a

GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to Congressional Subcommittees

April 2003 HUMAN CAPITAL

Selected Agency 

Actions to Integrate 

Human Capital 

Approaches to Attain 

Mission Results

GAO-03-446
The executive branch agencies GAO reviewed have taken key actions to 

integrate their human capital approaches with their strategies for 

accomplishing organizational missions and to shift the focus of their human 

capital office from primarily compliance activities to consulting activities. 

• Agency leaders included human capital leaders in key agency 

strategic planning and decision making and, as a result, the 

agencies engaged the human capital organization as a strategic 

partner in achieving desired outcomes relating to the agency’s 

mission. 

• Human capital leaders took actions to transform the agencies’ 

human capital organizations by establishing clear human capital 

strategic visions, restructuring their organizations, and improving 

the use of technology to free organizational resources. Human 

capital leaders also promoted a transition to a larger strategic role 

for human capital professionals with their focus being more on 

consulting rather than compliance activities. The human capital 

profession is in transition from valuing narrowly focused specialists 

to requiring generalists, who have all the skills necessary to play an 

active role in helping to determine the overall strategic direction of 

the organization. 

• Jointly, agency leaders and human capital leaders are having 

human capital professionals and agency line managers share the 

accountability for successfully integrating strategic human capital 

considerations into agency strategic planning and decision making. 

Federal Human Capital Workforce: Percentage of Generalists and Specialists 

HUMAN CAPITAL

Selected Agency Actions to Integrate 

Human Capital Approaches to Attain 

Mission Results 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-446.

To view the full report, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact J. Christopher 

Mihm at (202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-03-446, a report to 

congressional subcommittees 

April 2003

Successful strategic human capital 

management requires the 

integration of human capital 

approaches with strategies for 

accomplishing organizational 

missions and program goals. Such 

integration allows the agency to 

ensure that its core processes 

efficiently and effectively support 

mission-related outcomes. 

Based on the recommendations of 

various human capital experts, 

GAO identified six executive 

branch agencies that had taken key 

actions to integrate their human 

capital approaches with their 

strategic planning and decision 

making. The agencies were the 

Federal Emergency Management 

Agency, the General Services 

Administration, the Internal 

Revenue Service, the Social 

Security Administration, the U.S. 

Coast Guard, and the U.S. 

Geological Survey. These key 

actions may prove helpful to other 

agencies as they seek to ensure 

that their human capital 

approaches are aligned with their 

program goals. 
Page i GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 4

Selected Agencies Took Actions to Integrate Human Capital 

Approaches with Organizational Missions 5

Conclusions 26

Agency Comments 27

Appendix

Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology 29

Tables Table 1: Key Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital 

Approaches with Strategies for Accomplishing Agency 

Missions 3

Table 2: GSA Human Capital Council Members 10

Table 3: GSA’s HR Roles and Competencies 22

Table 4: USGS’s HR Competencies 23

Figures Figure 1: FEMA’s Human Resources Division after 

Restructuring 14

Figure 2: The Federal Human Capital Workforce: Percentage of 

Generalists and Specialists 19
Contents

Page ii GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Abbreviations

CHCO Chief Human Capital Officer

CHRIS comprehensive human resources integrated system

CIO Chief Information Officer

CPO Chief People Office

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency

GSA General Services Administration

HR Human Resources

HRD Human Resources Division

HRPC Human Resource Policy Council

IRS Internal Revenue Service

NAPA National Academy of Public Administration

OARS online automated recruitment system

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPM Office of Personnel Management

PMA President's Management Agenda

SSA Social Security Administration

USCG U.S. Coast Guard

USGS U.S. Geological Survey

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Page 1 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

April 11, 2003 Letr

The Honorable George V. Voinovich

Chairman

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management,

the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia

Committee on Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Jo Ann Davis

Chairman

Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency

Organization

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

Strategic human capital management is a pervasive challenge in the federal 

government. In July 1998, we reported on agencies’ efforts to restructure 

their personnel operations.1

 At that time, resource reductions and 

changing missions, coinciding with the replacement of aging human capital 

management information systems, were driving efforts in federal agencies 

to restructure their human capital offices. We found agencies’ additional 

human capital challenges included the need to achieve a more strategic 

integration of human capital approaches in the program decision-making 

processes. 

Fortunately, we are seeing increased attention to strategic human capital 

management and a real and growing momentum for change. Recent 

legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security includes a 

provision to establish a chief human capital officer (CHCO) in major 

agencies of the federal government.2

 One of the functions of the CHCO is 

to align the agency’s human capital policies and programs with 

organization mission, strategic goals, and performance outcomes. This 

increased visibility of human capital organizations within federal agencies 

underscores the increased recognition that strategic human capital 

management is a vital enabler of organizational success. 

1

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Management Reform: Agencies’ Initial Efforts to 

Restructure Personnel Operations, GAO/GGD-98-93 (Washington, D.C.: July 13, 1998).

2

 Title XIII of Pub. L. 107-296, Nov. 25, 2002, Chief Human Capital Officer’s Act of 2002.
Page 2 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

We are addressing this report to you because of your ongoing interest in 

federal human capital issues and how agencies can effectively manage their 

human capital to achieve their organizational goals. Our objective for this 

report was to identify and provide examples of key actions agencies have 

taken to integrate their human capital approaches with their strategies for 

accomplishing organizational missions. These actions may prove helpful to 

other agencies as they seek to ensure that their human capital approaches 

are aligned with their program goals. We examined selected human capital 

integration actions within the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA), the General Services Administration (GSA), the Internal Revenue 

Service (IRS), the Social Security Administration (SSA), the U.S. Coast 

Guard (USCG), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).3

 These executive 

branch agencies were chosen because various human capital experts 

identified them as having taken actions to integrate human capital 

approaches with strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and 

program goals. 

