HUMAN CAPITAL

DOD Needs Complete 

Assessments to 

Improve Future 

Civilian Strategic 

Workforce Plans

Report to Congressional Committees

September 2012

GAO-12-1014

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-12-1014, a report to 

congressional committees 

September 2012

HUMAN CAPITAL 

DOD Needs Complete Assessments to Improve 

Future Civilian Strategic Workforce Plans

Why GAO Did This Study

As of June 2012, DOD reported a fulltime civilian workforce of about 

780,000 personnel. According to 

DOD, about 30 percent of its civilian 

workforce and 60 percent of its civilian 

senior leaders will be eligible to retire 

by March 31, 2015. Such potential loss 

may result in significant skill gaps. The 

National Defense Authorization Act for 

Fiscal Year 2010 requires GAO to 

submit a report on DOD’s 2010-2018 

strategic civilian workforce plan. In 

response, GAO determined the extent 

to which DOD identified critical skills, 

competencies, and gaps; assessed its 

workforce mix; and measured progress 

in implementing its strategic workforce 

plan. GAO analyzed DOD’s strategic 

workforce plan and supporting 

documents, and met with managers of 

four functional communities within the 

civilian personnel community 

(information technology, financial 

management, logistics, and law 

enforcement), because they represent 

the three largest and the one smallest 

of the functional communities, to 

determine how they conducted their 

strategic workforce planning.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommendations include that 

DOD issue clearer guidance for 

assessing its skills and competencies, 

conduct and report on gap analysis of 

mission-critical occupations, clarify its 

guidance for assessing workforce mix 

issues, and enhance its performance 

measures to align with congressionally

mandated reporting requirements. 

DOD concurred or partially concurred 

with GAO’s recommendations. While 

DOD raised some issues about the 

need for further actions, GAO 

continues to believe that DOD’s 

workforce planning could be enhanced. 

What GAO Found

Over the last decade, Congress has passed legislation requiring the Department 

of Defense (DOD) to conduct human capital planning efforts for the department’s 

civilian workforce. Specifically, section 115b of Title 10 of the United States 

Code, enacted in October 2009, requires DOD to develop and submit to 

congressional defense committees a strategic workforce plan to shape and 

improve the department’s civilian workforce. Among other things, the law 

requires DOD to report on the mission-critical skills, competencies, and gaps in 

its existing and future civilian workforces; the appropriate mix of military, civilian, 

and contractor personnel capabilities; and the department’s progress in 

implementing its strategic workforce plan using results-oriented performance 

measures. While DOD has addressed some of its reporting requirements to 

some extent, it has not addressed others.

• DOD, to varying degrees, assessed the existing and future critical skills 

and competencies for 21 of the 22 occupations that it has identified as 

mission critical, but conducted competency gap assessments only for 8 

of these 22 occupations. In some but not all cases, DOD provided 

details about skills and competencies. However, it did not report the 

results of any of its gap analyses for its mission-critical occupations. 

• DOD did not assess the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and 

contractor workforces or provide an assessment of the capabilities of 

each of these workforces. Only two of the civilian community managers 

who provided input presented data on all three workforces. The 

remaining nine community managers provided data only on military and 

civilian personnel. DOD guidance requires, among other things, that 

DOD missions be accomplished with the least costly mix of military, 

civilian, and contractor personnel, consistent with military requirements 

and other needs of the department. 

• DOD assessed progress in implementing its strategic workforce plan by 

using newly developed measures that contain characteristics of valid 

results-oriented performance measures, but these measures are not 

aligned with DOD’s statutory reporting requirements. For example, 

although DOD is required to conduct gap analyses and assess its 

workforce mix, it is unclear how the measures that DOD developed will 

help to address these requirements.

The input to DOD’s strategic workforce plan on critical skills and competencies 

varied, in part, because the reporting template that DOD sent to its civilian 

personnel community managers did not contain sufficient detail and clear 

definitions. Also, the template did not provide departmental expectations for 

conducting gap analyses or communicate clear guidance for reporting on 

workforce mix assessments. Without sufficiently detailed guidance to help ensure 

complete reporting, input into future plans will continue to vary and the plan’s 

usefulness as a workforce planning document will be diminished. Further, in 

those cases where DOD’s performance measures are not aligned with its 

congressionally mandated reporting requirements, it is difficult for DOD to 

demonstrate progress against those requirements.

View GAO-12-1014. For more information, 

contact Brenda S. Farrell at (202) 512-3604 or 

farrellb@gao.gov
Page i GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Letter 1 

Background 5

DOD’s Assessments of Existing and Future Critical Skills, 

Competencies, and Gaps Varied 7

DOD Did Not Assess the Appropriate Mix of Military, Civilian, and 

Contractor Personnel Capabilities 14

DOD Developed Results-Oriented Performance Measures to Assess 

Progress, but These Measures Do Not Fully Align with 

Congressional Reporting Requirements 17

Conclusions 20

Recommendations for Executive Action 21

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 22

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 28

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Defense 30

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 42

Related GAO Products 43

Table

Table 1: DOD’s Civilian Workforce Functional Communities and 

Associated Mission-Critical Occupations 5

Figures

Figure 1: 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan Process and 

Participants 7

Figure 2: Since 2007, Number of Days DOD Issued Its Strategic 

Workforce Plan Later Than the Due Date 13

Contents
Page ii GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Abbreviations

DOD Department of Defense

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

OPM Office of Personnel Management

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Page 1 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548

September 27, 2012

Congressional Committees

The current and long-term fiscal pressures facing the Department of 

Defense (DOD) underscore the importance for DOD to employ a strategic 

and efficient approach to recruit, develop, and retain individuals with the 

necessary skills and competencies for the department to meet its mission. 

DOD’s civilian workforce performs a wide variety of duties and 

responsibilities, including mission-essential combat-support functions—

such as logistics support and maintenance—that traditionally have been 

performed by the uniformed military. A key component of this workforce 

also provides deployable civilian experts to Afghanistan and other 

theaters of operation. According to the department, as of June 2012, 

DOD’s total civilian workforce included about 780,000 full-time civilians.1

The department has acknowledged a number of challenges in managing 

this large, diverse workforce. Among them, DOD has reported that about 

30 percent of its civilian workforce and 60 percent of its civilian senior 

leaders will be eligible to retire by March 31, 2015. DOD is also reducing 

its reliance on contractors and increasing the expertise of its in-house 

workforce. According to DOD’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the 

department’s priorities include the need for increased leadership in 

human-capital management, improvement in capabilities within its 

civilian-led activities, and acquisition personnel who have the skills and 

training necessary to successfully perform their jobs.2

Strategic workforce planning—an integral part of human-capital 

management—helps organizations to determine if they have staff with the 

necessary skills and competencies to achieve their strategic goals. We 

have previously reported that having the right number of civilian 

personnel with the right skills is critical to achieving DOD’s mission, and 

that it is important for DOD, as part of its workforce planning, to conduct 

gap analyses of its critical skills and competencies.3

 

1

DOD, DOD Demographics as of June 30, 2012. This number represents DOD’s 

appropriated fund United States civilian employees and does not include foreign national 

or nonappropriated fund civilian employees.

In 2001, we included 

2

DOD, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (February 2010). 

