Report to Congressional Requesters

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 

DEPARTMENT OF 

DEFENSE 

Additional Actions 

and Data Are Needed 

to Effectively Manage 

and Oversee DOD’s 

Acquisition Workforce

March 2009 

GAO-09-342 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

March 2009

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Additional Actions and Data Are Needed to Effectively 

Manage and Oversee DOD’s Acquisition Workforce 

Highlights of GAO-09-342, a report to 

congressional requesters 

Since 2001, the Department of 

Defense’s (DOD) spending on 

goods and services has more than 

doubled to $388 billion in 2008, 

while the number of civilian and 

military acquisition personnel has 

remained relatively stable. To 

augment its in-house workforce, 

DOD relies heavily on contractor 

personnel. If it does not maintain

an adequate workforce, DOD 

places its billion-dollar acquisitions 

at an increased risk of poor

outcomes and vulnerability to 

fraud, waste, and abuse. 

GAO was asked to (1) assess 

DOD’s ability to determine whether

it has a sufficient acquisition 

workforce, (2) assess DOD 

initiatives to improve the 

management and oversight of its 

acquisition workforce, and (3) 

discuss practices of leading

organizations that could provide 

insights for DOD’s acquisition 

workforce oversight. To do this,

GAO analyzed key DOD studies, 

obtained data from 66 major 

weapon system program offices 

across DOD, and interviewed 

officials from 4 program offices.

GAO also met with representatives 

from six companies recognized as 

leaders in workforce management.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making recommendations 

aimed at improving DOD’s 

management and oversight of its 

acquisition workforce, including 

the collection of data on contractor 

personnel. DOD concurred with 

three of the recommendations and 

noted that implementing the other 

requires careful consideration. 

DOD lacks critical departmentwide information to ensure its acquisition 

workforce is sufficient to meet its national security mission. First, in its 

acquisition workforce assessments, DOD does not collect or track information 

on contractor personnel, despite their being a key segment of the total 

acquisition workforce. DOD also lacks information on why contractor 

personnel are used, which limits its ability to determine whether decisions to

use contractors to augment the in-house acquisition workforce are 

appropriate. GAO found that program office decisions to use contractor 

personnel are often driven by factors such as quicker hiring time frames and 

civilian staffing limits, rather than by the skills needed or the nature or 

criticality of the work. Second, DOD’s lack of key pieces of information limits 

its ability to determine gaps in the acquisition workforce it needs to meet 

current and future missions. For example, DOD lacks information on the use 

and skill sets of contractor personnel, and lacks complete information on the 

skill sets of its in-house personnel. Omitting data on contractor personnel and

needed skills from DOD’s workforce assessments not only skews analyses of 

workforce gaps, but also limits DOD’s ability to make informed workforce 

allocation decisions and determine whether the total acquisition workforce—

in-house and contractor personnel—is sufficient to accomplish its mission. 

 

DOD has initiated several recent actions aimed at improving the management 

and oversight of its acquisition workforce. For example, DOD is developing a 

plan for managing the civilian acquisition workforce and is establishing 

practices for overseeing additional hiring, recruiting, and retention activities. 

It has also taken actions to develop some of the data and tools necessary to 

monitor the acquisition workforce, such as a competency assessment 

scheduled to be completed in March 2010. Each military service and agency

has also begun, to varying degrees, efforts to assess its workforce at the 

service level. In addition, some efforts aimed at improving DOD’s overall 

workforce may also provide additional information to support acquisition 

workforce efforts. However, these initiatives may not provide the 

comprehensive information DOD needs to manage and oversee its acquisition 

workforce. 

To manage their workforces, the leading organizations GAO reviewed (1) 

identify gaps in their current workforces by assessing the overall 

competencies needed to achieve business objectives; (2) establish 

mechanisms to track and evaluate the effectiveness of their initiatives to close 

these gaps; (3) take a strategic approach in deciding when to use contractor 

personnel to supplement the workforce, such as limiting the use of contractor 

personnel to performing noncore-business functions and meeting surges in 

work demands; and (4) track and analyze data on contractor personnel. These 

practices could provide insights to DOD as it moves forward with its 

acquisition workforce initiatives. 

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on GAO-09-342.

For more information, contact John K. 

Needham at (202) 512-5274 or 

needhamjk1@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Background 3

DOD Lacks the Information Needed to Determine the Sufficiency 

of Its Acquisition Workforce 6 

Recent Initiatives May Not Yield the Information Needed to Assess, 

Manage, and Oversee DOD’s Total Acquisition Workforce 10 

Practices of Leading Organizations Could Provide Insights for 

DOD’s Acquisition Workforce Efforts 14 

Conclusions 17

Recommendations for Executive Action 18 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 18 

Appendix I Comments from the Department of Defense 21 

Appendix II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 25 

Related GAO Products 26 

Tables 

Table 1: DOD Acquisition Workforce—Military and Civilian 

Personnel for Fiscal Years 2001 and 2007 4 

Table 2: Military, Civilian, and Contractor Personnel in AcquisitionRelated Functions by Service as Reported by Selected 

Program Offices in 2008 8 

Table 3: AT&L’s Recent Acquisition Workforce Oversight Initiatives 11 

Table 4: Examples of Service-Level Acquisition Workforce 

Initiatives 12

Table 5: Examples of Leading Organizations’ Use of Workforce 

Assessments 15

Table 6: Examples of Metrics Related to Recruiting and Retention 

Initiatives 16

Page i GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Abbreviations 

AT&L Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology 

 and Logistics 

DOD Department of Defense 

MDA Missile Defense Agency 

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be 

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately. 