To meet our objective, we analyzed agency documents, such as planning 

and organizational restructuring documents, and previous studies on 

strategic human capital management. In addition, we conducted 

semistructured interviews with agency officials, human resource directors, 

and line managers, who were involved in designing or implementing their 

agencies’ human capital integration actions, to elicit their experiences and 

conclusions about the agency actions they believed were most important to 

the successful integration of their human capital function. After reviewing 

and analyzing their responses, we developed a framework to classify and 

report on the types of identified actions. We did not attempt to 

independently verify the performance results that agencies attributed to 

their actions. Additionally, our selection process was not designed to 

provide examples that could be considered representative of all the actions 

at the agencies reviewed or of the federal government in general. By 

profiling an agency for a particular action, we do not mean to imply 

complete success for the action or lack of success for others. Appendix I 

provides additional information on our scope and methodology.

Results in Brief The executive branch agencies we reviewed have taken a range of key 

actions to integrate their human capital approaches with their strategies for 

3

 Congress has designated FEMA and USCG part of the new Department of Homeland 

Security (Pub. L.107-296, Nov. 25, 2002).
Page 3 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

accomplishing organizational missions and goals. Table 1 identifies the 

actions taken and who within the agency initiated them.

Table 1: Key Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches with Strategies for Accomplishing Agency Missions

Source: GAO analysis of agency data.

Action initiators Description of action

Agency leaders • Agency leaders included human capital leaders in key agency decision making. For example, USCG’s agency 

leadership has engaged its human capital organization earlier in the strategic planning and decision-making 

process by appointing its Assistant Commandant for Human Resources as a member of the agency’s senior 

management team and a full partner in the development of key USCG management decisions.

 

• Agency leaders also established entities, such as human capital councils, accountable for integrating human 

capital approaches with strategies for achieving programmatic goals. The groups’ members include both program 

leaders and human capital leaders. For example, GSA created a Human Capital Council to ensure, among other 

objectives, that the agency’s human capital strategic plan was integrated within GSA’s strategic plan and 

supported the agency’s program strategies. 

Human capital 

leaders 

• Human capital leaders are establishing and communicating clear human capital strategic visions. For example, 

GSA’s Chief People Officer’s vision is for GSA’s Chief People Office (CPO) to become a partner in GSA’s 

business success. To do so, she explained that CPO must deliver products and services that enable its 

customers to focus on their core business. Similarly, IRS’s former Chief Human Resource Officer’s vision is for 

the human capital professional in IRS to become more proactive in providing human capital strategies and 

solutions that directly enhance the agency’s performance.

• Human capital leaders are restructuring their human capital organizations to improve their alignment with their 

vision. For example, IRS’s restructured human capital management function includes, as one of three major 

components, a national headquarters strategic human resources organization. 

• Human capital leaders are using technological advances to provide opportunities to free organizational resources 

that can be redeployed for strategic purposes. For example, the USGS partnered with QuickHire, a commercial 

off-the-shelf software developer, to develop an on-line automated recruitment system (OARS) that allows USGS’s 

human capital staff to enter job vacancies into a centralized database and develop rating and ranking criteria by 

selecting and weighting questions from an extensive question library organized by job series. According to 

USGS, as the agency continues to gain experience and efficiencies using OARS, it hopes to divert an increasing 

number of human capital staff members to other strategic efforts. 

• Human capital leaders are promoting a more strategic role for human capital professionals and are investing in 

the development of new competencies for human capital professionals to support their increased strategic 

engagement. For example, in response to the changing role and functions of its human capital community, GSA 

has developed new core competencies needed by its human capital staff. Included in these competencies are 

the new skills GSA’s Chief People Officer believes the agency’s human capital staff members must develop to 

become business partners.

Agency leaders and 

human capital 

leaders 

• Jointly, agency leaders and human capital leaders are having human capital professionals and agency line 

managers share the accountability for successfully integrating strategic human capital approaches into the 

planning and decision making of the agency. For example, FEMA’s human capital leaders and program officials 

have implemented an innovative employee staffing effort. According to FEMA officials, this greatly enhanced the 

agency’s emergency response capability by providing the human capital staff and the line managers the ability to 

collaborate in identifying available deployment candidates for assignment as soon as federal disasters are 

declared.
Page 4 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and five of the six selected 

agencies provided comments on a draft of this report. All generally agreed 

with the information presented and that there is a need for federal agencies 

to ensure that their human capital activities are a strategic consideration in 

accomplishing their missions. Several agencies provided additional 

examples of strategic actions taken by their human capital offices as well 

as technical comments that we have incorporated as appropriate. USCG 

noted that they had no comments on the report. 

Background Similar to the federal government’s acknowledgment over the past decade 

of the need to adopt a more businesslike approach to financial, information 

technology, and performance-based management, the need for strategic 

management of human capital is meeting increased recognition. Since we 

placed strategic human capital management on our high-risk list in 2001, 

the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) subsequently identified 

human capital as one of the five key governmentwide management 

challenges facing the federal government. The agenda specifically sets an 

expectation for agencies to integrate their human capital strategies with 

their organizational missions, visions, core values, goals, and objectives. In 

October 2002, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and OPM 

approved revised standards for success in the human capital area of the 

PMA, reflecting language that was developed in collaboration with GAO. 