3

GAO, Human Capital: Further Actions Needed to Enhance DOD’s Civilian Strategic 

Workforce Plan, GAO-10-814R (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 2010). 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

strategic human-capital management for all federal civilians—including 

DOD—on our high-risk list because of the long-standing lack of 

leadership in this area. While DOD has taken significant steps to address 

human-capital issues, strategic human-capital management remains high 

risk government-wide4

Over the last decade, Congress has passed legislation requiring DOD to 

conduct human-capital planning efforts for the department’s civilian 

workforce. Specifically, section 115b of Title 10 of the United States 

Code, enacted in October 2009,

because of a need to develop and implement 

plans to address current and emerging critical-skill gaps that are 

undermining agencies’ abilities to meet their vital missions.

5 requires DOD to periodically develop 

and submit to congressional defense committees a strategic workforce 

plan to shape and improve the department’s civilian workforce. While the 

law does not specify a date for DOD to submit the plan,6

• the mission-critical skills and competencies of the existing and future 

civilian workforce and projected trends in that workforce based on 

expected losses due to retirement and other attrition;

it does stipulate 

several requirements for the plan. These include an assessment of:

• gaps in the existing or projected civilian workforce that should be 

addressed to ensure that the department has continued access to the 

critical skills and competencies;

• the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor personnel 

capabilities; and

• the department’s progress in implementing its strategic workforce plan 

using results-oriented performance measures.

DOD’s mandate previously required that the department’s assessments 

cover a 7-year period following the year in which the plan is submitted to 

 

4

GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-11-278 (Washington, D.C.: February 2011). 

5

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 1108 

(2009) (codified as amended at 10 U.S.C. 115b) codified a previous strategic workforce 

plan requirement that was originally enacted by section 1122 of the National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-163 (2006).

6

Section 935 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, Pub. L. No. 

112-81 (2011) amended section 115b to require DOD to submit its Strategic Workforce 

Plan biennially rather than annually.
 

Page 3 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Congress.7

In March 2012, DOD issued its 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan. 

GAO, as mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 2010, is required to report on DOD’s plan within 180 days of its 

submission to the congressional committees.

Therefore, DOD’s latest civilian senior leader workforce plan 

covers the period 2010-2018.

8

To conduct this review, we evaluated DOD’s 2010-2018 strategic 

workforce plan and supporting documentation, and interviewed DOD 

officials responsible for developing the strategic workforce plan.

Specifically, we evaluated 

the extent to which DOD assessed (1) the existing and future critical 

skills, competencies, and gaps in its civilian workforce; (2) its workforces 

to identify the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor 

personnel capabilities; and (3) its progress in implementing the strategic 

workforce plan by using results-oriented performance measures.

9 Within 

DOD’s overall civilian-personnel community, we met with functional 

community managers10

 

7

Section 935 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, Pub. L. No. 

112-81 (2011) amended this requirement to a 5-year period, which corresponds to the 

current Future Years Defense Program. Prior to 2009, section 1122 of the National 

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 required DOD to develop a similar 

strategic workforce plan and directed DOD’s assessments to cover a 10-year period.

in the information technology, financial 

management, logistics, and law enforcement communities to determine 

how each of these communities conducted their strategic workforce 

planning and how coordination occurred between the specific 

communities and the department. We selected these four functional 

8

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-84 (2009) 

also requires GAO to report on DOD’s civilian senior-leader workforce plan. See GAO, 

Human Capital: Complete Information and More Analyses Needed to Enhance DOD’s

Civilian Senior Leader Workforce Plan, GAO-12-990R (Washington D.C.: Sept. 19, 2012). 

9

For DOD’s 2010-2018 plan, 11 of 12 functional communities—which consist of 

employees who perform similar functions—provided some information on 22 occupations 

that DOD has identified as mission critical. The twelfth functional community – Acquisition 

– did not submit its assessments for inclusion in DOD’s 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce 

Plan and, according to DOD officials, a separate report on the acquisition community will 

be submitted to Congress in March 2013. For the purposes of this report, we evaluated 

the information and data provided by the 11 functional communities that were included in 

DOD’s 2010-2018 plan.

10Functional community managers are responsible for monitoring the strategic humancapital planning efforts for their respective communities, including workforce forecasting, 

competency assessment, and strategy development. 
 

Page 4 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

communities because they represent three of the largest and one of the 

smallest functional communities included in the plan. Further, DOD 

business-systems modernization (information technology), DOD financial 

management, and DOD supply-chain management (logistics) are on 

GAO’s 2011 High-Risk list.11

We conducted this performance audit from July 2011 through September 

2012 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 

To aid all aspects of our review, we also met 

with Office of Personnel Management (OPM) officials to identify relevant 

policy and guidance to federal agencies. To determine the extent to which 

DOD assessed existing and future critical skills, competencies, and any 

gaps in its civilian workforces, we obtained and reviewed existing DOD 

guidance, including guidance related to any automated systems the 

department may use to facilitate these assessments. We also reviewed 

documents to ascertain how DOD used OPM’s Workforce Analysis 

Support System and Civilian Forecasting System to develop the 

department’s civilian-workforce forecasts and projections. To determine 

the extent to which DOD assessed its workforces to identify the 

appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor personnel capabilities, 

we obtained and reviewed DOD guidance on conducting these 

assessments and analyzed DOD’s efforts to apply the guidance. We 

compared DOD’s efforts to prior GAO work on assessing the appropriate 

mix of workforces and identifying capabilities of those workforces. To 

determine the extent to which DOD assessed its progress in 

implementing its strategic workforce plan by using results-oriented 

performance measures, we obtained and reviewed relevant DOD 

guidance and analyzed DOD’s efforts to apply the guidance. We also 

compared DOD’s performance measures to its reporting requirements in 

the United States Code and our prior work on valid performance 

measures to determine how DOD’s measures aligned to both. We found 

the data contained within the plan to be sufficiently reliable for purposes 

of assessing efforts in developing and producing civilian strategic 

workforce plans and providing context of these efforts.

 

11GAO-11-278. 
 

Page 5 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Additional details on our 

scope and methodology are in appendix I.12

To help conduct human-capital planning efforts for the department’s 

civilian workforce, DOD’s Strategic Human Capital Planning Office used 

functional community categories to group together employees who 

perform similar functions. Each of these communities includes a varying 

number of mission-critical occupations. For the 2010-2018 strategic 

workforce plan, 11 functional communities provided some information on 

their 22 mission-critical occupations in an appendix to the plan.13

Table 1: DOD’s Civilian Workforce Functional Communities and Associated 

Mission-Critical Occupations

Missioncritical occupations are positions key to DOD’s current and future mission 

requirements, as well as those that present recruiting and retention 

challenges. Table 1 lists the 11 functional communities along with their 

mission-critical occupations.

Designated Functional Communities Mission-Critical Occupations

1. Civil Engineering 1. Civil Engineers 

2. Financial Management 2. Accounting

3. Auditing

4. Budget Analysis

5. Financial Administration 

3. Human Resources 6. Human Resources Management 

(Civilian)

4. Information Technology (IT) 7. Computer Engineering

8. Computer Scientist

9. Electronics Engineering

10. IT Management

 

12We began this engagement in July 2011, when DOD provided us with a draft of its 

Fiscal Years 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan and indicated that the final version 

would be issued soon thereafter. We suspended this work when we did not receive the 

final plan and resumed our review when DOD submitted its final Strategic Workforce Plan 

for Fiscal Year 2010-2018 to Congress on March 27, 2012.

