Human Capital
Selected Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission Results Gao ID: GAO-03-446 April 11, 2003Successful strategic human capital management requires the integration of human capital approaches with strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and program goals. Such integration allows the agency to ensure that its core processes efficiently and effectively support mission-related outcomes. Based on the recommendations of various human capital experts, GAO identified six executive branch agencies that had taken key actions to integrate their human capital approaches with their strategic planning and decision making. The agencies were the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the General Services Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Geological Survey. These key actions may prove helpful to other agencies as they seek to ensure that their human capital approaches are aligned with their program goals.
The executive branch agencies GAO reviewed have taken key actions to integrate their human capital approaches with their strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and to shift the focus of their human capital office from primarily compliance activities to consulting activities. Agency leaders included human capital leaders in key agency strategic planning and decision making and, as a result, the agencies engaged the human capital organization as a strategic partner in achieving desired outcomes relating to the agency's mission. Human capital leaders took actions to transform the agencies' human capital organizations by establishing clear human capital strategic visions, restructuring their organizations, and improving the use of technology to free organizational resources. Human capital leaders also promoted a transition to a larger strategic role for human capital professionals with their focus being more on consulting rather than compliance activities. The human capital profession is in transition from valuing narrowly focused specialists to requiring generalists, who have all the skills necessary to play an active role in helping to determine the overall strategic direction of the organization. Jointly, agency leaders and human capital leaders are having human capital professionals and agency line managers share the accountability for successfully integrating strategic human capital considerations into agency strategic planning and decision making.
GAO-03-446, Human Capital: Selected Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission Results
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Report to Congressional Subcommittees:
April 2003:
HUMAN CAPITAL:
Selected Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain
Mission Results:
GAO-03-446:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-446, a report to congressional subcommittees
April 2003
Why GAO Did this Study:
Successful strategic human capital management requires the integration
of human capital approaches with strategies for accomplishing
organizational missions and program goals. Such integration allows the
agency to ensure that its core processes efficiently and effectively
support mission-related outcomes.
Based on the recommendations of various human capital experts, GAO
identified six executive branch agencies that had taken key actions to
integrate their human capital approaches with their strategic planning
and decision making. The agencies were the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, the General Services Administration, the Internal Revenue
Service, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and
the U.S. Geological Survey. These key actions may prove helpful to
other agencies as they seek to ensure that their human capital
approaches are aligned with their program goals.
What GAO Found:
The executive branch agencies GAO reviewed have taken key actions to
integrate their human capital approaches with their strategies for
accomplishing organizational missions and to shift the focus of their
human capital office from primarily compliance activities to consulting
activities.
* Agency leaders included human capital leaders in key agency strategic
planning and decision making and, as a result, the agencies engaged the
human capital organization as a strategic partner in achieving desired
outcomes relating to the agency‘s mission.
* Human capital leaders took actions to transform the agencies‘ human
capital organizations by establishing clear human capital strategic
visions, restructuring their organizations, and improving the use of
technology to free organizational resources. Human capital leaders also
promoted a transition to a larger strategic role for human capital
professionals with their focus being more on consulting rather than
compliance activities. The human capital profession is in transition
from valuing narrowly focused specialists to requiring generalists, who
have all the skills necessary to play an active role in helping to
determine the overall strategic direction of the organization.
* Jointly, agency leaders and human capital leaders are having human
capital professionals and agency line managers share the accountability
for successfully integrating strategic human capital considerations
into agency strategic planning and decision making.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-446.
To view the full report, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact J. Christopher Mihm at
(202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Selected Agencies Took Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches
with Organizational Missions:
Conclusions:
Agency Comments:
Appendix:
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology:
Tables:
Table 1: Key Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches with
Strategies for Accomplishing Agency Missions:
Table 2: GSA Human Capital Council Members:
Table 3: GSA‘s HR Roles and Competencies:
Table 4: USGS‘s HR Competencies:
Figures:
Figure 1: FEMA‘s Human Resources Division after Restructuring:
Figure 2: The Federal Human Capital Workforce: Percentage of
Generalists
and Specialists:
Abbreviations:
CHCO: Chief Human Capital Officer:
CHRIS: comprehensive human resources integrated system:
CIO: Chief Information Officer:
CPO: Chief People Office:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency:
GSA: General Services Administration:
HR: Human Resources:
HRD: Human Resources Division:
HRPC: Human Resource Policy Council:
IRS: Internal Revenue Service:
NAPA: National Academy of Public Administration:
OARS: online automated recruitment system:
OMB: Office of Management and Budget:
OPM: Office of Personnel Management:
PMA: President‘s Management Agenda:
SSA: Social Security Administration:
USCG: U.S. Coast Guard:
USGS: U.S. Geological Survey:
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Letter April 11, 2003:
The Honorable George V. Voinovich
Chairman
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management,
the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
Committee on Governmental Affairs
United States Senate:
The Honorable Jo Ann Davis
Chairman
Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency
Organization
Committee on Government Reform
House of Representatives:
Strategic human capital management is a pervasive challenge in the
federal government. In July 1998, we reported on agencies‘ efforts to
restructure their personnel operations.[Footnote 1] At that time,
resource reductions and changing missions, coinciding with the
replacement of aging human capital management information systems, were
driving efforts in federal agencies to restructure their human capital
offices. We found agencies‘ additional human capital challenges
included the need to achieve a more strategic integration of human
capital approaches in the program decision-making processes.
Fortunately, we are seeing increased attention to strategic human
capital management and a real and growing momentum for change. Recent
legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security includes a
provision to establish a chief human capital officer (CHCO) in major
agencies of the federal government.[Footnote 2] One of the functions of
the CHCO is to align the agency‘s human capital policies and programs
with organization mission, strategic goals, and performance outcomes.
This increased visibility of human capital organizations within federal
agencies underscores the increased recognition that strategic human
capital management is a vital enabler of organizational success.
We are addressing this report to you because of your ongoing interest
in federal human capital issues and how agencies can effectively manage
their human capital to achieve their organizational goals. Our
objective for this report was to identify and provide examples of key
actions agencies have taken to integrate their human capital approaches
with their strategies for accomplishing organizational missions. These
actions may prove helpful to other agencies as they seek to ensure that
their human capital approaches are aligned with their program goals. We
examined selected human capital integration actions within the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the General Services Administration
(GSA), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Social Security
Administration (SSA), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), and the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS).[Footnote 3] These executive branch agencies
were chosen because various human capital experts identified them as
having taken actions to integrate human capital approaches with
strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and program goals.
