The Department of Defense's Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan
Does Not Meet Most Statutory Requirements (06-FEB-08,		 
GAO-08-439R).							 
                                                                 
The achievement of the Department of Defense's (DOD) mission is  
dependent in large part on the skills and expertise of its	 
civilian workforce--which consists of almost 700,000 personnel,  
who develop policy, provide intelligence, manage finances, and	 
acquire and maintain weapon systems. With more than 50 percent of
its civilian personnel becoming eligible to retire in the next	 
few years, DOD may find it difficult to fill certain		 
mission-critical jobs with qualified personnel. Strategic	 
workforce planning, an integral part of human capital management,
helps ensure that an organization has staff with the necessary	 
skills and competencies to accomplish its strategic goals. We	 
have previously reported that it is critical that DOD engage in  
effective strategic workforce planning to ensure that its human  
capital reforms have maximum effectiveness and value. In 2007, we
reported that strategic human capital management remained a	 
high-risk area because the federal government now faces one of	 
the most significant transformations to the civil service in half
a century, as momentum grows toward making governmentwide changes
to agency pay, classification, and performance management	 
systems. In January 2006, the National Defense Authorization Act 
for Fiscal Year 20065 directed DOD to develop and submit to the  
Senate and House Armed Services Committees a strategic plan to	 
shape and improve the DOD civilian employee workforce. Section	 
1122 (b) of the act provided that the plan address eight	 
requirements. On November 6, 2007--ten months after the due	 
date--DOD submitted to the committees both its plan titled	 
"Department of Defense Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan	 
2006-2010," and its implementation report titled "The Department 
of Defense Human Capital Strategic Plan for Civilian Employees of
the Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 2006 Implementation	 
Report." This latter DOD report, however, noted that it responded
to section 1122(d) of the act. In addition to the mandate for	 
DOD, the act also required GAO to review and report on the human 
capital strategic plan DOD submitted to meet its mandate no later
than 90 days after DOD's submission. Accordingly, we examined the
extent to which DOD's civilian human capital strategic plan	 
addresses the reporting requirements mandated by the act.	 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-439R					        
    ACCNO:   A80553						        
  TITLE:     The Department of Defense's Civilian Human Capital       
Strategic Plan Does Not Meet Most Statutory Requirements	 
     DATE:   02/06/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Civilian employees 				 
	     Data collection					 
	     Data integrity					 
	     Employee retention 				 
	     Human capital					 
	     Human capital management				 
	     Human capital planning				 
	     Personnel management				 
	     Personnel recruiting				 
	     Reporting requirements				 
	     Requirements definition				 
	     Risk management					 
	     Skilled labor					 
	     Staff utilization					 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Assessments					 
	     Executive agency oversight 			 
	     DOD Civilian Human Capital Strategic		 
	     Plan						 
                                                                 
	     GAO High Risk Series				 

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GAO-08-439R

   

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February 6, 2008: 

The Honorable Carl Levin: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable John McCain: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Ike Skelton: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Duncan Hunter: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
House of Representatives: 

Subject: The Department of Defense's Civilian Human Capital Strategic 
Plan Does Not Meet Most Statutory Requirements: 

The achievement of the Department of Defense's (DOD) mission is 
dependent in large part on the skills and expertise of its civilian 
workforce--which consists of almost 700,000 personnel, who develop 
policy, provide intelligence, manage finances, and acquire and maintain 
weapon systems. With more than 50 percent of its civilian personnel 
becoming eligible to retire in the next few years, DOD may find it 
difficult to fill certain mission-critical jobs with qualified 
personnel. Strategic workforce planning, an integral part of human 
capital management, helps ensure that an organization has staff with 
the necessary skills and competencies[Footnote 1] to accomplish its 
strategic goals. We have previously reported that it is critical that 
DOD engage in effective strategic workforce planning to ensure that its 
human capital reforms have maximum effectiveness and value. 

In 2007, we reported that strategic human capital management remained a 
high-risk area because the federal government now faces one of the most 
significant transformations to the civil service in half a century, as 
momentum grows toward making governmentwide changes to agency pay, 
classification, and performance management systems.[Footnote 2] In our 
prior work examining various aspects of DOD's human capital management 
of its civilian workforce, we found that, while DOD has developed and 
implemented civilian strategic workforce plans to address future 
civilian workforce needs, the plans generally lacked some key elements 
essential to successful workforce planning.[Footnote 3] For example, 
none of the plans included analyses of the gaps between critical 
skills[Footnote 4] and competencies currently needed by the workforce 
and those that will be needed in the future. Without such gap analyses, 
we noted that DOD and its components may not be able to effectively 
design strategies to hire, develop, and retain the best possible 
workforce. 

In January 2006, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2006[Footnote 5] directed DOD to develop and submit to the Senate and 
House Armed Services Committees a strategic plan to shape and improve 
the DOD civilian employee workforce. Section 1122 (b) of the act 
provided that the plan address eight requirements. These included an 
assessment of existing and future critical skills and competencies 
needed to support national security and manage the department over the 
next decade, and an assessment of any existing gaps. In addition, DOD 
was to develop and submit a plan of action to address identified gaps, 
including specific recruiting and retention goals and strategies on how 
to train, compensate, and motivate civilian employees. Furthermore, the 
act required the Secretary of Defense to submit the plan not later than 
1 year after enactment of the act, which occurred on January 6, 2006. 
Accordingly, DOD's plan was due on January 6, 2007. On November 6, 
2007--ten months after the due date--DOD submitted to the committees 
both its plan titled "Department of Defense Civilian Human Capital 
Strategic Plan 2006-2010," and its implementation report titled "The 
Department of Defense Human Capital Strategic Plan for Civilian 
Employees of the Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 2006 Implementation 
Report." This latter DOD report, however, noted that it responded to 
section 1122(d) of the act.[Footnote 6] In this report, we will 
hereafter refer to these two documents collectively as DOD's civilian 
human capital strategic plan. 

In addition to the mandate for DOD, the act also required GAO to review 
and report on the human capital strategic plan DOD submitted to meet 
its mandate no later than 90 days after DOD's submission. Accordingly, 
we examined the extent to which DOD's civilian human capital strategic 
plan addresses the reporting requirements mandated by the act. 