13In addition to the 11 functional communities listed in table 1, DOD’s 2010-2018 strategic 

workforce plan also includes appendixes for 5 cross-cutting communities: the Senior 

Executive Service, National Security Professionals, Leadership, Civilian Expeditionary 

Workforce, and Science and Technology.

Background
 

Page 6 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Designated Functional Communities Mission-Critical Occupations

5. Installations and Environment 11. Fire Protection and Prevention

12. Safety and Occupational Health

6. Intelligence 13. Intelligence Specialist 

7. Language 14. Language Specialist 

8. Law Enforcement 15. Police 

9. Logistics Management 16. Logistics Management 

10. Medical 17. Clinical Psychology

18. Medical Officer

19. Nurse 

20. Pharmacist 

21. Social Work

11. Security 22. Security Specialist

Source: GAO analysis of DOD information

DOD’s mandated strategic workforce plans are developed by the Defense 

Civilian Personnel Advisory Service’s Strategic Human Capital Planning 

Office, which is within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness. To collect data and information from the 

functional communities, the Strategic Human Capital Planning Office 

develops a reporting template that it sends to the 11 functional community 

managers within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The 

template consists of three sections that request information and data on 

areas such as workforce end-strength forecasts, constraints that impact 

the ability to meet end-strength targets, status of competency 

development, and strategies to fill gaps. To complete the template, the 

functional community managers work with their counterparts at the 

component14

 

14DOD components in this context include the military departments, defense agencies, 

combatant commands, and other defense activities.

level to collect the necessary information and data for the 

mission-critical occupations. Once the component-level functional 

community managers collect the necessary information and data, they 

send their completed templates back to the functional community 

integrators, who compile all the information and data for each community 

into one cohesive functional community document. The Strategic Human 

Capital Planning Office then compiles the various reports from the 

functional community managers and integrators and issues the report 

after it passes an internal review. Figure 1 identifies the key offices that 

develop the strategic workforce plan.
 

Page 7 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Figure 1: 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan Process and Participants

Our previous work has found that, in general, DOD’s efforts to develop 

workforce plans have been mixed.15 In our February 2009 report,16 we 

recommended that DOD develop performance plans for its program 

offices that have responsibilities to oversee development of the strategic 

workforce plan. Specifically, we recommended that the performance 

plans include establishing implementation goals and time frames, 

measuring performance, and aligning activities with resources to guide its 

efforts to implement its strategic workforce plan. DOD partially concurred 

with our recommendations and noted that efforts were underway to 

develop performance plans.

DOD assessed, to varying degrees, the existing and future critical skills 

and competencies for all but one of its mission-critical occupations, but 

the department did not assess gaps for most of them. Further, DOD’s 

report did not include the most up-to-date or timely information when it 

issued its most recent report.

 

15GAO, 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); and The Department of Defense’s Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan Does Not

Meet Most Statutory Requirements, GAO-08-439R (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 6, 2008).

16GAO-08-439R.

DOD’s Assessments of 

Existing and Future 

Critical Skills, 

Competencies, and 

Gaps Varied
 

Page 8 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code requires that DOD’s 

strategic workforce plan include an assessment of the critical skills and 

competencies of the existing civilian-employee workforce and DOD, in 

response to that requirement, assessed to varying degrees the existing 

critical skills and competencies for 21 of its 22 mission-critical 

occupations. We have previously reported that it is essential for agencies 

to determine the skills and competencies that are critical to successfully 

achieving their missions and goals. This is especially important as 

changes in national security, technology, budget constraints, and other 

factors change the environment within which federal agencies operate.17

The assessments contained in DOD’s 2010-2018 plan, however, varied 

significantly in terms of the amount of detail provided. This variation can 

be attributed, in part, to the fact that some communities are able to draw 

on existing requirements and standards. For example, the information 

technology functional community used the Clinger-Cohen Competencies 

for the Information Technology Workforce,18

 

17

which provide a description 

of the technical competencies for various information technology 

occupations, to assess the critical skills and competencies within its 

workforce. Accordingly, the information technology functional community 

manager was able to provide detail and specificity when describing this 

community’s assessment processes and the results of those 

assessments. Similarly, the medical functional community was able to 

use existing national standards for licensure and board certification for 

physicians when it assessed particular critical skills and competencies. 

This community was able to provide specific details about its assessment 

processes and the results from those assessments. In contrast, while the

installations and environment functional community reported on the 

competency models available for assessing its two mission-critical 

occupations, firefighters and safety-and-health managers, this community 

did not provide the results of any analyses using these models.

GAO-04-39. 

18The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 (codified as amended at 40 U.S.C. § 11101, et seq.) 

provides a framework for effective information technology management. The 

competencies were developed by DOD through collaboration between the Federal Chief 

Information Officer Council, DOD, private‐sector, staffing, and academia representatives.

The Clinger-Cohen Competencies are periodically updated in response to information 

technology workforce management requirements in 40 U.S.C. § 11315, among other 

things. 

DOD Assessed Skills and 

Competencies for a 

Majority of Its MissionCritical Occupations, but 

the Assessments Varied 

Widely
 

Page 9 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

DOD is also required to report on the critical skills and competencies that 

will be needed in its future workforces. We have previously reported that 

an agency needs to define the critical skills and competencies that it will 

require in the future to meet its strategic program goals. Doing so can 

help an agency align its human-capital approaches that enable and 

sustain the contributions of all the critical skills and competencies needed 

for the future.19

DOD officials responsible for developing the strategic workforce plan said 

they followed a collaborative process and met numerous times to seek 

input and guidance for developing the plan. To obtain information and 

data from each functional community, the Strategic Human Capital 

Planning Office distributed a reporting template to the functional 

community managers that contained a series of questions related to the 

requirements of section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code. For 

the 2010-2018 plan, from May 2009 through October 2010 the Strategic 

Human Capital Planning Office provided informal guidance for template 

 Our assessment of DOD’s 2010-2018 strategic workforce 

plan found that for 17 of the 22 mission-critical occupations, DOD

provided some discussion of future competencies. For the remaining five 

mission-critical occupations, DOD reported that functional community 

managers were waiting for the completion of competency models for their 

specific mission-critical occupations before assessing future 

competencies. One functional community, Intelligence, did not provide an 

assessment of skills and competencies for either its existing or future 

mission-critical occupations. DOD officials told us that the intelligence 

community’s assessments are maintained in classified documents and 

could not be provided in the department’s 2010-2018 strategic workforce 

plan. According to the plan, the Offices of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Intelligence and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness, along with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 

agreed instead to capture the reporting requirements in already 

established human-capital employment plans that were submitted by 

intelligence-community elements to the Office of the Director of National 

Intelligence. Officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Intelligence acknowledged that they should provide input into DOD’s 

strategic workforce plan and stated that they would provide input into the 

next submission of the plan.

 

19GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, 

GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003).
 

Page 10 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

development to functional community managers, integrators, and action 

officers. This office also provided additional training and one-on-one 

sessions with integrators, and tailored meetings with functional 

community managers to address completion. The template, however, did 

not define key terms such as skills and competencies. Accordingly, we 

found that the functional community managers interpreted the questions 

within the template differently and developed different understandings of 

key terms. For example, officials in one functional community explained to 

us that they viewed skills as a subset of a larger category of 

competencies. Officials in a separate functional community associated 

skills with employee capabilities and competencies with occupational 

descriptions. Without clear guidance for assessing skills and 

competencies, functional community managers are likely to continue to 

provide inconsistent responses that vary in detail and usefulness to 

decision makers.