To meet our objective, we analyzed agency documents, such as planning
and organizational restructuring documents, and previous studies on
strategic human capital management. In addition, we conducted
semistructured interviews with agency officials, human resource
directors, and line managers, who were involved in designing or
implementing their agencies‘ human capital integration actions, to
elicit their experiences and conclusions about the agency actions they
believed were most important to the successful integration of their
human capital function. After reviewing and analyzing their responses,
we developed a framework to classify and report on the types of
identified actions. We did not attempt to independently verify the
performance results that agencies attributed to their actions.
Additionally, our selection process was not designed to provide
examples that could be considered representative of all the actions at
the agencies reviewed or of the federal government in general. By
profiling an agency for a particular action, we do not mean to imply
complete success for the action or lack of success for others. Appendix
I provides additional information on our scope and methodology.
Results in Brief:
The executive branch agencies we reviewed have taken a range of key
actions to integrate their human capital approaches with their
strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and goals. Table 1
identifies the actions taken and who within the agency initiated them.
Table 1: Key Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches with
Strategies for Accomplishing Agency Missions:
Action initiators: Agency leaders; Description of action: * Agency
leaders included human capital leaders in key agency decision making.
For example, USCG‘s agency leadership has engaged its human capital
organization earlier in the strategic planning and decision-making
process by appointing its Assistant Commandant for Human Resources as a
member of the agency‘s senior management team and a full partner in the
development of key USCG management decisions; * Agency leaders also
established entities, such as human capital councils, accountable for
integrating human capital approaches with strategies for achieving
programmatic goals. The groups‘ members include both program leaders
and human capital leaders. For example, GSA created a Human Capital
Council to ensure, among other objectives, that the agency‘s human
capital strategic plan was integrated within GSA‘s strategic plan and
supported the agency‘s program strategies..
Action initiators: Human capital leaders; Description of action: *
Human capital leaders are establishing and communicating clear human
capital strategic visions. For example, GSA‘s Chief People Officer‘s
vision is for GSA‘s Chief People Office (CPO) to become a partner in
GSA‘s business success. To do so, she explained that CPO must deliver
products and services that enable its customers to focus on their core
business. Similarly, IRS‘s former Chief Human Resource Officer‘s vision
is for the human capital professional in IRS to become more proactive
in providing human capital strategies and solutions that directly
enhance the agency‘s performance; * Human capital leaders are
restructuring their human capital organizations to improve their
alignment with their vision. For example, IRS‘s restructured human
capital management function includes, as one of three major components,
a national headquarters strategic human resources organization; *
Human capital leaders are using technological advances to provide
opportunities to free organizational resources that can be redeployed
for strategic purposes. For example, the USGS partnered with QuickHire,
a commercial off-the-shelf software developer, to develop an on-line
automated recruitment system (OARS) that allows USGS‘s human capital
staff to enter job vacancies into a centralized database and develop
rating and ranking criteria by selecting and weighting questions from
an extensive question library organized by job series. According to
USGS, as the agency continues to gain experience and efficiencies using
OARS, it hopes to divert an increasing number of human capital staff
members to other strategic efforts; * Human capital leaders are
promoting a more strategic role for human capital professionals and are
investing in the development of new competencies for human capital
professionals to support their increased strategic engagement. For
example, in response to the changing role and functions of its human
capital community, GSA has developed new core competencies needed by
its human capital staff. Included in these competencies are the new
skills GSA‘s Chief People Officer believes the agency‘s human capital
staff members must develop to become business partners..
Action initiators: Agency leaders and human capital leaders;
Description of action: * Jointly, agency leaders and human capital
leaders are having human capital professionals and agency line managers
share the accountability for successfully integrating strategic human
capital approaches into the planning and decision making of the agency.
For example, FEMA‘s human capital leaders and program officials have
implemented an innovative employee staffing effort. According to FEMA
officials, this greatly enhanced the agency‘s emergency response
capability by providing the human capital staff and the line managers
the ability to collaborate in identifying available deployment
candidates for assignment as soon as federal disasters are declared..
Source: GAO analysis of agency data.
[End of table]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and five of the six selected
agencies provided comments on a draft of this report. All generally
agreed with the information presented and that there is a need for
federal agencies to ensure that their human capital activities are a
strategic consideration in accomplishing their missions. Several
agencies provided additional examples of strategic actions taken by
their human capital offices as well as technical comments that we have
incorporated as appropriate. USCG noted that they had no comments on
the report.
Background:
Similar to the federal government‘s acknowledgment over the past decade
of the need to adopt a more businesslike approach to financial,
information technology, and performance-based management, the need for
strategic management of human capital is meeting increased recognition.
Since we placed strategic human capital management on our high-risk
list in 2001, the President‘s Management Agenda (PMA) subsequently
identified human capital as one of the five key governmentwide
management challenges facing the federal government. The agenda
specifically sets an expectation for agencies to integrate their human
capital strategies with their organizational missions, visions, core
values, goals, and objectives. In October 2002, the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) and OPM approved revised standards for
success in the human capital area of the PMA, reflecting language that
was developed in collaboration with GAO. To assist agencies in
responding to the revised PMA standards, OPM released the Human Capital
Assessment and Accountability Framework.
Our work and that of others has shown that high-performing
organizations link their human capital management systems--from the
organizational level down to individual employees--with their strategic
planning and mission accomplishment.[Footnote 4] This means the
function that has traditionally been called personnel or human
resources needs to make a fundamental transformation, from being a
strictly support function involved in managing personnel processes and
ensuring compliance with rules and regulations to designing and
implementing human capital approaches to attain the agency‘s strategic
goals. In addition, we found that effective human capital professionals
must have the appropriate preparation not just to provide effective
support services, but also to effectively consult with line managers in
tailoring human capital strategies to the unique needs of the
agency.[Footnote 5]
In March 2002, we released our Model of Strategic Human Capital
Management to help agency leaders more effectively lead and manage
their people and integrate human capital approaches into their
strategic planning and decision making.[Footnote 6] The model
emphasizes that successful strategic human capital management requires
the integration of human capital approaches with strategies for
accomplishing organizational missions and program goals. Such
integration allows the agency to ensure that its core processes
efficiently and effectively support mission-related outcomes.
Selected Agencies Took Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches
with Organizational Missions:
The executive branch agencies we reviewed took a range of actions as
part of efforts to integrate human capital approaches with strategies
for achieving organizational missions. Top agency leaders and human
capital leaders were the primary initiators of the various actions
taken. In addition, the agency leaders and human capital leaders
jointly have employed human capital professionals and agency line
managers to share the accountability for successfully integrating human
capital approaches into the planning and decision making of the
agencies.