To examine the extent to which DOD's civilian human capital strategic 
plan addresses congressional reporting requirements, we obtained and 
analyzed the "Department of Defense Civilian Human Capital Strategic 
Plan 2006-2010" and "The Department of Defense Human Capital Strategic 
Plan for Civilian Employees of the Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 
2006 Implementation Report," along with other documents. We analyzed 
the content of these documents and compared them to the requirements of 
the 2006 act. We also discussed the plan with officials within the 
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, 
the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Civilian 
Personnel Policy, and the Civilian Personnel Management Service. We 
conducted this performance audit from November 2007 to February 2008 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Summary: 

Overall, DOD's civilian human capital strategic plan does not meet most 
statutory requirements. First, the plan partially addresses some but 
not all aspects of two of the congressional reporting requirements 
established in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2006. Specifically, DOD's plan includes a list of mission-critical 
occupations needed for the current civilian workforce, but this list 
does not constitute the required assessment of skills of the existing 
workforce. Second, and most importantly, the plan does not address the 
majority--six of eight--of the congressional reporting requirements. 
For example, the plan does not include an assessment of current mission-
critical competencies, future critical skills and competencies needed, 
gaps between the current and future needs, or specific recruiting and 
retention goals, even though these elements are required by the 2006 
act. DOD officials acknowledged that the plan they submitted to the 
committees is incomplete. We note that the plan refers, in several 
places, to information related to DOD's mandate, but indicates that 
those items may be addressed at a later time. In addition, DOD 
officials stated that some of these items may be addressed in other 
documents. For example, DOD officials told us that a recent 
report[Footnote 7] may contain information that addresses portions of 
the mandate. While we reviewed some of the information in this report, 
it was not submitted to the committees pursuant to the 2006 act; thus, 
it cannot be considered as meeting the mandate. Moreover, our initial 
review of the document showed that, while it may address some of the 
requirements in DOD's mandate, it still may not address other aspects 
of the mandate because, for example, it does not cover the time frames 
Congress directed--that is, over the next decade. Without complete 
information on DOD's civilian human capital plan, to include analyses 
of gaps between critical skills and competencies needed by the current 
and future workforce, Congress will not have the information it needs 
to conduct effective oversight over DOD's efforts to hire, develop, and 
retain the best possible civilian workforce. Accordingly, we are 
recommending that DOD submit to Congress a civilian human capital 
strategic plan that addresses all of the statutory requirements. DOD 
disagreed with our recommendation noting that its response to the 
congressional reporting requirements reflected a centralized enterprise-
wide strategic perspective--as opposed to providing the information 
specified by the law, such as recruiting and retention goals. The law 
required DOD's plan to contain very specific quantitative data and 
assessments. Since DOD's plan did not address the law's requirements, 
we continue to believe that our recommendation is valid. 

Background: 

We have previously examined various aspects of DOD's human capital 
management of its civilian workforce. For example, in June 2004, we 
reported that DOD has developed and implemented civilian strategic 
workforce plans to address future civilian workforce needs; however, 
DOD's plans generally lacked some key elements essential to successful 
workforce planning.[Footnote 8] To improve the comprehensiveness of 
strategic workforce planning for the DOD civilian workforce, we 
recommended that the department (1) analyze and document critical 
skills and competency gaps between its current and future workforces 
and (2) develop workforce strategies to address identified workforce 
gaps in skills and competencies. DOD partially concurred with both 
recommendations and stated, for the first recommendation, that the 
value of conducting a global analysis between current competencies and 
those needed for the future for over 650,000 jobs was unclear. Our 
recommendation did not suggest that DOD conduct a global gap analysis, 
but rather that it perform an analysis of the gaps between current 
critical skills and competencies. On the second recommendation DOD 
stated, among other things, that it uses existing flexibilities such as 
recruitment and retention bonuses and relocation allowances. While we 
acknowledged that DOD and its components had implemented various 
strategies including those for training and recruiting, these 
strategies were not derived from analyses of critical skills and 
competency gaps. Without such analyses, we reported that DOD may not be 
able to design and invest in strategies that will effectively and 
efficiently transition it to it the future workforce it desires and 
needs. While DOD has said that it is analyzing and documenting critical 
skills gaps and that it is actively engaged in developing workforce 
strategies to fill identified skills gaps, we continue to believe that 
our recommendations have merit and that DOD should take steps to 
implement them. 

In January 2006, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2006[Footnote 9] directed DOD to develop and submit to the Senate and 
House Armed Services Committees a strategic plan to shape and improve 
the DOD civilian employee workforce. The plan was to include eight 
requirements. These included an assessment of: 

* the critical skills that will be needed in the future DOD civilian 
employee workforce to support national security requirements and 
effectively manage the department over the next decade, 

* the competencies that will be needed in the future DOD civilian 
employee workforce to support national security requirements and 
effectively manage the department over the next decade, 

* the skills of the existing DOD civilian employee workforce, 

* the competencies of the existing DOD civilian employee workforce, 

* the projected trends in that workforce based on expected losses due 
to retirement and other attrition, 

* gaps in the existing or projected DOD civilian employee workforce 
that should be addressed to ensure that the department has continued 
access to the critical skills and competencies to support national 
security requirements and effectively manage the department of the next 
decade. 

Also, as part of its strategic human capital plan, the act directed DOD 
to include a plan of action for developing and shaping the DOD civilian 
employee workforce to address identified gaps in critical skills and 
competencies including specific: 

* recruiting and retention goals, and: 

* strategies for development, training, deploying, compensating, and 
motivating the DOD civilian employee workforce. 

The act further required the Secretary of Defense to submit the plan 
not later than 1 year after enactment of the act, which occurred on 
January 6, 2006. Accordingly, DOD's plan was due on January 6, 2007. 
Thereafter, the act required an annual update of DOD's plan not later 
than March 1 of each year from 2007 through 2010. 

On November 6, 2007--10 months after the due date--DOD submitted its 
plan titled "Department of Defense Civilian Human Capital Strategic 
Plan 2006-2010." [Footnote 10] The plan consists of 19 pages plus an 
additional 13 pages of appendixes that address, among other things, how 
DOD (1) aligns human resource actions with the goals and objectives of 
the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)[Footnote 11] report and its 
human capital strategy and (2) addresses the criteria for strategic 
management of human capital, per the President's Management Agenda. DOD 
also submitted its implementation report titled "The Department of 
Defense Human Capital Strategic Plan for Civilian Employees of the 
Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 2006 Implementation Report," which 
is dated July 2007. The report consists of 39 pages that, among other 
things, address (1) its enterprise-wide leadership development programs 
and (2) its challenges to attract and sustain the right talent, along 
with efforts to refresh its identification of mission-critical 
occupations. 

DOD's Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan Partially Addresses Some, 
but Does Not Address Most, Aspects of the Congressional Reporting 
Requirements: 

DOD's civilian human capital strategic plan partially addresses some, 
but does not address most, aspects of the congressional reporting 
requirements established in the National Defense Authorization Act for 
Fiscal Year 2006. Specifically, DOD's plan includes a list of the 
mission-critical occupations and identifies some workforce strategies. 
However, the plan does not address the majority of the congressional 
reporting requirements. 

DOD's Plan Includes a List of the Current Civilian Workforce Mission- 
Critical Occupations and Identifies Some Workforce Strategies: 

The act required DOD to include an assessment of the skills of the 
current civilian workforce and workforce strategies; instead, DOD's 
plan submitted to the committees included a list of the mission- 
critical occupations needed for the current workforce and identified 
some strategies to address workforce challenges. 

* List of mission-critical occupations. DOD's plan included a list of 
mission-critical occupations needed for the current civilian workforce 
that will be the focus of DOD's future enterprise-wide strategic human 
capital planning efforts. Specifically, the plan identified 25 mission- 
critical occupations.[Footnote 12] However, this list does not 
constitute the required assessment of skills of the existing civilian 
workforce. 

