DHS STRATEGIC 

WORKFORCE 

PLANNING

Oversight of 

Departmentwide 

Efforts Should Be 

Strengthened

Report to Congressional Requesters

December 2012

GAO-13-65

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-65, a report to 

congressional requesters 

December 2012 

DHS STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING

Oversight of Departmentwide Efforts Should Be 

Strengthened

Why GAO Did This Study

With more than 240,000 employees 

doing diverse jobs, DHS’s workforce 

supports the department’s multiple 

missions to prevent terrorism and 

enhance security, secure and manage 

the nation’s borders, and ensure 

resilience from disasters, amongst 

others. Strategic workforce planning 

focuses on developing long-term 

strategies for acquiring, developing, 

and retaining an organization’s total 

workforce, including federal staff and 

contractors, to meet the needs of the 

future. GAO has previously identified 

workforce-related challenges faced by 

DHS components. In light of these 

ongoing challenges, GAO was asked 

to review DHS’s strategic workforce 

planning efforts. This report assesses 

whether DHS has incorporated 

strategic workforce planning leading 

principles into the department’s 

management of strategic workforce 

planning efforts. GAO reviewed DHS 

strategies and guidance related to 

strategic workforce planning, 

compared them with leading principles 

identified in previous GAO work, and 

discussed ongoing strategic workforce 

planning efforts with officials from the 

seven components selected because 

they constitute the majority of DHS 

personnel.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that, among other 

actions, the Secretary of Homeland 

Security (1) identify and document 

additional performance measures to 

assess workforce planning efforts and

(2) document policies and procedures 

regarding the use of internal audit 

results. DHS concurred with our 

recommendations.

What GAO Found

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken some relatively recent 

steps to enhance strategic workforce planning across the department. These 

steps are generally consistent with leading principles, but the department has not 

yet implemented an effective oversight approach for monitoring and evaluating 

components’ progress. Specifically, recent steps DHS has taken to develop and 

implement strategic workforce planning efforts are consistent with the leading 

principles GAO has reported that include involving management and 

stakeholders, identifying skills and competencies, developing strategies to fill 

gaps, and building capability through training. For example, the department 

demonstrated stakeholder involvement by including component-level 

stakeholders in the development of the DHS Workforce Strategy. Though DHS 

has taken steps to implement strategic workforce planning, recent internal audits, 

as well as GAO’s previous work, identified challenges related to workforce 

planning at the component level that could impair the continued implementation 

of recently initiated strategic workforce planning efforts. For example, GAO 

reported in July 2009 that the Federal Protective Service’s (FPS) workforce 

planning was limited because FPS headquarters did not collect data on its 

workforce’s knowledge, skills, and abilities and subsequently could not determine 

optimal staffing levels or determine how to modify its workforce planning 

strategies accordingly, amongst others. GAO recommended that FPS take steps 

to address these issues. FPS officials agreed with our recommendations, and in 

June 2010 drafted a staffing plan consistent with our recommendation, but as of 

November 2012, FPS has not gained approval of its staffing plan. 

Although DHS began taking positive steps for managing strategic workforce 

planning in 2011, DHS officials have not yet taken steps to implement an 

effective oversight approach for monitoring and evaluating components’ progress 

in implementing strategic workforce planning. According to this principle, 

agencies should measure the effectiveness of the workforce plan and help 

ensure that the strategies work as intended by monitoring and evaluating the 

contributions workforce plans make to strategic results. To do this, agencies 

should determine how well the agency implemented its workforce plan and the 

contribution that its implementation made toward achieving programmatic goals. 

However, the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) has developed 

limited performance measures to provide a basis for monitoring and evaluating 

departmentwide strategic workforce planning efforts. GAO’s analysis identified 

performance measures that reported on only 2 of the 15 elements in DHS’s 

strategic workforce planning model. OCHCO relies on an informal process to 

evaluate component workforce planning, though processes exist that it could 

leverage to provide oversight. For example, OCHCO performs internal audits and 

requires components to develop annual operations plans to implement the 

department’s workforce strategy. However, the results of the audits are not used 

to evaluate components’ workforce planning. Without (1) performance measures 

that more comprehensively address DHS’s strategic workforce planning process, 

and (2) policies and procedures for ensuring monitoring and evaluation of 

departmentwide workforce planning, DHS’s OCHCO does not have reasonable 

assurance that such efforts will be institutionalized. Further, the department will 

not be able to produce departmentwide evidence of component alignment with 

DHS strategic workforce planning guidance. 

View GAO-13-65. For more information, 

contact David C. Maurer at (202) 512-9627 or 

maurerd@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

Letter 1 

Background 5

DHS’s Recent Efforts to Manage Strategic Workforce Planning 

Reflect Leading Principles, but Increased Oversight of 

Component Planning Would Enhance Efforts 9

Conclusion 25

Recommendations for Executive Action 25

Agency Comments 26

Appendix I Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 28

Appendix II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 30

Table

Table 1: The Five Steps and 15 Elements of DHS’s Workforce 

Planning Model, and Related Performance Measures. 18

Figure

Figure 1: Strategic Workforce Planning Process Incorporating 

Leading Principles 7

Contents 
Page ii GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

Abbreviations:

BWPMO Balanced Workforce Program Management Office

CBP Customs and Border Protection

CHCO chief human capital officer

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DOD Department of Defense

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency

FPS Federal Protective Service

HCPP Human Capital Policy and Programs

HROA Human Resources Operations Audit

ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

MCO mission-critical occupation

OCHCO Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer

OPM Office of Personnel Management

TSA Transportation Security Administration

TSI transportation security inspector

USCG U.S. Coast Guard

USCIS U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

USSS U.S. Secret Service

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Page 1 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548

December 3, 2012

The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman

Chairman

Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka

Chairman

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, 

the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia

Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

With more than 240,000 employees doing diverse jobs—for example, 

aviation and border security, emergency response, cybersecurity 

analysis, and chemical facility inspection—the Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS) is the third largest cabinet-level department in the federal 

government. DHS’s workforce supports the department’s multiple 

missions to prevent terrorism and enhance security, secure and manage 

the nation’s borders, enforce and administer immigration laws, safeguard 

and secure cyberspace, and ensure resilience from disasters. DHS’s 

Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) works to support the 

department’s employees and managers to achieve DHS’s missions. 

Human capital leaders across the government face workforce challenges 

such as increased turnover—for example, throughout the government, 

retirements have increased approximately 25 percent from a year ago—

which may remain high for a while because of the combined impact of an 

aging workforce and a 2-year pay freeze with possible extensions, as well 

as ongoing operational and fiscal challenges. For example, a recent 

governmentwide survey of chief human capital officers (CHCO) found that 

over half of the 53 CHCOs originally surveyed 5 years ago have since left 

government.1

 

1

Partnership for Public Service, Bracing for Change: Chief Human Capital Officers Rethink 

Business as Usual, (Washington, D.C.: August 2012). 

