Veterans' Benefits: Increased Focus on Evaluation and Accountability Would Enhance Training and Performance Management for Claims Processors

Since the issuance of our report, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has taken steps to assess the relevance of training provided to claims processors to satisfy their annual training requirement, and has made policy changes intended to ensure the relevance of this training. For example, in 2009 VBA collected the opinions of regional office training managers on the 80-hour training requirement, through an annual meeting and monthly calls. Also, starting in March 2010, VBA has been collecting feedback from claims processors on the usefulness of their training through mandatory Core Technical Training Requirements evaluations. Through November 2010, claims processors had submitted over 25,000 survey responses. As a result of the feedback received from various regional office staff, VBA has determined that 80 hours of training is appropriate but has made some policy changes to enhance the relevance of the training provided to fulfill this requirement. VBA now allows experienced staff to count 20 hours of time spent as an instructor towards their own training requirement, it has developed separate training curricula for intermediate and journey-level claims processors, and it now requires that the majority of training topics each year must be focused on addressing national and local error trends.

Since we issued our report, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has made an effort to more consistently collect feedback on the relevance of regional office training. In July 2009, VBA rolled out a new, on-line training evaluation system. This system provides regional office training managers with a standardized set of questions for collecting feedback from staff on training provided at the regional office. When staff complete the on-line questions, the results are fed into a database and can be viewed by training managers or others in the agency. The questions include, for example, whether the training will help staff do their jobs more effectively.

Since we issued our report, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has taken steps to implement this recommendation. VBA surveyed 193 claims processors across 23 regional offices, who completed new staff training during 2009, about the Training and Performance Support System (TPSS). VBA asked, for example, about the overall quality of TPSS, whether TPSS modules were an efficient use of employees' time, and whether employees received sufficient support from regional office instructors when using the TPSS.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has now implemented its VA Learning Management System (VALMS) in all Veterans Benefits Administration(VBA) regional offices. Every VBA employee has an account in VALMS and must use the system to record completion of required training. Supervisors in the VBA regional offices use the VALMS to monitor the training completion of their employees. They may log into VALMS and see the training assigned to an individual employee and the employee's progress on completing this training. Also, the VALMS automatically notifies supervisors when employees fail to complete a scheduled training. Using the information from the VALMS, supervisors hold individual employees accountable for meeting their training requirement, and may decide what consequences should be imposed on an employee or what other steps should be taken to ensure an employee completes training.

The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has assessed its performance appraisal system for claims processors, determined that adjustments are needed, and is now implementing changes intended to ensure a more meaningful distribution of ratings. On April 1, 2011, VBA implemented a Performance Appraisal Pilot at the Denver and Little Rock Regional Offices. During the pilot, managers and supervisors are required to apply a newly developed mock performance appraisal process, which will be applied concurrently with the existing appraisal system. This will apply to the journeyman-level VSR positions at these two regional offices. The revised performance appraisal system makes several changes aimed at achieving a greater distribution of ratings: (1) includes 5 levels of achievement for each element rather than 3; (2) adds a numerical factor to each level of achievement; (3) requires the assignment of percent weights to each element in increments of 5; (4) requires that no one element be assigned a weight greater than 60 percent; and (5) requires non-critical elements be weighted less than any critical element; and provides for a weighted score between 0 and 400. A performance evaluation will be conducted after September 30, 2011, for each employee using the pilot and current performance appraisal systems to assess whether the new approach results in an improved distribution of ratings (i.e., more ratings of excellent).