To assist agencies in responding to the revised PMA standards, OPM 

released the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework. 
Page 5 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Our work and that of others has shown that high-performing organizations 

link their human capital management systems—from the organizational 

level down to individual employees—with their strategic planning and 

mission accomplishment.4

 This means the function that has traditionally 

been called personnel or human resources needs to make a fundamental 

transformation, from being a strictly support function involved in managing 

personnel processes and ensuring compliance with rules and regulations to 

designing and implementing human capital approaches to attain the 

agency’s strategic goals. In addition, we found that effective human capital 

professionals must have the appropriate preparation not just to provide 

effective support services, but also to effectively consult with line 

managers in tailoring human capital strategies to the unique needs of the 

agency.5

In March 2002, we released our Model of Strategic Human Capital 

Management to help agency leaders more effectively lead and manage their 

people and integrate human capital approaches into their strategic 

planning and decision making.6

 The model emphasizes that successful

strategic human capital management requires the integration of human 

capital approaches with strategies for accomplishing organizational 

missions and program goals. Such integration allows the agency to ensure 

that its core processes efficiently and effectively support mission-related 

outcomes.

Selected Agencies 

Took Actions to 

Integrate Human 

Capital Approaches 

with Organizational 

Missions

The executive branch agencies we reviewed took a range of actions as part 

of efforts to integrate human capital approaches with strategies for 

achieving organizational missions. Top agency leaders and human capital 

leaders were the primary initiators of the various actions taken. In 

addition, the agency leaders and human capital leaders jointly have 

employed human capital professionals and agency line managers to share 

the accountability for successfully integrating human capital approaches 

into the planning and decision making of the agencies.

4

 See, for example, Thomas R. Connolly, et al. “Transforming Human Resources,” 

Management Review, June 1997.

5

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: A Self-Assessment Checklist for Agency 

Leaders, GAO/OCG-00-14G (Washington, D.C.: September 2000).

6

 U.S. General Accounting Office, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002).
Page 6 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Agency Leaders Recognize 

Key Role of Strategic 

Human Capital Engagement

Top leadership in the agencies expected agency human capital leaders to 

significantly contribute to strategic planning and decision making, 

evidenced by their establishing human capital roles in positions that are 

significant in the organizational hierarchy. This acknowledges both the 

commitment of the agency head to strategically managing the agency’s 

people and the expected role that human capital leaders should contribute 

to organizational success. In addition, agency heads created entities, such 

as human capital councils, to regularly review their agencies’ human 

capital strategies and to ensure a data-driven, performance-oriented 

approach to human capital management. These groups of senior agency 

officials, including both program leaders and human capital leaders, 

provide oversight and are accountable for the integration and alignment of 

the agencies’ human capital approaches.

Agency Leaders Ensure 

Human Capital 

Representation in Agency 

Strategic Planning and 

Decision Making

Although the so-called “seat-at-the-table” is significant, human capital 

leaders are ultimately valued not by place, but by the value they add to the 

agencies’ strategic human capital approaches in attaining organizational 

goals. According to a 1999 OPM report on strategic human capital 

management,7

 there has often been contention between human capital 

leaders and agency leaders because of human capital’s role as “gatekeeper,” 

that is, enforcing the law, rules, and regulations. Now, with the 

responsibility of the human capital function evolving, agency leaders are 

positioning human capital leaders in roles where they have the opportunity 

to more directly affect agency decisions and achievement of goals.

7

 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness, 

Strategic Human Resources Management: Aligning with the Mission (Washington, D.C.: 

September 1999).
Page 7 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

USCG officials told us that USCG’s Assistant Commandant for Human 

Resources (HR) is a member of the agency’s senior management team and 

is a full partner in the development of key USCG management decisions. 

They stated that because of the Assistant Commandant’s organizational 

status, USCG’s HR unit has participated earlier in strategic planning and 

decision making, thus facilitating a smoother transition and execution of 

ideas. The officials cited USCG’s use of scenario-based planning as an 

example of early involvement by USCG’s HR unit in agency strategic 

planning and decision making. Scenario-based planning is a technique 

used by USCG for managing uncertainty and risk when planning into the 

future. The agency develops a few plausible future scenarios and then 

plans how it would best respond to each scenario and what resources it 

would need to respond. For example, one scenario may describe 

conditions that imply a greater need to interdict drugs in harbors than 

another scenario, which may describe a world where the higher priority is 

to intercept possible terrorist threats from the seas as far offshore as 

legally possible. Differing competency requirements and operating 

concepts (e.g., time spent at sea) require different human capital 

approaches in each of these scenarios. With USCG’s migration to the 

Department of Homeland Security and its added security responsibilities, 

the agency’s plans for balancing resources among its many missions will 

become increasingly important.8

In the summer of 1998, senior USCG human capital staff members were 

part of a core group of USCG planners who developed scenarios and 

constructed the operational and support strategies to succeed in those 

scenarios. The group eventually created five very different worlds that 

might exist in the year 2020, along with the "history" of events that led to 

each of those, based on the combined factors of U.S. economic vitality, the 

global demand for maritime services, the role of the federal government, 

and threats to U.S. society. The purpose of the five worlds was to create 

the boundaries of the possible future, and allow leaders and planners to 

create a strategy for USCG that would work well in each independent 

scenario. The core group then analyzed the elements common to all five 

strategies and crafted a core strategy. The human capital strategies that 

emerged became part of USCG’s official strategy, and simultaneously drove 

the human resource organization’s business planning and resource 

investments for the 2001-2005 time frame.

