United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office General Government Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1999-10-14 monographic deposited born digital 56 p. GA 1.13:GGD-00-1 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1 P0b002ee18038709a f:gg00001 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1 GGD-00-1 Personnel management Reengineering (management) Customer service Tax administration Personnel evaluation Performance measures Letter Report GGD Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the extent to which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee evaluation system can support the new mission statement during the period IRS will need to revamp its performance management system, focusing on: (1) determining the relative emphasis on revenue production, efficiency, and customer service in enforcement employees' annual written evaluations; (2) identifying features of the evaluation process that might be used to greater advantage to reinforce the importance of customer service; and (3) describing IRS initiatives to promote customer service, including those to encourage enforcement employees to be taxpayer oriented.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) IRS could take advantage of opportunities within the evaluation process to reinforce the importance of customer service among its frontline enforcement employees; (2) there are a number of reasons for doing so; (3) most importantly, the evaluation process is not aligned with IRS' new mission statement because it emphasizes revenue production more than customer service; (4) also, it is uncertain when a new performance management system that IRS is planning will become fully operational; (5) enforcement employees' two most recent written evaluations for the period ending June 1998 emphasized their revenue production and efficiency skills more than their customer service skills; (6) available evidence indicates that four features of the evaluation process could be used to greater advantage to reinforce the importance of customer service among enforcement employees; (7) if the features were to be used more, however, IRS would need to consider the potential implications for the way in which supervisors allocate their time between these and other administrative tasks; (8) the narrative portion an employee's written evaluation provides flexibility for supervisors to focus on employees' customer service skills; (9) midyear progress reviews, which are required, provide supervisors with opportunities to give interim feedback on aspects of case handling in relation to customer service (and other) goals; (10) mandatory reviews of sampling of completed cases present another opportunity for supervisors to comment on customer service skills because these are ex post facto examinations of documents prepared by employees to support their case decisions; (11) field visits present an excellent opportunity to reinforce customer service; (12) IRS has implemented a number of initiatives to promote customer service; (13) it has: (a) revised its strategic goals; (b) aligned them with its mission statement; and (c) introduced organizational performance measures that are to balance customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and business results; (14) in the meantime, IRS has taken several interim actions to encourage enforcement employees to be taxpayer oriented; and (15) it has incorporated into the employee evaluation process a new retention standard relating to the fair and equitable treatment of taxpayers that employees must meet at a passing level to retain their jobs. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1/html/GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1.pdf GAO/GGD-00-1 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GGD-00-1 Letter Report GAO/GGD-00-1; IRS Employee Evaluations: Opportunities to Better Balance; Personnel management Reengineering (management) Customer service Tax administration Personnel evaluation Performance measures