Agency Leaders Recognize Key Role of Strategic Human Capital
Engagement:
Top leadership in the agencies expected agency human capital leaders to
significantly contribute to strategic planning and decision making,
evidenced by their establishing human capital roles in positions that
are significant in the organizational hierarchy. This acknowledges both
the commitment of the agency head to strategically managing the
agency‘s people and the expected role that human capital leaders should
contribute to organizational success. In addition, agency heads created
entities, such as human capital councils, to regularly review their
agencies‘ human capital strategies and to ensure a data-driven,
performance-oriented approach to human capital management. These groups
of senior agency officials, including both program leaders and human
capital leaders, provide oversight and are accountable for the
integration and alignment of the agencies‘ human capital approaches.
Agency Leaders Ensure Human Capital Representation in Agency Strategic
Planning and Decision Making:
Although the so-called ’seat-at-the-table“ is significant, human
capital leaders are ultimately valued not by place, but by the value
they add to the agencies‘ strategic human capital approaches in
attaining organizational goals. According to a 1999 OPM report on
strategic human capital management,[Footnote 7] there has often been
contention between human capital leaders and agency leaders because of
human capital‘s role as ’gatekeeper,“ that is, enforcing the law,
rules, and regulations. Now, with the responsibility of the human
capital function evolving, agency leaders are positioning human capital
leaders in roles where they have the opportunity to more directly
affect agency decisions and achievement of goals.
USCG officials told us that USCG‘s Assistant Commandant for Human
Resources (HR) is a member of the agency‘s senior management team and
is a full partner in the development of key USCG management decisions.
They stated that because of the Assistant Commandant‘s organizational
status, USCG‘s HR unit has participated earlier in strategic planning
and decision making, thus facilitating a smoother transition and
execution of ideas. The officials cited USCG‘s use of scenario-based
planning as an example of early involvement by USCG‘s HR unit in agency
strategic planning and decision making. Scenario-based planning is a
technique used by USCG for managing uncertainty and risk when planning
into the future. The agency develops a few plausible future scenarios
and then plans how it would best respond to each scenario and what
resources it would need to respond. For example, one scenario may
describe conditions that imply a greater need to interdict drugs in
harbors than another scenario, which may describe a world where the
higher priority is to intercept possible terrorist threats from the
seas as far offshore as legally possible. Differing competency
requirements and operating concepts (e.g., time spent at sea) require
different human capital approaches in each of these scenarios. With
USCG‘s migration to the Department of Homeland Security and its added
security responsibilities, the agency‘s plans for balancing resources
among its many missions will become increasingly important.[Footnote 8]
In the summer of 1998, senior USCG human capital staff members were
part of a core group of USCG planners who developed scenarios and
constructed the operational and support strategies to succeed in those
scenarios. The group eventually created five very different worlds that
might exist in the year 2020, along with the ’history“ of events that
led to each of those, based on the combined factors of U.S. economic
vitality, the global demand for maritime services, the role of the
federal government, and threats to U.S. society. The purpose of the
five worlds was to create the boundaries of the possible future, and
allow leaders and planners to create a strategy for USCG that would
work well in each independent scenario. The core group then analyzed
the elements common to all five strategies and crafted a core strategy.
The human capital strategies that emerged became part of USCG‘s
official strategy, and simultaneously drove the human resource
organization‘s business planning and resource investments for the 2001-
2005 time frame.
USCG attributes a number of its improved processes to the early
involvement of its human capital unit with the agency‘s decision-making
management team. Specific examples cited by USCG include (1) a
significant restructuring of military occupations and career paths to
reflect emerging requirements for new competencies, (2) a revision of
assignment and reassignment practices to make better use of the
investments in training and development, and (3) a restructuring of
civilian personnel management functions to better support line managers
in meeting their operational requirements.
USGS‘s HR Office has also played a prominent role in agency strategic
planning and decision making. In 1997, USGS‘s HR Office led a group of
senior USGS managers in developing the first strategic HR plan for USGS
as the agency strategically planned how it would remain at the
forefront of earth and biological science and technology. USGS‘s
strategic HR plan formed the basis for the four people goals (skills,
rewards, flexibility, and leadership) included in the agency‘s current
strategic plan. HR staff members were active in the development of the
people goals and in the creation of the current and next-generation
measures by which the agency is assessing progress under these goals.
They were also involved in planning and implementing the strategic
human capital initiatives by which USGS hopes to achieve its goals.
USGS‘s strategic human resources plan describes how USGS will align its
people and processes with the business strategies it has adopted to
achieve its mission and also recognizes that organizational goals are
seldom, if ever, realized without the effective use and support of
people. One USGS business strategy is to increase the agency‘s
flexibility to get work done by using all options other than permanent
staff members. The strategic human resources plan states that to
enhance USGS‘s flexibility to acquire skills to meet short-term needs
and provide an influx of new ideas, the HR Office will, for example,
expand the use of short-term student and faculty appointments from
academia and development agreements from the private sector.
SSA‘s Deputy Commissioner for Human Resources reports directly to the
Commissioner and is an equal partner with the agency‘s other deputies.
SSA‘s human capital officials report that their engagement in the
strategic planning activities of the agency has provided a much greater
opportunity to contribute to effective outcomes. For example, the human
capital organization worked in partnership with SSA‘s Office of
Finance, Assessment and Management regarding the competitive sourcing
initiative of the President‘s Management Agenda to ensure there was no
undue negative impact on the agency‘s human capital and workloads. In
addition, SSA‘s human capital organization has worked closely with
SSA‘s Office of Systems in the construction and implementation of the
Office of Systems‘ major reorganization. The human capital organization
believes its efforts have ensured the appropriate mix of employees at
the proper levels, and will result in an efficient systems
organization.
Agency Leaders Established Entities to Integrate Strategic Human
Capital Approaches:
Agency leaders established entities, such as human capital councils,
accountable for integrating human capital approaches with program
strategies to attain successful program results. Composed of senior
agency officials, including both program leaders and human capital
leaders, these groups meet regularly to review the progress of the
agency‘s integration efforts and to make certain that the human capital
strategies are visible, viable, and remain relevant. Additionally, the
groups help the agencies monitor whether differences in human capital
approaches throughout their agencies are well considered, effectively
contribute to outcomes, and are equitable in their implementation.
IRS, for example, created an entity to ensure a coordinated approach to
agencywide human capital issues, policies, and strategies. The agency‘s
Human Resource Policy Council (HRPC), which meets monthly for
approximately half a day, addresses cross-unit human capital issues
that cannot be resolved at lower levels. It is composed of the Chief
Human Resource Officer and representatives from each of IRS‘s major
organizations. HRPC is charged with (1) identifying and addressing
crosscutting human capital issues and emerging human capital
priorities, (2) ensuring that cross-divisional links are in place and
operating effectively, (3) making final decisions on all cross-unit
human capital issues, (4) providing strategic human capital advice and
recommendations to the Commissioner and his senior staff, and (5)
addressing the issue of uniformity versus flexibility across divisions
for human capital policy. HRPC decided, for example, to eliminate
agencywide restrictions regarding fast-track promotion of IRS managers.
