal leaders for 
how they could better facilitate sub-goal groups' efforts. Now that 
the fiscal year 2013 CAP goal expired and was replaced with a fiscal 
year 2015 human capital management CAP goal that did not have explicit 
targets for closing skills gaps, OPM officials have told us that they 
intend to continue meeting with current sub-goal leaders through a 
community of practice. OPM has also worked with agencies to develop 
occupation-specific communities of practice within the science, 
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and Economist sub-goal 
groups. In addition, OPM has indicated that it intends to hold 
quarterly performance review sessions with officials in charge of 
efforts to close skills gaps in emerging government-wide occupations 
in a similar format to what was done during the prior CAP goal. 

These are all important steps in the right direction and highlight 
OPM's commitment to addressing skills gaps going forward. Still, the 
CAP goal to address skills gaps gave the entire effort government-wide 
focus and visibility, and provided OPM a mechanism to hold agencies 
accountable for results. It will be important for OPM to continue its 
leadership on this high-risk issue by holding occupational leaders 
accountable for implementing their strategies to close skills gaps and 
sustaining the visibility of the issue among agency officials across 
the government. Key focus areas include using (1) better defined, more 
measurable goals, (2) outcome-oriented performance metrics that align 
with activities to close skills gaps, and (3) key practices for 
project planning. 

Use of Better Defined, Measurable Goals Enhances Monitoring on Closure 
of Skills Gaps: 

The CAP goal target to close skills gaps was vague and difficult to 
measure. The fiscal year 2013 human capital CAP goal's target was to 
close skills gaps by 50 percent by the end of fiscal year 2013 in 
three-to-five of the six MCOs for which OPM appointed sub-goal leaders 
and groups of officials from across the government. Because the CAP 
goal target was difficult to measure, however, there is no clear basis 
for determining whether the CAP goal was met. 

Our prior work on performance goals has indicated that setting 
ambitious but realistic goals is one of the factors that can influence 
whether goal-setting and performance measurement efforts will be 
successful.[Footnote 24] However, sub-goal leaders and OPM officials 
leading the effort stated that the 50 percent skills gap closure 
target was difficult to measure. Specifically: 

* An OPM official told us that the 50 percent target was not set 
appropriately and that, rather than have a single, overarching 
performance target, sub-goal groups needed individualized targets to 
allow for greater measurability. 

* Similarly, the STEM sub-goal co-leader told us that the CAP goal 
target was not designed in a way that could facilitate a sophisticated 
measurement of progress by the various sub-goal groups. 

* The Cybersecurity sub-goal leader indicated that the group's efforts 
were at such an early stage of maturity that it could not gauge a 50 
percent skills gap closure because it had not fully determined the 
nature of its skills gap. The Cybersecurity sub-goal group, therefore, 
did not have an effective baseline from which to measure 50 percent 
progress. 

Align Performance Metrics with Targets and Activities for Closing 
Skills Gaps: 

Of the six sub-goal groups (Acquisition, Cybersecurity, Economist, 
Human Resources, STEM, and Auditor), three--the Cybersecurity, 
Economist, and Human Resources sub-goal groups--used performance 
metrics that either did not align with outcomes for closing skills 
gaps or did not represent their activities for closing skills gaps 
(the STEM and Auditor sub-goal groups did not establish metrics at 
all).[Footnote 25] Our prior work has outlined the importance of 
developing outcome-oriented performance metrics that clearly and 
sufficiently relate to the performance they are meant to assess. 
[Footnote 26] Our prior work has also discussed the importance of 
using performance metrics to link agencies' goals and priorities with 
the actions that they are taking so that leaders can hold their 
organizations accountable for progress.[Footnote 27] 

For example, the Acquisition sub-goal group aligned its metrics with 
activities and overall targets. Sub-goal leaders indicated that they 
focused their efforts to close skills gaps on maintaining federal 
acquisition competencies. To do so, the sub-goal group set a 
performance metric of increasing the certification rate among civilian 
contract specialists and produced guidance on revising agencies' 
certification curricula. Sub-goal leaders indicated that increasing 
the certification rate among civilian contract specialists by 10 
percentage points--from 75 percent to 85 percent--was adequate for the 
occupation's long-term needs. To make 50 percent progress toward this 
target by the end of fiscal year 2013, they worked toward a metric of 
an 80 percent certification rate. The Acquisition sub-goal group's 
efforts resulted in a 6 percentage point increase in the civilian 
contract specialist certification rate--to 81 percent--which surpassed 
its CAP goal metric and was aligned with such actions as producing 
guidance on reforming agencies' certification curricula. 

In contrast, the Cybersecurity sub-goal group is an example of a sub-
goal group that did not fully align its performance metric with the 
sub-goal group's activities. For instance, officials began an 
initiative in 2013 to categorize the cybersecurity specialty areas for 
the various occupations involved in federal cybersecurity work. This 
initiative, which operated through the end of fiscal year 2014, will 
allow managers to better assess what cybersecurity work needs to be 
done at agencies, and where there are gaps preventing agencies from 
accomplishing their cybersecurity missions. The Cybersecurity sub-goal 
leader noted that using the updated classifications to identify skills 
gaps is necessary before those skills gaps can be addressed. Officials 
did not, however, include a publicly-reported metric in fiscal year 
2013 to track how many of the cybersecurity-related classifications 
had been updated. 

Moreover, the Human Resources sub-goal group is an example of a sub-
goal group that did not align its metric with the outcome of closing 
skills gaps. The Human Resources sub-goal group tracked the percentage 
of federal human resources personnel who registered for and completed 
a single course on HR University--a centralized online suite of 
courses and curricula managed by OPM that agencies can use for 
training purposes. OPM officials said that they tracked these 
indicators because they perceived the need to standardize human 
resources training curricula across agencies as a first step to 
closing the skills gap. OPM officials told us, however, that they are 
still striving to develop more outcome-oriented measures from the use 
of HR University. We agree that while ensuring that human resources 
professionals receive proper training is vital, relying on a metric of 
how many people register for and complete a single online course is 
not the most effective way to assess the outcome of closing skill gaps 
within the human resource occupation. OPM officials also noted that a 
2014 data clean-up of HR University detected erroneous information 
that made the fiscal year 2013 registration and course completion 
rates unreliable as reported.[Footnote 28] OPM has continued to use 
the course registration performance metric as part of its fiscal year 
2015 Agency Priority Goal to close skills gaps in the federal HR 
workforce. OPM officials told us that data flaws on HR University have 
been corrected. However, because this metric does not measure an 
outcome, it does not provide quality information toward goals to close 
skills gaps. 