Further, more than half of the 25-member CHCO Council 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

have served in that position for less than 2 years, including DHS’s own 

CHCO, who has occupied that position since August 2011.2

Under the authority of DHS’s OCHCO, departmental workforce planning 

is managed by the Balanced Workforce Program Management Office 

(BWPMO). DHS’s components operate within the human capital 

framework established and overseen by OCHCO.3

Within OCHCO, BWPMO provides management and oversight of the 

department’s workforce planning efforts and develops policies to guide 

departmentwide implementation of strategic workforce planning efforts. 

Strategic workforce planning focuses on developing long-term strategies 

for acquiring, developing, and retaining an organization’s total workforce, 

including full- and part-time federal staff and contractors, to meet the 

needs of the future. Strategic workforce planning also requires defining 

the critical skills and competencies that an agency will require in the 

future and developing strategies tailored to address gaps in the number, 

skills and competencies, and deployment of the workforce.

There are also 

component-level OCHCOs, or their equivalent, that work with the DHS 

OCHCO to manage human capital efforts at each of the components.

4

 

2

The CHCO Council advises and coordinates human resources activities governmentwide 

and is composed of the director of the Office of Personnel Management, the Deputy 

Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget, the CHCOs of the 15 

executive departments, and the CHCOs of eight additional agencies designated by the 

OPM Director. CHCOs serve as their agencies’ chief policy advisors on all human 

resources management issues. 

We 

previously reported that the five leading principles of strategic workforce 

planning include involving top management and stakeholders; conducting 

workforce gap analysis; developing strategies to fill those gaps; building 

3

The human capital framework includes the development of strategic goals and an 

implementation plan that are achievable, realistic, and focused on strategic priorities. It 

also ensures integration with related DHS business cycles, particularly the DHS Planning, 

Programming, Budget, and Execution cycles.

4

Critical skills are those skills critical to achieving strategic goals including those skills that 

the agency will need to acquire, develop, and retain to meet its goals. A competency is an 

observable, measurable set of skills, knowledge, abilities, behaviors, and other 

characteristics an individual needs to successfully perform work roles or occupational 

functions. 
 

Page 3 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

capability to support strategies; and monitoring, evaluating, and revising 

those strategies.5

Moreover, we previously reported on workforce planning–related 

challenges at DHS and its components. These challenges include 

collecting and analyzing workforce data, determining optimal staffing, and 

identifying gaps in workforce needs, amongst others. For example, we 

reported in September 2012 that most of DHS’s major acquisition 

programs experienced workforce shortfalls—specifically a lack of 

government personnel—increasing the likelihood their programs will 

perform poorly in the future.6 We also previously reported that a lack of 

adequate staff in DHS program offices—both in terms of skill and staffing 

levels—increased the risk of insufficient program planning and contractor 

oversight, which is often associated with cost growth and schedule slips.7

At the component level, we reported in April 2012 that the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had not developed processes 

to systemically collect and analyze agencywide workforce data, and made 

recommendations that the agency take steps to do so.8

In light of DHS’s ongoing human capital challenges, you asked us to 

review DHS’s strategic workforce planning efforts. This report assesses 

whether DHS has incorporated the five strategic workforce planning 

leading principles into the department’s management of its workforce 

planning efforts.

FEMA officials 

agreed with our recommendations and in May 2012 said that senior 

FEMA officials convened a group to discuss ways of addressing some of 

the recommendations.

 

5

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

GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003). These principles are discussed in more 

detail later in this report.

6

GAO, Homeland Security: DHS Requires More Disciplined Investment Management to 

Help Meet Mission Needs, GAO-12-833 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 18, 2012). DHS 

generally defines major programs as those expected to cost at least $300 million over 

their respective life cycles, and many are expected to cost more than $1 billion.

7

GAO, Department of Homeland Security: Assessments of Selected Complex 

Acquisitions, GAO-10-588SP (Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2010). 

8

GAO, Federal Emergency Management Agency: Workforce Planning and Training Could 

Be Enhanced by Incorporating Strategic Management Principles, GAO-12-487 

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 2012).
 

Page 4 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

To address this objective, we assessed DHS’s workforce planning 

strategies and guidance against strategic workforce planning and related 

leading principles previously identified in our work. We also reviewed 

DHS strategies and guidance including the following: the Balanced 

Workforce Strategy, the department’s effort to identify the appropriate 

balance of federal and contractor employees; the Integrated Strategy for 

High Risk Management, which addresses our designation of the 

department’s implementation and transformation as a high-risk area and 

includes multiple human capital initiatives, among others; the DHS 

Strategic Plan 2012-2016; and the DHS Workforce Strategy 2011-2016 to 

determine whether the department’s workforce planning strategy and 

guidance aligned with the department’s missions and goals. We also 

reviewed Human Capital Resources Audits—internal audits performed by 

OCHCO to assess component compliance with DHS’s Human Capital 

Accountability Plan—and the Office of Personnel Management’s Human 

Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework.9 To determine the 

reliability of the audits, we reviewed the guide used by internal auditors 

that included descriptions of the steps taken and information collected 

during these audits. We also reviewed component-specific workforce 

planning documents and discussed ongoing strategic workforce planning 

efforts with officials from the seven operational components that 

encompass the vast majority of DHS personnel.10

We conducted this performance audit from April 2012 to December 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 

We also interviewed 

officials from DHS’s OCHCO as well as their component-level 

counterparts to assess to what extent strategic workforce planning had 

been implemented.

 

9

The DHS Human Capital Accountability Plan establishes policy as well as a framework 

for assessments to evaluate current human capital activities in the department. The Office 

of Personnel Management’s Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework, 

developed in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget and GAO, defines 

standards for success for the federal government and can serve as a road map for human 

capital transformation.

10The seven operational components, as defined by DHS, are Customs and Border 

Protection, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. 

Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the U.S. Secret Service. 
 

Page 5 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Strategic workforce planning addresses two critical needs: aligning an 

organization’s human capital program with its current and emerging 

mission and programmatic goals and developing long-term strategies for 

acquiring, developing, and retaining staff to achieve programmatic 

goals.11

In 2002, we reported that a consistent approach to the government’s 

management of its people—its human capital—was the critical missing link 

in reforming and modernizing the federal government’s management 

practices, noting that many agencies faced challenges in key areas, 

including leadership, strategic human capital planning, and creating resultsoriented organizational cultures, amongst others.

This process includes the determination of critical skills and 

competencies—such as the identification of mission-critical occupations 

(MCO)—to meet both current and future programmatic needs. Once skills 

and competencies are identified, strategies should be tailored to address

gaps in number, deployment, and alignment. The development and 

implementation of strategic workforce planning should be collaborative, 

involving employees and other stakeholders. Further, organizations 

should monitor and evaluate progress of their workforce plans and the 

contributions that their implementation made toward achieving 

programmatic goals.

12

In 2003, we designated implementing and transforming DHS as a highrisk area because DHS had to transform 22 agencies—several with major 

management challenges—into one department, and failure to effectively 

address DHS’s management and mission risks could have serious 

consequences for U.S. national and economic security.

We also suggested 

actions to be taken, such as workforce planning to support the skilled talent 

needs of the government, the identification of solutions to skills gaps, and 

the measurement and evaluation of the performance of key initiatives.