8

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Coast Guard: Strategy Needed for Setting and 

Monitoring Levels of Effort for All Missions, GAO-03-155 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 12, 2002). 
Page 8 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

USCG attributes a number of its improved processes to the early 

involvement of its human capital unit with the agency’s decision-making 

management team. Specific examples cited by USCG include (1) a 

significant restructuring of military occupations and career paths to reflect 

emerging requirements for new competencies, (2) a revision of assignment 

and reassignment practices to make better use of the investments in 

training and development, and (3) a restructuring of civilian personnel 

management functions to better support line managers in meeting their 

operational requirements.

USGS’s HR Office has also played a prominent role in agency strategic 

planning and decision making. In 1997, USGS’s HR Office led a group of 

senior USGS managers in developing the first strategic HR plan for USGS 

as the agency strategically planned how it would remain at the forefront of 

earth and biological science and technology. USGS’s strategic HR plan 

formed the basis for the four people goals (skills, rewards, flexibility, and 

leadership) included in the agency’s current strategic plan. HR staff 

members were active in the development of the people goals and in the 

creation of the current and next-generation measures by which the agency 

is assessing progress under these goals. They were also involved in 

planning and implementing the strategic human capital initiatives by which 

USGS hopes to achieve its goals. 

USGS’s strategic human resources plan describes how USGS will align its 

people and processes with the business strategies it has adopted to achieve 

its mission and also recognizes that organizational goals are seldom, if ever, 

realized without the effective use and support of people. One USGS 

business strategy is to increase the agency’s flexibility to get work done by 

using all options other than permanent staff members. The strategic 

human resources plan states that to enhance USGS’s flexibility to acquire 

skills to meet short-term needs and provide an influx of new ideas, the HR 

Office will, for example, expand the use of short-term student and faculty 

appointments from academia and development agreements from the 

private sector.

SSA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Resources reports directly to the 

Commissioner and is an equal partner with the agency’s other deputies. 

SSA’s human capital officials report that their engagement in the strategic 

planning activities of the agency has provided a much greater opportunity 

to contribute to effective outcomes. For example, the human capital 

organization worked in partnership with SSA’s Office of Finance, 

Assessment and Management regarding the competitive sourcing initiative 
Page 9 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

of the President’s Management Agenda to ensure there was no undue 

negative impact on the agency’s human capital and workloads. In addition, 

SSA’s human capital organization has worked closely with SSA’s Office of 

Systems in the construction and implementation of the Office of Systems’ 

major reorganization. The human capital organization believes its efforts 

have ensured the appropriate mix of employees at the proper levels, and 

will result in an efficient systems organization.

Agency Leaders Established 

Entities to Integrate 

Strategic Human Capital 

Approaches

Agency leaders established entities, such as human capital councils, 

accountable for integrating human capital approaches with program 

strategies to attain successful program results. Composed of senior agency 

officials, including both program leaders and human capital leaders, these 

groups meet regularly to review the progress of the agency’s integration 

efforts and to make certain that the human capital strategies are visible, 

viable, and remain relevant. Additionally, the groups help the agencies 

monitor whether differences in human capital approaches throughout their 

agencies are well considered, effectively contribute to outcomes, and are 

equitable in their implementation. 

IRS, for example, created an entity to ensure a coordinated approach to 

agencywide human capital issues, policies, and strategies. The agency’s 

Human Resource Policy Council (HRPC), which meets monthly for 

approximately half a day, addresses cross-unit human capital issues that 

cannot be resolved at lower levels. It is composed of the Chief Human 

Resource Officer and representatives from each of IRS’s major 

organizations. HRPC is charged with (1) identifying and addressing 

crosscutting human capital issues and emerging human capital priorities, 

(2) ensuring that cross-divisional links are in place and operating 

effectively, (3) making final decisions on all cross-unit human capital 

issues, (4) providing strategic human capital advice and recommendations 

to the Commissioner and his senior staff, and (5) addressing the issue of 

uniformity versus flexibility across divisions for human capital policy. 

HRPC decided, for example, to eliminate agencywide restrictions regarding 

fast-track promotion of IRS managers. 

GSA has a similar group, its Human Capital Council. The council, created 

in 2002, meets quarterly and, as shown in table 2, consists of human capital 

leaders, senior executives and officials for the major service and staff 

offices, and representatives of regional administrators and deputy regional 

administrators. 
Page 10 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Table 2: GSA Human Capital Council Members

Source: GSA (data), GAO (presentation).

The council ensures that, among other objectives, the agency's human 

capital strategic plan is consistent with GSA's strategic plan. As an 

advocate for human capital initiatives, council members are to ensure that 

activities in the agency reflect the human capital strategic plan. Another 

objective of the group is to assist CPO in setting human capital program 

priorities by assuring that program goals are key determinants of the 

human capital approach. To support future program priorities, the 

council, for example, determined what the GSA leadership competencies 

would be and established the policy and requirements for the GSA-wide 

Advanced Leadership Development Program.