Key Project Planning Practices Could Improve Efforts to Address Skills 
Gaps: 

Sub-goal groups' planning documents for efforts to address skills gaps 
in fiscal year 2014 generally met three of six key practices for 
project planning. As we have noted, a well-developed and documented 
project plan can help ensure that agencies are able to gauge progress, 
identify and resolve potential problems, and promote accountability at 
all levels of the project.[Footnote 29] Project plans can also 
encourage agency managers and stakeholders to systematically consider 
what is to be done, when and how it will be done, and what skills will 
be needed.[Footnote 30] We identified the following six key practices 
from our prior work: (1) identifying root causes of issues, (2) 
establishing objectives, (3) developing specific actions, (4) 
assigning roles and responsibilities, (5) establishing the duration of 
actions, and (6) using outcome-oriented performance metrics.[Footnote 
31] 

Table 1 lists each of the sub-goal groups and our evaluation of their 
planning documents against each of the key practices for project 
planning. For plans that included some information relevant to a key 
practice but did not provide sufficient detail nor fully addressed the 
key practice, we gave partial credit. 

Table 1: Sub-goal Groups' Plans Generally Met Three of Six Key 
Practices for Project Planning: 

Key Practice: Identifying Root Causes of Issues; 
Acquisition: No; 
Cybersecurity: No; 
Economist: No; 
STEM: Yes; 
Human Resources: No; 
Auditor[A]: Yes. 

Key Practice: Establishing Objectives; 
Acquisition: Yes; 
Cybersecurity: Yes; 
Economist: Yes; 
STEM: Yes; 
Human Resources: Yes; 
Auditor[A]: Yes. 

Key Practice: Developing Specific Actions; 
Acquisition: Yes; 
Cybersecurity: Yes; 
Economist: Yes; 
STEM: Yes; 
Human Resources: Yes; 
Auditor[A]: Yes. 

Key Practice: Assigning Roles and Responsibilities; 
Acquisition: Partially; 
Cybersecurity: Partially; 
Economist: Partially; 
STEM: Partially; 
Human Resources: Partially; 
Auditor[A]: Yes. 

Key Practice: Establishing the Duration of Actions; 
Acquisition: Yes; 
Cybersecurity: Partially; 
Economist: Yes; 
STEM: Partially; 
Human Resources: Yes; 
Auditor[A]: Yes. 

Key Practice: Using Outcome-Oriented Performance Metrics; 
Acquisition: Yes; 
Cybersecurity: Yes; 
Economist: Yes; 
STEM: Partially; 
Human Resources: Partially; 
Auditor[A]: No. 

Source: GAO Analysis of Sub-goal Groups' Planning Documents. 
GAO-15-233. 

[A] The Auditor sub-goal group did not submit a formal plan for fiscal 
year 2014. However, OPM officials involved with the CAP goal indicated 
to us that the sub-goal group's project plan for its Classification 
Exploratory Study contained the entirety of the sub-goal group's 
efforts for the year. OPM officials, in partnership with the Auditor 
sub-goal group, are conducting the Classification Exploratory Study to 
examine ways in which OPM can alter the federal auditor job series 
classification to address issues experienced in identifying qualified 
applicants for agencies' auditor positions. 

[End of table] 

Some key practices were used consistently by sub-goal groups. As shown 
above, sub-goal groups' plans generally met some of our key practices. 
For instance, all of the sub-goal groups structured their plans by 
listing specific actions for addressing skills gaps. Our prior work 
states that it is important to identify the specific actions necessary 
to achieve a plan's objectives.[Footnote 32] By doing so, managers can 
properly assess the risk of not achieving the plan's objectives. 
[Footnote 33] For example, the plan for the Acquisition sub-goal group 
listed a clear division of actions--such as publishing a revised 
certification curriculum and increasing the government-wide use of an 
acquisition workforce management system--that addressed objectives 
that included strengthening civilian contracting certification 
standards. 

Some key practices were generally absent from sub-goal group project 
planning. Sub-goal groups' plans were less effective in meeting other 
key practices for project planning. For instance, only the STEM and 
Auditor sub-goal groups' plans discussed the root causes of their 
skills gaps and the purpose for their actions. 

Additionally, sub-goal groups did not consistently identify roles and 
responsibilities for actions to address skills gaps. While all sub-
goal groups listed agencies that would be responsible for 
accomplishing actions, only the Auditor sub-goal group identified 
individual officials charged with specific actions. 

Three of six sub-goal groups did not always track outcome-oriented 
performance metrics in their plans. For instance, the STEM sub-goal 
group's plan tracked such items as the number of STEM hiring reforms 
that had been approved by OPM. While gaining OPM approval of hiring-
policy changes is important in attracting more qualified workforce 
candidates, the STEM sub-goal group's plan did not track outcomes that 
might result from approving such policy changes, such as the number 
and quality of applicants and hires for STEM positions. 

OPM's Efforts to Predict Emerging Mission-Critical Skills Gaps Are in 
the Early Planning Stages: 

OPM Plans to Strengthen the Methodology Used to Identify Emerging 
Skills Gaps: 

The interagency working group that identified the list of skills gaps 
in six government-wide mission-critical occupations (MCO) was re-named 
the Federal Agency Skills Team (FAST). OPM has tasked the group--
composed of agency officials with workforce planning and data analysis 
skills--with implementing a standard and repeatable methodology that 
identifies and addresses government-wide skills gaps as well as 
mission-critical competencies over a 4-year cycle. In the first year, 
OPM officials stated that FAST intends to meet regularly until it 
identifies a new set of government-wide skills gaps, which OPM 
officials expect will occur by June 2015. Our analysis of FAST's 
proposed methodology identified three features that incorporate 
lessons learned from the Working Group's initial efforts, which were 
described earlier. First, FAST is to use a data-driven approach as the 
initial step for identifying a broad list of skills gaps. 
Specifically, officials from the 27 Chief Human Capital Officers 
(CHCO) Council agencies will be expected to compare their agency's 
mission-critical or priority occupations against several factors. 
According to OPM officials, those factors include: 

* 2-year retention rate, 

* quit rate, 

* retirement rate, and: 

* applicant quality.[Footnote 34] 

Second, in addition to being more data-driven, FAST will use a multi-
faceted approach to identify a select number of government-wide MCOs. 
This is to be achieved by using teams of at least three to four 
individuals to monitor internal and external environments using 
various sources--including news articles, reports, and interviews with 
public and private sector subject matter experts--to detect trends 
that may influence an agency's current and future workforce needs. 