13

 

11

Human capital 

was among the challenges we identified that DHS faces in implementing 

GAO-04-39. 

12GAO, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington, 

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

13GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-11-278 (Washington, D.C.: February 2011).

Background
 

Page 6 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

and transforming the department. For example, we identified the need for 

DHS to link workforce planning efforts to the department’s strategic and 

program-specific planning efforts to identify current and future human 

capital needs, including the size of the workforce; the deployment of the 

workforce across the department and its components; and the 

knowledge, skills, abilities, and diversity needed for the agency to meet its 

goals and objectives. In our most recent update of the high-risk list in 

February 2011, we reported that the department needed to link workforce 

planning to its strategic and program-specific planning efforts to identify 

current and future human capital needs to address DHS’s challenges 

within the department’s management functions and in integrating those 

functions across the department.14

In January 2011, DHS issued its initial Integrated Strategy for High Risk 

Management, which included key management initiatives (e.g., Workforce 

Strategy, Workforce Planning and Balanced Workforce, and Outreach 

and Targeted Recruitment) to address challenges identified for each 

management area—human capital, financial, information technology, 

acquisition, and management integration. DHS provided updates of its 

progress in implementing these initiatives in later versions of the strategy

in June 2011, December 2011, and June 2012. We reported in 

September 2012 that successfully achieving and sustaining progress in 

these management areas would demonstrate the department’s ability and 

ongoing commitment to addressing its high-risk designation in this 

implementation and transformation area.15

We have reported that strategic workforce planning includes five leading 

principles that address aligning an organization’s human capital program 

with its current and emerging mission and programmatic goals, and 

developing long-term strategies for acquiring, developing, and retaining 

staff to achieve programmatic goals.16

 

14

The process for strategic workforce 

planning, along with a description of the five associated leading 

principles, is shown in figure 1.

GAO-11-278. 

15GAO, Department of Homeland Security: Continued Progress Made Improving and 

Integrating Management Areas, but More Work Remains, GAO-12-1041T (Washington, 

D.C.: Sept. 20, 2012).

16GAO-04-39. 

Leading Principles of 

Strategic Workforce 

Planning
Page  GAO-13-65'+6:RUNIRUFH3/DQQLQJ

Interactive graphic Figure 1: Strategic Workforce Planning Process Incorporating Leading Principles

Move mouse over the phase title to get more information on the phases.

Source: GAO.

Build capability

Set strategic direction

Workforce gap analysis

Workforce strategies to fill the gaps

Monitor and evaluate

Involvement of 

management and 

employees
 

Page 8 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

The department created BWPMO within OCHCO in March 2010 and 

issued its Balanced Workforce Strategy in 2010. The Balanced Workforce 

Strategy refers to the department’s effort to identify the appropriate 

balance of federal and contractor employees required to support critical 

agency functions. For example, we reported in December 2011, as a 

result of the balanced workforce efforts, the Transportation Security 

Administration (TSA) hired 12 individuals in watch officer support 

positions, which involve collecting information and monitoring domestic 

events that affect air passenger security, positions that had previously 

been filled by contractors.17 Program officials said they plan to convert the 

remaining contractor positions to positions for federal employees in the 

near future. Further, we reported that DHS developed the Balanced 

Workforce Strategy in response to congressional concerns about the 

department’s use of contracted services and our 2007 report on its use of 

professional and management support services.18

With the balanced workforce effort established, in January 2011, BWPMO 

began preparing for a Workforce Planning Summit to focus on Strategic 

Workforce Planning within DHS that it held in May 2011. From February 

through May 2011, DHS held four meetings featuring presentations from 

TSA, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), FEMA, and Customs and Border 

Protection (CBP) to discuss workforce planning best practices. DHS also 

revised and reissued the department’s Workforce Planning Guide in

March 2011. 

BWPMO issued the 

Balanced Workforce Strategy in 2010 and subsequently developed an 

automated tool to help components perform the necessary analysis to 

determine the appropriate mix of federal employees versus contractors.

Another office in OCHCO, the Human Capital Policy and Programs 

(HCPP) office, also plays a role in the oversight of component workforce 

planning efforts. Specifically, HCPP performs Human Resources 

Operations Audits (HROA) to determine components’ compliance with 

DHS’s Human Capital Accountability Plan and the Human Capital 

Assessment and Accountability Framework. Along with ensuring 

 

17GAO, Managing Service Contracts: Recent Efforts to Address Associated Risks Can Be 

Further Enhanced, GAO-12-87 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 7, 2011). 

18GAO, 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).

OCHCO Manages Strategic 

Workforce Planning for 

DHS
 

Page 9 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

compliance with statutes and regulations, these internal audits assess the 

degree to which policies, programs, and practices provide efficient and 

effective support of the components’ respective missions.

The HROAs assess components in five areas related to human capital 

using a three-point scale (having met, partially met, or not met desired 

outcomes). Specifically, the five areas of the HROAs are (1) strategic 

alignment, (2) leadership and knowledge management system, (3) 

results-oriented performance culture system, (4) talent management 

system, and (5) accountability system. Within each of the five areas there 

are a total of 44 outcomes that, taken together, provide a basis for the 

assessment. Depending on the results of their findings, auditors can 

either require actions or make recommendations to the components for 

further action, which are included in the final report sent to the 

component.

While DHS has recently taken steps that are generally consistent with 

leading principles in managing departmental strategic workforce planning, 

OCHCO has made limited progress in developing an oversight approach 

for monitoring and evaluating component-level efforts. As a result, and 

since OCHCO’s efforts are in the relatively early stages, it is too early to 

determine the potential impact of its strategic workforce planning policies 

and initiatives on the departmentwide implementation of these efforts. 

Since January 2011, DHS has developed and disseminated guidance and 

procedures to guide workforce planning at the component level and has 

taken steps to enhance workforce planning across the department. These 

steps are generally reflective of some leading principles we have 

identified for strategic workforce planning. However, the performance 

measures contained in various DHS strategies primarily focus on 

monitoring progress in implementing a single aspect of strategic 

workforce planning—that is determining whether staff performing certain 

jobs should be federal or contract employees. In addition, OCHCO 

officials have not developed a documented evaluation system to 

institutionalize its oversight efforts. Further, internal audits and our 

previous work have identified component-level challenges related to 

workforce planning.

DHS’s Recent Efforts 

to Manage Strategic 

Workforce Planning 

Reflect Leading 

Principles, but 

Increased Oversight 

of Component 

Planning Would 

Enhance Efforts
 

Page 10 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

DHS has taken steps relatively recently that are generally consistent with 

strategic workforce planning principles. Specifically, since January 2011, 

DHS has taken steps to develop and implement strategic workforce 

planning efforts that are generally consistent with the leading principles 

including involving management and stakeholders, identifying skills and 

competencies, developing strategies to fill gaps, and building capability 

through training.