Human Capital Leaders 

Have Taken Actions to 

Transform Human Capital 

Organizations

High-performing organizations treat strategic human capital management 

as fundamental to effective overall management. Human capital leaders in 

such organizations develop human capital organizations that can fulfill 

enlarged roles, such as business partner, human capital expert, leader, and 

change agent, to meet current and future programmatic needs.9

 For 

Agency leaders Human capital leaders

Chief Financial Officer Chief People Officer

Chief Information Officer Deputy Chief People Officer

Deputy Commissioner, Federal Supply 

Service

Director of Human Resources

Deputy Commissioner, Public Buildings 

Service

Director of Executive Resources

Deputy Commissioner, Federal Technology 

Service

Director of Information Technology (CPO) 

Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of 

Governmentwide Policy

Regional Administrator, Region 5

Deputy Regional Administrator, National 

Capital Region

Deputy Regional Administrator, Region 3

9

 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition: A Comprehensive 

Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 3, The HR Workforce: Meeting 

the Challenge of Change, MSE-99-7 (Washington, D.C.: January 2000).
Page 11 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

example, agency human capital leaders took actions to enlarge the vision 

of their organizations from being providers of largely transaction-based 

services to ones whose visions included integrating human capital 

approaches in agency plans and strategies to successfully accomplish their 

goals. To align the human capital resources with the organizations’ new 

visions, human capital leaders often found it necessary to restructure the 

organizations. Additionally, improving and expanding upon the efficiency 

of human capital systems and technology offers the opportunity to 

reallocate additional resources for strategic purposes. Human capital 

leaders also worked to ensure that the human capital professionals within 

their agencies were prepared, expected, and empowered to provide a range 

of consultative and technical services to their internal customers. 

Establishing a Human Capital 

Strategic Vision

A human capital strategic vision is crucial in providing a common direction 

across the organization. Agency human capital leaders we interviewed 

envisioned their human capital offices becoming more strategically 

involved with the achievement of agency goals. These leaders 

communicated their visions to employees and took steps to institute the 

organizational changes needed to achieve their visions.

IRS’s former Chief Human Resource Officer believes that IRS’s human 

capital professionals must be champions of change and be totally 

committed to thinking and acting strategically with respect to the agency’s 

broader mission, its people, and the importance of linking the two together. 

According to IRS, to make change on the scale needed to enact the vision 

requires the involvement of management, employees, and the employee 

unions in virtually every aspect of the transformation. To obtain employee 

buy-in, IRS’s human capital organization formed work groups to empower 

its human capital employees to participate in the redesign effort. 

IRS’s human capital leaders believe the principal contribution of its new 

human capital organization vision and framework is that it provides a 

direct focus on developing new and more flexible ways of managing the 

workforce. For example, IRS has introduced streamlined critical pay 

authority, developed a category rating process, and instituted a managerial 

pay banding system. IRS’s officials stated that these actions were 

undertaken to attract world-class senior leadership and technical talent, 

simplify and accelerate external and internal hiring, and support 

organizational delayering in addition to creating a culture of performance 

and individual accountability. In general, they said the innovations provide 

top management with a strong and direct connection between human 

capital strategies and systems and mission results.
Page 12 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

GSA’s Chief People Officer has a vision for GSA’s CPO to become a partner 

in GSA’s business success. To do so, she said that CPO must (1) deliver 

products and services that enable its customers to focus on their core 

business and (2) develop its workforce to be a valued business partner. 

GSA’s Chief People Officer said that before the human capital organization 

can play a bigger role as a business partner it must ensure that its 

transaction-based tasks are accurately and efficiently processed and that 

day-to-day problems, concerns, and needs of individual employees that are 

related to human resources are addressed.

To achieve her vision, the Chief People Officer wants to focus more time 

and resources on CPO becoming a business partner by ensuring that its 

transaction-based tasks and advisory activities are completed more 

efficiently. She has placed a high priority on automation and information 

technology as means to reduce costs and make time available for the 

business partner role. She has established a Chief Information Officer 

(CIO) position within GSA’s CPO to support GSA’s human capital functions 

that are increasingly being driven by technology.

The Chief People Officer has shared her vision with agency leadership 

during presentations before GSA’s administrators. In addition, she has 

expressed her vision to program leaders during Human Capital Council 

meetings and has included information on her vision in electronic 

newsletters sent to CPO staff members. The Chief People Officer also 

issues periodic written updates on human capital issues that contain 

information on her vision and related goals.

Restructuring the Human Capital 

Organization

Restructuring the human capital organization is an important step that is 

often necessary for the transformation of the human capital function. 

Ideally, this restructuring should help align the organization with its revised 

vision and should position the human capital function to move from a 

reactive, process-oriented, and compliance focus to the platform needed to 

become a proactive, results-oriented, consulting-oriented strategic partner. 

When we reported on agencies’ initial efforts to restructure their personnel 

operations in 1998, we noted that the four departments reviewed generally 

approached the restructuring of their personnel offices with the intent of 

achieving staff reductions.10 Some human capital leaders are now focusing 

less on finding additional internal efficiencies and more on replacing stovepiped structures that include separate units for functions such as staffing 

10 GAO/GGD-98-93.
Page 13 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

and classification, with more flexible structures that support new human 

capital roles. 

The right organizational structure can help human capital organizations 

strategically align with agency objectives and improve the delivery of 

human capital products and services. Although some federal agencies are 

restructuring their human capital organizations along similar lines, the 

right organizational structure depends on the unique characteristics of the 

agency. In a 1999 report, OPM maintained that because organizations are 

starting from different positions, they would need to structure their human 

capital functions based on mission, not on a “one size fits all” solution.11 In 

a similar vein, in July 2000 a coalition of individuals representing a wide 

cross section of organizations with an interest in the federal human capital 

community anticipated that a variety of human capital organizational 

structures would form across the federal government.12 The coalition 

predicted that factors such as customer needs and agency budgets would 

design and drive the structure of a particular agency’s human capital 

organization. The report noted, however, that the group did expect to see 

movement away from traditional structures toward more flexible 

arrangements.