Page ii GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

 

March 25, 2009 

The Honorable Evan Bayh 

Chairman 

The Honorable Richard Burr 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Daniel Akaka 

United States Senate 

The Honorable John Ensign 

United States Senate 

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest buying enterprise in the 

world. Since fiscal year 2001, DOD’s spending on goods and services more 

than doubled to $388 billion in fiscal year 2008, and the number of weapon

system programs has also grown. Despite this substantial increase, the 

number of civilian and military personnel in DOD’s acquisition 

workforce—which is responsible for planning, executing, and supporting 

DOD’s acquisitions—has remained relatively stable. To supplement this inhouse acquisition workforce, DOD relies heavily on contractor personnel. 

Our prior work has shown that relying on contractor personnel to perform 

core missions1

 often creates significant challenges for DOD and other 

federal agencies.2

 At the same time, changes in the federal acquisition 

environment have created significant challenges to building and sustaining 

a capable acquisition workforce across the government. In addition, 

federal agencies are facing profound demographic changes in their 

workforces, including a potentially large loss of retirement-eligible 

 1

 For the purposes of this report, we defined core missions as those that most directly 

affect the department’s ability to accomplish its missions. 

2

 GAO, Human Capital: Opportunities Exist to Build on Recent Progress to Strengthen 

DOD’s Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan, GAO-09-235 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 10, 

2009); Federal-Aid Highways: Increased Reliance on Contractors Can Pose Oversight 

Challenges for Federal and State Officials, GAO-08-198 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 8, 2008); 

and Department of Homeland Security: Improved Assessment and Oversight Needed to

Manage Risk of Contracting for Selected Services, GAO-07-990 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 17, 

2007). 

Page 1 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

personnel and increased competition for a limited pool of highly skilled 

talent. 

Since January 2001, GAO has designated strategic human capital 

management as a governmentwide high-risk area.3

 In addition, the DOD 

acquisition workforce is included in another high-risk area—DOD 

Contract Management—that GAO designated in 1992.4

 Both GAO and DOD 

have noted that if a workforce adequate to manage the department’s 

billion-dollar acquisitions is not maintained, there is an increased risk of 

poor acquisition outcomes and vulnerability to fraud, waste, and abuse. In

this context, you asked us to review several issues related to the state of 

DOD’s acquisition workforce. This report (1) assesses DOD’s ability to 

determine whether its acquisition workforce is sufficient to meet its 

national security mission, (2) assesses the department’s recent initiatives

to improve the management and oversight of its acquisition workforce, 

and (3) discusses practices of leading organizations that could provide 

insights for DOD’s acquisition workforce oversight. 

To conduct our review, we analyzed key DOD workforce documents, 

including the department’s Implementation Report for the DOD Civilian 

Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010 and related assessment of the 

acquisition workforce. In addition, we met with representatives from the 

Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics 

(AT&L), the Office of Civilian Personnel Policy within the Office of the 

Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, the three military services,

and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). We also gathered data from 66 

major weapon system program offices across all DOD components. To 

obtain more detailed information, we interviewed officials from 4 program 

offices, 1 from each service (Army’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile 

Defense Elevated Netted Sensor, Air Force’s Reaper, and Navy’s 

Presidential Helicopter) and 1 from MDA (Airborne Laser). We selected 

the program offices, in part, because they were responsible for developing

and acquiring major weapon systems, mostly in the development phase, 

and contained a mix of both contractor and civilian personnel. To better 

understand the workforce management practices of leading organizations, 

we met with representatives from six companies recognized as leaders for 

various aspects of workforce management: Deloitte; General Electric 

Company (General Electric); Lockheed Martin Corporation (Lockheed

 3

 GAO, High Risk Series—An Update, GAO-09-271 (Washington, D.C.: January 2009).

4 GAO-09-271. 

Page 2 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

Martin); Microsoft; Rolls-Royce, PLC (Rolls-Royce); and Valero Energy 

Corporation (Valero Energy). We also reviewed research on leading 

workforce practices or discussed workforce management issues with 

officials at a number of nonprofit and consulting organizations: Aerospace 

Industries Association, APQC,5

 IBM Center for The Business of 

Government, National Academy of Public Administration, Partnership for 

Public Service, and the Society for Human Resource Management. 

We conducted this performance audit from September 2007 to March 2009 

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. 

At the end of fiscal year 2007, the number of civilian and military 

personnel in DOD’s acquisition workforce totaled over 126,000—of which 

civilian personnel comprised 89 percent.6

 According to DOD, these inhouse personnel represent more than 70 percent of the total federal 

acquisition workforce. DOD defines its acquisition workforce to include 13 

career fields, based on the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement 

Act of 1990.7

 From fiscal years 2001 to 2007, the number of civilian and 

military acquisition personnel in these 13 fields declined overall by 2.5 

percent; however, some career fields have increased substantially, while 

others have shown dramatic declines. Table 1 shows the 13 fields, the 

number of military and civilian personnel in each of these fields in 2001 

and 2007, and the percentage change between those 2 years. 

Background 

 5

 APQC was previously known as the American Productivity & Quality Center. 

6

 DOD’s acquisition workforce count does not include other contributors to acquisition, 

such as contracting officer representatives, and nongovernmental contributors, such as

contractor personnel. 

7

 Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-510, § 1202(a) 

(1990). 

Page 3 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

Table 1: DOD Acquisition Workforce—Military and Civilian Personnel for Fiscal Years 2001 and 2007 

AT&L workforce by functional career field

Fiscal year

2001

Fiscal year 

2007 

Percentage change

2001 to 2007 

Program Management 14,031 12,427 -11.4 %

Contracting 25,413 26,038 2.5

Industrial/Contract Property Management 620 481 -22.4

Purchasing 4,121 1,170 -71.6

Facilities Engineering 0 4,394 n/a

Production Quality and Manufacturing 10,547 8,364 -20.7

Business, Cost Estimating and Financial Management 10,279 7,387 -28.1

Life Cycle Logistics 11,060 12,604 14.0

Information Technology 5,612 4,423 -21.2

System Planning, Research, Development and Engineering—Systems 

Engineering 

34,899 34,710 -0.5

System Planning, Research, Development and Engineering—Science 

and Technology Manager 

0 483 n/a

Test and Evaluation 5,113 7,419 45.1

Auditing 3,457 2,852 -17.5

Unknown/Other 4,097 3,281 -19.9

Total 129,249 126,033 -2.5

Source: DOD data. 