Third, our analysis determined that the proposed methodology does not 
have a strict numerical standard for what constitutes a government-
wide skills gap. This could allow for more discretion to address 
occupations with the potential for significant programmatic impacts 
even though an absolute majority of agencies may not have skills gaps 
in those areas. 

After this identification process, FAST is to develop strategies to 
address the new set of skills gaps during the remaining years of the 4-
year cycle. In years two and three, OPM--in conjunction with FAST--is 
to designate leaders from within the selected government-wide 
occupations who will develop and implement plans to address those 
skills gaps. Finally, in year four, FAST plans to evaluate and monitor 
outcomes to determine the effectiveness of those strategies. In 
addition, during the fourth year FAST plans to incorporate lessons 
learned into a revised process for identifying skills gaps at the 
federal level. 

OPM's Plan to Capture Staffing Data Using Its Database Lacks a 
Schedule: 

OPM's plan to capture staffing data for select occupations using a 
database is still under development. Each year, OPM collects staffing 
data through a reporting process where the CHCO Council agencies are 
required to provide OPM with information--such as the target number of 
employees and projected attrition--for five government-wide MCOs 
(cybersecurity, human resources specialist, economist, contract 
specialist, auditor), and three-to-five agency-specific or STEM MCOs. 
Among other things, OPM uses these data to determine if an agency's 
workforce has a staffing gap in any of those occupations. 

In response to an administration initiative directed, in part, to 
reduce the human resources reporting burden on agencies, OPM is 
exploring how it can replace this annual reporting process by using 
its database containing federal workforce information--known as the 
Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI)--to capture the same 
agency staffing data.[Footnote 35] However, an OPM official stated 
that no timeframe currently exists for using EHRI to capture agencies' 
MCO staffing data. In the interim, an OPM official stated that they 
will continue collecting MCO staffing data until OPM can make the 
necessary investments in EHRI. Our schedule assessment guide has noted 
that a well-planned schedule is a fundamental management tool that can 
(among other things) help government agencies specify when work will 
be performed in the future.[Footnote 36] Moreover, our schedule 
assessment guide states that a consistent methodology for developing, 
managing, and evaluating cost estimates for certain types of programs 
includes the concept of scheduling the necessary work to a timeline. 
By establishing a schedule specifying when EHRI will be modified to 
capture government-wide staffing data, OPM officials will have a road 
map for gauging progress, identifying and resolving potential 
problems, promoting accountability at all levels of the agency, and 
determining the amount and timing of the funding needed. 

OPM Lacks a Process for Collecting Government-wide Competency Data: 

According to an OPM official, there is no process, using EHRI or 
another system, for collecting consistent data on the competencies of 
the federal workforce, which is needed to effectively predict future 
mission-critical skills gaps. According to an OPM official, federal 
agencies' ability to assess workforce competencies varies, which makes 
collection of government-wide data on competency gaps difficult. As 
one example, we have found that the Census Bureau has started to 
assess the competencies needed to carry out its future work. In 
contrast, Department of Commerce (Commerce) human capital officials 
stated that they do not conduct a Department-wide competency 
assessment of Commerce's workforce. Moreover, the Department of Energy 
(DOE) has conducted a competency assessment for a number of 
engineering occupations such as nuclear engineers. DOE officials have 
also developed a model for conducting a Department-wide competency 
assessment. Key principles for effective workforce planning that we 
developed note that agencies must determine the competencies that are 
critical to successfully achieving their mission and goals. Doing so 
can help agencies to effectively meet demographic, technological, and 
other forces that are challenging government agencies to change the 
activities they perform and the goals that they must achieve, how they 
do their business, and even who does the government's business. 
[Footnote 37] Therefore, as OPM develops its process for using EHRI to 
collect agencies' skills gaps data, it will be important for OPM to 
also work with agency CHCOs to bolster the ability of agencies to 
assess workforce competencies by sharing competency surveys, lessons 
learned, and other tools and resources--and to ensure that such 
information can be stored in the EHRI database for government-wide 
workforce analysis. 

OPM and Selected Agencies Could Improve Efforts to Address Skills Gaps 
by Strengthening Data-Driven Reviews: 

OPM Developed HRstat Data-Driven Reviews to Help Agencies Regularly 
Track Their Progress in Achieving Their Human Resources Goals: 

Data-driven reviews--commonly referred to as "stat" meetings--are 
regularly scheduled, structured meetings used by organizations to 
review performance metrics with department or program personnel to 
drive progress on agency priorities and goals. Conducting frequent 
stat meetings is a leadership strategy proven to help agency officials 
achieve results by focusing on an identified set of priorities, 
diagnosing problems, and deciding on the next steps to increase 
performance. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 required agencies to 
conduct data-driven quarterly progress reviews with key personnel 
responsible for the accomplishment of agency priority goals.[Footnote 
38] 

Building on this statutory model, OPM created HRstat, which is a CHCO-
led review of the key metrics that contribute to agencies' human 
resources goals, such as closing mission-critical skills 
gaps.[Footnote 39] OPM launched HRstat as a 3-year pilot program in 
May 2012, with an initial group of eight agencies that included 
Commerce, DOE, and the U.S. Agency for International Development 
(USAID)--the three agencies we selected for our illustrative case 
studies. In 2013 and 2014, OPM chose eight agencies per year for 
successive pilots. As a result, all 24 agencies subject to the Chief 
Financial Officers Act of 1990, as amended, had at least one year of 
HRstat implementation by the end of 2014.[Footnote 40] 

OPM's HRstat pilot gives agencies the discretion to select which human 
resources goals to track during HRstat meetings and the metrics used 
to assess them. The three agencies we selected all have closing 
critical skills gaps as one of their agency-wide human resource goals. 

