Performance Management: Aligning Employee Performance With Agency Goals
at Six Results Act Pilots (Letter Report, 09/04/98, GAO/GGD-98-162).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed selected Government
Performance and Results Act pilot projects, focusing on the: (1) primary
approaches taken by selected pilot projects to align employee
performance management with organizational missions and goals; and (2)
issues or challenges, if any, that these pilot projects commonly
confronted while developing and implementing these approaches.

GAO noted that: (1) although all six pilot projects GAO reviewed
included specific efforts to align their employee performance management
systems with organizational missions and goals, their approaches varied
in significant ways; (2) one way was in the kinds or groups of employees
on whom they focused; (3) four of the pilot projects focused on managers
rather than on staff at other levels; (4) the projects also varied in
the extent to which organizational goals were explicitly reflected in
employees' performance plans, and in whether they emphasized creating
accountability for results at the individual or team level; (5) the two
other pilot projects focused their approaches on essentially all
employees, relying on total quality management principles as a guide and
organizing employees into self-directed work teams; (6) none of the six
pilot projects GAO reviewed reported having formally evaluated its
employee performance management approach, but all reported possible
benefits; (7) the six pilot projects faced several common issues or
challenges; (8) the first of these involved identifying the
flexibilities available to them--including human resource management
(HRM) waivers and demonstration project authority--to tailor their HRM
systems to their organizational missions and goals and other
organizational circumstances or needs; (9) the second issue or challenge
GAO identified involved the six pilot projects' efforts to include in
their performance management approaches appropriate and meaningful goals
and performance measures; (10) third, as the pilot projects worked to
become more performance-based, each was confronted with the need to
redirect its organizational culture toward a new understanding of the
organization's mission or way of doing business and to secure the buy-in
of employees; (11) the fourth issue GAO identified involved unintended
consequences that pilot project officials said they confronted in
implementing their new approaches, some finding that employees might try
to game the system--that is, manipulate the performance measures to make
their performance look better than it might actually have been--or might
perceive a lack of fairness in the approach's implementation; and (12)
officials at the six pilot agencies were aware of their employees'
concerns and reported steps they had taken to keep abreast of the views
of the managers and other employees who were the focus of the agencies'
performance management efforts.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  GGD-98-162
     TITLE:  Performance Management: Aligning Employee Performance With 
             Agency Goals at Six Results Act Pilots
      DATE:  09/04/98
   SUBJECT:  Federal agency reorganization
             Personnel evaluation
             Personnel management
             Agency missions
             Accountability
             Strategic planning
             Employee incentives
             Total quality management
IDENTIFIER:  Government Performance and Results Act
             GPRA
             TQM