During this same time period, the number of contracting actions valued at 

over $100,000 increased by 62 percent and dollars obligated on contracts 

increased by 116 percent, according to DOD. Moreover, DOD has reported 

that the number of major defense acquisition programs has increased from 

70 to 95. To augment its declining in-house acquisition workforce, DOD 

has relied more heavily on contractor personnel. 

In addition to the overall decline in its in-house acquisition workforce and 

an increased workload, DOD faces shifting workforce demographics and a 

changing strategic environment. The U.S. workforce as a whole is aging

and experiencing a shift in the labor pool away from persons with science 

and technical degrees. According to DOD, advances in technology, such as 

the ability to do jobs from almost anywhere in the world, are also driving 

workforce changes and increasing global competition for the most highly 

educated and skilled personnel. To address these and other challenges—

including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an evolving mission to combat 

threats around the world, and an increased need to collaborate with both 

domestic and international partners—DOD has begun to establish a more 

Page 4 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

centralized management framework for forecasting, recruiting, 

developing, and sustaining the talent pool needed to meet its national 

security mission. 

Several components in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) share 

policy and guidance responsibility for the workforce. The Under Secretary 

of Defense for Personnel and Readiness serves as the Chief Human Capital 

Officer for DOD—both for military and civilian personnel—and has overall 

responsibility for the development of the department’s competency-based 

workforce planning and its civilian human capital strategic plan. Within 

the Office of Personnel and Readiness, the Office of Civilian Personnel 

Policy has overall responsibility for managing DOD’s civilian workforce 

and has the lead role in developing and overseeing implementation of the 

plan. For example, the Implementation Report for the DOD Civilian 

Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010 lists enterprisewide skills and 

competencies for 25 mission-critical occupations, which the department 

has begun to assess in terms of future needs, budget-based projections, 

and anticipated gaps. Another OSD component, AT&L, is responsible for 

managing DOD’s acquisition workforce, including tailoring policies and 

guidance specific to the acquisition workforce and managing the training

and certification of that workforce. As required by the National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (2008 NDAA), AT&L has drafted an 

addendum for the implementation report for the civilian human capital 

strategic plan to specifically address management and oversight of the 

acquisition workforce.8

 

Each military service has its own corresponding personnel and acquisition 

offices that develop additional service-specific guidance, and provide 

management and oversight of its workforce. The services have generally

delegated the determination of workforce needs to the command levels 

and their corresponding program offices. Although each service uses a 

different management structure, the commands typically make overall

organizational budgetary and personnel allocations, whereas the program 

offices identify acquisition workforce needs; make decisions regarding the 

civilian, military, and contractor makeup of the workforce; and provide the 

day-to-day management of the workforce. In addition, each service 

designates organizations aligned by one or more career fields to monitor 

and manage career paths and training, and to identify gaps in current skill 

sets. 

 8

 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-181, § 851 (2008). 

Page 5 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

DOD lacks critical departmentwide information in several areas necessary 

to assess, manage, and oversee the acquisition workforce and help ensure

it has a sufficient acquisition workforce to meet DOD’s national security 

mission. Specifically, AT&L does not have key pieces of information 

regarding its in-house acquisition workforce, such as complete data on

skill sets, which are needed to accurately identify its workforce gaps.9

 In 

addition, it lacks information on the use and skill sets of contractor 

personnel performing acquisition-related functions. Omitting these data 

from DOD’s assessments not only skews analyses of workforce gaps, but 

also limits DOD’s ability to make informed workforce allocation decisions. 

Critical success factors for human capital management include collecting 

data on workforce competencies and skills mix, and evaluating human 

capital approaches—including those for acquiring and retaining talent—

for how well they support efforts to achieve program results.10 Such

efforts, linked to strategic goals and objectives, can enable an agency to 

recognize, prepare, and obtain the knowledge, skills, abilities, and size for 

the workforce it needs to pursue its current and future missions. 

DOD has increasingly relied on contractors to perform core missions, but 

has yet to develop a workforce strategy for determining the appropriate 

mix of contractor and government personnel.11 Our prior work has noted 

the importance of effective human capital management to better ensure 

that agencies have the right staff who are doing the right jobs in the right 

place at the right time by making flexible use of its internal workforce and 

appropriate use of contractors.12 We have also reported that decisions 

regarding the use of contractors should be based on strategic planning 

regarding what types of work are best done by the agency or contracted 

out.13 

DOD Lacks the 

Information Needed 

to Determine the 

Sufficiency of Its 

Acquisition Workforce 

AT&L Lacks Information 

on the Use of Contractor 

Personnel in Its 

Acquisition Workforce 

 9

 For purposes of this report, although university and Federally Funded Research and

Development Center personnel are retained by DOD through contracts, we do not include

them as contractor personnel because DOD tracks them separately. 

10 Our prior work has also shown that having valid and reliable data is critical to assess an 

agency’s workforce requirements and allow management to spotlight areas for attention. 

See GAO, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington,

D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002). 

11 GAO-09-235. 

12 See GAO-02-373SP. 

13 See GAO-02-373SP. 

Page 6 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

While DOD planning documents state that the workforce should be 

managed from a “total force” perspective—which calls for contractor 

personnel to be managed along with civilian and military personnel14 —

DOD does not collect departmentwide data on contractor personnel. 