• Involving top management and stakeholders: We have found 

efforts that address key organizational issues, like strategic workforce 

planning, are most likely to succeed if, at their outset, agencies’ top 

program and human capital leaders set the overall direction, pace, 

tone, and goals of the effort, and involve employees and other 

stakeholders in establishing a communication strategy that creates 

shared expectations for the outcome of the process. We reported in 

March 2012 that DHS has demonstrated top leadership commitment 

by identifying roles and responsibilities at the departmental level for its 

key management initiatives, including those in the human capital 

management area, it included in the December 2011 Integrated 

Strategy for High Risk Management.

19 At the component level, 

BWPMO began efforts in 2011 to obtain input from component 

stakeholders and communicated information departmentwide via 

councils and committees, such as the Workforce Planning Council, 

which meets monthly.20 In addition, from June through October 2011, 

BWPMO regularly held committee meetings of its Workforce 

Indicators Working Group to incorporate component input into new 

strategic workforce planning initiatives, such as providing common 

definition of terms so that human capital data, such as rates of 

attrition, reported by components are uniform.21

 

19GAO, Department of Homeland Security: Continued Progress Made Improving and 

Integrating Management Areas, but More Work Remains, 

DHS also included 

component input in the development of the DHS Workforce Strategy 

Fiscal Years 2011-2016. Internal audits found evidence that 

GAO-12-365T (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 1, 2012). 

20For example, officials from CBP presented information at the January 2012 Workforce 

Planning Council meeting on the progress the agency had made in identifying missioncritical occupations, such as Customs and Border Protection officers, and how these 

occupations aligned with DHS mission areas, in this case, its mission known as Securing 

and Protecting the Borders. 

21The DHS Workforce Indicators Working Group was a series of workshops composed of 

OCHCO and component officials. 

DHS Has Taken Steps for 

Managing Strategic 

Workforce Planning, but 

Challenges Remain
 

Page 11 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

components are taking steps to involve top managers and 

stakeholders. For example, internal audits of CBP in December 2011 

found that agency workforce planning officials meet with their 

program-level counterparts at least three times a year to discuss 

changes within their workforce, develop strategies to retain the 

workforce, and to provide updated workforce analysis statistics.

• Identifying critical skills and competencies: Our work has shown 

that in order to effectively meet department challenges, agencies must 

identify the workforce skills and competencies that are critical to 

achieving strategic goals and identify how the agency will obtain these 

requirements. OCHCO began working with components in 2011 to 

help identify critical skills and competencies needed to achieve their 

current and future workforce needs to achieve the department’s 

missions. OCHCO provided components guidance for identifying 

critical skills and competencies, among other things, and DHS also 

developed a common framework for DHS competencies to be used 

across all components through DHS’s Competency Working Group.

Specifically, this framework includes a standard set of 

departmentwide competencies that would apply to all staff, which 

would be augmented by two further sets of competencies within each 

component: one set specific to all occupations and the other set 

specific to individual jobs. OCHCO also worked directly with 

components to identify MCOs. Internal audits found evidence that 

components are taking steps to identify critical skills and 

competencies, as well as the gaps that exist. For example, auditors 

found in their March 2010 audit that TSA identified mission-critical 

positions throughout its organization and that information related to 

the competencies necessary to fill mission-critical positions was 

housed in a tool utilized as part of a midlevel leadership development 

program.22

• Developing strategies for addressing gaps: Our work on strategic 

workforce planning principles indicates that once an agency identifies 

the critical skills and competencies needed, strategies should be 

developed to address gaps in the number, skills and competencies, 

and deployment of the workforce needed for the future. Developing 

such strategies creates a road map for an agency to use to move from 

 

22HCPP, Final Report from the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer Regarding the 

Human Resources Operations Audit at the Transportation Security Administration 

conducted September 20-24, 2010. 
 

Page 12 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

the current to the future workforce needed to achieve program goals. 

In September 2011, OCHCO began participating in the 

governmentwide Executive Steering Committee and Integrated 

Product Team as part of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 

and Department of Defense (DOD)-led Strategic Human Capital High 

Risk Initiative to develop strategies for addressing workforce skill 

gaps.23

• Building workforce planning capability: Our work on strategic 

workforce planning principles indicates that agencies should build the 

capability needed to address administrative, education, and other 

requirements important to supporting the workforce strategy. BWPMO 

leadership hosted the May 2011 Strategic Workforce Planning 

Summit, which involved human capital officials from each component. 

The summit provided training for component officials on strategic 

workforce planning to identify workforce indicators, competency and 

skill gaps, and revise MCOs. The training also included building 

components’ planning capability to address current and future 

workforce needs using alternative futures scenarios. Officials at FEMA 

credited the summit with providing them the training they needed to 

According to BWPMO officials, its efforts on this 

governmentwide initiative supplemented the gap analysis detailed in 

the DHS Workforce Planning Guide, which BWMPO officials planned 

to update with additional tools and templates developed based on 

information from the governmentwide initiative. BWPMO officials

reported they plan to complete the update by the end of November 

2012. In addition, DHS required components to develop an initial 

assessment strategy for developing plans to address the skill gaps by 

the end of fiscal year 2012, and the department reported in June 2012 

that 100 percent of its components had developed an initial 

assessment strategy. For example, officials at the U.S. Secret Service 

(USSS) said they developed a series of action plans to ensure full 

staffing of the Uniformed Division officer position, a position 

designated as a high-risk MCO through efforts related to the work of 

the governmentwide high-risk initiative. This included the identification 

and analysis of staffing gaps and the development of action plans to 

close them.

 

23The OPM-DOD Strategic Human Capital Management Government-Wide High Risk 

Initiative is a governmentwide committee led by the Office of Personnel Management and 

the Department of Defense whose primary objective includes institutionalizing a 

comprehensive strategic human capital management approach to reduce high-risk skill 

gaps in targeted governmentwide and agency-specific mission-critical occupations.
 

Page 13 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

better define their MCOs. In addition, representatives from each of the 

seven major components we interviewed said that OCHCO staff 

provided multiple opportunities for building their workforce planning 

capability through shared knowledge, including leading principles, 

identifying challenges and solutions, and general sharing of 

information between DHS and the components and also among the 

components. OCHCO has also provided resources for components to 

work directly with each other regarding sharing workforce leading 

principles. For example, BWPMO manages a shared website that 

allows officials at each component to share information and utilize 

resources, such as presentations or leading principles shared by other 

components.24

While DHS has taken relatively recent steps, since January 2011, to 

implement strategic workforce planning, recent internal audits, as well as 

our previous work, identified challenges related to workforce planning at 

the component level. Specifically, these audits, as well as our previous 

work, have reported findings of component-level deficiencies that could 

impair the continued implementation of recent OCHCO efforts. For 

example, internal audits and our previous work found challenges related 

to the following.

Internal audits found evidence that components are 

also building workforce planning capability. For example, in March 

2012, internal auditors reported that Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement (ICE) had established communities of practice 

composed of eight offices tasked with addressing the strategic 

direction of human capital and improving communications for 

accuracy and timeliness among the ICE human capital leaders.