Section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code requires DOD to 

include an assessment of gaps in the existing and future civilian

employee workforce that should be addressed to ensure that the 

department has continued access to the critical skills and competencies 

needed to accomplish its mission.20 We have previously reported that 

once an agency identifies the critical skills and competencies that its 

future workforce must possess, it can develop strategies tailored to 

address gaps in the number, skills and competencies, and deployment of 

the workforce.21

 

20DOD is currently also leading an initiative of the Council of Chief Human Capital Officers 

and OPM to address strategic human-capital issues identified by GAO in its High-Risk

Series reports. GAO has identified strategic human-capital management as high risk 

across the federal government, and the objective of this initiative is to develop and 

institutionalize a comprehensive approach to reduce high-risk skill gaps in targeted 

federal-wide and agency-specific mission-critical occupations. According to an April 2012 

update for GAO, this initiative will continue until March 2013.

Our analysis found, however, that functional community 

managers reported conducting competency gap assessments for only 8 

of the 22 mission-critical occupations. These 8 occupations include 

nurses, pharmacists, clinical psychologists, social workers, medical 

officers, security specialists, police officers, and human-resources 

managers. Further, in cases where the functional community managers 

did conduct gap analyses, they did not report the results of these 

21GAO-04-39. 

A Majority of Functional 

Communities Did Not 

Conduct Competency Gap 

Assessments for MissionCritical Occupations, and 

None Reported the Results 

of Gap Assessments
 

Page 11 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

assessments. Officials responsible for developing the 2010-2018 plan told 

us that they focused on identifying critical-skill gaps based on staffing 

levels in the mission-critical occupations. According to these officials, 

competency gaps will be assessed using the Defense Competency 

Assessment Tool that is scheduled for initial deployment in late fiscal year 

2013.22

In some cases, competency models are still being developed that will 

enable the functional communities to conduct gap assessments for their 

mission-critical occupations. For example, the financial-management 

functional community stated specifically in DOD’s plan that it did not 

complete a gap assessment because competency models for its missioncritical occupations remain incomplete. The financial-management 

community reported in the plan that, upon completion of its competency 

models, it will be able to fully assess gaps in knowledge and skills. DOD 

officials responsible for the plan told us that they anticipate these models 

to be completed by the end of 2012.

Some functional communities, similarly, are waiting for the completion of 

an automated competency assessment tool in order to complete their gap 

assessments. The logistics functional community stated in the plan, for 

example, that it will use DOD’s Defense Competency Assessment Tool 

when it becomes available. Because this community, as of September 

2010, had more than 18,000 personnel serving in the mission-critical 

occupation of logistics-management specialist, community officials 

explained that the workforce is too large to track without an automated 

tool.

Further, some officials attributed the absence of gap analyses to other 

priorities that took precedence. Officials acknowledged that they did not 

address all of the statutory requirements and explained that their work on 

the Secretary of Defense’s 2010 efficiency initiatives—which were 

introduced to reduce duplication, overhead, and excess—preempted their 

efforts to develop responses for DOD’s 2010 Strategic Workforce Plan.

 

22According to March 2012 testimony by the then acting Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness, the Defense Competency Assessment Tool is scheduled for 

deployment in fiscal year 2013, and that through it DOD will be able to assess workforce 

competencies and develop strategies to reduce critical skill gaps that may impact mission 

accomplishment by fiscal year 2015. 
 

Page 12 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Finally, of the functional communities that reported completing gap 

assessments for eight of the mission-critical occupations, none reported 

the results. For example, the medical functional community reported that 

DOD’s Medical Health System analyzed a variety of data monthly to 

ensure goals are met and to assess and respond to gaps for all five of its 

mission-critical occupations: nurses, pharmacists, clinical psychologists, 

social workers, and physicians. However, the plan did not report the 

results of any of these assessments. Our analysis of the template DOD 

sent to the functional community managers found that it was not clear in 

all cases that each functional community should report the results of any 

gap analyses or report the reasons why it could not conduct these 

assessments—if that is the case—or report timelines for when the 

assessments would be conducted. Without this information, DOD is 

limited in its ability to identify where its critical shortages lie so that it may 

direct limited resources to the areas of highest priority.

Under a previous strategic-plan requirement, DOD was required to submit 

a strategic plan to Congress by January 6, 2007, with updates of that plan 

to be submitted on March 1 of each subsequent year through 2009.23 The 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 201024 repealed this 

requirement, and enacted section 115b of Title 10 of the United States 

Code. From October of 2009 until December 2011, section 115b required 

the submission of the plan on an annual basis, rather than on any specific 

date. In December of 2011, the National Defense Authorization Act for

Fiscal Year 201225

 

23See National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-163, § 

1122 (2006) (repealed by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, 

Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 1108 (2009)).

amended section 115b to make the strategic plan a 

biennial requirement, rather than an annual one. Our analysis shows, 

based on these requirements, that DOD’s first three submissions were 

304, 115, and 395 days late, respectively. Additionally, while DOD issued 

its third strategic workforce plan on March 31, 2010, the department 

issued its fourth, and most recent, plan 24 months later on March 27, 

2012. When DOD began development of its fourth plan, the department 

was required to submit its workforce plan on an annual basis; by the time 

DOD issued the plan the reporting requirement had been revised from an 

24Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 1108 (2009).

25Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 935 (2011).

DOD Delayed the Issuance 

of Its Workforce Plan, and 

Did Not Update Data
 

Page 13 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

annual to a biennial requirement. We note, however, that DOD’s report 

was already at least 8 months overdue at the time of that revision. 

Further, while DOD delayed issuance of its fourth plan until March 2012, it 

continued to use fiscal year 2010 data as its baseline. Figure 2 shows the 

number of days each of DOD’s strategic workforce plans has been late 

since 2007.

Figure 2: Since 2007, Number of Days DOD Issued Its Strategic Workforce Plan Later Than the Due Date

a

In December 2011, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 amended section 

115b of Title 10 of the United States Code to make the strategic workforce plan a biennial 

requirement, rather than an annual one. 

Officials attributed the delays in the production of DOD’s 2010 strategic 

workforce plan to long internal processing times and staff turnover. 

According to these officials, the plan’s progress was affected by turnover 

among contractor personnel as well as the leadership and staff within the 

strategic workforce planning office at DOD. DOD recognized these 

delays, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense for Civilian 

Personnel Policy testified before the House Armed Services Committee in 

July 2011 that the 2010-2018 report would be issued in late August 2011.

However, it remained in draft form for another 7 months and was not 

issued until March 2012.
 

Page 14 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Our prior work on internal control standards for the federal government 

has shown that agencies rely on timely information to carry out their 

responsibilities.26 For an agency to manage and control its operations 

effectively, it must have relevant, reliable, and timely communications 

relating to internal as well as external events. We found that although the 

Strategic Human Capital Planning Office provided suggested timeframes, 

DOD officials did not adhere to this schedule. Without up-to-date 

information, decision makers do not have relevant information for 

managing the critical needs of the federal workforce in a timely manner. 

Officials responsible for the plan told us they anticipate issuing the 2012 

strategic workforce plan between July and September of 2013.