* Workforce strategies. DOD's civilian human capital strategic plan 
also describes various strategies to address workforce challenges. For 
example, DOD has established a Hiring Heroes Program and a Web site 
especially for disabled veterans to help injured servicemembers return 
to productive employment. In fiscal year 2006, DOD hired 37,974 
veterans through this program. In addition, DOD used the Pipeline 
Reemployment Program, which enables employees with job-related injuries 
and illnesses to return to work. According to DOD, by the end of fiscal 
year 2006, this program allowed 358 employees to return to productive 
positions, for potential lifetime cost avoidance for the department of 
approximately $281 million. However, DOD's workforce strategies do not 
appear to comprehensively address the requirement for specific 
strategies for development, training, deploying, compensating, and 
motivating DOD's civilian workforce over the next decade. 

DOD's Plan Does Not Address the Majority of the Congressional Reporting 
Requirements: 

Importantly, DOD's civilian human capital strategic plan also does not 
address the majority--six of eight--of the congressional reporting 
requirements. Specifically, the plan does not include an assessment of 
current mission-critical competencies, projected trends in that 
workforce based on expected losses due to retirement and other 
attrition, future critical skills and competencies needed, gaps between 
the current and future needs, or specific recruiting and retention 
goals, even though these elements are required by the 2006 act. 

* Assessment of current mission-critical competencies and projected 
trends in the current workforce. DOD's plan does not define current 
mission-critical competencies and competency proficiency levels needed 
for each occupation. In addition, the plan does not include an 
assessment of projected trends in the current workforce based on 
expected losses due to retirement and other attrition. The plan, for 
example, does not include trends in current mission-critical 
occupations in terms of current and expected retirement eligibility, 
separations, resignations, and transfers. In our June 2004 report on 
DOD's efforts to develop and implement strategic workforce 
plans,[Footnote 13] we noted that it is essential that organizations 
determine what is available--both the current workforce characteristics 
and future availability. We also noted that this is accomplished by 
assessing the current workforce--defining the number and types of 
competencies for employees in each occupational group; determining the 
skill levels for each competency; and assessing how they will evolve 
over time, factoring in such events as retirements. 

* Assessment of future critical skills and competencies. DOD's civilian 
human capital strategic plan does not include an assessment of the 
critical skills and competencies needed by its future civilian employee 
workforce over the next decade. Contrary to the requirement to cover 10 
years, the plan covers the 4-year period between 2006 and 2010. In our 
June 2004 report, we stated that to build the right workforce to 
achieve strategic goals, it is essential that organizations determine 
the critical workforce characteristics needed in the future. Our review 
of DOD's plan found that the plan recognizes the need to refocus 
civilian force capabilities for the future and acknowledges that the 
department requires a future civilian employee workforce with the 
attributes and capabilities to perform in an environment of uncertainty 
and surprise, execute with a wartime sense of urgency, create tailored 
solutions to multiple complex challenges, build partnerships, shape 
choices, and plan rapidly. The plan, however, does not include 
information about these attributes and capabilities and how they would 
relate to the act's requirement for an assessment of the critical 
skills and competencies needed in the future civilian employee 
workforce over the next decade. 

* Assessment of gaps between current and future critical skills and 
competencies. DOD's civilian human capital strategic plan does not 
include an assessment of gaps between the critical skills and 
competencies currently needed and those needed in the future DOD 
civilian employee workforce. In June 2004, we reported that to build 
the right workforce to achieve strategic goals, it is essential that 
organizations determine the difference between what will be available 
and what will be needed. We noted that this is especially important as 
changes in national security, technology, and other factors alter the 
environment within which DOD operates. As an example, in 2006, we 
reported that the Air Force had identified gaps in its acquisition 
workforce and had begun considering ways to address it; however, they 
had not addressed the gaps at that time.[Footnote 14] 

* Specific recruiting and retention goals. DOD's civilian human capital 
strategic plan does not include specific recruiting and retention goals 
to address gaps in critical skills and competencies. Although Appendix 
D of the plan suggests that DOD does have tracking measures as well as 
quarterly and annual reporting requirements that relate to recruitment 
and retention, the plan submitted to the committees did not include 
specific recruiting and retention goals. 

DOD officials acknowledged that the plan submitted to the committees 
may be incomplete in addressing the requirements of sections 1122(a) 
and (b). Additionally, we note that the plan has information, in 
several places, that relate to the requirements in the act but, in 
these instances, the plan states that these items may be addressed at a 
later time or in other documents. For example, the plan states that the 
department will deploy an automated survey tool to identify competency 
gaps in the human resource community sometime during fiscal year 2007. 
In addition, the plan referred to a separate report[Footnote 15] that 
identified competency requirements for DOD's senior executive 
leadership. This report, however, does not constitute an assessment of 
the existing competencies and those needed in the future and was not 
provided to Congress with DOD's plan, so it cannot be considered as 
meeting the requirements of the mandate. DOD officials further told us 
that other documents not mentioned in the plan may address some of the 
act's requirements. For example, they said that Department of Defense 
Annual Human Capital Management Report for Fiscal Year 2007[Footnote 
16] may also address some of the act's requirements and they provided 
us with this report. Our initial review of the report shows that it 
does contain information on DOD's efforts to align its civilian human 
capital strategy with existing human capital strategies, its mission, 
and the National Military Strategy. For instance, the report addresses 
DOD's efforts to build a civilian senior executive leadership cadre and 
discusses a goal to assess and close current leadership competency 
gaps. However, this effort is ongoing and DOD expects to conduct a 
comprehensive assessment in 2008, which it says will allow the 
department to develop a gap analysis and a subsequent improvement plan. 
Furthermore, while our review determined that the report may address 
some of the requirements in DOD's mandate, the report did not cover the 
time frames Congress directed--that is, the next decade. Moreover, 
since this report was not submitted to the committees, it cannot be 
considered as meeting the requirements of the mandate in section 
1122(a) and (b). 

Conclusions: 

Although DOD has taken some steps, since we issued our 2004 report, to 
develop and implement a civilian human capital strategic plan to 
address its future civilian workforce needs, the plan it submitted to 
the Armed Services Committees does not meet the majority of the 
requirements in the law. This is becoming a long standing issue. 
Without a plan that addresses all of the elements essential to a 
successful workforce plan, such as what gaps exist in skills and 
competencies and what type of recruiting and retention strategies 
should be developed, DOD's future workforce may not possess the 
critical skills and competencies needed. Additionally, Congress will 
not have the information it needs to exercise effective oversight over 
DOD's efforts to hire, develop, and retain the best possible civilian 
workforce for the 21st century challenges. 

Recommendation for Executive Action: 

To ensure that Congress has the necessary information to provide 
effective oversight over DOD's civilian workforce, we are recommending 
that the Secretary of Defense direct the Office of the Under Secretary 
of Defense, Personnel and Readiness, to submit to Congress a civilian 
human capital strategic plan that addresses all of the statutory 
requirements in section 1122 (b) of the National Defense Authorization 
Act for Fiscal Year 2006. This could be included in DOD's next 
submission, which is due in March 2008. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

In commenting on a draft of our report, the Deputy Under Secretary of 
Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy disagreed with our 
recommendation. (DOD's comments are reprinted in enclosure I.) However, 
DOD also noted that the department plans to include more "compressive" 
documents in its required March 2008 report to the Armed Services 
Committees. DOD's comments further described several ongoing efforts to 
conduct workforce planning and analysis and it appears that the 
department is planning to take action to improve its management of 
civilian human capital planning. However, these ongoing efforts were 
not submitted to the Armed Services Committees as part of its human 
capital strategic plan and, therefore, do not meet the requirements of 
the law. Accordingly, we continue to believe that our recommendation is 
valid. 