Program offices, however, do have information about contractor 

personnel. Data we obtained from 66 program offices show that contractor

personnel comprised more than a third of those programs’ acquisitionrelated positions (see table 2).15 According to MDA officials, the agency 

collects and uses such data in its agency-level workforce allocation 

processes, which in turn has helped inform staffing and resource decisions 

at the program office level. Because contractor personnel likely comprise 

a substantial part of all personnel supporting program offices, AT&L is 

missing information on a key segment of the department’s total acquisition 

workforce (in-house and contractor personnel). 

 14 DOD, Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010 and Quadrennial Defense 

Review Report (Feb. 6, 2006). 

15 For the purposes of this report, we defined acquisition-related functions to be those 

related to planning, executing, and supporting DOD’s acquisitions, including: program

management; business functions, such as auditing, business, cost estimating, financial 

management, property management, and purchasing; contracting; and engineering and

technical, including systems planning, research, development and engineering, life-cycle 

logistics, test and evaluation, production, quality and manufacturing, and facilities 

engineering. 

Page 7 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

Table 2: Military, Civilian, and Contractor Personnel in Acquisition-Related Functions by Service as Reported by Selected 

Program Offices in 2008 

Organization

(number of program

offices reporting data) Totala

Military Civilian

University and

Federally Funded 

Research and

Development Center Contractor

Contractor

personnel as a

percentage

of total

Air Force (19) 1,549 297 357 428 467 30

Army (12) 1,723 188 1,122 40 373 22

Navyb (18) 2,374 183 1,196 56 940 40

Joint Programsc (9) 1,460 147 480 145 688 47

Missile Defense Agency (7) 1,656 114 559 174 809 49

Total (66) 8,762 929 3,714 843 3,277 37

Source: GAO analysis of DOD data. 

a

Program offices reported additional administrative and other staff that we excluded from this table, as

they would not be considered part of the acquisition workforce. 

b

Navy includes one Marine Corps program office. 

c

Joint Programs can be staffed by personnel from multiple services.

DOD also lacks information on factors driving program offices’ decisions 

to use contractor personnel rather than hire in-house personnel. DOD 

guidance for determining the workforce mix outlines the basis on which 

officials should make decisions regarding what type of personnel—

military, civilian, or contractor—should fill a given position.16 The 

guidance’s primary emphasis is on whether the work is considered to be 

an inherently governmental function, not on whether it is a function that is 

needed to ensure institutional capacity.17 

The guidance also states that using the least costly alternative should be 

an important factor when determining the workforce mix.18 However, of 

the 31 program offices that reported information about the reasons for 

 16 Department of Defense Instruction 1100.22, Guidance for Determining Workforce Mix, 

paragraph 1.1 (Apr. 6, 2007). 

17 Inherently governmental functions are so intimately related to the public interest that 

they should only be performed by government personnel. These functions include those 

activities which require either the exercise of discretion in applying government authority 

or making value judgments in making decisions for the government. Federal Acquisition 

Regulation 2.101. 

18 Department of Defense Directive 1100.4, Guidance for Manpower Management, 

paragraph 3.2.3 (Feb. 12, 2005); Department of Defense Instruction 1100.2, Guidance for 

Determining Workforce Mix, paragraph 4 (Apr. 6, 2007).

Page 8 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

using contractor personnel, only 1 indicated that reduced cost was a key 

factor in the decision to use contractor personnel rather than civilian 

personnel. Instead, 25 cited staffing limits, the speed of hiring, or both as 

main factors in their decisions to use contractor personnel. Additionally, 

22 program offices cited a lack of in-house expertise as a reason for using 

contractor personnel, and 17 of those indicated that the particular 

expertise sought is generally not hired by the government. In addition, at 3 

of the 4 program offices we visited, officials said that they often hire 

contractors because they may face limits on the number of civilian 

personnel they can hire, and because budgetary provisions may allow 

program offices to use program funds to pay for additional contractor 

personnel, but not for hiring civilian personnel. Program officials also 

cited the lengthy hiring process for civilian personnel as a reason for using 

contractor personnel. 

AT&L Lacks Key Pieces of 

Information Necessary to 

Conduct Gap Analyses 

AT&L’s lack of key pieces of information hinders its ability to determine 

gaps in the number and skill sets of acquisition personnel needed to meet 

DOD’s current and future missions. At a fundamental level, workforce 

gaps are determined by comparing the number and skill sets of the 

personnel that an organization has with what it needs. However, AT&L 

lacks information on both what it has and what it needs. 

With regard to information on the personnel it has, AT&L not only lacks 

information on contractor personnel, but it also lacks complete 

information on the skill sets of the current acquisition workforce and 

whether these skill sets are sufficient to accomplish its missions. AT&L is 

currently conducting a competency assessment to identify the skill sets of 

its current acquisition workforce. While this assessment will provide 

useful information regarding the skill sets of the current in-house 

acquisition workforce, it is not designed to determine the size, 

composition, and skill sets of an acquisition workforce needed to meet the 

department’s missions. 

AT&L also lacks complete information on the acquisition workforce 

needed to meet DOD’s mission. The personnel numbers that AT&L uses to 

reflect needs are derived from the budget. Because these personnel 

numbers are constrained by the size of the budget, they likely do not 

reflect the full needs of acquisition programs. Of the 66 program offices 

that provided data to us, 13 reported that their authorized personnel levels 

are lower than those they requested. In a report on DOD’s workforce 

management, RAND noted that the mismatch between needs and available 

resources means that managers have an incentive to focus on managing 

Page 9 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

the budget process instead of identifying the resources needed to fulfill the 

mission and then allocating resources within the constraints of the 

budget.19 

AT&L has begun to respond to recent legislative requirements aimed at 

improving DOD’s management and oversight of its acquisition workforce, 

including developing data, tools, and processes to more fully assess and 

monitor its acquisition workforce. Each service has also recently initiated,

to varying degrees, additional efforts to assess its own workforce at the

service level. Some recent DOD efforts aimed at improving the broader 

workforce may also provide information to support AT&L’s acquisition

workforce efforts. While it is too early to determine the extent to which 

these efforts will improve the department’s management and oversight, the 

lack of information on contractor personnel raises concerns about 

whether AT&L will have the information it needs to adequately assess, 

manage, and oversee the total acquisition workforce. 