GSA has a similar group, its Human Capital Council. The council,
created in 2002, meets quarterly and, as shown in table 2, consists of
human capital leaders, senior executives and officials for the major
service and staff offices, and representatives of regional
administrators and deputy regional administrators.
Table 2: GSA Human Capital Council Members:
Agency leaders: Chief Financial Officer; Human capital leaders: Chief
People Officer.
Agency leaders: Chief Information Officer; Human capital leaders:
Deputy Chief People Officer.
Agency leaders: Deputy Commissioner, Federal Supply Service; Human
capital leaders: Director of Human Resources.
Agency leaders: Deputy Commissioner, Public Buildings Service; Human
capital leaders: Director of Executive Resources.
Agency leaders: Deputy Commissioner, Federal Technology Service; Human
capital leaders: Director of Information Technology (CPO).
Agency leaders: Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of
Governmentwide Policy; Human capital leaders: [Empty].
Agency leaders: Regional Administrator, Region 5; Human capital
leaders: [Empty].
Agency leaders: Deputy Regional Administrator, National Capital Region;
Human capital leaders: [Empty].
Agency leaders: Deputy Regional Administrator, Region 3; Human capital
leaders: [Empty].
Source: GSA (data), GAO (presentation).
[End of table]
The council ensures that, among other objectives, the agency‘s human
capital strategic plan is consistent with GSA‘s strategic plan. As an
advocate for human capital initiatives, council members are to ensure
that activities in the agency reflect the human capital strategic plan.
Another objective of the group is to assist CPO in setting human
capital program priorities by assuring that program goals are key
determinants of the human capital approach. To support future program
priorities, the council, for example, determined what the GSA
leadership competencies would be and established the policy and
requirements for the GSA-wide Advanced Leadership Development Program.
Human Capital Leaders Have Taken Actions to Transform Human Capital
Organizations:
High-performing organizations treat strategic human capital management
as fundamental to effective overall management. Human capital leaders
in such organizations develop human capital organizations that can
fulfill enlarged roles, such as business partner, human capital expert,
leader, and change agent, to meet current and future programmatic
needs.[Footnote 9] For example, agency human capital leaders took
actions to enlarge the vision of their organizations from being
providers of largely transaction-based services to ones whose visions
included integrating human capital approaches in agency plans and
strategies to successfully accomplish their goals. To align the human
capital resources with the organizations‘ new visions, human capital
leaders often found it necessary to restructure the organizations.
Additionally, improving and expanding upon the efficiency of human
capital systems and technology offers the opportunity to reallocate
additional resources for strategic purposes. Human capital leaders also
worked to ensure that the human capital professionals within their
agencies were prepared, expected, and empowered to provide a range of
consultative and technical services to their internal customers.
Establishing a Human Capital Strategic Vision:
A human capital strategic vision is crucial in providing a common
direction across the organization. Agency human capital leaders we
interviewed envisioned their human capital offices becoming more
strategically involved with the achievement of agency goals. These
leaders communicated their visions to employees and took steps to
institute the organizational changes needed to achieve their visions.
IRS‘s former Chief Human Resource Officer believes that IRS‘s human
capital professionals must be champions of change and be totally
committed to thinking and acting strategically with respect to the
agency‘s broader mission, its people, and the importance of linking the
two together. According to IRS, to make change on the scale needed to
enact the vision requires the involvement of management, employees, and
the employee unions in virtually every aspect of the transformation. To
obtain employee buy-in, IRS‘s human capital organization formed work
groups to empower its human capital employees to participate in the
redesign effort.
IRS‘s human capital leaders believe the principal contribution of its
new human capital organization vision and framework is that it provides
a direct focus on developing new and more flexible ways of managing the
workforce. For example, IRS has introduced streamlined critical pay
authority, developed a category rating process, and instituted a
managerial pay banding system. IRS‘s officials stated that these
actions were undertaken to attract world-class senior leadership and
technical talent, simplify and accelerate external and internal hiring,
and support organizational delayering in addition to creating a culture
of performance and individual accountability. In general, they said the
innovations provide top management with a strong and direct connection
between human capital strategies and systems and mission results.
GSA‘s Chief People Officer has a vision for GSA‘s CPO to become a
partner in GSA‘s business success. To do so, she said that CPO must (1)
deliver products and services that enable its customers to focus on
their core business and (2) develop its workforce to be a valued
business partner. GSA‘s Chief People Officer said that before the human
capital organization can play a bigger role as a business partner it
must ensure that its transaction-based tasks are accurately and
efficiently processed and that day-to-day problems, concerns, and needs
of individual employees that are related to human resources are
addressed.
To achieve her vision, the Chief People Officer wants to focus more
time and resources on CPO becoming a business partner by ensuring that
its transaction-based tasks and advisory activities are completed more
efficiently. She has placed a high priority on automation and
information technology as means to reduce costs and make time available
for the business partner role. She has established a Chief Information
Officer (CIO) position within GSA‘s CPO to support GSA‘s human capital
functions that are increasingly being driven by technology.
The Chief People Officer has shared her vision with agency leadership
during presentations before GSA‘s administrators. In addition, she has
expressed her vision to program leaders during Human Capital Council
meetings and has included information on her vision in electronic
newsletters sent to CPO staff members. The Chief People Officer also
issues periodic written updates on human capital issues that contain
information on her vision and related goals.
Restructuring the Human Capital Organization:
Restructuring the human capital organization is an important step that
is often necessary for the transformation of the human capital
function. Ideally, this restructuring should help align the
organization with its revised vision and should position the human
capital function to move from a reactive, process-oriented, and
compliance focus to the platform needed to become a proactive, results-
oriented, consulting-oriented strategic partner. When we reported on
agencies‘ initial efforts to restructure their personnel operations in
1998, we noted that the four departments reviewed generally approached
the restructuring of their personnel offices with the intent of
achieving staff reductions.[Footnote 10] Some human capital leaders are
now focusing less on finding additional internal efficiencies and more
on replacing stove-piped structures that include separate units for
functions such as staffing and classification, with more flexible
structures that support new human capital roles.
The right organizational structure can help human capital organizations
strategically align with agency objectives and improve the delivery of
human capital products and services. Although some federal agencies are
restructuring their human capital organizations along similar lines,
the right organizational structure depends on the unique
characteristics of the agency. In a 1999 report, OPM maintained that
because organizations are starting from different positions, they would
need to structure their human capital functions based on mission, not
on a ’one size fits all“ solution.[Footnote 11] In a similar vein, in
July 2000 a coalition of individuals representing a wide cross section
of organizations with an interest in the federal human capital
community anticipated that a variety of human capital organizational
structures would form across the federal government.[Footnote 12] The
coalition predicted that factors such as customer needs and agency
budgets would design and drive the structure of a particular agency‘s
human capital organization. The report noted, however, that the group
did expect to see movement away from traditional structures toward more
flexible arrangements.