In its written comments, DOD stated that it disagreed with the 
presentation of information as portrayed in our findings. Specifically, 
the department stated that it disagreed with findings presented in our 
draft report. For example, the department noted that it objected to the 
title of our report--stating that it does not truly reflect the 
findings of the report or ongoing efforts within the department. 
Specifically, the department noted that the title seemed inappropriate 
as GAO found that DOD's report to Congress "partially addressed, some 
but not all aspects of the congressional reporting requirements 
established in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2006." We acknowledge in the draft report that DOD partially addressed 
some (two aspects of the eight) reporting requirements of the law. 
Since DOD's plan did not address six of the eight requirements, we 
believe that our title, stating that the plan did not address most of 
the statutory requirements, is appropriate. We have refined our 
language in the report to make it clear that DOD did not meet most 
reporting requirements and partially addressed some aspects of two 
requirements. 

Additionally, DOD's comments refer to a number of ongoing human capital 
efforts in the department. Specifically, DOD stated that its response 
to the statutory requirements reflected a centralized enterprise-wide 
perspective that highlighted overarching DOD policy goals, objectives, 
and initiatives--as opposed to providing specific quantitative data 
such as "specific recruiting and retention goals." The department 
further stated that, while GAO found that its submission to Congress 
did not include "an assessment of current mission critical skills and 
competencies, future critical skills and competencies needed, gaps 
between the current and future needs, or specific recruiting and 
retention goalsï¿½," evidence of the department's diligent efforts in 
conducting workforce planning and analysis can be found in many 
documents. The department noted that these "many reports" included, but 
were not limited to, its report to the Office of Personnel Management 
(OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget under the President's 
Management Agenda; OPM's Proud-to-Be milestones and benchmarks; DOD's 
Human Capital Management Report, and review processes of internal DOD 
metrics and workforce demographic data. DOD also provided additional 
information regarding some ongoing and planned efforts that the 
military departments and defense agencies were pursuing. The act, 
however, did not require GAO to review DOD's ongoing human capital 
efforts. Instead, the act directed GAO to review the plan submitted to 
the Armed Services Committees and assess how it met the statutory 
requirements. Since these documents and information on DOD's ongoing 
and planned efforts were not submitted to the Committees on Armed 
Services to address the requirements for DOD's plan, as stipulated in 
law, the documents and additional information were outside the scope of 
our review. Moreover, as stated in our report, we did review some of 
DOD's documents and additional information--including the Department of 
Defense Annual Human Capital Management Report for Fiscal Year 2007. 
Our review of this report found that this document did not meet all of 
the requirements specified in the law. For example, as stated in our 
report regarding the skills and competencies for the future, the 
Department of Defense Annual Human Capital Management Report for Fiscal 
Year 2007 did not provide information over a 10-year period, as 
required by the law. Consequently, since these additional documents 
were outside the scope of our review and, in some cases, did not meet 
the requirements of the law, we continue to believe that DOD should 
submit a civilian human capital strategic plan that addresses all of 
the statutory requirements in section 1122 (a) and (b) of the National 
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. 

Furthermore, DOD acknowledged in its comments that its assessment of 
the current and future critical skills and competencies were not 
reflected in its submission to the Congress. DOD further stated that 
the department is working with the military departments and defense 
agencies to develop, among other things, common taxonomies, job 
analysis methodologies, competency gap assessment methodologies, and 
reporting requirement strategies. Additionally, DOD commented that the 
department non-concurred with our finding that its workforce strategies 
did not address specific strategies for developing, training, 
deploying, compensating, and motivating civilian workforce for the next 
decade. In our draft report, we acknowledged that DOD included in its 
plan some workforce strategies for development and hiring flexibilities 
to address workforce challenges. However, DOD's plan to Congress did 
not comprehensively discuss these strategies and did not mention the 
majority of the education, training, and recruitment strategies that 
the department described in their comments. In addition, none of the 
workforce strategies discussed in DOD's plans or in DOD's comments 
indicated that they were based on an analysis of critical skills and 
competency gaps. We previously recommended in our 2004 report that DOD 
develop workforce strategies to address identified gaps in skills and 
competences in its civilian workforce. DOD partially concurred with 
this 2004 recommendation stating, among other things, that it used 
existing flexibilities such as retention bonuses and relocation 
allowances. In that report, like this one, we acknowledged that DOD and 
the components had implemented various strategies; however, we stated, 
at that time, these strategies were not derived from analyses of 
critical skills and competency gaps. We further noted that, without 
such analyses, DOD may not be able to design and invest in strategies 
that will effectively and efficiently transition it to the future 
workforce it desires and needs. 

DOD provided three attachments with its comments. First was a copy of 
an internal department memorandum, dated November 16, 2007, regarding 
DOD's development of a competency based strategy for its civilian 
workforce. Second was an Army document identifying two mission critical 
occupations--pharmacists and civil engineers--and current and future 
staffing needs and gap information for these two occupations. Third was 
an analysis of annual attrition trends, DOD wide and for 10 mission 
critical occupation categories. Again, while the information contained 
in these attachments might address some of the statutory requirements, 
none of this information was submitted to Congress with DOD's civilian 
human capital strategic plan. 

Scope and Methodology: 

To determine the extent to which the DOD civilian human capital 
strategic plan addressed the statutory requirements established in 
section 1122 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2006, we obtained and reviewed the "Department of Defense Civilian 
Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010" and "DOD's Human Capital 
Strategic Plan for Civilian Employees of the Department of Defense 
Fiscal Year 2006 Implementation Report." We analyzed the content of 
these documents and compared it to the requirements of the 2006 act. We 
also obtained and reviewed the Department of Defense Annual Human 
Capital Management Report for Fiscal Year 2007. In addition, we held 
discussions with officials in the Office of the Under Secretary of 
Defense for Personnel and Readiness, the Office of the Deputy Under 
Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy, and the Civilian 
Personnel Management Service. 

We conducted this performance audit from November 2007 through February 
2008 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; and 
the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. We will also make 
copies available to others on request. In addition, the report will be 
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff has any questions on the matters discussed in this 
report, please contact me at (202) 512-3604 or [email protected]. 
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 
Affairs may found on the last page of this letter. GAO staff who made 
key contributions to this report are listed in enclosure II. 