• Involving stakeholders: In July 2010, internal auditors 

recommended that human capital professionals in the Coast Guard 

work with component and program-level human capital stakeholders 

to determine the workforce needed to meet organizational goals.25

 

24DHS utilizes an online database known as the share point site to store presentations 

and documents utilized for workforce planning, and a library of competency models 

organized by job series for use by all DHS components.

Similarly, in August 2009, internal auditors recommended that U.S. 

25HCPP, Final Report from the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer of the Human 

Resources Operations Audit at the United States Coast Guard Conducted July 12-16, 

2010. It is unclear what actions USCG officials took in response to the July 2010 HROA 

since, according to DHS, no record exists of the Coast Guard’s required action plan 

response to the findings of the July 2010 audit.
 

Page 14 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) educate all managers, 

supervisors, and employees on the significance of the strategic 

workforce plan, including their roles and responsibilities in 

implementing the plan.26

• Identifying critical skills: Internal auditors found in March 2012 that 

ICE had performed the preliminary identification of MCOs in fiscal 

years 2010 and 2011, and recommended that ICE continue efforts to 

identify competency gaps, among other things.27 Additionally, internal 

auditors found in July 2010 that while USCG identified a list of MCOs, 

the list was inconsistent across the functional areas of human capital 

and that a comprehensive list should be compiled and shared 

amongst the various program areas.28 In July 2009 we reported that, 

among other things, the Federal Protective Service’s (FPS) workforce 

planning was limited because FPS headquarters did not collect data 

on its workforce’s knowledge, skills, and abilities.29

 

26HCPP, Final Report from the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer of the Human 

Resources Operations Audit at USCIS Conducted on August 10-14, 2009. It is unclear 

what actions USCIS officials took in response to the August 2009 HROA since, according 

to DHS, no record exists of USCIS’s required action plan response to the findings of the 

August 2009 audit. 

We reported that 

without such information, FPS was unable to determine what its 

optimal staffing levels should be or identify gaps in its workforce 

needs, or determine how to modify its workforce planning strategies to 

fill these gaps, and we made recommendations that FPS take steps to 

address these issues. FPS officials agreed with our recommendations 

and in June 2010 drafted a staffing plan consistent with our 

27HCPP, Final Report from the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer for the ICE 

HROA Conducted March 5-9, 2012. The internal audit in October 2009 identified the need 

for ICE to expand the mission-critical occupations it identified to include other series 

included in the Office of Personnel Management’s list and utilize competency analyses to 

drive human-capital strategic planning and workforce planning efforts. It is unclear what 

actions ICE officials took in response to the March 2012 HROA because ICE did not 

submit the required response plan to HCPP until the end of October 2012. Because ICE 

did not submit the plan until the end of October 2012, we were unable to assess the plan 

as part of this review. 

28HCPP, Final Report USCG HROA Conducted July 12-16, 2010. It is unclear what 

actions USCG officials took in response to the July 2010 HROA since, according to DHS 

officials, no record exists of the Coast Guard’s required action plan response to the 

findings of the July 2010 audit. 

29GAO, Homeland Security: Federal Protective Service Should Improve Human Capital 

Planning and Better Communicate with Tenants, GAO-09-749 (Washington, D.C.: July 30, 

2009).
 

Page 15 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

recommendations, but as of November 2012, FPS has not gained 

approval of its staffing plan.

• Developing strategies for addressing gaps: A March 2012 internal 

audit reported that although ICE had made significant progress in the 

development of a draft succession plan demonstrating progress in 

moving toward a strategically aligned workforce plan, the agency had 

not yet finalized a comprehensive agencywide workforce and 

succession plan, and that this area remains a source of concern.30

Further, we reported in February 2009 that TSA did not have a 

reasonable basis for determining the workforce needed to achieve 

inspection goals of its transportation security inspector (TSI) 

workforce.31 According to TSA officials, planned aviation inspection 

goals were met in fiscal year 2007, but aviation cargo inspection goals 

were not met because, among other reasons, TSA did not fill all of its 

cargo TSI positions. TSA reported that it had plans to conduct a 

staffing study in fiscal year 2009 to identify the optimal workforce size 

to address its current and future program needs. In September 2011, 

we further reported that TSA had completed the workforce study in 

March 2010 to provide the agency with a more reasonable basis for 

determining the optimal workforce size needed to achieve its current 

and future inspector workload needs of its aviation and air cargo 

inspectors.32

 

30HCPP, Final Report ICE HROA March 5-9, 2012. The internal audit in March 2012 

identified the need for ICE to continue its efforts to identify competency gaps and develop 

streamlined recruitment strategies for all designated MCOs. It is unclear what actions ICE 

officials took in response to the March 2012 HROA because ICE did not submit the 

required response plan to HCPP until the end of October 2012. Because ICE did not 

submit the plan until the end of October 2012, we were unable to assess the plan as part 

of this review. 

 We did not assess the extent to which the results of this 

study were informing TSA’s resource allocation decisions as part of 

this review. 

31GAO, Aviation Security: Status of Transportation Security Inspector Workforce, 

GAO-09-123R (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 6, 2009). Transportation security inspectors (TSI) 

conduct on-site inspections of all regulated entities in the aviation, air cargo, and surface 

transportation modes of transportation to determine their compliance with federal 

requirements involving transportation security. For example, at airports, TSIs may check 

the integrity of access control systems, alarms, security lighting, and biometric devices 

used to restrict public access to secure areas.

32GAO, Department of Homeland Security: Progress Made and Work Remaining in 

Implementing Homeland Security Missions 10 Years after 9/11, GAO-11-881 

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 7, 2011). 
 

Page 16 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

• Building capability: In internal audits conducted from August 2009 

through May 2010, auditors found that three of the seven 

components’ human capital managers and staff had insufficient 

awareness of the linkage between human capital planning and the 

department’s missions and goals. Specifically, as mentioned above, in 

August 2009, auditors recommended USCIS educate all managers, 

supervisors, and employees in Human Capital on the significance of 

the human capital strategic plan and how its strategic objectives affect

the mission, including their roles and responsibilities in executing the 

plan.33 Audits conducted in October 2009 and May 2010 resulted in 

similar recommendations for both ICE and USSS.34

Although the department recently began taking positive steps for 

managing strategic workforce planning in 2011, DHS officials have not yet 

taken steps to implement an effective oversight approach for monitoring 

and evaluating components’ progress in implementing strategic workforce 

planning, consistent with strategic workforce planning principles.

According to leading principles, agencies should measure the 

effectiveness of the workforce plan and help ensure that the strategies 

work as intended by evaluating the contributions workforce plans make to 

strategic results. To do this, agencies should determine how well the 

agency implemented its workforce plan and determine the contribution 

that the implementation made toward achieving programmatic goals. 

Periodic measurement of an agency’s progress toward human capital 

goals and the extent that human capital activities contributed to achieving 

programmatic goals provides information for effective oversight by 

identifying performance shortfalls and the need for appropriate corrective 

 

33HCPP, Final Report of the HROA at USCIS Conducted on August 10-14, 2009. It is 

unclear what actions USCIS officials took in response to the August 2009 HROA since, 

according to DHS officials, no record exists of the USCIS’s required action plan response 

to the findings of the August 2009 audit.