DOD, in its 2010-2018 workforce plan, did not include an assessment of 

the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor personnel or an 

assessment of the capabilities of each of these workforces. Section 115b 

of Title 10 of the United States Code requires DOD to conduct an 

assessment of the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor 

personnel capabilities. To compile the workforce mix data, DOD officials 

responsible for the plan developed and distributed a reporting template to 

be completed by functional community managers. This template 

requested the functional community managers to provide the percentages 

of DOD civilian personnel, military personnel, and contractors in each 

mission-critical occupation. Additionally, the template requested each 

functional community to provide information on the desired workforce mix 

for fiscal year 2016, and interim goals if possible.

Our review found that 2 of the 11 functional communities provided the mix 

of their workforces, while 9 communities provided partial or no data.

Specifically, the medical and human-resources functional communities 

provided the percentages of military, civilian, and contractor personnel for 

their current workforce, and reported their desired mix for fiscal year 

2016, as the template requested.27

 

26GAO, Internal Controls: Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 

For example, the medical functional 

GAOAIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 

27During the course of our review, DOD officials told us that they no longer considered 

language specialists to be a mission-critical occupation due to the extremely small number 

of civilian linguists within DOD. We note, however, that foreign-language capabilities are 

identified as a high-risk issue in GAO’s 2011 High-Risk list. See GAO-11-278, High-Risk 

Series: An Update (Washington, D.C.: February, 2011).

DOD Did Not Assess 

the Appropriate Mix 

of Military, Civilian, 

and Contractor 

Personnel Capabilities
 

Page 15 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

community provided workforce mix data for its military, civilian, and 

contractor personnel in each of its mission-critical occupations. According 

to officials responsible for the strategic workforce plan, the medical 

functional community was able to provide workforce mix data because the 

community already tracked personnel data as a way to maintain 

oversight. Conversely, the logistics and information-technology functional 

communities provided only the military and civilian workforce data and did 

not include contractor data. The intelligence functional community did not 

provide any workforce mix data for inclusion in the 2010 strategic 

workforce plan.

Moreover, data on contractor personnel was incomplete. During this 

review, DOD officials responsible for the plan stated that they have 

difficulties tracking contractor data, explaining that DOD contracts for 

services rather than for individuals. We note, however, that this issue is 

not new. DOD guidance requires defense officials to consider personnel 

costs, among other factors, when making certain workforce decisions. For 

example, a February 2005 DOD directive states that missions shall be 

accomplished using the least costly mix of personnel (military, civilian, 

and contract) consistent with military requirements and other needs of the 

department.28 Subsequently, in April 2010, DOD issued an instruction that 

included guidance on implementing the prior directive.29 Further it is DOD 

policy that DOD components follow prescribed business rules when 

performing an economic analysis in support of workforce decisions. 

These rules apply when, among other circumstances, DOD’s components 

decide whether to use DOD civilians to perform functions that are 

currently being performed by contractors but could be performed by DOD 

civilians.30

By law, DOD is required to annually compile and review an inventory of 

activities performed pursuant to contracts to help provide better insights 

into the number of contractor full-time equivalents providing services to 

the department, and the functions they are performing.31

 

28DOD, Directive 1100.4, Guidance for Manpower Management (Feb. 12, 2005).

Additionally, the 

29DOD, Instruction 1100.22, Policy and Procedures for Determining Workforce Mix (April 

12, 2010).

30DOD, Directive-Type Memorandum (DTM) 09-007, Estimating and Comparing the Full 

Costs of Civilian and Military Manpower and Contract Support (September 2, 2011).

3110 U.S.C. § 2330a. 
 

Page 16 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 requires 

appropriate DOD officials to develop a plan, including an enforcement 

mechanism, to ensure that this inventory of contracted services is used to 

inform strategic workforce planning, among other things.32 The act also 

directed the Secretary of Defense to establish policies and procedures for

determining the most appropriate and cost-efficient mix of military, 

civilian, and contractor personnel to perform the mission of the 

department. Further, the act directed that these policies and procedures 

should specifically require DOD to use the strategic workforce plan, 

among other things, when making these determinations, and that these 

policies and procedures, once developed, should inform the strategic 

workforce planning process. Earlier this year, we reported33 that DOD has 

difficulty collecting data on the number of contractors performing work, 

and that DOD is working on a means to collect the data. We also reported 

that DOD has submitted to Congress a plan to collect personnel data 

directly from contractors that would help inform the department of the 

number of full-time-equivalent contractor staff.34

In the meantime, the functional communities did not provide all required 

information, in part, because the department did not request it. The 

template, for example, did not ask the functional communities to report 

the capabilities of their civilian, military and contractor personnel in 

mission-critical occupations, and as a result none of the functional 

communities reported them. Further, the template did not ask the 

functional communities to report on their assessments of the appropriate 

mix of these workforces within their communities and, accordingly, none 

of the communities provided this type of assessment. Without a complete 

assessment, it is difficult for DOD to know if its civilian workforce is 

properly sized to carry out its vital missions.

According to this plan, 

DOD will institute a phased-in approach to develop an inventory of 

contracted services database by fiscal year 2016.

 

32Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 936 (2011) (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 2330a). 

33GAO, Defense Workforce: DOD Needs to Better Oversee In-Sourcing Data and Align InSourcing Efforts with Strategic Workforce Plans, GAO-12-319 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 9, 

2012).

34DOD’s plan, submitted in November 2011 included instructions to the military 

departments and DOD components to document contractor full time equivalents and begin 

the collection of contractor manpower data.
 

Page 17 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

DOD developed five performance measures to assess progress in 

implementing its strategic workforce plan, and the measures generally 

align with the department’s goals. We have previously reported that 

performance measures should align with goals and track progress toward 

the goals of the organization. However, it is not clear in all cases how 

these measures will help DOD demonstrate progress in meeting all of the 

reporting requirements contained in section 115b of Title 10 of the United 

States Code.

In response to statutory requirements, DOD developed five resultsoriented performance measures to assess progress in implementing its 

strategic workforce plan. Specifically, the Office of the Undersecretary of 

Defense for Personnel and Readiness developed five baseline 

performance measures, which address:

• workforce-mission readiness (the percentage of managers reporting 

that they have the talent needed to meet their mission);

• mission-critical occupations’ end-strength (the percentage difference 

between the actual end-strength and the target end-strength for 

mission-critical occupations);

• key milestones (the percentage of key milestones met by each 

mission-critical occupation);

• competency-model development (the number of competency models 

developed for mission-critical occupations); and

• loss rates for new hires (18-month loss rate from hiring date for new 

federal-civilian hires in mission-critical occupations).

According to the 2010-2018 plan, the Office of the Undersecretary of 

Defense for Personnel and Readiness based the first four of these 

measures—workforce mission readiness, mission-critical occupations’ 

end-strength, key milestones, and competency-model development—on 

goals identified in DOD’s companion document to its overall civilian 

human-capital strategic plan.35

 

35DOD, Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 2010-2011 Refresh. 