Selected Agencies Are Using Different Metrics to Track Skills Gaps 
under Their HRstat Reviews: 

Based on our assessment of the HRstat reviews of our selected agencies 
(using agency material from the third quarter of fiscal year 2014), we 
identified those metrics most relevant to tracking progress on closing 
skills gaps.[Footnote 41] As illustrated in table 2 below, we found 
considerable variation in the number and types of metrics agencies 
were using to track skills gaps. 

Table 2: Metrics Reported during HRstat in Quarter 3 of Fiscal Year 
2014 That Are Relevant to Closing Skills Gaps - Across All Selected 
Agencies: 

Metric: Time to Hire; 
Commerce: [Check]; 
DOE: [Check]; 
USAID: [Check]. 

Metric: Staffing Number Completed[A]; 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Check]. 

Metric: Priority Staffing[B]; 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Check]. 

Metric: Percentage of Completed Individual Learning and Training Plans; 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Check]. 

Metric: Percent of Human Resources Staff Registered for Human Resources 
University (HRU)[C]; 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Check]. 

Metric: Percent of Human Resources Staff Completing At Least One HRU 
Course; 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Check]. 

Metric: Mission-Critical Occupation Staffing Targets[D]; 
Commerce: [Check]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Empty]. 

Metric: Permanent Attrition[E]; 
Commerce: [Check]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Empty]. 

Metric: Candidate Quality[F]; 
Commerce: [Check]; 
DOE: [Empty]; 
USAID: [Empty]. 

Metric: Actual Retirements; 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Check]; 
USAID: [Empty]. 

Metric: Retirements (projected and eligibility); 
Commerce: [Empty]; 
DOE: [Check]; 
USAID: [Empty]. 

Source: GAO analysis of Commerce, DOE and USAID data. GAO-15-233. 

[A] USAID tracks the staffing number completed for Foreign Service 
positions, Civil Service positions, Civil Service vacancies, personal 
services contractors, Foreign Service nationals, independent 
contractors, administratively determined positions, and individuals 
employed through inter-agency service agreements. 

[B] USAID tracks the percentage of staffing in its priority Africa 
missions. 

[C] HRU is the federal government's "one stop" human resources career 
development center. HRU is aimed at professionalizing the federal 
human resources career field and is designed to, among other things, 
address competency and skills gaps within the human resources 
community. 

[D] Commerce tracks staffing targets for the government-wide and its 
Agency Priority Goal mission-critical occupations, including patent 
examiners. 

[E] Commerce defines permanent attrition as the percentage of 
permanent employees that separated who were not subject to voluntary 
early retirement authority, voluntary separation incentive payments, 
or reduction in force. 

[F] Commerce tracks candidate quality as measured by the Chief Human 
Capital Officers' Managers' Satisfaction Survey. Commerce defines the 
candidate quality metric as the percent of managers that provided a 
rating of 8 or higher on a scale of 1-10 to the question "Applicants 
referred had the skills to perform the job." 

[End of table] 

As shown above, only DOE was tracking retirement eligibility and 
projected retirements, which are key indicators of where agencies 
might be at risk for future skills gaps. Likewise, only Commerce was 
tracking candidate quality, which provides an indication of whether 
applicants had the skills needed to perform the work. While some 
amount of variation is both desirable and expected given the different 
missions of the agencies and the flexibility OPM gave agencies in 
selecting metrics, the variation shown above has at least two 
significant downsides. First, the variation in number and types of 
metrics agencies are tracking suggest that some agencies' HRstat 
reviews are more robust and well rounded than others in that they are 
measuring factors affecting skills gaps from a more complete 
perspective. Indeed, each metric may tell a different story about the 
extent and nature of current and emerging skills gaps. This could lead 
to different remedial actions on the part of agencies. 

A second downside in the variation in numbers and types of metrics is 
that it limits OPM and the CHCO Council's ability to track agencies' 
progress in closing skills gaps government-wide. Our February 2013 
report noted that a leading practice for successful data-driven 
reviews, such as HRstat, is to ensure alignment between goals, program 
activities, and resources.[Footnote 42] However, because our selected 
agencies are using different metrics, it is difficult for OPM to 
assess where agencies are making progress, where additional efforts 
are needed, and how OPM might be able to help them, if at all. It also 
limits the ability of agencies and OPM to discuss and share lessons 
learned in identifying and addressing skills gaps. 

OPM officials stated that they knew of the various metrics used by 
agencies during their HRstat reviews. They noted that the HRstat pilot 
program was intended to be "agency-centric" and not a data-collection 
tool for OPM. While we agree that agencies should continue to have 
flexibility in choosing and "owning" metrics for their HRstat reviews 
that best meet their particular needs, a core set of metrics--while 
still allowing agencies discretion to include metrics that meet their 
specific requirements--could help strengthen the quality and 
consistency of the HRstat reviews from a government-wide perspective. 

Moreover, a core set of metrics could foster collaboration between 
agencies' use of HRstat reviews and the efforts envisioned under FAST. 
As we noted earlier, FAST is to use a data-driven approach as an 
initial step for identifying a range of skills gaps, such as a survey 
of hiring managers' satisfaction with job applicants' skills. As shown 
above, Commerce already tracks this same survey of hiring managers' 
satisfaction during its HRstat reviews. A core set of metrics could 
integrate the work done by FAST with HRstat reviews. 

Going forward, OPM, in conjunction with the CHCO Council, plans to 
identify key strategic and operational HR metrics all agencies will 
collect through HRstat and share with OPM.[Footnote 43] As part of 
that effort, it will be important for OPM and the CHCO Council to 
develop a core set of valid metrics that are directly aligned with the 
goal of identifying and addressing agency skills gaps. 