In a 2001 National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) report, one
of the key findings was that human capital organizations were
restructuring, and the report noted that the emerging organizational
model appears to consist of three elements: a center of expertise, a
shared service center, and a strategic consultant component.[Footnote
13] The center of expertise provides expert technical advice and
assistance to managers and employees while the shared service center
processes traditional personnel transactions. The strategic consultant
component serves as a strategic partner, change agent, and consultant
to agency managers. The elements in the new structure attempt to
balance the need for consolidation while still allowing human capital
professionals to have a direct connection with their customers.
FEMA‘s Human Resources Division (HRD) has recently restructured in a
manner similar to this emerging organizational model. As shown in
figure 1, FEMA‘s new HRD structure contains three branches: an advisory
services branch, a reconfigured operations branch, and a human capital
investment branch.
Figure 1: FEMA‘s Human Resources Division after Restructuring:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The advisory services branch provides on-site management advisory
service and support to FEMA directorates, regional offices, divisions,
and branches. The operations branch handles all staffing and selection,
classification systems, employee self-service operations, and records
processing. The human capital investment branch is designed to take the
lead in FEMA‘s strategic human capital planning and policy oversight.
FEMA officials told us that the agency restructured its human capital
organization to meet the emerging requirements of its strategic
planning initiatives and to address its inability to respond
effectively to growing operational demands. Since the restructuring,
HRD has initiated over 30 projects targeting human capital improvements
that are aligned to the agency‘s strategic plan and the President‘s
Management Agenda. For example, the improvement initiatives included
determining uniform compensation bands based on staff competencies and
a series of initiatives focused on improving human capital services
throughout the agency. Additionally, in connection with its migration
to the Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003, FEMA
identified a set of 17 ’matrix/virtual“ teams of HRD and agency leaders
to address key transitional issues.
IRS also restructured its human capital management function with the
same three elements found in the emerging organizational model. The IRS
structure includes (1) an embedded human resources organization in each
business/functional unit, (2) an agencywide shared services
organization, and (3) a national headquarters strategic human resources
organization called Strategic Human Resources. Under this arrangement,
each operating division has its own human capital office ’embedded“
within its division. These embedded human capital offices report to the
operating division leader and are tasked with formulating,
implementing, and customizing human capital policies, procedures, and
strategies to fit the business unit‘s unique needs. IRS‘s agencywide
shared services performs an operational mission involving the delivery
of common products and services to organizations, managers, and
employees across the agency. Strategic Human Resources develops
strategic human capital management policies, programs, and strategies
in collaboration with a council that includes human capital directors
from the major business units.
Technology Used to Facilitate Change:
Improved efficiencies and economies of transaction-based services
provide the opportunity for agencies to reallocate resources and enable
their human capital organizations to meet expanded roles as business
partners and change agents. However, as we found in our 1998 report on
agencies‘ efforts to restructure personnel operations, agencies need to
carefully plan and manage the implementation of new technology to fully
achieve the desired benefits.[Footnote 14]
USGS has developed OARS, which allows its human capital staff to enter
job vacancies into a centralized database and develop rating and
ranking criteria by selecting and weighting questions from an extensive
question library organized by job series. Applicants register and apply
for vacancies on-line. The system immediately rates, ranks, and scores
applicants based on their answers to weighted questions, taking into
account all of the regulations that govern the federal hiring process.
The list of the best-qualified candidates is provided to the hiring
manager within several days. USGS‘s officials said that OARS has given
applicants a quick and easy way to apply for jobs, increased the number
of applicants per vacancy between 40 and 500 percent, dramatically
reduced the time it takes to fill vacancies, and allowed human capital
professionals to refocus their efforts from processing to consulting.
USGS hopes to be able to divert an increasing number of its staff
members to other strategic efforts as it continues to gain experience
and efficiencies using OARS.
As mentioned above, GSA has established a CIO for the personnel
function located within its Chief People Office. The position was
created several years ago when GSA began developing an information
technology management system for federal personnel operations. Because
GSA‘s comprehensive human resources integrated system (CHRIS) required
major systems modification and was intended to serve other federal
agencies, a senior-level technology position was needed to facilitate
the effort. According to CPO‘s CIO, his role is to evaluate, develop,
and install systems that support GSA‘s human capital technology needs.
He believes that technology is vital to achieving GSA‘s Chief People
Officer‘s goals. He explained that improved technology and automation
efforts mean less staff time is needed for traditional human capital
functions, thus allowing the CPO staff members to play bigger roles as
business partners. However, because most of GSA‘s system is fairly new
or still under development, CPO‘s CIO has not reduced resources and
identified staff savings. In an earlier report, we noted instances
where agencies eliminated personnel staff before new technology for
automating personnel transactions was in place. This resulted in delays
in implementing new personnel and payroll systems.[Footnote 15]
According to CPO‘s CIO, resources reallocation will be accomplished as
efficiencies are demonstrated. CHRIS is expected to ultimately provide
self-service to employees and managers, performance management
capability, integrated training solutions, and succession planning. As
technology becomes more important to the entire human capital process
and productivity drives future GSA staffing, the Chief People Officer
believes that by having the CIO in-house, she has needed input into the
technology decision making and the capital allocation process for the
agency.
As the President‘s human capital management advisor, OPM has recently
been given the responsibility of leading five e-Government initiatives
that are designed to use technology to improve the strategic management
of the federal workforce. OPM is the managing partner for the
Recruitment One-Stop, e-Clearance, Enterprise Human Resources
Integration, e-Training, and e-Payroll initiatives. The e-Payroll
initiative, for example, is designed to simplify and integrate payroll
systems across the federal government. OPM and OMB announced on January
15, 2003, the selection of two payroll partnerships to consolidate
federal payroll systems and save the federal government an estimated
$1.2 billion over the next decade. The Enterprise Human Resources
Integration and e-Clearance initiatives are focused on electronically
integrating personnel records across the government and reducing the
delays involved in security clearance processing. The full
implementation of these two initiatives is scheduled for the end of
fiscal year 2006.[Footnote 16] OPM envisions that the use of technology
will help streamline and improve procedures for moving federal
employees through the employment life cycle by removing redundancies,
reducing response times, eliminating paperwork, and improving
coordination among federal agencies.