According to the plan, officials developed 

DOD Developed 

Results-Oriented 

Performance 

Measures to Assess 

Progress, but These 

Measures Do Not 

Fully Align with 

Congressional 

Reporting 

Requirements

DOD Identified 

Performance Measures to 

Assess Progress in 

Implementing Its Strategic 

Workforce Plan
 

Page 18 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

the fifth measure—loss rates for new hires—to support the overall 

strategic plan for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness. Collectively, these baseline measures were 

established relative to the strategic objectives set for tracking and 

supporting organizational decision making within the Office of the 

Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

We have previously reported that performance measures should align 

with goals and track progress toward the goals of the organization.36

Additionally, OPM best practices state that performance measures can 

help drive desired behavior, provide direction, and enable an organization 

to test its progress in achieving goals.37 Accordingly, DOD developed the 

five measures to meet goals and objectives identified in a key DOD 

strategic document.38

While DOD introduced these measures for the first time in its 2010-2018 

strategic workforce plan, the department conducted preliminary 

assessments of its progress against those measures. In this plan, DOD 

reported in its preliminary observations that it has met two performance 

measures—key milestones and competency-model development—and 

partially met two other measures—workforce-mission readiness and the 

end-strength of mission-critical occupations. For example, according to 

All five performance measures include targets to 

track progress toward goals—such as a 70 percent target for key 

milestones in mission-critical occupations—so that the results of any 

progress can be easily compared to the targets. Additionally, the 

performance measures are quantifiable. For example, one of the 

performance measures establishes a 15 percent variance between the 

actual end-strength and the target end-strength of mission-critical 

occupations.

 

36GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season 

Performance Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002); and Managing 

for Results: Strengthening Regulatory Agencies’ Performance Management Practices, 

GAO/GGD-00-10 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 1999); and Executive Guide: Effectively 

Implementing the Government Performance and Results Act, GAO/GGD-96-118 

(Washington, D.C.: June 1, 1996).

37OPM, Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework Practitioners Guide

(September, 2005).

38The key DOD guidance used to develop the measures are the Civilian Human Capital 

Strategic Plan 2010-2011 Refresh, and the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness Strategic Plan. 
 

Page 19 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

OSD’s preliminary assessment, more than half of the mission-critical 

occupations were within the 15 percent variance. DOD will use the fifth 

performance measure, which addresses loss rates for new hires, to 

assess the department’s progress in implementing the plan in the next

strategic workforce planning cycle.

We have previously recommended that DOD develop a performance plan 

that includes establishing implementation goals and time frames, 

measuring performance, and aligning activities with resources. While the 

performance measures that DOD established to monitor the department’s 

progress in implementing its strategic workforce plan generally align with 

departmental goals and priorities, it is not clear in all cases how the five 

measures will help DOD demonstrate progress in meeting all the 

reporting requirements contained in section 115b of Title 10 United States 

Code. While DOD is not required to develop performance measures that 

monitor progress in meeting the statutory requirements, our prior work 

has shown that agencies that have been successful in measuring their 

performance generally developed measures that are responsive to 

multiple priorities and complement different program strategies.39

Section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code requires DOD to 

include in its 2010-2018 strategic workforce plan an assessment of, 

among other things, gaps in the existing and future civilian workforce that 

should be addressed to ensure that the department has continued access 

to the critical skills and competencies, and the appropriate mix of military, 

civilian, and contractor personnel capabilities. During this review, we 

found, as we reported earlier in this report, that the department did not 

conduct comprehensive assessments in these two areas. Although one of 

DOD’s performance measures—key milestones—identifies assessments 

of competency gaps and workforce mix as key milestones, the plan does 

not describe how the department assessed progress in these areas or 

Additionally, DOD is required to develop performance measures to 

monitor progress in implementing the strategic workforce plan, and the 

plan itself states that one of its goals is to make progress toward meeting 

the statutory requirements.

 

39GAO, Environmental Justice: EPA Needs to Take Additional Actions to help Ensure 

Effective Implementation, GAO-12-77 (Washington, D.C.: October 2011); and Agency 

Performance: Examples of Practices That Can Improve Usefulness to Decisionmakers, 

GAO/GGD-99-69 (Washington, D.C.: February 1999); and GAO/GGD-96-118. 

DOD’s Performance 

Measures Are Not Fully 

Aligned With 

Congressional Reporting 

Requirements
 

Page 20 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

interim steps as to how it plans to meet these milestones. As a result, it is 

unclear how this measure addresses DOD’s progress in implementing the 

portions of the plan related to these two requirements, and how the 

performance measures and the department’s efforts align with and 

address congressional requirements. According to prior GAO work, 

performance measures should align with and indicate progress toward 

the goals of the organization.40 Without a clear, effective alignment of 

DOD’s performance measures with United States Code requirements, the 

department will not be in the best position to measure and report how it is 

meeting its congressional requirements.

With about a third of DOD’s civilian workforce eligible to retire by 2015—

during a time of changing national security threats and challenging fiscal 

realities—it is imperative that decision makers in DOD and Congress 

have access to complete and timely information on the skills, 

competencies, and any associated gaps within DOD’s civilian workforce. 

However, because the office responsible for developing the plan did not 

provide sufficiently detailed guidance to the managers who were 

responsible for providing key data, the information in the current plan on 

skills and competencies varies significantly. Further, while DOD officials 

have stated that they do not have the necessary tools in place to conduct 

gap analyses across the board, the department has not reported the 

results of any gap analyses that it has conducted nor provided reporting 

timeframes for conducting remaining gap analyses; this situation 

diminishes the plan’s utility as a workforce planning document. To the 

extent that DOD provided data in 2012, the data was based on 

information from 2010, which further limits this document’s use for 

planning purposes. When the reports use dated information, decision 

makers do not have relevant information for managing the critical needs 

of the federal workforce. Further, DOD did not collect all required 

information for its 2010-2018 strategic workforce plans, including the 

number or percentage of military, civilian, and contractor personnel and 

the capabilities for those three workforces. Without revised guidance 

specifying the need to collect all information required for a complete 

 

40GAO/GGD-96-118; and The Results Act: An Evaluator’s Guide to Assessing Agency 

Annual Performance Plans, GAO/GGD-10.1.20 (Washington, D.C., April 1998); and 

Agencies’ Annual Performance Plans Under the Results Act: An Assessment Guide to 

Facilitate Congressional Decisionmaking, GAO/GGD/AIMD-10.1.18 (Washington, D.C.: 

February 1998). 

Conclusions
 

Page 21 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

assessment to determine the appropriate mix of the three workforces,

DOD will have difficulty in determining if its civilian workforce is properly 

sized to carry out essential missions. Finally, where DOD has identified 

performance measures and indicated progress toward the goals of the 

strategic plan, those measures are not, in all cases, aligned with DOD’s 

congressionally mandated reporting requirements; also, the measures do 

not provide detail about how DOD plans to meet those requirements, 

making it difficult for DOD to demonstrate progress.

To meet the congressional requirement to conduct assessments of critical 

skills, competencies, and gaps for both existing and future civilian 

workforces, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to include in 

the guidance that it disseminates for developing future strategic workforce 

plans clearly defined terms and processes for conducting these 

assessments.

To help ensure that Congress has the necessary information to provide 

effective oversight over DOD’s civilian workforce, we recommend that the 

Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel 

and Readiness to conduct competency gap analyses for DOD’s missioncritical occupations and report the results. When managers cannot 

conduct such analyses, we recommend that DOD report a timeline in the 

strategic workforce plan for providing these assessments.

To help ensure that the data presented in DOD’s strategic workforce 

plans are current and timely, we recommend that the Secretary of 

Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness to establish and adhere to timelines that will ensure issuance 

of future strategic workforce plans in accordance with statutory 

timeframes.

