Federal Workforce

A Framework for Studying Its Quality Over Time Gao ID: PEMD-88-27 August 4, 1988

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) examined the feasibility of producing generalizable and reliable information on the quality of the federal work force over time; and (2) developed a framework for obtaining such information.

GAO: (1) examined the executive branch civilian work force in professional and administrative positions; and (2) developed a two-part definition of quality which included employee capabilities and the degree to which those capabilities matched the requirements of a particular job. GAO found that: (1) the information available in agency personnel records was not comprehensive, accessible, or current enough for the purposes of a quality assessment effort; and (2) changing agency systems to provide a better database for an assessment effort would be impractical. GAO suggested an alternative assessment design which would: (1) gather data by surveying samples of employees in selected occupations; (2) answer many of the major questions concerning work-force quality; and (3) cost less than $1 million.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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