Recent Initiatives May 

Not Yield the 

Information Needed 

to Assess, Manage, 

and Oversee DOD’s 

Total Acquisition 

Workforce 

As required by the 2008 NDAA, AT&L plans to issue an addendum to the 

Implementation Report for the DOD Civilian Human Capital Strategic 

Plan 2006-2010. According to DOD, this addendum will lay out AT&L’s 

strategy for managing and overseeing the acquisition workforce.20 The 

addendum is to provide an analysis of the status of the civilian acquisition 

workforce and discuss AT&L’s efforts for implementing the Acquisition 

Workforce Development Fund, which the 2008 NDAA required DOD to 

establish and fund.21 AT&L has focused its implementation efforts in three 

key areas: (1) recruiting and hiring, (2) training and development, and (3) 

retention and recognition. AT&L has established a steering board 

responsible for oversight on all aspects of the fund, including the approval 

of the use of funds for each proposed initiative. In addition to the 

addendum to the implementation report, AT&L created its own human 

capital plan in an effort to integrate competencies, training, processes, 

tools, policy, and structure for improving the acquisition workforce. AT&L 

 19 RAND Corporation, Civilian Workforce Planning in the Department of Defense: 

Different Levels, Different Roles (Santa Monica, Calif.: 2006). 

20 Pub. L. No. 110-181, § 851.

21 Pub. L. No. 110-181, § 852; 10 U.S.C. § 1705. The fund is financed by an amount equivalent 

to a portion of the military services’ and defense agencies’ expenditures for certain types of 

service contracts. The largest proportion of the fund is currently slated for recruiting and

hiring. 

Page 10 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

has also developed some tools and begun initiatives designed to help with 

its management of the acquisition workforce, such as its competency

assessment that is scheduled to be completed in March 2010. AT&L 

recently established the Defense Acquisition Workforce Joint Assessment 

Team tasked with assessing and making recommendations regarding 

component workforce size, total force mix, future funding levels, and 

other significant workforce issues. According to an AT&L official, the team

will also develop an estimate of the acquisition workforce needed to meet 

the department’s mission that is unconstrained by the budget. Table 3 

provides a brief description of AT&L’s recent efforts. 

Table 3: AT&L’s Recent Acquisition Workforce Oversight Initiatives 

Initiative Goal Expected results of initiative 

Joint Competency Management Initiative Update competency models to identify 

behaviors, underlying knowledge, skills, 

and abilities for successful performance. 

Each career field has its own model. 

Develop workforce strategies to address 

critical skill gaps and target new education 

and training resources. 

Data Green Initiative Improve reliability, analysis, and 

transparency of workforce information. 

Provide more advanced capability to track, 

shape, and understand workforce 

strategies. 

Data Mart Enable real-time analysis and provide 

aggregate workforce data. (Main 

component of Data Green Initiative.) 

Create a central depository of workforce 

data. 

Workforce Lifecycle Model Provide for identification of potential 

retirement losses by capturing years of 

service. 

Use data to understand experience, hiring, 

bench strength, and retirement trends, and 

to forecast attrition rates. 

Budget Exhibit PB23 Provide link between the AT&L Human 

Capital Strategic Plan and the Planning, 

Programming, Budgeting and Execution 

system. 

Document the services’ planned workforce 

needs over the future years’ budgets. 

Defense Acquisition Workforce Joint 

Assessment Team 

Assess component workforce size, total 

force mix, and other significant issues. 

Recommend component workforce size, 

total force mix, and future funding levels. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD documents. 

Each service has also begun to take a more focused look at its acquisition 

workforce by developing service-specific acquisition workforce plans and 

designating leads tasked with monitoring career paths and training, and

identifying gaps in current skill sets. For example, responsibility for 

different aspects of the Navy’s acquisition workforce has recently been 

distributed among a number of corporate-level offices—such as

Manpower and Reserve Affairs; Research, Development, and Acquisition; 

and Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Education. To illustrate, 

Research, Development, and Acquisition will develop and maintain 

Page 11 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

acquisition strategic guidance and provide management oversight of the 

capabilities of the Navy’s acquisition workforce. Table 4 provides 

examples of service-level workforce initiatives. 

Table 4: Examples of Service-Level Acquisition Workforce Initiatives 

Service Initiative

Acquisition Sustainment Unit model being created by the Air Force Manpower Agency for use by the 

acquisition community. Expected to identify objective workforce factors, ascertain the correlation between 

manpower and performance, and explore alternative models that consider trade-offs between accuracy, costs, 

and ease of implementation. 

Civilian Force Management Dashboard and Diversity and Years to Retirement tools used by the Force 

Management Division that contain demographic data and retirement data, respectively. Provide insight to the 

career field managers to analyze their workforce and develop career field sustainment plans. 

Air Force 

Pilot program in the Air Force Materiel Command’s Electronic Systems Center to create a competency-based

organization with a holistic approach to workforce management. Includes organizational analysis, validation 

and development of competency models for critical acquisition positions, selection of core competencies, and 

recruiting and retention strategies. 

Army Acquisition Workload Based Staffing Analysis Program developed by Army’s Acquisition, Logistics and 

Technology office to provide the ability to gather up-to-date information on acquisition workload requirements. 