34See HCPP, Final Audit Report Immigration and Customs Enforcement October 19-23, 

2009; Final Report ICE HROA March 5-9, 2012. The required action plan developed by 

ICE did not respond to this recommendation, though auditors did not make a similar 

recommendation in their 2012 audit of ICE. See also HCPP, Final Report from the Office 

of the Chief Human Capital Officer of the Human Resources Operations Audit at USSS 

Conducted May 17-21,2010. In its required response plan, USSS reported that its Human 

Capital Strategic Plan was in the final stages of publication and that the Director of the 

USSS Office of Human Resources and Training would lead an effort to communicate the 

publication to all USSS employees.

DHS Efforts to Monitor 

and Evaluate Components 

Progress

Monitor Progress
 

Page 17 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

actions.35

OCHCO has developed limited performance measures to provide a basis 

for monitoring and evaluating departmentwide strategic workforce planning 

efforts.

Further, OPM’s Human Capital Assessment and Accountability 

Framework calls for agencies to develop a system for monitoring and 

evaluating the results of its human capital management policies, 

programs, and activities, and identifying and monitoring necessary 

improvements based on the principle that agency human capital 

management decisions should be guided by a data-driven, resultsoriented planning and accountability system.

36 Our analysis shows that DHS had three performance measures 

related to strategic workforce planning and that two of these three 

measures gauge components’ efforts to determine whether positions 

should be filled with federal or contract employees.37 Determining whether 

a function should be staffed by either a federal employee or a contractor is 

one element of the first of five steps (strategic direction setting) in DHS’s 

workforce planning model, which includes five steps made up of a total of 

15 elements. The five steps and 15 elements of the DHS Workforce 

Planning Model, as well as whether there are any related performance 

measures for these elements, are described in table 1.38

 

35GAO-04-39. 

36We identified these performance measures in two different strategy documents, DHS’s 

Workforce Strategy and its Integrated Strategy for High Risk Management. 

37Specifically, one of the three performance measures assesses the “proportion of 

component contract work that has been analyzed and documented using the balanced 

workforce methodology to determine appropriate balance” regarding federal and contract 

employees. Additionally, a second measure monitors the percentage of major contracts 

that have been evaluated by the components to determine whether the positions should 

be converted to ones held by federal employees or remain as ones held by contractors. 

38BWPMO officials reported that some of the elements in the DHS Workforce Planning 

Model are to be modified in the next update of the DHS Workforce Planning Guide. 
 

Page 18 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

Table 1: The Five Steps and 15 Elements of DHS’s Workforce Planning Model, and 

Related Performance Measures.

Workforce planning model 

step

Workforce planning 

elements

Related performance 

measures

Step 1—strategic direction 

setting

• Linking strategy to the 

workforce 

• No

• Defining and evaluating 

work to be performed

• Yesa

• Defining the source to 

perform the work

• Yesa

• Consider the workforce 

planning scope

• No

Step 2—supply, demand 

discrepanciesb

• Supply analysis None

• Demand analysis

• Discrepancies and gap 

analysis

Step 3—develop action plan • Design a workforce plan 

to address gaps

None

• Identify strategies and 

action items

Step 4—implement action 

plan

• Management, leadership,

and support

None

• Conduct recruitment, 

hiring, training, and 

placement

• Implement retention 

strategies

• Other important 

considerations

Step 5—monitor, evaluate, 

revise

• Monitor, evaluate, and 

revise workforce plan

None

• Monitor, evaluate, and 

revise process steps

Source: GAO analysis of DHS data.

a

Both elements relate to efforts to determine whether positions should be filled with federal or contract 

employees. There are two different performance measures related to these elements in the DHS 

Integrated Strategy for High Risk Management. One of these performance measures is essentially 

duplicated in the DHS Workforce Strategy. 

b

There is a single performance measure in the DHS Integrated Strategy for High Risk Management

that relates to this step. However, because it measures components’ progress in developing an initial 

skill gap assessment strategy, it is not actually a measure of any of the elements included in this step. 

The remaining performance measure gauges the percentage of 

components that have developed an initial assessment strategy for 

determining skills gaps for an analysis of workforce supply, which is a 
 

Page 19 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

precursor to step 2 of the workforce planning model. OCHCO also uses 

what it refers to as the Human Capital Dashboard to monitor and report to 

senior DHS officials regarding targeted indicators of workforce health, 

such as attrition, aligned with the MCOs.39

Thus, on the basis of our evaluations, OCHCO has established 

performance measures that monitor only 2 of the 15 elements in the 

department’s workforce planning model. When we asked BWPMO 

officials about developing performance measures for other steps or 

elements of the DHS Workforce Planning Model, officials agreed that the 

existing measures did not adequately report the state of strategic 

workforce planning at the component level. BWPMO officials said that 

they intended to include additional performance measures in revising the 

Workforce Strategy, sometime in 2016. In subsequent discussions, 

BWPMO officials said that, in response to our inquiries, they planned to 

discuss how to accelerate their efforts to incorporate additional 

performance measures for reporting components’ progress implementing 

strategic workforce planning at a future Workforce Planning Council 

meeting.

For example, in DHS’s first 

mission area, Preventing Terrorism and Enhancing Security, the 

Dashboard identifies workforce information such as number of staff and 

attrition rates for job series identified as MCOs, including transportation 

security officers from TSA and special agents from USSS.

40

 

39The Human Capital Dashboard report is given to DHS leadership and provides the 

status of the DHS workforce overall, as well as changes to the workforce in mission-critical 

occupations that may signal potential mission risk. Further, though the dashboard 

presents information on items such as attrition, DHS has not yet established, for example, 

any criteria or standard for what is “acceptable” or “unacceptable” attrition. 

However, as of November 2012, OCHCO had no plans in 

place to develop and implement additional workforce planning-related 

performance measures. Without performance measures that provide 

BWPMO a basis to monitor all aspects of departmentwide strategic 

workforce planning, DHS has limited means of determining components’ 

progress toward achieving human capital goals or the contribution of 

human capital activities toward achieving programmatic goals. Additional 

performance measures that monitor additional steps and elements of 

DHS’s workforce planning model could enhance the department’s 

oversight of these efforts.

40BWPMO officials also discussed applying a governmentwide measure in fiscal year 

2012 to measure staffing gaps as part of its annual reporting to OPM.
 

Page 20 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

BWPMO officials rely on an informal management approach to assess 

component workforce planning, which provides it with a limited means of 

evaluating components’ progress in implementing departmental policies 

and procedures governing workforce planning. BWPMO’s reliance on an 

informal management approach to evaluate components’ progress in 

implementing departmental policies and procedures governing workforce 

planning provides limited oversight of components’ efforts because it fails 

to leverage and institutionalize existing processes.

Two processes exist within OCHCO that BWPMO could leverage to more 

effectively evaluate components’ progress implementing workforce 

planning, though these have limitations. Specifically, components develop 

and provide to OCHCO for review, annual operational plans to report on 

the components’ progress implementing the department’s Workforce 

Strategy, though OCHCO has not provided timely review of components’ 

annual operational plans. Additionally, HCPP uses internal audits in its 

evaluation of component-level human capital-related efforts, but BWPMO 

has not used the results of these audits to evaluate the implementation of 

the components’ workforce planning efforts.

