A hiring authority is the law, executive order, or regulation that allows an agency to hire a person into the federal civil service. Of the 105 hiring authorities used in fiscal year 2014, agencies relied on 20 for 91 percent of the 196,226 new appointments made that year. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) officials said they do not know if agencies rely on a small number of authorities because...

From 2006 through 2014, government-wide engagement levels—as measured by the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Employee Engagement Index (EEI)—increased to an estimated high of 67 percent in 2011 and then declined to an estimated 63 percent in 2014. This decline is attributable to several large agencies—including the Department of Defense—bringing down the government-wide average. The...

Federal agencies have three avenues to address employees' poor performance:Day-to-day performance management activities (such as providing regular performance feedback to employees) can produce more desirable outcomes for agencies and employees than dismissal options. However, supervisors do not always have effective skills, such as the ability to identify, communicate, and help address employee p...

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 occu...

GAO's analysis of subject matter specialists' comments, related literature, and interviews with Office of Personnel Management (OPM) officials identified a number of important characteristics for a modern, effective classification system, which GAO consolidated into eight key attributes (see table below). GAO's analysis shows that in concept the current General Schedule (GS) classification system'...

Technology, demographics, and attitudes toward work are evolving. But federal government employment policies were designed generations ago. As a result, the government may struggle to compete for talented workers—which is one reason why federal human capital management is on our High Risk list. We testified on talent management strategies. For example, agencies can: Assess skills gaps to ensur...

Technology, demographics, and attitudes toward work are evolving in the private and public sectors. But federal government employment policies were designed decades ago. As a result, the government may struggle to compete for talented workers—which is one reason why federal human capital management is an issue on our High Risk list. We testified about the state of the federal civil service and...

Technology, demographics, and attitudes toward work are evolving in the private and public sectors. But federal government employment policies were designed generations ago. As a result, the government may struggle to compete for talented workers—which is one reason why federal human capital management is an issue on our High Risk list. We reported on talent management strategies, among other t...

Fewer individual and corporate tax returns have been audited in recent years, largely because IRS doesn't have the people it needs to enforce existing tax laws while implementing new laws. As a result, billions of dollars in taxes go unpaid every year. Enforcing tax laws, a High Risk area, is critical to promoting voluntary compliance and collecting unpaid taxes. IRS's workforce is the key to add...

As shown below, many federal employees are eligible to retire. As they do, agencies need to hire people with the right skills—not just replace those who leave. To recruit and retain a skilled workforce, the federal pay system may need to be reexamined. In this testimony, we discussed strategies high-performing organizations use to design pay systems, such as ensuring pay decisions are transpare...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reduced its staff since 2011after expected growth in the nuclear industry did not occur. However, we found that the agency hasn't used certain key practices that could improve how effectively it manages its workforce. Without using these practices, the NRC may not know what the appropriate size and composition of its workforce should be, now or in the future. ...

Avoiding a "brain drain" in the federal workforce With more than 30% of federal employees eligible to retire by 2019, a lot of jobs could open up that the current federal workforce can't fill. So, the government needs to recruit and retain the next generation of workers. Strong employee engagement—a positive feeling about one's employer and its mission—tends to help agencies hire and keep em...

The Federal Protective Service (FPS)—which protects about 9,500 federal facilities—developed a Strategic Human Capital Plan ( Plan ) and engaged in related efforts that generally align with most key principles GAO identified for strategic workforce planning. Specifically, FPSsolicited input from key stakeholders, such as its employees and the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD)...

GAO's ongoing work indicates that the recent government-wide decline in engagement, as measured by the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Employee Engagement Index (EEI) masks the fact that the majority of federal agencies either sustained or increased employee engagement levels during the same period. Government-wide, engagement has declined 4 percentage points from an estimated 67 percent in...

Agencies' use of reemployed annuitants has increased, with the number of on-board retired uniformed and civil service annuitants increasing from over 95,000 in fiscal year 2004 to around 171,000 in fiscal year 2013 (from about 5 percent to 8 percent of the federal workforce). This is inclusive of reemployed annuitants with and without dual compensation waivers. The Department of Defense (DOD) acco...