Changing Roles and Competencies for Human Capital Professionals:
The actions that human capital leaders, and federal agencies in
general, are taking to improve their integration of human capital
approaches with their missions are reflected, in part, by a definite
shift in the roles of human capital professionals throughout the
federal government. The occupation is in transition from valuing
narrowly focused specialists to requiring generalists, who have all the
skills necessary to play an active role in helping to determine the
overall strategic direction of the organization. As agencies further
integrate strategic human capital approaches into their strategic
planning and decision making, investment in the development of new
competencies for human capital professionals is receiving more
attention.
OPM published a study in 1999 establishing a statistical profile of the
human capital profession within the federal government.[Footnote 17]
The report described the federal human capital community as a cadre of
experts separated into seven distinct occupational series. One series
represented the human capital generalist, who typically has a breadth
of knowledge about personnel issues. The other six categories consisted
of specialists, such as classifiers and staffing specialists, who
possess in-depth knowledge in specific human capital areas.[Footnote
18] The report noted that from 1969 through 1998 there had been a small
but noticeable shift occurring in the human capital profession away
from specialist positions to generalist positions. In 1998, generalists
made up a slight majority of human capital professionals at 53 percent,
while specialists positions had declined to 47 percent.
Consistent with the changing roles and expectations for human capital
professionals, this noticeable shift toward human capital generalists
has accelerated since 1998. As of June 2002, generalists made up 73
percent of human capital professionals, while specialists had declined
to 27 percent. Figure 2 shows the dramatic change in the percentage of
human capital generalists since 1996.
Figure 2: The Federal Human Capital Workforce: Percentage of
Generalists and Specialists:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
A combination of factors appears to have contributed to this shift.
According to OPM, it was necessitated, to a large degree, by the
significant downsizing in federal office staffing levels during the
1990s, which precluded continuing a specialized approach.[Footnote 19]
In addition, OPM concluded that human capital management as an
occupation had been undergoing a significant redefinition. For example,
automation began to greatly affect how human capital products and
services were delivered. Many agencies began using the Internet or
their own intranets to educate managers and employees about human
capital programs and options. OPM also noted in a 1999 report that many
agencies were beginning to outsource some of their human capital
services.[Footnote 20] With more efficient ways to deliver products and
services, human capital professionals could focus on their emerging
roles as advisors and consultants, which require more generalist
practitioners able to work across multiple human capital functions.
The advantage to the agencies of this shift was that existing staff
members could be deployed more flexibly and new staff members could be
recruited for broader human capital competencies that had less to do
with specialized procedures than with general human capital knowledge,
concepts, and principles. In fact, OPM concluded in 2000, based on a
body of research and evidence, that the human capital occupation was
truly becoming generalized in nature both inside and outside the
federal government.[Footnote 21] Although OPM did not find that human
capital roles had shifted in every agency, it determined that agencies
needed their human capital staff members to leave behind their roles of
technical specialists focused on regulatory compliance and to take on
more consultative roles. This entailed working with managers,
employees, and their representatives to ensure that human capital
programs and practices were properly aligned to help the organization
meet its strategic objectives, while adhering to merit system
principles and other legal obligations.
To reflect these changes in the federal human capital community, in
December 2000, OPM issued a new consolidated classification standard
for the Administrative Work in the Human Resources Management Group.
OPM expects the agencies to apply the new job family position
classification standard within a reasonable amount of time of its
release, as determined by the agency. According to an OPM official,
agencies are making progress in applying the new standard.
The pressures on human capital professionals to assume new roles
present a significant learning and development challenge for human
capital staff members. For human capital professionals to begin acting
in their new capacities, human capital leaders must ensure that they
develop the competencies and gain the experience to effectively take on
the expected roles. Consistent with the changes reflected by OPM‘s new
classification standards, several of the agencies we reviewed have
developed human capital competency models designed to develop staff
members who can contribute at the strategic and business partner levels
as well as design and manage delivery systems, which achieve value-
added services at lower costs.
GSA recognized the vision of its Chief People Officer and the changing
role of its human resources organization and assembled a team of
experienced human resources staff members to develop new core
competences needed by the CPO staff. This group developed GSA‘s new
human capital core competencies needed to support its CPO business
model and identified five roles that GSA believes its human capital
community must play successfully to achieve the Chief People Officer‘s
vision and to meet the expectations of the GSA customers. The five
roles are consultant, leader, technologist, transactional expert, and
expert. Specific competencies support each role. In addition, GSA uses
its competency model as a recruiting tool for human resources
professionals. The model lists desirable attributes for job candidates
as well as a few suggested interview questions for determining whether
applicants possess these attributes. Table 3 lists GSA‘s HR roles and
the primary competencies GSA states are essential for success in each
of the roles.
Table 3: GSA‘s HR Roles and Competencies:
Roles: HR consultant; Primary competencies essential for success: --
Knows the mission, culture, and business of customers; --Has applied
knowledge of customer service; --Communicates effectively; --Is
innovative and willing to take risks; --Builds partnerships/
relationships; --Has knowledge of HR program, laws, and practices and
how they contribute to workforce/organizational effectiveness; --
Understands and applies the change process.
Roles: HR leader; Primary competencies essential for success: --Knows
the mission, culture, and business of customers; --Understands
organizational and human behavior; --Communicates effectively; --Acts
professionally and builds trust; --Builds partnerships/relationships;
--Influences others to take action; --Understands and applies change
process; --Has knowledge of HR programs, laws, and practices and how
they contribute to workforce/organizational effectiveness.
Roles: HR technologist; Primary competencies essential for success: --
Understands HR operations and the impact of the systems they develop; -
-Has broad knowledge of trends/technology in automation field, with
special emphasis on application in HR; --Communicates effectively
(writing, speaking, and listening, especially with nontechnical
customers); --Influences others to take action; --Uses technology to
improve efficiency and service; --Understands and applies change
process; --Has in-depth knowledge of variety of current automated
software, tools, systems, and techniques.
Roles: HR transactional expert; Primary competencies essential for
success: --Knows the mission, culture, and business of customers; --
Communicates effectively; --Is able to work in teams; --Has knowledge
of relevant HR laws and practices; --Is able to use technology to
improve efficiency and service; --Has applied knowledge of customer
service.
Roles: HR expert; Primary competencies essential for success: --Knows
the mission, culture, and business of customers; --Has applied
knowledge of customer service; --Communicates effectively; --Builds
partnerships and relationships; --Has mastered relevant HR laws and
practices; --Analyzes programs/process and measures results.
Source: GSA (data), GAO (presentation).