Conclusions: 

Closing workforce skills gaps is critical for agencies to better 
achieve a wide range of missions, from purchasing mission-critical 
goods and services to carrying out the Decennial Census. While efforts 
to close mission-critical skills gaps are couched in discussions about 
staffing numbers, competencies, metrics, and similar technical terms, 
the ultimate goal is higher-performing, cost-effective government. 
However, the challenges that agencies face are diverse and were not 
fully captured by the CHCO Council Working Group's first efforts to 
identify skills gaps in government-wide, mission-critical occupations. 
Although these initial efforts created an infrastructure for 
addressing skills gaps, to date, overall progress remains mixed. At 
times, goals have suffered from having targets that are difficult to 
measure. Likewise, agency officials have chosen to track metrics that 
often do not allow for an accurate assessment of progress made toward 
these goals for closing skills gaps. 

Building the predictive capacity to identify emerging mission-critical 
skills gaps is also critical to making further progress in addressing 
this issue. Realizing this, OPM has established an interagency working 
group known as FAST, which is responsible for identifying and 
addressing current and emerging skills gaps. OPM also intends to 
replace its annual reporting process for collecting agency staffing 
data by modifying its workforce database to capture the same data. 
These are important steps forward. However, we are concerned about 
these efforts for two reasons. First, OPM has not established a time 
frame for modifying its workforce database to capture the same agency 
staffing data that it currently collects through an annual reporting 
process--which will reduce the human capital reporting burden on 
federal agencies. Second, OPM officials stated that there is no 
process for collecting data on the competencies of the federal 
workforce because agencies' ability to assess workforce competencies 
varies. Helping agencies determine the competencies that are critical 
to successfully achieving their mission and goals will help them 
respond to external factors, such as changes in national security, 
technology, or budget constraints. 

At the agency level, the use of HRstat meetings is a proven leadership 
strategy that could help agency officials monitor their progress 
toward closing skills gaps. However, OPM should take a greater 
leadership role in helping agencies include a core set of metrics in 
their HRstat reviews so that OPM and agency leaders can have a clear 
view of progress made closing skills gaps. While it is important for 
agencies to have ownership over their HRstat reviews, OPM should also 
maximize its opportunity to use HRstat to gain greater visibility over 
the federal workforce. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To assist the interagency working group, known as FAST, to better 
identify government-wide skills gaps having programmatic impacts and 
measure its progress towards closing them, we recommend that the 
Director of OPM--in conjunction with the CHCO Council--strengthen its 
approach and methodology through the following actions: 

* Assist FAST in developing goals for closing skills gaps with targets 
that are both clear and measurable. 

* Work with FAST to design outcome-oriented performance metrics that 
align with overall targets for closing skills gaps and link to the 
activities for addressing skills gaps. 

* Incorporate greater input from subject matter experts, as planned. 

* Ensure FAST consistently follows key practices for project planning. 

To ensure that OPM builds the predictive capacity to identify emerging 
skills gaps across the government--including the ability to collect 
and use reliable information on the competencies of the federal 
workforce for government-wide workforce analysis--we recommend that 
the Director of OPM take the following two actions: 

* Establish a schedule specifying when OPM will modify its EHRI 
database to capture staffing data that it currently collects from 
agencies through its annual workforce data reporting process. 

* Work with agency CHCOs to bolster the ability of agencies to assess 
workforce competencies by sharing competency surveys, lessons learned, 
and other tools and resources. 

To help agencies and OPM better monitor progress toward closing skills 
gaps within agencies and government-wide, we recommend that the 
Director of OPM: 

* Work with the CHCO Council to develop a core set of metrics that all 
agencies should use as part of their HRstat data-driven reviews. 

* Coordinate with FAST personnel and explore the feasibility of 
collecting information needed by FAST as part of agencies' HRstat 
reviews. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the 
Directors of OPM and OMB; the Secretaries of the Departments of 
Defense, Energy, and Treasury; the Administrators of the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and USAID; the Chief 
Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration at the 
Department of Commerce; and the Special Assistant to the President and 
Associate Counsel to the President in the Executive Office of the 
President. 

The following agencies had no comments on the draft report: the 
Departments of Defense, Energy, and Treasury, NASA, OMB, USAID, and 
the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of 
the President; as well as Commerce's Bureau of the Census and National 
Institute of Standards and Technology. 

OPM and Commerce's Office of Human Resources Management provided 
technical comments that were incorporated, as appropriate. 

In its written comments, reproduced in appendix II, OPM partially 
concurred with one recommendation, did not concur with one 
recommendation, and concurred with one recommendation. Specifically, 
OPM stated that it partially concurred with our recommendation to 
strengthen the approach and methodology used by the interagency 
working group, known as FAST, to better identify skills gaps. OPM 
noted it agreed with, and planned to implement, the principles of each 
recommended action. However, OPM said it needed to clarify how its 
terminology and planned process differs from the description in our 
recommendation. In particular, OPM stated its process will identify 
government-wide rather than agency-specific skills gaps as it believes 
our draft recommendation suggests. We recognize that FAST was 
established to address government-wide skills gaps and have clarified 
the language in our recommendation accordingly. 

OPM stated that it does not concur with our recommendation to: (1) 
establish a schedule specifying when it will modify its EHRI database 
to automatically capture staffing data that it currently collects from 
agencies through its annual workforce data reporting process, and (2) 
work with agency CHCOs to bolster agencies' ability to assess 
workforce competencies by sharing competency surveys, lessons learned, 
and other tools and resources. Regarding EHRI, OPM maintained that it 
is impossible for the EHRI database to automatically capture staffing 
data currently included in MCO Resource Charts because some of these 
data includes specific agency projections and targets, which are 
provided via a manual data feed. OPM stated that it is assessing 
whether EHRI can be modified to allow agencies to supply these manual 
feed data into the database system. We have modified our report to 
recognize that EHRI cannot automatically capture the same agency 
staffing data that are captured through the MCO Resource Charts. 

In addition, OPM noted that there are funding implications associated 
with its ability to anticipate whether and when a modification 
schedule to the EHRI online database could be established. While we 
appreciate OPM's funding concerns, as we mention in the report, a well-
planned schedule is a fundamental management tool that can (among 
other things) help government agencies specify when work will be 
performed in the future. Moreover, scheduling the necessary work to a 
timeline is important for developing, managing, and evaluating cost 
estimates for certain types of programs. As such, a schedule, as we 
recommend, would help OPM determine the amount and timing of the 
funding needed, and help OPM identify the competing priorities that 
need to be balanced due to resource constraints. We therefore continue 
to believe OPM would benefit by implementing our recommendation. 

