The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights enforces fair employment and occupational safety and health rules for over 30,000 employees in the legislative branch. Due to heightened awareness of workplace sexual harassment, Congress passed a 2018 law requiring the office to revise the process for resolving discrimination and harassment claims. Other requirements included creating an online optio...

According to GAO's nationwide survey of school district special education directors, GAO estimates that about 85 percent of districts in school year 2015-16, provided youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) services such as instruction on life, social, and behavioral skills, as they transition from high school to adulthood. ASD is a group of complex developmental disorders characterized by diffi...

How are agencies responding to smaller budgets? Federal discretionary spending, which funds activities like law enforcement training and worker protection programs, declined by about 12% between fiscal years 2010 and 2015. We looked at the efforts of three federal agencies to manage their declining resources by: 1) Leading from the top e.g., reorganizing staff to better deal with workloads, 2)...

Officials in five selected states reported using three main approaches to develop plans for implementing career pathways, sector partnerships, and regional planning strategies under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). GAO selected states that had various levels of experience with these strategies. Specifically, as a condition of receiving funding, federal agencies require state pl...

This is an e-supplement to GAO-16-62. It presents the results from GAO's survey of 57 senior CFPB executives as of January 31, 2015. A total of 36 senior executives responded to our executive survey for a response rate of 63 percent. GAO excluded responses to demographic and open-ended narrative questions...

Nonexecutive employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) who responded to GAO's survey identified strengths and areas for improvement in CFPB's personnel practices and culture. Most respondents agreed that enthusiasm for CFPB's mission is high and that immediate supervisors respect and value differences among individuals. However, GAO's survey found heightened concerns related to...

The National Mediation Board (NMB) has made some progress in addressing the seven recommendations GAO made in December 2013; however, additional actions are needed to fully implement those recommendations and strengthen operations (see table). Without full implementation, NMB lacks reasonable assurance that its limited resources are effectively targeted and may be missing opportunities to improve...

Representation of women on the boards of U.S. publicly-traded companies has been increasing, but greater gender balance could take many years. In 2014, women comprised about 16 percent of board seats in the S&P 1500, up from 8 percent in 1997. This increase was partly driven by a rise in women's representation among new board directors. However, even if equal proportions of women and men joined bo...

From fiscal years 2006 through 2013, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) decreased the size of its workforce and the number of employee work hours through retirements, attrition, and initiatives to streamline its operations. According to USPS's data, its workforce declined during this period from approximately 796,000 to 618,000 employees, or by about 22 percent. The total number of work hours also dec...

Substantial increases occurred over the last decade in the number of civil lawsuits filed in federal district court alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended (FLSA). Federal courts in most states experienced increases in the number of FLSA lawsuits filed, but large increases were concentrated in a few states, including Florida and New York. Many factors may contribute...