Signed by: 

Brenda S. Farrell: 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 

[End of section] 

Enclosure I: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Office Of The Under Secretary Of Defense: 
4000 Defense Pentagon: 
Washington. D C. 20301-4000: 

Personnel And Readiness: 

FEB 01 2008: 

Ms. Brenda S. Farrell: 
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W.: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Farrell:  

This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the U.S. Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) draft report; "The Department of Defense's 
Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan Does Not Meet Most Statutory 
Requirements," dated January 29, 2008 (GAO Code: GAO-08-439R). 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the draft 
report. The Department of Defense disagrees with the recommendation and 
presentation of information as portrayed in your findings. Our response 
to the Congressional reporting requirement reflected a centralized 
enterprise-wide strategic perspective which was called for in the 
report. Implementation of the tactical requirements which support 
workforce planning and analysis is decentralized and conducted by the 
Military Departments and Defense Agencies. In our enclosed response, we 
have provided a synopsis of our centralized initiatives and examples of 
the tactical implementation of those efforts by the Military 
Departments and Defense Agencies. Our plan is to include more 
compressive documents in our required March 2008 report. 

My point of contact regarding this audit is Mr. F. Michael Sena (Audit 
Liaison) who can be reached at (703) 614-9487. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Patricia S. Bradshaw: 
Civilian Personnel Policy: 

Enclosures: 
As stated: 

GAO Draft Report - Dated January 29, 2008: 

GAO CODE 351148/GAO-08-439R: 

"The Department of Defense's Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan Does 
Not Meet Most Statutory Requirements" 

Department Of Defense Comments To The Recommendation: 

Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and 
Readiness to submit to Congress a revised civilian human capital 
strategic plan that addresses all of the statutory requirements in 
section 1122 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2006. (p. 8/GAO Draft Report): 

DOD Response: The Department of Defense non-concurs with the GAO 
findings as presented in their audit. First, we object to the title of 
the GAO draft audit report. We believe that this title does not truly 
reflect the findings of the GAO or the on-going efforts within the 
Department regarding its management of civilian human capital planning. 
Specifically, the title seems inappropriate as the GAO found that our 
report to Congress "partially addressed, some but not all aspects of 
the Congressional reporting requirements established in the National 
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006." Furthermore, the 
Department is working diligently with the Military Departments and 
Defense Agencies to provide them with the overall DoD policy guidance 
necessary to optimize workforce planning (covering competency 
assessment, skills gap and projected workforce trend analysis), and the 
Department and the Component's are conducting ongoing competency 
assessment analysis. 

Secondly, our response to the reporting requirement reflected a 
centralized enterprise-wide perspective and highlighted overarching DoD 
policy goals, objectives and initiatives - as opposed to providing 
specific quantitative data such as a "specific recruiting and retention 
goals." The underlying document to support our centralized policy 
enterprise-wide perspective is our Civilian Human Capital Strategic 
Plan (CHCSP) 2006-2010. This plan includes our Civilian Human Capital 
Goals and objectives from which we have developed policy initiatives 
which support those goals. Implementation of those initiatives, 
including those which support workforce planning and analysis is 
decentralized and conducted by the Military Departments and Defense 
Agencies. The CHCSP constitutes the Department's comprehensive and 
enterprise-wide plan for ensuring a strong civilian workforce, which is 
able to meet the mission challenges of today and the future. 

The GAO found that our submission to Congress did not include "an 
assessment of current mission critical skills and competencies, future 
critical skills and competencies needed, gaps between the current and 
future needs, or specific recruiting and retention goalsï¿½." Evidence of 
the Department's diligent efforts in conducting workforce planning and 
analysis can be found in many documents. These documents include 
reporting requirements such as, but not limited to, reporting to the 
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB) under the President's Management Agenda (PMA); OPM Proud- 
to-Be milestones and benchmarks; DoD Human Capital Management Report, 
and review processes of internal DoD metrics and workforce demographic 
data. 

Development, Training, Deploying, Compensating, and Motivating 
Strategies: 

We non-concur with GAO in their finding that our workforce strategies 
do not address specific strategies for the development, training, and 
deploying, compensating, and motivating DoD's civilian workforce for 
the next decade. 

The Department is using a plethora of recruitment and compensation 
programs to meet its talent needs and develop the skills needed for the 
future. These include intern and career development programs, student 
employment programs, recruitment at job fairs with diverse candidates, 
and establishing liaisons with professional organizations to leverage 
their candidate pools. There are numerous Fellowship and Scholarship 
Programs in operation throughout the Department, providing us a 
pipeline for those positions deemed critical. Two such examples are the 
National Security Education Program, through which the Department 
grants scholarships for the study of language and cultures, which are 
especially important to the Department as it conducts its Stability/ 
Reconstruction efforts throughout the world; and the SMART Program 
(Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation), through which 
the Department assists students with tuition in the Science, 
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics arena in return for service, 
ensuring we keep our edge in these most vital of career fields. 

Pipeline/succession planning efforts also include a wide array of 
education and training, and professional development programs, such as: 
the Army Fellows Program, Training-With-Industry, Army Comptrollership 
Program; Graduate Cost Analysis Program; DoD Professional Enhancement 
Program; Logistics and Acquisition Management Program; Logistics 
Executive Development Program and the DoD Professional Enhancement 
Program. This is not an all inclusive list but provides a flavor of the 
type of education and training the Department provides to ensure it has 
the current and future talent it needs. 

The Department is also exploring new recruitment methodologies, such as 
"Boutique Recruiting", which was successfully used to recruit and hire 
large numbers of positions in the medical arena, to include 
pharmacists, one our mission critical occupations. This is in addition 
to the more standard recruitment sources, such as Federal Career 
Interns, and veterans. 

We are also looking at our compensation systems to ensure all needed 
compensation strategies are available to our managers to recruit and 
retain the talent needed. We are in process of developing a new 
"Hybrid" compensation plan for our Doctors and Dentists that will 
leverage the best of Title 5 and Title 38 hiring flexibilities. We also 
pursued with the Office of Personnel Management, and recently obtained, 
authority to offer retention incentives for moves within the Federal 
government for mission critical personnel at BRAC bases. These 
flexibilities are in addition to those currently in use, such as 
student loan repayment; special salary rates; recruitment, retention 
and relocation incentives; and the flexibilities offered by the 
National Security Personnel System (NSPS) compensation system. 

Employee development strategies are also being undertaken. We have 
embarked on a new certificate program for our Human Resources 
practitioners, initially focusing on the development of needed 
compensation strategies, as we evolve, under NSPS, to a more market- 
based system. The Department of the Army has created master training 
plans that identify training, education and development requirements 
that are linked to competencies and competency proficiency levels, 
e.g., intern through professional. The Navy, Air Force and some Defense 
Agencies are also embarking on structured development programs to meet 
their talent needs. 

Assessment of Current/Future Critical Skills and Competencies: 

Although not reflected in our submission to the Congress, the 
Department is diligently working to create a comprehensive competency 
management system methodology that can be used across its enterprise. 
Our immediate workforce planning and analysis efforts are focused on 
identifying, managing and reporting the competency strengths and needs 
of our many components separately via their chain of commands. However, 
we have also embarked on a broader effort to establish DoD-wide 
standards for comprehensive workforce planning and competency 
management. In doing so, we are establishing objectives that can be met 
using alternative approaches that are suitable to our components. 