In a 2001 National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) report, one of 

the key findings was that human capital organizations were restructuring, 

and the report noted that the emerging organizational model appears to 

consist of three elements: a center of expertise, a shared service center, 

and a strategic consultant component.13 The center of expertise provides 

expert technical advice and assistance to managers and employees while 

the shared service center processes traditional personnel transactions. 

The strategic consultant component serves as a strategic partner, change 

agent, and consultant to agency managers. The elements in the new 

structure attempt to balance the need for consolidation while still allowing 

human capital professionals to have a direct connection with their 

customers. 

11 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition: A Comprehensive 

Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 2, Looking to the Future: 

Human Resources Competencies, MSE-99-6 (Washington, D.C.: September 1999).

12 A Coalition on the Future of the Federal Human Resource Management Profession, A Call 

to Action (Washington, D.C.: September 2000).

13 National Academy of Public Administration, Changes in the Human Resources Function 

Since 1996: Implications for Federal HR Competencies (Washington, D.C.: March 2001).
Page 14 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

FEMA’s Human Resources Division (HRD) has recently restructured in a 

manner similar to this emerging organizational model. As shown in figure 

1, FEMA’s new HRD structure contains three branches: an advisory 

services branch, a reconfigured operations branch, and a human capital 

investment branch. 

Figure 1: FEMA’s Human Resources Division after Restructuring

The advisory services branch provides on-site management advisory 

service and support to FEMA directorates, regional offices, divisions, and 

branches. The operations branch handles all staffing and selection, 

classification systems, employee self-service operations, and records 

processing. The human capital investment branch is designed to take the 

lead in FEMA’s strategic human capital planning and policy oversight. 

FEMA officials told us that the agency restructured its human capital 

organization to meet the emerging requirements of its strategic planning 

initiatives and to address its inability to respond effectively to growing 

operational demands. Since the restructuring, HRD has initiated over 30 

projects targeting human capital improvements that are aligned to the 

agency’s strategic plan and the President’s Management Agenda. For 

Advisory services branch

Management 

advisory services

Employee and

labor relations

Benefit counseling

Human capital

program delivery

Systems

management 

Staffing and

classification

Personnel and

payroll processing

Disaster deployment

systems support

Strategic planning

and policy oversight 

Workforce planning 

and development

Performance and

recognition programs

Family friendly

programs/initiatives

Operations branch Human capital 

investment branch

Source: FEMA (data), GAO (presentation).

Functions Functions Functions
Page 15 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

example, the improvement initiatives included determining uniform 

compensation bands based on staff competencies and a series of initiatives 

focused on improving human capital services throughout the agency. 

Additionally, in connection with its migration to the Department of 

Homeland Security on March 1, 2003, FEMA identified a set of 17 

“matrix/virtual” teams of HRD and agency leaders to address key 

transitional issues.

IRS also restructured its human capital management function with the 

same three elements found in the emerging organizational model. The IRS 

structure includes (1) an embedded human resources organization in each 

business/functional unit, (2) an agencywide shared services organization, 

and (3) a national headquarters strategic human resources organization 

called Strategic Human Resources. Under this arrangement, each 

operating division has its own human capital office “embedded” within its 

division. These embedded human capital offices report to the operating 

division leader and are tasked with formulating, implementing, and 

customizing human capital policies, procedures, and strategies to fit the 

business unit’s unique needs. IRS’s agencywide shared services performs 

an operational mission involving the delivery of common products and 

services to organizations, managers, and employees across the agency. 

Strategic Human Resources develops strategic human capital management 

policies, programs, and strategies in collaboration with a council that 

includes human capital directors from the major business units. 

Technology Used to Facilitate 

Change 

Improved efficiencies and economies of transaction-based services provide 

the opportunity for agencies to reallocate resources and enable their 

human capital organizations to meet expanded roles as business partners 

and change agents. However, as we found in our 1998 report on agencies’ 

efforts to restructure personnel operations, agencies need to carefully plan 

and manage the implementation of new technology to fully achieve the 

desired benefits.14

USGS has developed OARS, which allows its human capital staff to enter 

job vacancies into a centralized database and develop rating and ranking 

criteria by selecting and weighting questions from an extensive question 

library organized by job series. Applicants register and apply for vacancies 

on-line. The system immediately rates, ranks, and scores applicants based 

on their answers to weighted questions, taking into account all of the 

14 GAO/GGD-98-93.
Page 16 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

regulations that govern the federal hiring process. The list of the bestqualified candidates is provided to the hiring manager within several days. 

USGS’s officials said that OARS has given applicants a quick and easy way 

to apply for jobs, increased the number of applicants per vacancy between 

40 and 500 percent, dramatically reduced the time it takes to fill vacancies, 

and allowed human capital professionals to refocus their efforts from 

processing to consulting. USGS hopes to be able to divert an increasing 

number of its staff members to other strategic efforts as it continues to gain 

experience and efficiencies using OARS.