Expected to provide the ability to model acquisition organizations with the ultimate goal of forecasting future 

requirements. Currently being upgraded to project the right mix of skills for each stage in a program’s life 

cycle. 

Memorandum of Agreement between Navy offices to establish responsibilities for managing the workforce with 

a total force perspective. 

Intelligent Workbook provides a way to align people with programs servicewide under the Navy’s new total 

force approach to workforce management. Data are broken up by “Enterprises” and provide details on the 

number of personnel present, number of personnel required, and competency requirements by subprocesses 

of work. Allows for comparisons of competencies versus requirements. 

Navy 

Naval Air System Command developed Workforce Shaping System to provide total annual workforce 

inventory, linking products to tasks to skills to funding source. Gives managers the ability to document 

expected outcomes and allow for redeployment of personnel based on skills and organization’s workload.

MDA Establishing functional groups to provide matrix management over the acquisition workforce. 

Revalidating the competency assessment developed a few years ago. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD information. 

In addition to the AT&L and service-level initiatives, some DOD efforts 

aimed at improving the broader workforce may provide information that 

can assist AT&L in assessing, managing, and overseeing the acquisition 

workforce. Some promising initiatives include the following: 

• The Office of Civilian Personnel Policy recently established a Civilian 

Workforce Capability and Readiness Program, and in November 2008 

officially established a corresponding program management office 

Page 12 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

tasked with monitoring overall civilian workforce trends and

conducting competency assessments and gap analyses. 

• DOD, through its components, is developing an annual inventory of 

contracts for services performed in the preceding fiscal year. This 

inventory is required to include, among other things, information 

identifying the missions and functions performed by contractors, the 

number of full-time contractor personnel equivalents that were paid 

for performance of the activity, and the funding source for the 

contracted work. The Army issued its first inventory, which 

determined the equivalent number of contractor personnel it used in 

fiscal year 2007 based on the number of hours of work paid for under 

its service contracts. 

• DOD has issued guidance directing programs to consider using DOD 

civilian personnel to perform new functions or functions currently 

performed by contractor personnel in cases where those functions 

could be performed by DOD civilian personnel. The guidance also 

requires that DOD civilian personnel be given special consideration to 

perform certain categories of functions, including functions performed 

by DOD civilian personnel at any time during the previous 10 years and 

those closely associated with the performance of an inherently

governmental function. When the inventory of contracts for services is 

completed, DOD is mandated by the 2008 NDAA to use the inventory 

as a tool to identify functions currently performed by contractor 

personnel that could be performed by DOD civilian personnel. DOD is 

developing additional guidance and a tool to assist in developing cost 

comparisons for evaluating the use of in-house personnel rather than 

contractor personnel. 

These initiatives have the potential to enhance DOD’s acquisition 

workforce management practices and oversight activities. However, these 

efforts may not provide the comprehensive information DOD needs to 

manage and oversee its acquisition workforce. For example, although the 

Army has issued its first inventory of its service contracts, inventories for 

all DOD components are not scheduled to be completed before June 2011. 

Further, as currently planned, the inventory will not include information 

on the skill sets and functions of contractor personnel. 

Page 13 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

As DOD continues to develop and implement departmentwide initiatives 

aimed at providing better oversight of the acquisition workforce, some of 

the practices employed by leading organizations for managing their 

workforces could provide insights for DOD’s efforts. These practices 

include: 

• identifying gaps in the current workforce by assessing the overall 

competencies needed to achieve business objectives, compared to 

current competencies; 

Practices of Leading 

Organizations Could 

Provide Insights for 

DOD’s Acquisition 

Workforce Efforts 

• establishing mechanisms to track and evaluate the effectiveness of 

initiatives to close workforce gaps; 

• taking a strategic approach in deciding when and how to use 

contractor personnel to supplement the workforce; and 

• tracking and analyzing data on contractor personnel. 

We have previously reported many of these practices as critical factors for 

providing good strategic human capital management.22 

The leading organizations we reviewed develop gap analyses and 

workforce plans from estimates of the number and composition of 

personnel with specific workforce competencies needed to achieve the 

organization’s objectives. For example, Lockheed Martin assesses the skill 

mix needed to fulfill future work orders and compares this with the firm’s 

current skill mix to identify potential workforce gaps. An official at 

Lockheed Martin said one such assessment indicated that the company 

needed skill sets different from those needed in the past because it is 

receiving more proposals for logistics work associated with support and 

delivery contracts, rather than its traditional system development work. 

Table 5 provides examples of how companies we reviewed link workforce 

assessments to their organizational objectives. 

 22 GAO-02-373SP. 

Page 14 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

Table 5: Examples of Leading Organizations’ Use of Workforce Assessments 

Company Use of workforce assessments to meet organizational objectives 

Deloitte • Gap analyses are calculated by comparing competencies needed to meet future business demands 

with competencies of the current workforce. 

• Recruiting plans and employee retraining are based on gap analyses. 

• Analytical framework created to help develop additional solutions for workforce issues that take into 

account existing tools and initiatives, as well as the nature of the work to be performed. 

Lockheed Martin • Skill mix needed to fulfill future work orders is assessed and compared with the firm’s current skill 

mix to identify potential workforce gaps. 

Microsoft • Targets for growth in the number of employees are defined by the company’s finance function. 

Workforce plans for hiring and employee development are designed to meet these growth targets 

while maintaining or improving workforce capabilities. 

• In developing workforce plans, staffing teams provide estimates of hires needed, consistent with 

employee growth targets, attrition rates, and expected transfer rates. 

• An algorithm is used to compare data on employees added, open positions remaining, time required 

to fill open positions, and other measures with business units’ current and future capabilities and 

objectives. 

Valero Energy • Employee skills and career goals are maintained in a database to assist in moving employees to 

where needed and to identify strengths and weaknesses in the workforce. The database is also 

used to identify where resources need to be spent to build the talent pool. 