The department’s Workforce Strategy requires components to submit 

annual operational plans to OCHCO that describe, among other things, 

how their strategic workforce planning supports the strategy’s goals and 

objectives.41

 

41Strategic workforce planning is referred to under goal 2, recruit a highly qualified and 

diverse workforce, of the department’s Workforce Strategy and is one of four goal 2 

objectives.

Specifically, the annual operational plans are the method by 

which components report to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the 

CHCO on component-specific actions in support of the department’s 

goals, objectives, and associated performance measures identified in the 

Workforce Strategy. OCHCO is responsible for overseeing the 

implementation of the Workforce Strategy and also for providing oversight 

and feedback on the components’ annual operational plans, among other 

things. In order for these annual plans to be an effective tool for 

component leadership to ensure that their workforce planning efforts are 

aligned to the department’s Workforce Strategy, component officials need 

departmental feedback in time to make any corrections or revisions so 

they can fully develop the operational plans prior to the start of the fiscal 

year and then implement them once the fiscal year begins. 

Evaluate Progress 
 

Page 21 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

However, OCHCO has not provided feedback on operational plans in 

time for the components to revise and implement their plans before the 

start of the fiscal year. Specifically, when we spoke with component 

officials from April through May 2012, they said they had previously 

provided their fiscal year 2012 operational plans to OCHCO for review, 

but at that time had not yet received feedback on these plans. An official 

from the OCHCO Chief of Staff’s office, the office responsible for 

overseeing the implementation of the workforce strategy and for providing 

feedback on the components operational plans, said that as of September 

2012, nearly 1 year after the beginning of fiscal year 2012, the 

components’ had not received feedback on their operational plans for

fiscal year 2012, and subsequently the department had not begun 

working with components to develop their plans for fiscal year 2013. 

Further, fiscal year 2013 had already begun yet OCHCO had not 

completed the process for finalizing the fiscal year 2012’s plans. This 

official agreed that components’ operational plans should be finalized and 

in place prior to the start of the fiscal year for which they are intended in 

order to guide components’ operations for the coming year.

When we asked the official from the OCHCO Chief of Staff’s office 

whether the component operational plans were an effective tool for the 

department to use in its evaluation of component-level workforce 

planning, the official acknowledged that the plans do not serve as an 

effective management tool for OCHCO to evaluate component workforce 

strategy-related activities, including workforce planning. The plans do not 

serve as an effective management tool because there have been delays 

in preparing, reviewing, and approving component annual operational

plans, as well as in providing feedback. Such feedback serves as the 

basis for revising and finalizing the plans, as well as providing baseline 

information to develop the following year’s plans. OCHCO officials agreed 

that they have not provided components with feedback regarding their 

operational plans in a timely manner, which has delayed the 

implementation of the fiscal year 2012 plans as well as the development 

of fiscal year 2013 plans. OCHCO officials agreed these plans should 

have been developed and implemented prior to the start of the fiscal year 

for which they are to be used to evaluate the implementation of the DHS 

Workforce Strategy. As a result, without timely feedback and 

implementation, OCHCO is unable to use the annual operational plans to 

determine the effectiveness of components’ efforts to implement the 

department’s workforce strategy.

In addition to OCHCO’s requirement that components report annually on 

the status of their implementation of workforce planning efforts, HCPP 
 

Page 22 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

conducts internal audits called Human Resources Operations Audits on 

each operational component every 3 years.42

The most recently completed audits conducted on the seven operational 

components included in our review revealed that five of the seven 

components had not taken needed steps to ensure that human capital 

accountability policies, processes, measures, and results are documented 

and communicated throughout the organization. Additionally, four 

components had not fully incorporated systems to continually assess and 

improve human capital planning and investment as well as their impact on 

mission accomplishment. For example, in their most recent HROAs, CBP 

and TSA met all four outcomes pertaining to accountability; however, 

audits of the other five components included recommendations to develop 

accountability programs. For example, in March 2012 auditors 

recommended that ICE officials develop a formalized accountability 

program that describes a system for measuring accountability goals and 

compliance with applicable legal authorities and continue developing 

standardized policies and procedures that will be used to hold program 

areas accountable.

Our analysis determined 

that 11 out of 44 total outcomes in the HROAs related to workforce 

planning. Within the first section of the HROA, strategic alignment, there 

are three outcomes that explicitly assess components’ workforce planning 

efforts. For example, one outcome assesses whether workforce planning 

is strategically approached. In addition to the three outcomes explicitly 

identified in the audits as related to workforce planning, our analysis 

determined there are an additional eight outcomes within the audits that 

relate to the strategic workforce planning leading principles our previous 

work has identified. For example, one outcome DHS components are 

assessed against is whether they have documented and communicated 

human capital accountability policies, processes, measures, and results 

throughout their organization. This outcome directly relates to the 

strategic workforce planning leading principle regarding monitoring and 

evaluating.

43

 

42OCHCO Human Capital Policy and Program Officials noted that beginning with the 

planned audit of USCIS in November 2012, the HROAs will be conducted every 4 years, 

on a rotating basis. 

Similarly, USCIS’s most recent audit report in 

43It is unclear what actions ICE officials took in response to the March 2012 HROA 

because ICE did not submit the required response plan to HCPP until the end of October 

2012. Because ICE did not submit the plan until the end of October 2012, we were unable 

to assess the plan as part of this review.
 

Page 23 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

August 2009 recommended that USCIS officials develop and implement a 

human capital accountability plan.44

Further, HCPP and BWPMO, the two offices in OCHCO responsible for 

providing oversight of components’ workforce planning, have not 

coordinated their efforts. Specifically, within OCHCO, HCPP uses the 

HROAs to evaluate components’ compliance with certain statues and 

regulations, among other things, while BWPMO, the OCHCO office 

primarily responsible for departmentwide workforce planning, had no 

knowledge that HROAs included workforce planning-related required 

actions and recommendations.

According to the OCHCO Human Resources Audit Manual, the guide 

used by audit teams to perform HROAs on the components, the 

component is responsible for preparing an action plan for the accepted 

required actions and recommendations. This plan must be submitted to 

the audit team lead for review and approval and must include a timeline of 

activities to fulfill each action and must identify the documentation that will 

be provided to the audit team lead upon completion of each item.

When we asked OCHCO officials how the required action plans were 

evaluated, they said that as part of their follow-up and tracking of 

component HROA responses, HCPP reviews component action plans 

and closes out audit reports. This process includes issuing the final audit 

results to the component and, in response, the component develops an 

action plan. Once HCPP receives the required component action plan, 

HCPP staff evaluates the plan to determine its sufficiency in addressing 

the required actions from the audits and adds notes to the report to 

indicate their final determination or provide further direction to the 

component. Finally, HCPP issues a close out report to the component 

documenting the status of the findings.