To enhance the information that DOD provides Congress in its strategic 

workforce plan, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to provide 

guidance for developing future strategic workforce plans that clearly 

directs the functional communities to collect information that identifies not 

only the number or percentage of personnel in its military, civilian, and 

contractor workforces but also the capabilities of the appropriate mix of 

those three workforces.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
 

Page 22 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

To better develop and submit future DOD strategic workforce plans, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to enhance the 

department’s results-oriented performance measures by revising existing 

measures or developing additional measures that will more clearly align 

with DOD’s efforts to monitor progress in meeting the strategic workforce 

planning requirements in section 115b of Title 10 of the United States 

Code.

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with our first 

recommendation and partially concurred with the remaining four 

recommendations. DOD comments are reprinted in appendix II.

While DOD acknowledged that we had conducted a thorough review and 

assessment of DOD’s Fiscal Year 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan 

for, DOD also expressed its disappointment that we did not appear to give 

the department credit for the major progress that it has made, including 

actions to reframe its planning progress from the current state to a 

comprehensive future state by 2015. Further, DOD stated that the overall 

negative tone – in its opinion – overshadowed the monumental efforts of 

the department. We disagree. The objectives in our final report are 

consistent with the objectives we presented to DOD when we first notified 

the department of our review at the beginning of this engagement, and we 

did provide positive examples where DOD had responded to 

congressional direction, especially as those actions related to our report’s 

objectives. For example, we state clearly in our report, among other 

things, that DOD assessed to varying degrees the existing and future 

critical skills and competencies for all but one of its mission-critical 

occupations. This has been a longstanding issue and represents 

progress. Further, we reported that DOD developed performance 

measures to assess progress in implementing its workforce plan. This 

was a new reporting requirement for DOD, and we reported that DOD had 

been responsive to this requirement. 

DOD also asserted that our recommendations simply restate areas for 

improvement that the department already identified in its plan, and which 

have already been implemented since the plan was published. We note, 

however, that these issues are not new. We first reported on DOD’s 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 23 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

strategic workforce planning for its civilian workforce in 2004.41 

Subsequently, Congress mandated that DOD develop and submit civilian 

workforce strategic plans to the congressional defense committees, and 

that we conduct our own independent assessment of those plans.42 We 

have previously conducted 3 reviews of DOD’s plans since 2008 and our 

work has reported mixed results.43 We recommended in 2008, for 

example, that DOD address all of its statutory reporting requirements, and 

note that DOD did not concur with this recommendation.44 (In 2010, we 

reported that DOD’s civilian workforce plan addressed 5 and partially 

addressed 9 of DOD’s 14 legislative requirements.)45 In 2009, we 

recommended, among other things, that DOD develop a performance 

plan that includes establishing implementation goals and timeframes, 

measuring performance, and aligning activities with resources.46

DOD concurred with our first recommendation to include in guidance that 

it disseminates for developing future workforce plans clearly defined 

terms and processes for conducting these assessments. DOD stated in 

its agency comments, among other things, that it has already provided 

numerous governance and policy documents, and more, to assist key 

stakeholders in meeting strategic workforce plan reporting requirements. 

We make similar statements in our report. DOD also stated in its agency 

comments, however, that the department strives for continuous 

improvement and has already provided additional guidance for the next 

planning cycle, for this reason they believe no additional direction from 

the Secretary of Defense is needed. We do not disagree that DOD strives 

 DOD 

partially concurred with these recommendations. Given the response by 

DOD to our previous reports and recommendations on these issues, we 

have reviewed the recommendations that we present in this report and 

continue to believe that corrective action is needed.

 

41GAO, DOD Civilian Personnel: Comprehensive Strategic Workforce Plans Needed, 

GAO-04-753 (Washington D.C.: June 30, 2004).

42Originally enacted in section 1122 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-163 (2006) (repealed by the National Defense Authorization 

Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 1108 (2009)).

43GAO-10-814R, GAO-09-235, and GAO-08-439R.

44GAO-08-439R.

45 GAO-10-814R.

46 GAO-09-235.
 

Page 24 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

for continuous improvement. However, during the course of our audit 

work, we found, as we state in our report, that functional community 

managers interpreted questions in DOD’s guiding template differently and 

developed different understandings of key terms. Therefore, we continue 

to believe that this recommendation will enhance the development of 

DOD’s next strategic workforce plan.

DOD partially concurred with our second recommendation that DOD 

conduct gap analyses for DOD’s mission-critical occupations and report 

on the results, and, when managers cannot conduct such analyses, 

report a timeline for providing these assessments. DOD also stated its 

belief that no additional direction from the Secretary of Defense is needed 

with regard to this recommendation. In its agency comments, DOD 

stated that the department focused on the identification of critical skill 

gaps based on staffing levels in its mission-critical occupations. We 

agree that DOD’s plan includes these data. However, we reported that 

DOD is required to include an assessment of competency gaps in its 

existing and future civilian employee workforces, and that our analyses 

found that DOD’s functional community managers reported conducting 

gap assessments for only 8 of DOD’s 22 mission-critical occupations. 

Therefore we continue to believe that DOD needs to conduct these 

analyses and, for clarity, we added references to competency gap 

analyses in our finding and recommendation, as appropriate. DOD stated 

in its agency comments that competency gaps will be assessed in the 

future.

DOD also partially concurred with our third recommendation that DOD 

establish and adhere to timelines that will ensure issuance of future 

strategic workforce plans in accordance with statutory timeframes but, 

similarly to its other responses, added that no additional direction is 

needed from the Secretary of Defense at this time. In its comments, DOD 

stated that the department does have an established planning process 

and timeline, and that this established process aligns with the budget 

cycle and takes about a year to complete because of the size and 

complexity of the department. DOD added that the planning cycle 

timeline is flexible enough to allow for significant events, among other 

things, and provided a notional strategic workforce plan timeline as an 

attachment to its agency comments. However, we continue to believe it 

is key that DOD take steps to adhere to the timelines it establishes to 

meet congressional reporting requirements and enhance the utility of its 

future reports. As we note in our report, DOD has issued all of its 

strategic workforce plans late since 2007. 
 

Page 25 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Regarding our fourth recommendation, DOD also partially concurred that 

DOD provide guidance for developing future workforce plans that clearly 

directs the functional communities to collect information that identifies not 

only the number or percentage of personnel in its military, civilian, and 

contractor workforces but also the capabilities of the appropriate mix of 

those three workforces. While DOD agreed that additional improvements 

are necessary, the department again stated that it did not believe 

additional direction is necessary from the Secretary of Defense. In its 

comments, DOD stated that is preparing to pilot a capabilities-based 

approach to assess civilian and military workforce and contract support. 

We continue to note DOD’s existing requirement to conduct an 

assessment of the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor 

personnel capabilities, and we look forward to seeing the results of DOD’s 

pilot program.

Finally, DOD also partially concurred with our fifth recommendation that 

the department enhance its results-oriented performance measures by 

revising existing measures or developing additional measures that will 

more clearly align with DOD’s efforts to monitor progress in meeting the 

strategic workforce planning requirements contained in statute. However, 

again, DOD did not believe any additional direction from the Secretary of 

Defense was needed. In its response, DOD stated that the measures in 

the fiscal year 2010-2018 strategic workforce plan do assess progress 

both in implementing the strategic workforce plan and in meeting the 

statutory requirements and, as an attachment to its comments, provided a 

matrix—that it developed in response to our draft report—to show 

linkages between the two. Based on the matrix, we agree with DOD’s 

assertion that some alignment does exist between the performance 

measures and the statutory criteria. However, the justification that DOD 

provided in its matrix for demonstrating these linkages is not always clear. 