Regarding workforce competencies, OPM noted that funding and resource 
constraints negatively affect its ability to support agencies' efforts 
to address their workforce competencies. While funding limitations 
could affect OPM's ability to take these actions, our recommendation 
would help OPM and agencies stretch resources by leveraging their 
knowledge and experience. We therefore continue to believe OPM would 
benefit by implementing our recommendation. 

OPM concurred with our recommendation to work with the CHCO Council to 
develop a core set of metrics that all agencies should use as part of 
their HRstat data-driven reviews, and explore the feasibility of 
collecting information needed by FAST as part of agencies' HRstat 
reviews. 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 
committees, the Director of OPM, the Secretaries of Commerce and 
Energy, the Administrator of USAID, and other interested parties. In 
addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions concerning 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. Key contributors to this report 
are listed in appendix III. 

Signed by: 

Robert Goldenkoff: 
Director: 
Strategic Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

This report assesses (1) lessons learned from initial efforts to close 
critical skills gaps and how they can inform future initiatives, (2) 
what progress the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has made in 
building a predictive capacity to identify future mission-critical 
skills gaps, and (3) how OPM and agencies are using HRstat to identify 
and close skills gaps. 

To assess lessons learned from initial efforts to close critical 
skills gaps and how they can inform future initiatives, we took the 
following steps. 

* We observed the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) Council skills 
gaps working group's (Working Group) meetings from July 2011 to August 
2012 to understand the process it used to identify government-wide 
skills gaps in mission-critical occupations (MCO). 

* We reviewed documentation, such as status reports, that described 
the Working Group's activities. Furthermore, we reviewed our reports 
from October 2010 to May 2014 to identify skills gaps that we 
determined were causing programmatic impacts at agencies across the 
federal government.[Footnote 44] To identify our reports that 
identified skills gaps at agencies across the federal government, we 
searched through our Engagement Reporting System, our external 
database, and our Engagement Results Phase internal database. Reports 
were selected if they included references to skill gaps or related 
workforce conditions that might produce skill gaps (workforce 
shortages, competency gaps, training deficits) that were primary 
objective findings issued since the start of fiscal year 2011, updates 
on skill gaps identified since the beginning of fiscal year 2011, or 
updates on skill gaps identified in our 2011 and 2013 High Risk Series 
reports. Reports were not selected if they found skills gaps at 
agencies prior to fiscal year 2011, or if they referenced skills gaps 
that were not part of the engagement's findings. Private sector skills 
gaps were also excluded because the scope of this engagement was 
limited to OPM's and agencies' progress closing skills gaps across the 
federal government. 

* We reviewed planning documents for addressing skills gaps in the six 
MCOs identified by the Working Group for such things as their 
consistency with key practices for project planning. We identified 
project planning key practices from our prior work assessing project 
planning, our guide for key practices in project schedules, and our 
criteria for removing issues from our high-risk list.[Footnote 45] In 
particular, we assessed whether each planning document included the 
following elements relevant to closing skills gaps: (1) identifying 
root causes, (2) establishing plan objectives, (3) developing specific 
actions needed to accomplish objectives, (4) assigning roles and 
responsibilities to all actions, (5) establishing the durations of 
actions, and (6) using outcome-oriented performance metrics. Two 
analysts independently assessed each planning document to determine 
the extent to which information that was included met all six key 
practices and rated each plan using a three-level scale of yes, 
partially, or no, and reached a level of inter-rater agreement of 100 
percent. For plans that included some information relevant to a key 
practice but did not provide sufficient detail or did not fully 
address the key practice, we gave partial credit. 

* We reviewed documentation such as quarterly status updates to 
determine what progress had been made toward the interim cross-agency 
priority (CAP) goal for closing skills gaps. We also interviewed OPM 
and agency officials who are responsible for designing strategies to 
close skills gaps that OPM, in coordination with, the Office of 
Management and Budget, designated as the focus of the CAP goal. 

To assess what progress OPM has made in building a predictive capacity 
to identify future government-wide mission-critical skills gaps, we 
reviewed documentation, such as OPM strategic plans and meeting 
minutes from the CHCO Council Executive Steering Committee, containing 
information about ongoing OPM initiatives that could build the 
predictive capacity within OPM to identify future mission-critical 
skills gaps. We also interviewed OPM officials who were implementing 
these initiatives to learn more about their status. 

To assess how OPM and agencies are using HRstat to identify and close 
skills gaps, we selected a nongeneralizable sample of three agencies--
the Departments of Commerce and Energy, and the U.S. Agency for 
International Development--from among the 24 agencies that had at 
least begun implementing HRstat at the time of our review. We selected 
these agencies because they had one or more of the following: (1) 
multiple skills gaps that we and the Working Group identified; (2) 
skills gaps in any of the four occupations that we or the Working 
Group most frequently identified (STEM (science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics), acquisition, human resources, and 
cybersecurity); and (3) large proportions of their workforces in each 
of those occupations. Also, the selected agencies were among the first 
to implement HRstat and therefore had the most experience with the 
HRstat process at the time of our review. To assess how our selected 
agencies were using HRstat to address skills gaps, we also reviewed 
memorandums, internal briefings, and other material that agencies used 
to prepare for the reviews, and interviewed officials involved in each 
agency's HRstat review process. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2014 to January 2015 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. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management: 

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

January 21, 2015: 

Robert Goldenkoff: 
Director, Strategic Issues
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Goldenkoff: 

Thank you for providing the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 
the opportunity to comment on the Government Accountability Office 
(GAO) draft report, "GAO-15-223, Federal Workforce: OPM and Agencies 
Need to Strengthen Efforts to IdentifY and Close Mission-Critical
Skills Gaps." We appreciate the opportunity to provide you with 
comments about this report. 