Under our enterprise-wide competency management system (CMS) model, we 
are working jointly with the Military Departments and Defense Agencies 
to develop common taxonomies, job analysis methodologies, workforce 
planning strategies/tools, competency gap assessment methodologies and 
reporting requirement strategies. Competency assessments, along with 
other workforce planning data, will help set priorities and target 
occupational areas for strategic direction and/or remediation. We are 
building workforce planning data that can be evaluated annually but 
extended to 3 year, 5 year and 10 year projections. We will seek to 
address unforeseen events by utilizing our capacity to adjust resources 
as required and focus on pre-planned events over which we do have 
control. This effort has been formalized by a memorandum from the 
USD(P&R), which can be found at attachment A. 

As we work toward an enterprise-wide approach to competency management, 
the Department also is completing competency analysis efforts both at a 
corporate level, as well as within the Military Department's and 
Defense Agencies. A description of efforts in both these areas follows. 

DoD Human Resources Community: 

A Human Resources competency assessment was conducted in CY07. 1,722 
civilian human resources specialist participated in the assessment. The 
assessment uncovered the following: 

* Labor Relations and Employee Relations, HR Information Systems, 
Legal, Government & Jurisprudence, and Compensation were among the 
lowest scoring of the twelve Technical competencies (below a 3.0 on a 
5.0 scale): 

* Customer Service scored highest among the seven General (soft-skill) 
competencies (above a 4.0 on a 5.0 scale): 

* Greatest participation rates by grade/payband: (Journeyman Level): 

* Greatest participation rates by functional area: Recruitment & 
Placement/Staffing. This technical competency scored above a 3.0 on a 
5.0 scale Department-wide. 

The Department is addressing these competency gaps, beginning with 
Compensation. The Department, in conjunction with World at Work, has 
developed a Strategic Compensation Certification Program, which is a 
future-focused initiative grounded on the critical importance and 
linkage of a strategic compensation philosophy with organizational 
goals, objectives, initiatives, and Human Capital strategy. In 
September 07, DoD graduated its first 100 students in the Compensation 
Program. The next class is scheduled February 2008. The course 
curriculum includes Compensation Fundamentals, Accounting & Finance for 
HR Professionals, Quantitative Methods and Market Pricing-Conducting a 
Competitive Analysis. 

DoD Acquisition Community: 

The Acquisition, Technology and Logistics workforce, which includes 
126,000 members in thirteen functional communities, has embarked on a 
four-phased approach to addressing acquisition competency management: 

* Phase I - Framework Development. In this phase senior experts 
evaluate the existing competencies, establish a baseline, and identify 
subject matter experts for Phase II. 

* Phase II - Model Development. In this phase subject matter experts 
identify key work situations and competencies contributing to 
successful performance. The resulting model is prepared for test and 
evaluation in Phase III. 

* Phase III - Test and Evaluation. A beta test is conducted on the 
model in preparation for an expanded pilot assessment. 

* Phase IV - Assess, Report and Sustain Model. The final model is 
deployed for comprehensive assessments in the community. Results are 
analyzed and reported to functional leadership and other users. At this 
point, information will be available for use in gap analysis, workforce 
development, workforce shaping and other human capital applications. 

The Acquisition Community competency initiative began in October 2006 
and three functional areas have completed Phase III: Contracting, Life 
Cycle Logistics and Program Management. These three communities have 
validated competency models (Phase III). The contracting community has 
started Phase IV. Over 350 subject matter experts participated in the 
competency development process. This process resulted in the 
identification of 8 core competencies, and to date, over 3,600 Phase IV 
individual assessments have been completed. The Phase IV effort is 
scheduled to be completed October 2008 and at that point workforce 
skill gaps will be identified. 

Pharmacists and Civil Engineer: 

Pharmacists and civilian engineers, two of our mission critical 
occupations, were subject to competency gap analysis is FY2007. The 
results of that analysis can be found at attachment B. 

Leadership: 

The Department of Defense provided the web-based Federal Competency 
Assessment Tool - Management (FCAT-M) to members of the Senior 
Executive Service and a random sample of GS-14/15/equivalent managers 
and supervisors throughout the Department from mid-June through July 
2007. FCAT-M consisted of an opportunity for employees to conduct a 
self-assessment of current proficiency and supervisors to rate the 
current proficiency of the employee and the desired proficiency, for 
the position held by the employee. Both employee and supervisor 
participation was voluntary. Assessments were entered by 1,685 current 
DoD leaders and 499 of their supervisors. 

The FCAT-M provides two views of the individual's proficiency (a self 
assessment and a supervisor's assessment). Overall, we found the 
employee's self-rating to be inconsistent with the supervisor's rating. 
This finding is consistent with the recent report by the Merit Systems 
Protection Board on self ratings (Issues of Merit, July 2007). The FCAT-
M also provides the supervisor's view of the level of proficiency 
needed for the position. The analysis of the results of this assessment 
provides us with the first DoD-wide baseline measure of the proficiency 
level of the current leadership cadre. On average, over 80 percent of 
our current leaders meet or exceed the proficiency levels in leadership 
competencies needed for successful performance on the job. The results 
also pinpointed a number of competencies in which lower scores 
warranted further review and study. Given the significant challenges 
faced by DoD leaders in this period of rapid change, the competencies 
supporting "Leading Change" are likely among the most critical. 
Similarly, as we move more organizations to performance-based 
management and compensation under the National Security Personnel 
System, "Leading People" is another potential area of concentration. 

In addition to providing the first baseline measure of leadership 
proficiency across the Department, the 2007 administration of FCAT-M 
provided a host of Lessons Learned that will be applied to future 
efforts. The Department has gained significant insights into every 
aspect of the process, to include design of the assessment tool, 
communication, contracting, automation support, and others, which will 
lead to a stronger and more viable assessment in 2008. 

Military Department and Defense Agencies Competency Gap & Workforce 
Trend Analysis: 

A significant amount of work is underway within the individual arenas 
of Army, Navy, Air Force and 4TH Estate entities. One aspect of 
decentralized execution is that we encourage creative approaches to 
problem solving and value solutions that address very unique and 
specific differences within our organization. In the spirit of 
leveraging best practices, we have established a multi-faceted 
component work group that links Civilian Personnel Policy and the 
Defense Human Capital Strategic (DHCS) Program Evaluation Office (PEO) 
more directly to component initiatives. The following is a brief 
synopsis of their efforts. 

Army: 

Army's Competency Management System (CMS) was designed to validate 
competency requirements for each position, identify proficiency levels 
of employees in the required competencies, conduct gap analysis, and 
accommodate updates and re-evaluations. CMS is currently validating 
competencies. Army plans on conducting gap assessments in phases for 
544 occupations (328 white collar, 216 blue collar). There is a full 
competency and gap analysis for 157 occupations that is scheduled for 
completion by the end of FY 08. Approximately 75 occupations have 
already been surveyed, with mission critical occupations surveyed 
first. Once the validation is completed, CMS will be used to identify 
competency gaps, share the information through command channels, and 
identify the best strategies for closing the gaps. Army is also in the 
process of researching a number of aspects of the competency area to 
include their potential usage and all of the available tools in the 
context of a broad based Human Capital Strategic Plan. 