[End of table]
USGS‘s HR Competency Model also identifies and describes a set of human
capital competencies that are essential to effective performance in the
roles and responsibilities of the agency‘s human capital office as
outlined in its business model. USGS‘s competency model identifies core
or universal competencies that USGS human capital staff members need
and specific competencies that human capital managers, strategic
consultants, operating specialists and generalists, and assistants
need. For each competency, the model describes how that competency is
applied. According to USGS, the competency model is currently being
used as a tool for self-directed human capital development, and
portions of the model have been incorporated in the new automated
skills assessment system. In the future, USGS plans to use the model as
a basis for recruiting and interviewing candidates, making decisions
about developmental assignments, and developing the competencies of
every human capital staff member to think and relate strategically to
the science mission of USGS. Table 4 lists USGS‘s competency
categories.
Table 4: USGS‘s HR Competencies:
Competency categories: Communications; Competencies: Facilitation,
listening, presentation (formal), oral communications, reading, and
written communications.
Competency categories: Personal credibility; Competencies:
Assertiveness, creative thinking, ethics, flexibility, learning, self-
awareness, self-management, stress management, and time management.
Competency categories: Interpersonal skills; Competencies: Conflict
management, diplomacy, diversity, negotiating/influencing, networking,
partnering, and; teamwork.
Competency categories: Leadership; Competencies: Change management,
coaching, decisiveness, integrity/honesty, leadership, political
savvy, self-esteem, and team building.
Competency categories: Organizational skills; Competencies: External
awareness, organizational awareness, organizational development,
performance measurement and improvement, planning and evaluating,
strategic planning, systems thinking, and vision.
Competency categories: Management; Competencies: Analytical thinking/
reasoning, financial management, human resources management,
information analysis, problem solving, process management, project
management, and technology management.
Competency categories: Customer orientation; Competencies:
Advertising, customer focus, distribution, market analysis, message
development, message packaging, and product knowledge.
Competency categories: Technical; Competencies: Attention to detail; HR
automation, HR laws, regulations, and policies; information management
research methods and techniques, and technology application.
Source: USGS data.
[End of table]
Joint Actions Result in Shared Accountability:
As the role of the human capital organization evolves to include
serving the individual employee and helping to achieve the
organization‘s strategic objectives, the accountability for human
capital management is increasingly being shared by top management, line
managers, and human capital professionals. Successful organizations,
according to our Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, include
human capital professionals acting together with agency leaders and
line managers in developing strategic and program plans to accomplish
agency goals. Through this joint action, agency and human capital
leaders and their staffs share accountability for successfully
integrating strategic human capital approaches into the planning and
decision making of the agency.
Assuming Shared Accountability for Achieving Program Goals:
Agency and human capital leaders, human capital professionals, and line
managers share responsibility for achieving agency programmatic and
human capital goals, and they ultimately share accountability for
effective, legally compliant human capital management. According to
OPM, agencies have delegated more key human capital authorities to line
managers.[Footnote 22] In a recent report, we highlighted the
importance of delegating authority and holding line managers
accountable for the effective use of human capital flexibilities,
important tools that assist agencies in managing their
workforces.[Footnote 23] Agencies are also following a more
collaborative approach between managers and human capital professionals
for those human capital authorities retained by the human capital staff
members. Additionally, more agency and human capital leaders are
linking human capital policies and practices to organizational outcomes
and expecting more collaboration between line managers and human
capital professionals.
IRS, for example, has dispersed human capital professionals throughout
the agency‘s divisions to help apply strategic thinking to each
operating division‘s unique interest. Human capital staff members are
responsible for advising operating division managers on how to best
apply human capital strategy to improve results. The human capital
professional may have responsibility, for example, for assisting
managers in anticipating changes in the labor market and recommending
strategies for sustaining a well-qualified and productive workforce.
The operating division managers are responsible for rating the
performance of the human capital professionals working with them.
According to IRS officials, some of the benefits of the shared
accountability of human capital professionals working with operating
division managers have included customized support for recruitment
plans and hiring products and a facilitated merit promotion process.
FEMA line managers and human capital staff members have developed a
system where the human capital staff works with line managers to
quickly identify available employees for deployment as soon as
disasters are declared. FEMA employs approximately 2,600 full-time
employees and as many as 4,000 temporary and reserve employees who are
deployed during federal disasters. In response to this need, the human
capital office has implemented the Automated Disaster Deployment
System. This automated system allows the staff to track employee
credentialing (including knowledge and experience levels and
performance ratings), availability, past and present assignment
locations, dates of employment, and other vital employee data.
According to FEMA officials, the system enables human capital staff and
line managers to share accountability for identifying employee training
and promotion needs, matching employee expertise with specific disaster
site victim needs, and creating a selection routine that rotates
available employees, thereby avoiding employee burnout. The process has
reduced the time necessary to complete the staffing review and
selection from days to hours. Additionally, centralized deployment
provides a dedicated staff that acts upon all deployment requests
within 3 hours.
Increasing Role for Line Managers in Human Capital Management:
Line managers have always played a key role in human capital
management. They interact with, teach, evaluate, reward, develop, and
promote employees from the day they join an organization. According to
OPM, many agencies are now pursuing the strategy of delegating key
human capital authorities to managers thereby making the delegated
authorities within the agency shared responsibilities of the manager
and the human capital staff.[Footnote 24] SSA officials, for example,
described how responsibility for recruiting new employees is now shared
between human capital professionals and line managers. SSA involves
agency line managers in the preliminary recruiting determinations and
has human capital professionals take over in the final, technical
stages.
Some agencies have developed tools and services to help line managers
assume more human capital authority. Within our selected agencies, SSA,
for example, has a link on its Office of Personnel Web site that
contains, ’Information for Managers.“ The Web site presents a myriad of
information, from addressing poor performance to life resources
counseling. GSA‘s CPO has issued a supervisory desk guide to provide
supervisors with basic information on human capital topics. The desk
reference guide provides an overview of personnel and administrative
practices and procedures that supervisors should know. According to the
guide, it is not meant to make supervisors into personnel experts or
provide the answers to all personnel-related or administrative
questions. The guide is meant to give supervisors basic information on
topics such as internal and external recruitment, pay flexibilities,
and worker‘s compensation that will enable them to handle most
situations and to provide references and contacts for more information.
Conclusions:
As agencies integrate their human capital strategies with their
organizational missions, visions, core values, goals, and objectives,
they are increasingly recognizing how human capital activities
contribute to achieving missions and goals. Congress has recognized
this through recent legislation creating a chief human capital officer
position in major agencies. Effective human capital integration efforts
require the cooperation of management and employees throughout the
organization. All members of an organization must understand the
rationale for making organizational and cultural changes because
everyone has a stake in helping to implement the initiatives as part of
the agency‘s efforts to meet current and future challenges.
In this report, we have identified actions agencies have taken to
improve their integration of strategic human capital approaches with
their strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and goals.