Responses to Recommended Actions: 

Recommendation 1: 

To assist the interagency working group, known as the Federal Agency 
Skills Team (FAST), to better identifY skills gaps and measure its 
progress towards closing them, we recommend that the Director of OPM--
in conjunction with the CHCO Council--strengthen its approach and
methodology through the following actions: 

* Assist the FAST in developing goals for closing skills gaps with 
targets that are both measurable and achievable. 

* Work with the FAST to design outcome-oriented performance metrics 
that align with overall targets for closing skills gaps and link to 
the activities and strategies addressing skills gaps. 

* Incorporate greater input from subject matter experts, as planned. 

* Ensure FAST consistently follows key practices for project planning. 

Response: We partially concur. We agree with, and plan to implement, 
the principles of each recommended action, but we need to clarifY how 
our terminology and planned process differs from the description in 
the GAO recommendations. Our process calls for the FAST to identifY 
the government-wide (not agency-specific as the recommendation 
suggests) Mission Critical Occupations (MCO) and for Sub-Goal Leaders 
to then implement strategies to close those government-wide MCO skill 
gaps. The FAST has developed a data-driven, repeatable, multi-factor 
model to assist agencies in identifYing high-risk MCOs. Occupational 
leaders and subject matter experts (SMEs) with understanding of those 
occupations' workforce dynamics will provide input early in the 
process of identifying the government-wide MCOs. After the new set of 
government-wide MCOs has been identified through the FAST process,
OPM will work with SMEs-Sub Goal Leaders--to determine the best 
strategy for closing skills gaps in those occupations. Once this 
strategy has been determined, OPM will provide expertise and guidance 
to the SMEs--Sub-Goal Leaders--to identify goals, set aligned,
outcome-oriented metrics and measurable targets, and follow key 
practices for project planning. 

Recommendation 2: 

To ensure that OPM builds the predictive capacity to identify emerging 
skills gaps across the government--including the ability to collect 
and use reliable information on the competencies of the federal 
workforce for government-wide workforce analysis--we recommend that the
Director of OPM take the following two actions: 

* Establish a schedule specifying when OPM will modify its Enterprise 
Human Resources Integration online database to automatically capture 
staffing data that it currently collects from agencies through its 
annual workforce data reporting process. 

* Work with agency CHCOs to bolster the ability of agencies to assess 
workforce competencies by sharing competency surveys, lessons learned, 
and other tools and resources. 

Response: We do not concur. It is impossible for the Enterprise Human 
Resources Integration (EHRI) database to automatically capture the 
same staffing data that is captured through the MCO Resource Charts. 
Some of this data includes specific agency projections and targets, 
which are provided via a manual data feed. OPM is assessing whether 
EHRI can be modified to allow agencies to supply this manual feed data 
into the database system. There are funding implications associated 
with the EHRI online database which impact our ability to anticipate 
whether and when a modification schedule could be established. 
Similarly, funding and resource constraints negatively affect our 
ability to support agencies' efforts to address their workforce 
competencies. For example, OPM used to administer the Federal 
Competency Assessment Tool across the agencies, but funding 
constraints forced the agency to cease providing this government-wide 
competency assessment tool to support skills gap measurement and 
closure efforts. 

Recommendation 3: 

To help agencies and OPM better monitor progress toward closing skills 
gaps within agencies and government-wide, we recommend that the 
Director of OPM: 

* Work with the CHCO Council to develop a core set of metrics that all 
agencies should use as part of their HRstat data-driven reviews. 

* Coordinate with FAST personnel and explore the feasibility of 
collecting information needed by FAST as part of agencies' HRstat 
reviews. 

Response: We concur. We are currently considering how we will work 
with the HRStat Community of Practice and CHCO Council to identify a 
set of core metrics for agencies to use as part of their HRStat data-
driven reviews. We will also consider how to align and coordinate 
HRStat data with the 4-year cyclical needs of the FAST. 

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

Please contact Ms. Janet Barnes, Director, Internal Oversight and 
Compliance, on (202) 606-3207, should your office require additional 
information. 

Again, I extend my thanks to your office for providing this 
opportunity to update and clarify information in the draft report. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Mark D. Reinhold: 
Associate Director: 

Enclosure: 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: 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, Steven Lozano, Assistant 
Director; Don Kiggins, Analyst-in-Charge; Devin Braun; Deirdre Duffy; 
Karin Fangman; Donna Miller; and Rebecca Shea made major contributions 
to this report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International 
Development, FY 2015 Annual Performance Plan, (Washington D.C.: Apr. 
2, 2014). 

[2] See GAO, Information Technology: Census Bureau Needs to Implement 
Key Management Practices, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-915] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 18, 
2012). 

[3] Definition based on the Strategic Human Capital Management (SHCM) 
High Risk Initiative's definition of "skills gap," as outlined in its 
July 2012 status report. The SHCM High Risk Initiative was an 18 month 
joint initiative launched in September 2011 by the Office of Personnel 
Management (OPM) and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to 
address critical skills gaps in the federal government. Additionally, 
we will use OPM's definition of a competency which refers to the 
knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics 
needed by an individual to successfully perform their work or 
occupation. 

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

[5] The interim CAP goal was established to close critical skills gaps 
in the federal workforce to improve mission performance. The CAP goal 
expired as planned at the end of fiscal year 2013. 

[6] According to OPM's HRstat guidance, agency Performance Improvement 
Officers and Chief Operating Officers should support HRstat reviews. 

[7] We chose October 2010 (the start of fiscal year 2011) as the start 
date of our literature search because OPM and the CHCO Council formed 
the Working Group to close skills gaps in fiscal year 2011. 

[8] See GAO, Federal Employees: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen 
Performance Management Pilot, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-755] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 14, 
2013); GAO, GAO Schedule Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Project 
Schedules--Exposure Draft, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-120G] (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 
2012); and GAO, Government Operations: Determining Performance and 
Accountability Challenges and High Risks, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-159SP] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1, 
2000). 

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

[10] GAO, 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). 

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

[12] 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). 

[13] GAO, Oil and Gas: Interior Has Begun to Address Hiring and 
Retention Challenges but Needs to Do More, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-205] (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 31, 
2014). 

[14] GAO, Telecommunications: GSA Needs to Share and Prioritize 
Lessons Learned to Avoid Future Transition Delays, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-63] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 5, 
2013). 