Navy: 

To date, 21 Civilian Communities have been established within the Navy 
and all job series have been aligned to those communities. Competencies 
have been validated through an electronic job task analysis survey tool 
(SkillsNet) for nine of the 21 communities with progress being made to 
validation for all. Both validated and un-validated competencies have 
been packaged into career roadmaps and have been published via the 
DONHR website for use in career development. A civilian leadership 
competency model has been developed and published including underlying 
behaviors. Both 1800 and 3600 assessment tools have been launched via 
the website to aid employees in identifying their leadership skill gaps 
for aid in the development progress. Additional skill gap analysis 
tools are in development. Steps are being taken to develop a strategy 
for succession planning utilizing the leadership competency model. 

Air Force: 

Air Force efforts to date have focused on two types of competencies: 

* Institutional - required by all, i.e. leadership, communication, 
leading people: 

* Occupational - related to career field: 

The following is descriptive of their program: 

* Initial focus has been from a corporate perspective with development 
of the Institutional Competencies List (ICL): 

* Eight competencies and 24 sub-competencies have been identified: 

* Applies in varying degrees to all segments of the workforce: 

* Efforts underway to define institutional competency expectations at 
various levels of the workforce: 

* Air Force has multiple on-going efforts involving use of occupational 
competencies in the functional areas and at the MAJCOM level: 

* Ad-hoc efforts and pilot programs are being undertaken: 

Competency efforts in Air Force functional areas and MAJCOMs are 
directly related to a number of AF Mission Critical Occupations. 

The following is a description of program evaluation methodologies that 
are planned or in place: 

* Performed retirement eligibility analysis evaluating trend/timing of 
actual retirements: 

* Next step is to perform analysis of data by career field to determine 
trend, and identify any remedial actions required: 

* A number of career fields (logistics, civil engineers, acquisition, 
and human resource) have identified development templates which 
evaluate combinations of knowledge, skills, abilities, education, and 
experience in order to gauge competency. This is utilized as basis in 
such processes as Development Team (DT) vectoring, selection, 
development, training, etc. 

Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS): 

Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) began focusing its 
attention on competencies and skills more than ten years ago. From the 
development of Career Development Plans to the current Career 
Development Guides (CDGs), DFAS has continually sought to map 
competencies, skills, and development. In 2000, the DFAS Director 
required all employees to have an Individual Development Plan (IDP). In 
2004/2005, DFAS developed an electronic Skills Inventory. Skills were 
identified for most of the competencies included in the CDGs. For many 
skills, two or more micro-skills were identified. The approach that 
DFAS took was to identify all of the skills needed to perform any job 
in DFAS (or at least series with more than 20 incumbents). As a result, 
more than 2700 skills associated with 200+ competencies were 
identified. 

DFAS' Learning and Development Division (LDD) recognizes the need to 
refine, update, and revitalize the current competency management 
content. Objectives include: designing a competency management strategy 
that addresses the skills of tomorrow; completing thorough competency 
models for DFAS critical occupations, and aligning models with efforts 
to support the increase of workforce credentials; updating competency 
tools (i.e. CDG, the Skills Inventory, and eIDP); establishing metrics; 
and developing a communication plan to inform the DFAS population. DFAS 
currently has in place a Skills Inventory that measures over 2700 
skills. 

Defense Information Systems Agency: 

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has established a career 
management guide, and a competency-based systematic approach to 
professional development. Their guide includes career maps for 95% of 
DISA's major career fields. Each career map includes professional, 
technical, and leadership competencies, learning objectives and 
developmental activities at the entry, intermediate and senior 
performance levels. DISA established a forum consisting of senior 
leaders who champion each career field. The forum serves as the overall 
approval authority for promoting professional and personal development 
of the DISA workforce. Additionally, DISA developed training workshops 
for managers and supervisors to communicate importance of improving 
organizational performance by linking competency gaps, individual 
development plans, and performance reviews. Organizational competency 
gaps are filled by executing the training and development programs and 
human resources polices for retention, recruitment, and promotion. 

Defense Logistics Agency (DLA): 

The Capability Management Program in DLA identifies and analyzes skills 
gaps between the required and the current levels of proficiency for 
particular competencies (technical, supervisory or core) associated 
with various job occupations. Competency assessment surveys are 
developed and distributed via the Competency Assessment Management Tool 
in the DLA Learning Management System (DLA LMS). 

In October 2006, a competency assessment of the Information Technology 
Headquarters employees (series 2210) was successfully completed. This 
was a pilot to evaluate the CDP and the Competency Assessment Tool. 
This pilot led to DLA Leadership approval for the CDP and the tool for 
application to mission critical and Enterprise Business System (EBS) 
occupations. 

Since February 2007, the DLA Human Resources Strategic Office has 
partnered with the DLA Acquisition Management Office, Defense 
Acquisition University (DAU) and Director of Defense Procurement and 
Acquisition Policy (DPAP) to assess the DLA contracting workforce 
focused on the 1101 and 1102 series. This aligns not only with the DLA 
Strategic Plan but also with DAU and DPAP efforts to determine what 
competency based capabilities exist and identify any skills gaps across 
the DoD contracting workforce. 

The deployment of the competency assessment survey to the DLA 
contracting workforce began on June 25, 2007. Participation in this 
assessment is mandatory for all DLA contracting employees (non- 
supervisors and supervisors). The assessment survey includes 
contracting, professional (leadership ECQs) and the DLA Enterprise 
Business System competencies. Results are being analyzed and reported 
to the DLA Leadership. The next step is likely to be reviewing training 
events and mapping them to the competencies. 

The DLA supply workforce (series 2003, 2010 and 1910) is scheduled for 
the 1ST and 2ND quarters of FY08. DLA is also looking to assess 
employees in positions that are highlighted as "key leadership 
positions". This assessment would focus on leadership competencies and 
include mapping the development activities to those competencies. Upon 
completion, the information would be recorded into Individual 
Development Plans (IDPs) in the DLA Learning Management System. 

Workforce Trends: 

On page 6 of GAO's draft audit report, it stated that the Department 
plan did not contain "an assessment of the projected trends in the 
current workforce based on expected losses due to retirement and 
attrition." Although not reflected in our enterprise-wide perspective 
submission to Congress, the Department routinely conducts workforce 
analysis and projected trends (see attachment C). 

Conclusion: 

Although the GAO found we did not provide all the documentation to 
support the requirements listed in the NDAA FY06; nevertheless, the 
Department is making significant strides in its human capital 
management. As such, we non-concur with the GAO draft report for the 
reasons provided in our response. We plan to include more compressive 
documents in our required March 2008 report. 

Attachment A: 

Under Secretary Of Defense: 
4000 Defense Pentagon:  
Washington D.C. 20301-4000: 

November 16, 2007: 

Personnel And Readiness: 

Memorandum For Secretaries Of The Military Departments: 
Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff: 
Under Secretaries Of Defense: 
Commanders Of The Combatant Commands: 
Assistant Secretaries Of Defense: 
General Counsel Of The Department Of Defense: 
Director, Operational Test And Evaluation: 
Inspector General Of The Department Of Defense: 
Assistants To The Secretary Of Defense: 
Director, Administration And Management: 
Director, Program Analysis And Evaluation: 
Director, Net Assessment: 
Directors Of The Defense Agencies: 
Directors Of The Dod Field Activities: 

Subject: Competency Management and Workforce Planning Information: 

This is to update you on the Departments progress toward implementing a 
competency based strategy for our civilian workforce. This strategy was 
outlined in my Human Capital Strategy (HCS) memorandum of June 6, 2006 
attached). 