Agency leaders included human capital leaders in key agency strategic
planning and decision making. Human capital leaders transformed the
agencies‘ human capital organizations to better enable them to add
value to the strategic activities of the agencies. Working together,
agency leaders and human capital leaders have employed human capital
professionals and agency line managers to share accountability for
successfully integrating strategic human capital considerations into
agency planning and decision making.
As agencies take action to enhance their ability to meet organizational
goals by linking their human capital activities with their strategic
planning and decision making, agencies can consider the initiatives we
identified. However, each federal agency will have to consider the
applicability of specific actions to be taken within the context of its
own mission, needs, and culture.
Agency Comments:
We provided a draft of this report to the Director of OPM and to
cognizant officials from the individual agencies we visited. OPM and
five of the six agencies provided comments on the draft report. All
generally agreed with the information presented.
Two of the agencies and OPM provided written technical comments to
clarify specific points regarding the information presented. Where
appropriate, we have made changes to reflect those technical comments.
In other cases, agencies provided additional examples of actions they
had taken to integrate human capital approaches to attain mission
results. OPM noted that the results of the agency initiatives have not
been evaluated, which is an important next step for agencies to take,
but was not within the scope of this report. USCG noted that they had
no comments on the report.
:
We will send copies of this report to appropriate congressional
committees, the federal agencies and offices discussed in this report,
and the Directors of OPM and OMB. We will also make copies available to
others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no
charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you have any questions about this report, please contact me or
William Doherty on (202) 512-6806 or on mihmj@gao.gov and
dohertyw@gao.gov. The major contributors to this report were Clifton G.
Douglas, Jr. and Judith Kordahl. Mark Braza, Matthew Tropiano, and
Laura Turman also made key contributions.
Signed by:
J. Christopher Mihm
Director, Strategic Issues:
Signed by J. Christopher Mihm:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology:
Our objective in this self-initiated review was to identify examples of
key actions that agencies have taken to integrate their human capital
approaches with agency strategies for achieving mission objectives.
To address our objective, we identified and focused on six federal
agencies that were integrating their human capital approaches. We
analyzed agency documents, such as planning and organizational
restructuring documents, and previous studies on strategic human
capital management. In addition, we conducted semistructured interviews
with agency officials, human resources directors, and line managers
from our selected agencies that were involved in designing or
implementing their agencies‘ human capital integration actions. We
elicited their experiences and conclusions about the agency actions
they believed were most important to the successful integration of
their human capital functions. After reviewing and analyzing their
responses, we developed a framework to classify and report on the types
of actions identified. We did not attempt to independently verify the
performance results that agencies attributed to their actions.
To select the agencies we reviewed, we first held discussions with
human capital experts from American University, the Center for Policy
Implementation, George Washington University, and the National Academy
of Public Administration. We asked these experts to identify federal
agencies that they believed had taken actions to improve the
integration of their strategic human capital management functions. We
also reviewed our High-Risk Series, the Federal Managers‘ Survey, and
other documents for examples of federal agency integration efforts not
identified by the human capital experts.[Footnote 25] In addition, we
considered the size, mission, and type of workforce of the pool of
identified agencies to get a variation of federal agency experiences.
We selected six agencies--the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the
General Services Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the
Social Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S.
Geological Survey--to identify examples of human capital integration
actions. Our selection process was not designed to provide examples
that could be considered representative of all the actions at the
agencies reviewed or of the federal government in general. By profiling
an agency for a particular action, we do not mean to imply complete
success for the action or lack of success for others.
We conducted our work from February 2002 through January 2003 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
(450099):
FOOTNOTES
[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Management Reform: Agencies‘
Initial Efforts to Restructure Personnel Operations, GAO/GGD-98-93
(Washington, D.C.: July 13, 1998).
[2] Title XIII of Pub. L. 107-296, Nov. 25, 2002, Chief Human Capital
Officer‘s Act of 2002.
[3] Congress has designated FEMA and USCG part of the new Department of
Homeland Security (Pub. L.107-296, Nov. 25, 2002).
[4] See, for example, Thomas R. Connolly, et al. ’Transforming Human
Resources,“ Management Review, June 1997.
[5] U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: A Self-Assessment
Checklist for Agency Leaders, GAO/OCG-00-14G (Washington, D.C.:
September 2000).
[6] U.S. General Accounting Office, A Model of Strategic Human Capital
Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002).
[7] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Merit Systems
Oversight and Effectiveness, Strategic Human Resources Management:
Aligning with the Mission (Washington, D.C.: September 1999).
[8] U.S. General Accounting Office, Coast Guard: Strategy Needed for
Setting and Monitoring Levels of Effort for All Missions, GAO-03-155
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 12, 2002).
[9] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition: A
Comprehensive Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 3,
The HR Workforce: Meeting the Challenge of Change, MSE-99-7
(Washington, D.C.: January 2000).
[10] GAO/GGD-98-93.
[11] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition:
A Comprehensive Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 2,
Looking to the Future: Human Resources Competencies, MSE-99-6
(Washington, D.C.: September 1999).
[12] A Coalition on the Future of the Federal Human Resource Management
Profession, A Call to Action (Washington, D.C.: September 2000).
[13] National Academy of Public Administration, Changes in the Human
Resources Function Since 1996: Implications for Federal HR Competencies
(Washington, D.C.: March 2001).
[14] GAO/GGD-98-93.
[15] GAO/GGD-98-93.
[16] U.S. General Accounting Office, Electronic Government: Selection
and Implementation of the Office of Management and Budget‘s 24
Initiatives, GAO-03-229 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002).
[17] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition:
A Comprehensive Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 1,
Federal Human Resources Employment Trends, MSE-99-5 (Washington, D.C.:
September 1999).
[18] We use the term ’human capital specialist“ throughout the report
to denote a human capital professional who focuses on a specific area.
It does not refer to an occupation title.
[19] Human Resource Management Council, Transmittal MSG-083b, Appendix
H--Historical Record and Explanatory Material (Washington, D.C.: 2000).
[20] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition:
A Comprehensive Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 2.
[21] Human Resource Management Council.
[22] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Merit Systems
Oversight and Effectiveness, HRM Accountability System Development
Guide (Washington, D.C.: December 1998).
[23] U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Effective Use of
Flexibilities Can Assist Agencies in Managing Their Workforces, GAO-03-
2 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 6, 2002).
[24] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Merit Systems
Oversight and Effectiveness, HRM Accountability System Development
Guide.
[25] See, for example, U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk
Series: An Update, GAO-01-263 (Washington, D.C.: January 2001), and
National Academy of Public Administration, Changes in Human Resources
Competencies Since 1996: Implications for Federal HR Professionals
(Washington, D.C.: March 2001).
GAO‘s Mission:
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exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional
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