Further, DOD did not include this analysis in its plan. We did not state in 

our report that the performance measures that DOD developed were 

inappropriate in some way. However, our analysis did find that DOD 

continues to struggle to meet its statutory reporting requirements. 

Therefore, we continue to believe that DOD can enhance its performance 

measures by more clearly aligning them to those requirements. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and 

appropriate congressional committees. In addition, this report will also be 

available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 
 

Page 26 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices 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 are listed in appendix III.

Brenda S. Farrell

Director,

Defense Capabilities and Management
 

Page 27 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

List of Committees

The Honorable Carl Levin

Chairman

The Honorable John McCain

Ranking Member

Committee on Armed Services

United States Senate 

The Honorable Daniel Inouye

Chairman

The Honorable Thad Cochran

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable Howard P. McKeon

Chairman

The Honorable Adam Smith

Ranking Member

Committee on Armed Services

House of Representatives

The Honorable C.W. Bill Young

Chairman

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 28 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

For all three objectives, we evaluated DOD’s 2010-2018 Strategic 

Workforce Plan and supporting documentation.1

To determine the extent to which DOD assessed existing and future 

critical skills, competencies, and gaps in its civilian workforce, we 

reviewed information and data contained in DOD’s 2010-2018 strategic 

workforce plan to identify which of the functional communities completed 

these assessments, the methods and tools that the functional 

communities used to conduct the assessments, and the extent to which 

the functional communities reported the results of their assessments. We 

obtained and reviewed existing DOD guidance, including guidance 

related to any automated systems the department may use to facilitate 

We also interviewed 

Department of Defense (DOD) officials responsible for developing the 

Strategic Workforce Plan. These include officials from the Strategic 

Human Capital Planning Office and the Defense Civilian Personnel 

Advisory Service within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Intelligence, and the military departments. We also met with functional 

community managers in the information technology, financial 

management, logistics, and law enforcement communities to determine 

how each of these communities conducted their strategic workforce 

planning and how coordination occurred between the various levels of 

DOD. We selected these four functional communities because they 

represent three of the largest and one of the smallest functional 

communities included in the plan. Further, DOD business-systems 

modernization (information technology), financial management, and DOD 

supply-chain management (logistics) are on GAO’s High-Risk list. To aid 

in all aspects of our review, we also met with Office of Personnel 

Management (OPM) officials to identify relevant policy or guidance to 

federal agencies. Finally, we found the data contained in DOD’s 2010-

2018 plan to be sufficiently reliable for purposes of assessing efforts in 

developing and producing civilian strategic workforce plans and providing 

context of these efforts.

 

1

For DOD’s 2010-2018 plan, 11 of 12 functional communities—which consist of 

employees who perform similar functions—provided some information on 22 occupations 

that DOD has identified as mission critical. The Acquisition Functional Community did not 

submit its assessments for inclusion in DOD’s 2010-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan and, 

according to DOD officials, a separate report on the acquisition community will be 

submitted to Congress in March 2013. For the purposes of this report, we evaluated the 

information and data provided by the 11 functional communities that were included in 

DOD’s 2010-2018 plan.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 29 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

these assessments. We also obtained and reviewed OPM guidance on 

conducting assessments of the skills, competencies, and gaps of the 

federal civilian workforces. This included a review of documents to 

ascertain how DOD used OPM’s Workforce Analysis Support System and 

Civilian Forecasting System to develop the department’s civilianworkforce forecasts and projections. Finally, to evaluate the timeliness of 

DOD’s submissions of its strategic workforce plans, we reviewed GAO’s 

prior work on DOD’s previous plans as well as our work on internal 

control standards.

To determine the extent to which DOD assessed its workforces to identify 

the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor personnel 

capabilities, we reviewed information and data contained in DOD’s 2010-

2018 strategic workforce plan to identify which functional communities 

assessed their workforce mix and the process those communities used to 

carry out their assessments. We also analyzed DOD’s plan to determine 

the extent to which the plan included an evaluation of the specific 

capabilities of military, civilian, and contractor personnel. Additionally, we 

obtained and reviewed DOD guidance on conducting assessments of the 

appropriateness of the mix of workforces in the federal government. 

To determine the extent to which DOD assessed its progress in 

implementing its strategic workforce plan by using results-oriented 

performance measures, we reviewed DOD’s 2010-2018 strategic 

workforce plan to identify the performance measures DOD chose to 

assess its implementation of its plan. We also obtained and reviewed 

DOD and OPM guidance on using results-oriented performance 

measures and then evaluated DOD’s efforts to apply such guidance. We 

evaluated DOD’s results-oriented performance measures and compared 

them to the statutory requirements for the plan as identified in the section 

115b of Title 10 of the United States Code to determine the extent to 

which the measures developed addressed the requirements. We also 

evaluated the performance measures using best practices identified in 

our previous work to determine their validity and appropriateness.

We conducted this performance audit from July 2011 to September 2012 

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.
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 30 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 31 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 32 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 33 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 34 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 35 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 36 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 37 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 38 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 39 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 40 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 41 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 42 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. 

In addition to the individual named above, Marion Gatling, Assistant 

Director; David Moser, Assistant Director; Jerome Brown; Julie Corwin; 

Brian Pegram; Richard Powelson, Courtney Reid; Terry L. Richardson; 

Norris Smith; Jennifer Weber; and Michael Willems made key 

contributions to this report.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments
Related GAO Products

Page 43 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

Human Capital: Complete Information and More Analysis Needed to 

Enhance DOD’s Civilian Senior Leader Strategic Workforce Plan. 

GAO-12-990R. Washington, D.C.: September 19, 2012.

DOD Civilian Workforce: Observations on DOD’s Efforts to Plan for 

Civilian Workforce Requirements. GAO-12-962T. Washington, D.C.: July 

26, 2012.

Defense Acquisition Workforce: Improved Processes, Guidance, and 

Planning Needed to Enhance Use of Workforce Funds. GAO-12-747R. 

Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2012.

Defense Acquisitions: Further Actions Needed to Improve Accountability 

for DOD’s Inventory of Contracted Services. GAO-12-357. Washington, 

D.C.: April 6, 2012.

Defense Workforce: DOD Needs to Better Oversee In-sourcing Data and 

Align In-sourcing Efforts with Strategic Workforce Plans. GAO-12-319. 

Washington, D.C.: February 9, 2012.

DOD Civilian Personnel: Competency Gap Analyses and Other Actions 

Needed to Enhance DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plans. GAO-11-827T. 

Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2011.

High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-11-278. Washington, D.C.: February 

16, 2011.

Human Capital: Opportunities Exist for DOD to Enhance Its Approach for 

Determining Civilian Senior Leader Workforce Needs. GAO-11-136. 

Washington, D.C.: November 4, 2010.

Human Capital: Further Actions Needed to Enhance DOD’s Civilian 

Strategic Workforce Plan. GAO-10-814R. Washington, D.C.: September 

27, 2010.

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.

Human Capital: 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.

Related GAO Products
Related GAO Products

Page 44 GAO-12-1014 Human Capital

DOD Civilian Personnel: Comprehensive Strategic Workforce Plans 

Needed. GAO-04-753. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2004.

Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning. 

GAO-04-39. Washington, D.C.: December 11, 2003.

Human Capital: Strategic Approach Should Guide DOD Civilian 

Workforce Management. GAO/T-GGD/NSIAD-00-120. Washington, D.C.: 

March 9, 2000.

(351623)
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