Source: GAO analysis of company information. 

These leading organizations also assess their efforts to close workforce 

gaps by tracking data on specific recruiting and retention metrics. For 

example, Microsoft assesses the quality of its new hires based on the 

performance ratings and retention for their first 2 years with the company. 

According to a company official, this allows Microsoft to compare the 

results of using its different hiring sources, such as college recruiting and 

other entry-level hiring methods. Similarly, Deloitte uses performance 

ratings, retention data, and employee satisfaction surveys to help 

determine a return on investment from its college recruiting efforts and to 

identify schools that tend to supply high-quality talent that the company is 

able to retain. Table 6 provides examples of recruiting and retention 

metrics used by the companies we reviewed. In addition to tracking data 

on metrics, Deloitte uses quantitative models that analyze workforce 

demographics and other factors to predict actions of job candidates and 

employees. Data from such metrics and models can be used to inform 

other workforce decisions and focus limited resources for use where the 

greatest benefit is expected. 

Page 15 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

Table 6: Examples of Metrics Related to Recruiting and Retention Initiatives 

Company Initiative Metrics tracked

Deloitte College recruiting • Performance ratings 

• Retention data

• Employee satisfaction surveys

Lockheed Martin Retention • Attrition rates for mentored versus nonmentored employees

Microsoft Recruiting • Quality of hiring assessed based on new hire performance ratings and 

retention for first 2 years 

Retention • Employees’ opinions regarding value of compensation packages and 

preferred forms of compensation 

Rolls-Royce College recruiting • Time to fill open positions 

• Interview-to-offer ratios 

• Offer acceptance percentages 

• Offers by school 

Source: GAO analysis of company information. 

Finally, the companies we reviewed take a strategic approach to 

determining when to use contractor support. Officials from Deloitte, 

General Electric, and Rolls Royce said they generally use contractors to 

facilitate flexibility and meet peak work demands without hiring 

additional, permanent, full-time employees. Some of the companies also 

place limits on their use of contractor employees. General Electric, for 

example, uses contractor personnel for temporary support and generally

limits their use for a given operation to 1 year in order to prevent the use

of temporary personnel to fill ongoing or permanent roles. Additionally, 

General Electric and Lockheed Martin limit the use of contractor 

personnel to noncore functions. An official from General Electric said that 

it rarely outsources essential, sophisticated, or strategic functions, or large 

components of its business. Likewise, Lockheed Martin does not 

outsource capabilities that are seen as discriminators that set the company 

apart from its market competitors. 

Deloitte, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Microsoft also maintain 

and analyze data on their contractor employees in order to mitigate risks, 

ensure compliance with in-house regulations and security requirements, or 

to ensure that reliance on contractor support creates value for the 

company. An official at Deloitte noted, for example, that if work involving 

contractor support continues for an extended period, the business unit 

might be advised to request additional full-time employee positions in its 

next planning cycle or streamline its process to eliminate the need for 

contractor support. At Rolls Royce, an official told us that one unit uses an 

Page 16 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

algorithm to determine the percentage of work being outsourced by 

computing the number of full-time-equivalent personnel needed to 

complete the same level of work performed through outsourcing. This 

information is important because of the cost of outsourcing. According to

the company official, outsourcing may be more costly—all other factors 

being equal—because of the profit consideration for the contractor.23 As a 

result, outsourcing decisions can become a trade-off between multiple 

factors, such as cost, quality, capacity, capability, and speed. 

Major shifts in workforce demographics and a changing strategic 

environment present significant challenges for DOD in assessing and 

overseeing an acquisition workforce that has the capacity to acquire 

needed goods and services, as well as monitor the work of contractors. 

While recent and planned actions of AT&L and other DOD components 

could help DOD address many of these challenges, the department has yet

to determine the acquisition workforce that it needs to fulfill its mission or 

develop information about contractor personnel. While DOD has begun to

estimate the number of full-time-equivalent contractor personnel through 

its inventory of contracts for services, this effort will not identify the skill 

sets and functions of contractor personnel performing acquisition-related 

work or the length of time for which they are used. At the same time, DOD

lacks guidance on the appropriate circumstances under which contractor 

personnel may perform acquisition work. Without such guidance, DOD 

runs the risk of not maintaining sufficient institutional capacity to perform 

its missions. Until DOD maintains detailed departmentwide information on 

its contractor personnel performing acquisition-related work, it will 

continue to have insufficient information regarding the composition, range 

of skills, and the functions performed by this key component of the 

acquisition workforce. Without this information upon which to act, the 

department runs the risk of not having the right number and appropriate 

mix of civilian, military, and contractor personnel it needs to accomplish 

its missions.

Conclusions 

 23 GAO has also reported that using contractor personnel may be more costly than using 

government personnel in some cases. See GAO, Defense Contracting: Army Case Study

Delineates Concerns with Use of Contractors as Contract Specialists, GAO-08-360 

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 26, 2008). 

Page 17 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

To better ensure that DOD’s acquisition workforce is the right size with 

the right skills and that the department is making the best use of its 

resources, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following

four actions:

• Collect and track data on contractor personnel who supplement the 

acquisition workforce—including their functions performed, skill sets, 

and length of service—and conduct analyses using these data to 

inform acquisition workforce decisions regarding the appropriate 

number and mix of civilian, military, and contractor personnel the 

department needs. 

• Identify and update on an ongoing basis the number and skill sets of 

the total acquisition workforce—including civilian, military, and 

contractor personnel—that the department needs to fulfill its mission. 

DOD should use this information to better inform its resource 

allocation decisions. 

• Review and revise the criteria and guidance for using contractor 

personnel to clarify under what circumstances and the extent to which 

it is appropriate to use contractor personnel to perform acquisitionrelated functions. 