Despite BWPMO’s responsibility for departmentwide workforce planning, 

officials in that office did not use the workforce planning-related portions 

of the HCPP HROAs to evaluate component workforce planning. When 

we asked BWPMO officials how they used the results of these audits for 

departmental management and oversight, they said that they were not 

 

44It is unclear what actions USCIS officials took in response to the HROA reported in June 

2010. According to DHS officials, no record exists of USCIS’s required action plan 

response to the findings of the audit.
 

Page 24 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

aware that the HROAs included recommendations or required 

components to take certain actions pertaining to workforce planning. 

Thus, these officials said that they had not integrated the results of these 

audits into their strategic workforce planning efforts. Because HCPP 

performs the human resources operational audits and BWPMO had not 

used the results to assess compliance, the BWPMO officials relied on 

informal discussions with component officials to gather information on the 

status of component strategic workforce planning efforts.

As a result of our inquiries, BWPMO officials said they planned to 

coordinate with HCPP in the future to ensure that workforce planning 

analysis conducted during the audits is consistent with BWPMO 

workforce planning efforts, and that the results of required actions and 

recommendations from the final audit reports related to workforce 

planning are evaluated across components. However, BWPMO had no 

documented plans regarding using these audits to evaluate components’ 

implementation of strategic workforce planning efforts. Though BWPMO 

and HCPP officials stated they planned to revise the Human Resources

Audit Manual to incorporate changes, as of November 2012, BWPMO 

was unable to provide specific information regarding how these audits 

would be used in the future. Standards for Internal Control in the Federal 

Government calls for agencies to have appropriate documentation of 

transactions and internal controls, which should appear in management 

directives, administrative policies, or operating manuals. Moreover, the 

standards state that such policies and procedures should provide 

reasonable assurance that ongoing monitoring and evaluation is 

institutionalized in the agency’s operations. Without policies and 

procedures in place to ensure that monitoring and evaluation is 

institutionalized, OCHCO will continue to have limited oversight of the 

implementation of strategic workforce planning at the component level.

In addition, although components are required to develop annual 

operational plans to report on their efforts to implement the department’s 

workforce strategy and the HROAs are performed on components to 

assess the extent to which they are contributing to mission 

accomplishment, among other things, the two efforts are not linked. In 

conjunction with additional strategic workforce planning performance 

measures, incorporating the results of human resources operations 

audits, including the status of addressing required actions and 

recommendations, in the components’ annual operational plans could 

provide OCHCO with a greater ability to oversee departmentwide 

strategic workforce planning. Moreover, monitoring and evaluating the 

results of components’ implementation of OCHCO’s strategic workforce 
 

Page 25 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

planning policies and procedures is essential to ensure that issues and 

concerns identified in prior internal audits are consistently and 

comprehensively resolved and to provide a means of assessing the 

impact of OCHCO’s recent initiatives.

DHS’s ability to successfully meet its multiple, diverse, and essential 

missions involves the efforts of more than 240,000 employees, the vast 

majority of which work within the seven operational components. To 

ensure DHS has the workforce it needs to accomplish these missions, 

and effectively manage the human capital challenges it is facing along 

with the government as a whole, such as increasing turnover, the 

department needs to align its strategic planning with programmatic goals 

and budgetary realities to develop long-term strategies for acquiring, 

developing, and retaining staff to achieve these goals. DHS has recently 

taken steps to implement more strategic, departmentwide workforce 

planning by working collaboratively with components though various 

committees and councils to focus the department on strategic workforce 

planning. Nonetheless, as DHS moves forward, it will need to determine 

how to assess its progress and ensure components are achieving 

workforce planning goals. DHS currently has limited performance 

measures and lacks policies and procedures regarding how to use the 

results of audits for departmental oversight of component workforce 

planning. Without additional performance measures related to workforce 

planning to hold components accountable for making progress in 

implementing these efforts, DHS’s OCHCO does not have an effective 

means of monitoring progress. Similarly, without policies and procedures 

for integrating the results of audits into component workforce plans and 

annual reports, DHS lacks reasonable assurance that evaluation of such 

efforts will be institutionalized, nor can it provide evidence of component 

alignment with departmental strategic workforce planning guidance.

To help ensure that DHS strategic workforce planning is effectively 

implemented departmentwide, we recommend that the Secretary of 

Homeland Security direct the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer to 

take the following three actions to provide a basis to monitor and assess 

the effectiveness of departmentwide strategic workforce planning:

• identify and document additional performance measures, such as 

measures to monitor component efforts to develop and implement 

action plans to address workforce supply and demand discrepancies, 

Conclusion

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
 

Page 26 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

and use them to assess and report on components’ progress in 

implementing DHS’s strategic workforce planning process;

• document policies and procedures for the Balanced Workforce 

Program Management Office and the Human Capital Policy and 

Programs Office to use the results of audits related to componentlevel workforce planning; and

• integrate the results of these audits with components’ annual 

operational plans and review the plans and provide timely feedback to 

enhance components’ implementation of strategic workforce planning 

efforts.

We requested comments on a draft of this report from DHS. On 

November 16, 2012, DHS provided written comments, which are 

reprinted in appendix I, and provided technical comments, which we 

incorporated as appropriate. DHS concurred with our three 

recommendations and described actions planned to address them. 

Specifically, DHS stated that—- 

• The department has taken steps to implement an effective oversight 

approach for monitoring and evaluating components’ progress in 

implementing strategic workforce planning. These steps include an 

effort by BWPMO and HCPP to develop a checklist outlining specific 

performance measures to be used in future HROAs to determine 

component compliance with workforce planning guidance, among 

other things. 

• BWPMO plans to document oversight policies in the next update of its 

workforce planning guidance, and that HCPP will provide audit 

findings to BWPMO staff in order to ensure appropriate internal 

control processes and component compliance with workforce planning 

guidance. The procedures outlined in the planned update to the DHS 

Workforce Planning Guide will also be used by BWPMO to monitor 

and provide workforce planning oversight of components.

• OCHCO will use HROA audit results as a source of component 

information as OCHCO conducts reviews of component annual 

operational plans. OCHCO will begin this integration of HROA 

information and component operational plans with the issuance of 

HCPP’s next HROA audit report scheduled for the end of November 

2012. 

Agency Comments 
 

Page 27 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Homeland 

Security, selected congressional committees, and other interested 

parties. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO 

website at http://www.gao.gov. 

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

me at (202) 512-9627 or maurerd@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on 

the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in 

appendix II. 

David C. Maurer

Director, Homeland Security 

and Justice Issues
Appendix I: Comments from the Department of 

Homeland Security 

Page 28 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

Appendix I: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security
Appendix I: Comments from the Department of 

Homeland Security 

Page 29 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 30 GAO-13-65 DHS Workforce Planning

David C. Maurer, (202) 512-9627 or maurerd@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Chris Keisling, Assistant Director; 

Scott Behen, Analyst-in-Charge; David Garcia; Steve Lozano; and 

Katherine Davis made significant contributions to the work. Mary 

Denigan-Macauley, Tracey King, and Amanda Miller also contributed to 

this work.

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(441065)
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