[15] The Working Group analyzed a series of retention and recruitment 
metrics to assess staffing gaps. These included the attrition/turnover 
rate, retirement eligibility trends, quantity and quality of 
applicants, and time to hire. The Working Group also assessed the 
environmental conditions, such as budget availability, for hiring in 
the occupations. 

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

[17] GAO, Bureau of Prisons: Management of New Prison Activations Can 
Be Improved, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-709] 
(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 22, 2014). 

[18] GAO, Rail Safety: Improved Human Capital Planning Could Address 
Emerging Safety Oversight Challenges, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-85] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 9, 
2013). 

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

[20] The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency 
is an independent entity within the Executive Branch established by 
the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-409, § 7, 
122 Stat. 4302, 4305 (Oct. 14, 2008) codified at 5 U.S.C. App. 3, § 
11. Among the Council's missions is to aid in the establishment of a 
well-trained and highly skilled workforce in the offices of Inspectors 
General. 

[21] Pub. L. No. 111-352, § 5, 124 Stat. 3866, 3873 (Jan. 4, 2011) 
codified at 31 U.S.C. § 1120(a). GPRAMA significantly enhanced the 
performance planning and reporting framework originally put into place 
by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-
62, 107 Stat. 285 (Aug. 3, 1993). 

[22] In June 2010, we reported on the quarterly review process 
required under GPRAMA and the overall progress made towards each 
interim CAP goal, including the skills gap CAP goal. For additional 
information see GAO, Managing for Results: OMB Should Strengthen 
Reviews of Cross-Agency Goals, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-526] (Washington, D.C.: June 10, 
2014). Prior to full implementation of GPRAMA, OMB was to coordinate 
with agencies to develop interim CAP goals. Pub. L. No. 111-352, § 
14(a)(1). 

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

[24] GAO, Government Reform: Goal-Setting and Performance, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD/GGD-95-130R] (Washington, D.C.: 
Mar. 27, 1995). 

[25] In this report we define targets as the overall standard for 
progress for an entire goal, such as the CAP goal's target for closing 
skills gaps by 50 percent. We define metrics as the indicators that 
agencies and sub-goal groups used to represent a 50 percent skills gap 
closure, such as the Acquisition sub-goal group's metric to increase 
the civilian contract specialist certification rate from 75 percent to 
80 percent. 

[26] The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) defined 
"outcome measure" as an assessment of the results of a program 
activity compared to its intended purpose. 31 U.S.C. § 1115(h)(7). We 
have noted the importance of using meaningful, outcome-oriented 
performance goals and measures. See: GAO, Results-Oriented Government: 
Using GPRA to Address 21st Century Challenges¸[hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-1166T] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 18, 
2003); Managing for Results: An Agenda to Improve the Usefulness of 
Agencies' Annual Performance Plans, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-228] (Washington, D.C.: 
Sept. 8, 1998); and The Results Act: An Evaluator's Guide to Assessing 
Agency Annual Performance Plans, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-10.1.20] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 
1, 1998). 

[27] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD/GGD-95-130R] and 
Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government Performance 
and Results Act, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-96-118] (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 
1996). 

[28] OPM officials elaborated in an interview with us that the initial 
HR University data included numerous "dummy" accounts that had been 
established during simulated testing of the HR University platform. 
Additionally, the HR University site was mistakenly enabling 
registrants to identify multiple HR specialty areas, preventing HR 
University from tracking course completion in users' primary specialty 
area. Officials told us that these data flaws have been corrected as 
of the second quarter of fiscal year 2014. 

[29] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-120G]. 

[30] GAO, Securities and Exchange Commission: Some Progress Made on 
Strategic Human Capital Management, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-86] (Washington, D.C.: Jan.10, 
2006). 

[31] We identified these key practices from multiple previous GAO 
reports on schedule assessment, removing issues from GAO's high risk 
list, and strengthening the federal human capital performance 
management pilot. See: [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-120G], Federal Employees: 
Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Performance Management Pilot, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-755] (Washington, D.C.: 
Sept. 12, 2013); and Government Operations: Determining Performance 
and Accountability Challenges and High Risks, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-159SP] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1, 
2000). 

[32] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-755]. 

[33] GAO, Internal Control: Standards for Internal Control in the 
Federal Government, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] (Washington, D.C.: 
Nov. 1, 1999). 

[34] The Chief Human Capital Officers' Managers' Satisfaction Survey 
asks managers to rate their perception of workforce planning, 
interaction with and levels of support from Human Resources, 
involvement with reviewing applications, interviewing applicants and 
selecting final candidates, applicant quality, and their knowledge and 
use of hiring flexibilities. There is also a follow up six month 
satisfaction survey. 

[35] Exec. Order No. 13583, Establishing a Coordinated Government-Wide 
Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal 
Workforce, 76 Fed. Reg. 52847 (Aug. 18, 2011). In connection with 
establishing this coordinated initiative, the Director of OPM, along 
with other officials, was directed to review applicable directives to 
agencies and develop a strategy for consolidating agency plans and 
reports. 

[36] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-120G]. 

[37] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39]. 

[38] 31 U.S.C. § 1121(b). 

[39] According to OPM guidance, agency Performance Improvement 
Officers and Chief Operating Officers should support HRstat reviews. 

[40] The 24 agencies are listed at 31 U.S.C. § 901(b). 

[41] We reviewed the selected agencies HRstat materials from the third 
quarter of fiscal year 2014 because that was the most recent data 
available for all three agencies as of the time of our review. 

[42] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-228]. 

[43] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Memorandum for Chief Human 
Capital Officers, Update: Revising the Human Capital, Reviews, and 
Reporting Framework (May 13, 2014). 

[44] We chose October 2010 (the start of fiscal year 2011) as the 
start date of our literature search because OPM and the CHCO Council 
formed the Working Group to close skills gaps in fiscal year 2011. 

[45] See GAO, Federal Employees: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen 
Performance Management Pilot, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-755] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 12, 
2013); GAO Schedule Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Project 
Schedules, Exposure Draft, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-120G] (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 
2012); and Government Operations: Determining Performance and 
Accountability Challenges and High Risks, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-159SP] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1, 
2000). 

[End of section] 

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