• Develop a tracking mechanism to determine whether the guidance has 

been appropriately implemented across the department. The tracking 

mechanism should collect information on the reasons contractor 

personnel are being used, such as whether they were used because of 

civilian staffing limits, civilian hiring time frames, a lack of in-house 

expertise, budgetary provisions, cost, or other reasons. 

DOD provided written comments on a draft of this report. DOD concurred 

with three recommendations and partially concurred with one 

recommendation. DOD’s comments appear in appendix I. DOD also 

provided technical comments on the draft report which we incorporated

as appropriate. 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

DOD partially concurred with the draft recommendation to collect and 

track data on contractor personnel to inform the department’s acquisition

workforce decisions. DOD stated that it agrees that information on 

contractor personnel supporting the acquisition mission is necessary for 

improved acquisition workforce planning, especially with regard to the 

number and the acquisition functions performed. The department also 

Page 18 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

noted that establishing a contractual requirement to capture more detailed 

workforce information, such as skill sets and length of service of 

contractor personnel, needs to be carefully considered. We agree that the 

manner in which data on contractor personnel are to be collected should 

be carefully considered. We continue to believe that comprehensive data

on contractor personnel are needed to accurately identify the 

department’s acquisition workforce gaps and inform its decisions on the 

appropriate mix of in-house or contractor personnel. 

DOD concurred with our recommendation to identify and update on an 

ongoing basis the number and skill sets of the total acquisition workforce 

that it needs to fulfill its mission and stated that it has an ongoing effort to 

accomplish this. DOD states that its ongoing efforts will address this 

recommendation; however, the efforts cited in its response improve DOD’s 

information only on its in-house acquisition workforce and do not identify

the total acquisition workforce, including contractor personnel, the 

department needs to meet its missions. We revised the recommendation to 

clarify that DOD’s acquisition workforce management and oversight 

should encompass contractor as well as civilian and military personnel. 

DOD also concurred with our recommendations to revise the criteria and 

guidance for using contractor personnel to perform acquisition-related 

functions, and to develop a tracking mechanism to determine whether the 

revised guidance is being appropriately implemented across the 

department. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense. The 

report is also available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me 

at (202) 512-5274 or needhamjk1@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 

Page 19 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
 

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 

page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report 

John K. Needham 

are listed in appendix II.

Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management 

Page 20 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Appendix I: Comments from the Department Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Defense 

of Defense 

Page 21 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Appendix I: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 22 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Appendix I: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 23 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Appendix I: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 24 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Appendix II: 

A

GAO Contact and Staff 

cknowledgments 

Page 25 GAO-09-342

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

John K. Needham, (202) 512-5274 or needhamjk1@gao.gov 

In addition to the contact named above, Katherine V. Schinasi, Managing 

Director; Ann Calvaresi-Barr, Director; Carol Dawn Petersen, Assistant 

Director; Ruth “Eli” DeVan; Kristine Heuwinkel; Victoria Klepacz; John 

Krump; Teague Lyons; Andrew H. Redd; Ron Schwenn; Karen Sloan; Brian 

Smith; Angela D. Thomas; and Adam Yu made key contributions to this 

report. 

GAO Contact 

Acknowledgments 

DOD Acquisition Workforce
Related GAO Products Related GAO Products 

Human Capital: Opportunities Exist to Build on Recent Progress to 

Strengthen DOD’s Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan. GAO-09-235. 

Washington, D.C.: February 10, 2009.

High Risk Series: An Update. GAO-09-271. Washington, D.C.: January 

2009. 

Department of Homeland Security: A Strategic Approach Is Needed to 

Better Ensure the Acquisition Workforce Can Meet Mission Needs. 

GAO-09-30. Washington, D.C.: November 19, 2008. 

Human Capital: Transforming Federal Recruiting and Hiring Efforts. 

GAO-08-762T. Washington, D.C.: May 8, 2008. 

Defense Contracting: Army Case Study Delineates Concerns with Use of

Contractors as Contract Specialists. GAO-08-360. Washington, D.C.: 

March 26, 2008. 

Defense Management: DOD Needs to Reexamine Its Extensive Reliance 

on Contractors and Continue to Improve Management and Oversight. 

GAO-08-572T. Washington, D.C.: March 11, 2008.

Federal Acquisition: Oversight Plan Needed to Help Implement 

Acquisition Advisory Panel’s Recommendations. GAO-08-515T. 

Washington, D.C.: February 27, 2008.

The Department of Defense’s Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 

Does Not Meet Most Statutory Requirements. GAO-08-439R. Washington,

D.C.: February 6, 2008. 

Defense Acquisitions: DOD’s Increased Reliance on Service Contractors 

Exacerbates Long-standing Challenges. GAO-08-621T. Washington, D.C.: 

January 23, 2008. 

Department of Homeland Security: Improved Assessment and Oversight 

Needed to Manage Risk of Contracting for Selected Services. GAO-07-990. 

Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2007. 

Federal Acquisitions and Contracting: Systemic Challenges Need 

Attention. GAO-07-1098T. Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2007. 

Page 26 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
Related GAO Products 

Defense Acquisitions: Improved Management and Oversight Needed to 

Better Control DOD’s Acquisition of Services. GAO-07-832T. Washington,

D.C.: May 10, 2007. 

Highlights of a GAO Forum: Federal Acquisition Challenges and 

Opportunities in the 21st Century. GAO-07-45SP. Washington, D.C.: 

October 2006. 

Framework for Assessing the Acquisition Function At Federal Agencies. 

GAO-05-218G. Washington, D.C.: September 2005. 

A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management. GAO-02-373SP. 

Washington, D.C.: March 15, 2002. 

(120692) Page 27 GAO-09-342 DOD Acquisition Workforce
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