In the past, components have independently worked on the development of 
competency based strategies for workforce management purposes. These 
initiatives have addressed a number of different objectives and 
represent a variety of approaches to problem solving. The time is right 
to take the next evolutionary step and focus on establishing a more 
consistent and cohesive definition of a DoD-wide strategy. This focus 
is important for our workforce, both under the General Schedule system 
as well as the National Security Personnel System (NSPS). As we 
continue our transition into NSPS. it becomes even more critical to 
enhance our ability to maximize the utilization of our workforce 
capabilities. Workforce planning and competency based career management 
provide the necessary ingredients to manage Human Capital and meet our 
mission requirements. 

I have designated Ms. Patricia S. Bradshaw. Deputy Under Secretary of 
Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy, and Dr. Carl Dahlman, Defense 
Human Capital Strategy Program Executive Office. to co-lead the effort 
to establish a cohesive DoD-wide direction for workforce planning and 
competency based management. In support of this effort, they have 
established a competency working group with representatives from the 
components to accomplish a number of objectives, including the 
establishment of: 

* Common competency taxonomies where applicable; 

* Job analysis methodologies used for selection, promotion, training 
and compensation programs; 

* Strategies for workforce planning, competency based career 
management, and succession planning; 

* Assessment methodology for tracking and closing competency gaps; 

* Workforce planning and Competency Management tools; 

* Strategies for meeting reporting requirements; 

There will be a number of important milestones established this fiscal 
year that are associated with this initiative. I encourage you to 
coordinate your current competency efforts with the staffs of Defense 
Human Capital Strategy PEO and Civilian Personnel Policy to ensure your 
efforts align with the Department's direction and that, wherever 
possible, best practices can be leveraged. 

Signed by: 


David S. C. Chu: 

Figure: Attachment B: Mission Critical Occupations Data: 

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

Figure: Attachment C: Annual Attrition Trends: Mission Critical 
Occupations:  

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

[End of section] 

Enclosure II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or [email protected]: 

Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Marion Gatling, Assistant 
Director; Renee Brown; Sandra Burrell; William Doherty; Cynthia 
Heckmann; Belva Martin; Julia Matta; Brian Pegram; and Terry Richardson 
made key contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

DOD Civilian Personnel: Comprehensive Strategic Workforce Plans Needed. 
GAO-04-753. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2004. 

Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development 
Efforts in the Federal Government. GAO-04-546G. Washington, D.C.: 
March, 2004. 

Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce 
Planning. GAO-04-39. Washington, D.C.: December 11, 2003. 

DOD Personnel: Documentation of the Army's Civilian Workforce-Planning 
Model Needed to Enhance Credibility. GAO-03- 1046. Washington, D.C.: 
August 22, 2003. 

Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development 
Efforts in the Federal Government. GAO-03- 893G. Washington, D.C.: 
July, 2003. 

High-Risk Series: Strategic Human Capital Management. GAO-03-120. 
Washington, D.C.: January 2003. 

Acquisition Workforce: Status of Agency Efforts to Address Future 
Needs. GAO-03-55W. Washington, D.C.: December 18, 2002. 

Military Personnel: Oversight Process Needed to Help Maintain Momentum 
of DOD's Strategic Human Capital Planning. GAO-03-237. Washington, 
D.C.: December 5, 2002. 

Managing for Results: Building on the Momentum for Strategic Human 
Capital Reform. GAO-02-528T. Washington, D.C.: March 18, 2002. 

A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management. GAO-02-373SP. 
Washington, D.C.: March 15, 2002. 

Human Capital: Taking Steps to Meet Current and Emerging Human Capital 
Challenges. GAO-01-965T. Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2001. 

Human Capital: Major Human Capital Challenges at the Departments of 
Defense and State. GAO-01-565T. Washington, D.C.: March 29, 2001. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] According to the Office of Personnel Management, competencies are 
an observable, measurable set of skills, knowledge, abilities, 
behaviors, and other characteristics an individual needs to 
successfully perform work roles or occupational functions. Competencies 
are typically required at different levels of proficiency depending on 
the specific work role or occupational function. Competencies can help 
ensure individual and team performance aligns with the organization's 
mission and strategic direction. 

[2] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (January 2007). In 
2001, we designated strategic human capital management as a high-risk 
area because of the federal government's long-standing lack of a 
consistent strategic approach to marshaling, managing, and maintaining 
the human capital needed to maximize government performance and ensure 
its accountability. GAO, Exposure Draft: Model of Strategic Human 
Capital Management, GAO-02-373SP (March 15, 2002). 

[3] GAO, DOD Civilian Personnel: Comprehensive Strategic Workforce 
Plans Needed, GAO-04-753 (Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2004). 

[4] Critical skills are core mission support occupations that are vital 
to the accomplishment of an agency's goals and objectives. 

[5] Pub. L. No. 109-163, ï¿½ 1122 (2006). 

[6] Section 1122(d) of the act requires an annual report to the 
committees, by March 1, 2007, and annually through 2010 on the progress 
in implementing DOD's plan--which DOD identified as its "Department of 
Defense Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010." 

[7] Department of Defense Annual Human Capital Management Report for 
Fiscal Year 2007. 

[8] GAO-04-753. 

[9] Pub. L. No. 109-163, ï¿½ 1122 (2006). 

[10] According to "The Department of Defense Human Capital Strategic 
Plan for Civilian Employees of the Department of Defense Fiscal Year 
2006 Implementation Report," in September 2005, the Department of 
Defense Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010 was established 
pursuant to Section 1122. 

[11] According to the Department of Defense Civilian Human Capital 
Strategic Plan 2006-2010, the Quadrennial Defense Review Human Capital 
Strategy envisions a DOD framework for occupational planning designed 
to respond to changes in mission, be based on common definitions of 
competencies, and work across all DOD components. 

[12] The mission-critical occupations were general engineering, civil 
engineering, computer engineering, electronics engineering, physical 
scientist, mathematician, computer scientist, physician, nurse, 
pharmacist, security administration, police officers, intelligence, 
foreign affairs, international relations, language specialist, 
financial management, accounting, auditing, budget analysis, logistics 
management, contracting, quality assurance, information technology 
management, and human resource management. 

[13] GAO-04-753. 

[14] GAO, Defense Space Activities: Management Actions Are Needed to 
Better Identify, Track, and Train Air Force Space Personnel, GAO-06-908 
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 21, 2006). 

[15] Developing 21ST Century Department of Defense Senior Executive 
Service Leaders: Thought Leader Forum, Washington, D.C., April 10, 
2007. 

[16] This report was submitted to the Office of Personnel Management to 
fulfill the requirements for the Human Capital Standards for Success 
under Proud To Be V and the proposed regulations for Subpart B, Title 
5, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 250.

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