As mentioned above, GSA has established a CIO for the personnel function 

located within its Chief People Office. The position was created several 

years ago when GSA began developing an information technology 

management system for federal personnel operations. Because GSA’s 

comprehensive human resources integrated system (CHRIS) required 

major systems modification and was intended to serve other federal 

agencies, a senior-level technology position was needed to facilitate the 

effort. According to CPO’s CIO, his role is to evaluate, develop, and install 

systems that support GSA’s human capital technology needs. He believes 

that technology is vital to achieving GSA’s Chief People Officer’s goals. He 

explained that improved technology and automation efforts mean less staff 

time is needed for traditional human capital functions, thus allowing the 

CPO staff members to play bigger roles as business partners. However, 

because most of GSA’s system is fairly new or still under development, 

CPO’s CIO has not reduced resources and identified staff savings. In an 

earlier report, we noted instances where agencies eliminated personnel 

staff before new technology for automating personnel transactions was in 

place. This resulted in delays in implementing new personnel and payroll 

systems.15 According to CPO’s CIO, resources reallocation will be 

accomplished as efficiencies are demonstrated. CHRIS is expected to 

ultimately provide self-service to employees and managers, performance 

management capability, integrated training solutions, and succession 

planning. As technology becomes more important to the entire human 

capital process and productivity drives future GSA staffing, the Chief 

People Officer believes that by having the CIO in-house, she has needed 

input into the technology decision making and the capital allocation 

process for the agency.

15 GAO/GGD-98-93.
Page 17 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

As the President’s human capital management advisor, OPM has recently 

been given the responsibility of leading five e-Government initiatives that 

are designed to use technology to improve the strategic management of the 

federal workforce. OPM is the managing partner for the Recruitment OneStop, e-Clearance, Enterprise Human Resources Integration, e-Training, 

and e-Payroll initiatives. The e-Payroll initiative, for example, is designed 

to simplify and integrate payroll systems across the federal government. 

OPM and OMB announced on January 15, 2003, the selection of two payroll 

partnerships to consolidate federal payroll systems and save the federal 

government an estimated $1.2 billion over the next decade. The Enterprise 

Human Resources Integration and e-Clearance initiatives are focused on 

electronically integrating personnel records across the government and 

reducing the delays involved in security clearance processing. The full 

implementation of these two initiatives is scheduled for the end of fiscal 

year 2006.16 OPM envisions that the use of technology will help streamline 

and improve procedures for moving federal employees through the 

employment life cycle by removing redundancies, reducing response times, 

eliminating paperwork, and improving coordination among federal 

agencies.

Changing Roles and 

Competencies for Human Capital 

Professionals

The actions that human capital leaders, and federal agencies in general, are 

taking to improve their integration of human capital approaches with their 

missions are reflected, in part, by a definite shift in the roles of human 

capital professionals throughout the federal government. The occupation 

is in transition from valuing narrowly focused specialists to requiring 

generalists, who have all the skills necessary to play an active role in 

helping to determine the overall strategic direction of the organization. As 

agencies further integrate strategic human capital approaches into their 

strategic planning and decision making, investment in the development of 

new competencies for human capital professionals is receiving more 

attention. 

16 U.S. General Accounting Office, Electronic Government: Selection and Implementation 

of the Office of Management and Budget’s 24 Initiatives, GAO-03-229 (Washington, D.C.: 

Nov. 22, 2002).
Page 18 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

OPM published a study in 1999 establishing a statistical profile of the 

human capital profession within the federal government.17 The report 

described the federal human capital community as a cadre of experts 

separated into seven distinct occupational series. One series represented 

the human capital generalist, who typically has a breadth of knowledge 

about personnel issues. The other six categories consisted of specialists, 

such as classifiers and staffing specialists, who possess in-depth 

knowledge in specific human capital areas.18 The report noted that from 

1969 through 1998 there had been a small but noticeable shift occurring in 

the human capital profession away from specialist positions to generalist 

positions. In 1998, generalists made up a slight majority of human capital 

professionals at 53 percent, while specialists positions had declined to 47 

percent. 

Consistent with the changing roles and expectations for human capital 

professionals, this noticeable shift toward human capital generalists has 

accelerated since 1998. As of June 2002, generalists made up 73 percent of 

human capital professionals, while specialists had declined to 27 percent. 

Figure 2 shows the dramatic change in the percentage of human capital 

generalists since 1996.

17 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition: A Comprehensive 

Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 1, Federal Human Resources 

Employment Trends, MSE-99-5 (Washington, D.C.: September 1999). 

18 We use the term “human capital specialist” throughout the report to denote a human 

capital professional who focuses on a specific area. It does not refer to an occupation title.
Page 19 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Figure 2: The Federal Human Capital Workforce: Percentage of Generalists and 

Specialists

A combination of factors appears to have contributed to this shift. 

According to OPM, it was necessitated, to a large degree, by the significant 

downsizing in federal office staffing levels during the 1990s, which 

precluded continuing a specialized approach.19 In addition, OPM 

concluded that human capital management as an occupation had been 

undergoing a significant redefinition. For example, automation began to 

greatly affect how human capital products and services were delivered. 

Many agencies began using the Internet or their own intranets to educate 

managers and employees about human capital programs and options. OPM 

also noted in a 1999 report that many agencies were beginning to outsource 

some of their human capital services.20 With more efficient ways to deliver 

products and services, human capital professionals could focus on their 

19 Human Resource Management Council, Transmittal MSG-083b, Appendix H—Historical 

Record and Explanatory Material (Washington, D.C.: 2000).

20 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, An Occupation in Transition: A Comprehensive 

Study of the Federal Human Resources Community, Part 2.

80

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

90

100

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Years

Generalists

Specialists

Percentage

Source: OPM Central Personnel Data File.
Page 20 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

emerging roles as advisors and consultants, which require more generalist 

practitioners able to work across multiple human capital functions.

The advantage to the agencies of this shift was that existing staff members 

could be deployed more flexibly and new staff members could be recruited 

for broader human capital competencies that had less to do with 

specialized procedures than with general human capital knowledge, 

concepts, and principles. In fact, OPM concluded in 2000, based on a body 

of research and evidence, that the human capital occupation was truly 

becoming generalized in nature both inside and outside the federal 

government.21 Although OPM did not find that human capital roles had 

shifted in every agency, it determined that agencies needed their human 

capital staff members to leave behind their roles of technical specialists 

focused on regulatory compliance and to take on more consultative roles. 

This entailed working with managers, employees, and their representatives 

to ensure that human capital programs and practices were properly aligned 

to help the organization meet its strategic objectives, while adhering to 

merit system principles and other legal obligations.

To reflect these changes in the federal human capital community, in 

December 2000, OPM issued a new consolidated classification standard for 

the Administrative Work in the Human Resources Management Group. 

OPM expects the agencies to apply the new job family position 

classification standard within a reasonable amount of time of its release, as 

determined by the agency. According to an OPM official, agencies are 

making progress in applying the new standard.

The pressures on human capital professionals to assume new roles present 

a significant learning and development challenge for human capital staff 

members. For human capital professionals to begin acting in their new 

capacities, human capital leaders must ensure that they develop the 

competencies and gain the experience to effectively take on the expected 

roles. Consistent with the changes reflected by OPM’s new classification 

standards, several of the agencies we reviewed have developed human 

capital competency models designed to develop staff members who can 

contribute at the strategic and business partner levels as well as design and 

manage delivery systems, which achieve value-added services at lower 

costs.

21 Human Resource Management Council.
Page 21 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

GSA recognized the vision of its Chief People Officer and the changing role 

of its human resources organization and assembled a team of experienced 

human resources staff members to develop new core competences needed 

by the CPO staff. This group developed GSA’s new human capital core 

competencies needed to support its CPO business model and identified five 

roles that GSA believes its human capital community must play 

successfully to achieve the Chief People Officer’s vision and to meet the 

expectations of the GSA customers. The five roles are consultant, leader, 

technologist, transactional expert, and expert. Specific competencies 

support each role. In addition, GSA uses its competency model as a 

recruiting tool for human resources professionals. The model lists 

desirable attributes for job candidates as well as a few suggested interview 

questions for determining whether applicants possess these attributes. 

Table 3 lists GSA’s HR roles and the primary competencies GSA states are 

essential for success in each of the roles. 
Page 22 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Table 3: GSA’s HR Roles and Competencies

Source: GSA (data), GAO (presentation).

USGS’s HR Competency Model also identifies and describes a set of human 

capital competencies that are essential to effective performance in the 

roles and responsibilities of the agency’s human capital office as outlined in 

its business model. USGS’s competency model identifies core or universal 

Roles Primary competencies essential for success

HR consultant --Knows the mission, culture, and business of customers

--Has applied knowledge of customer service

--Communicates effectively

--Is innovative and willing to take risks

--Builds partnerships/relationships

--Has knowledge of HR program, laws, and practices and how they 

contribute to workforce/organizational effectiveness

--Understands and applies the change process

HR leader --Knows the mission, culture, and business of customers

--Understands organizational and human behavior

--Communicates effectively

--Acts professionally and builds trust

--Builds partnerships/relationships

--Influences others to take action

--Understands and applies change process

--Has knowledge of HR programs, laws, and practices and how they 

contribute to workforce/organizational effectiveness

HR technologist --Understands HR operations and the impact of the systems they 

develop

--Has broad knowledge of trends/technology in automation field, with 

special emphasis on application in HR

--Communicates effectively (writing, speaking, and listening, 

especially with nontechnical customers)

--Influences others to take action

--Uses technology to improve efficiency and service

--Understands and applies change process

--Has in-depth knowledge of variety of current automated software, 

tools, systems, and techniques

HR transactional 

expert

--Knows the mission, culture, and business of customers

--Communicates effectively

--Is able to work in teams

--Has knowledge of relevant HR laws and practices

--Is able to use technology to improve efficiency and service

--Has applied knowledge of customer service

HR expert --Knows the mission, culture, and business of customers

--Has applied knowledge of customer service

--Communicates effectively

--Builds partnerships and relationships

--Has mastered relevant HR laws and practices

--Analyzes programs/process and measures results
Page 23 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

competencies that USGS human capital staff members need and specific 

competencies that human capital managers, strategic consultants, 

operating specialists and generalists, and assistants need. For each 

competency, the model describes how that competency is applied. 

According to USGS, the competency model is currently being used as a tool 

for self-directed human capital development, and portions of the model 

have been incorporated in the new automated skills assessment system. In 

the future, USGS plans to use the model as a basis for recruiting and 

interviewing candidates, making decisions about developmental 

assignments, and developing the competencies of every human capital staff 

member to think and relate strategically to the science mission of USGS. 

Table 4 lists USGS’s competency categories.

Table 4: USGS’s HR Competencies

Source: USGS data.

Competency categories Competencies

Communications Facilitation, listening, presentation (formal), oral 

communications, reading, and written communications

Personal credibility Assertiveness, creative thinking, ethics, flexibility, learning, 

self-awareness, self-management, stress management, and 

time management

Interpersonal skills Conflict management, diplomacy, diversity, 

negotiating/influencing, networking, partnering, and

teamwork

Leadership Change management, coaching, decisiveness,

integrity/honesty, leadership, political savvy,

self-esteem, and team building

Organizational skills External awareness, organizational awareness,

organizational development, performance measurement and 

improvement, planning and evaluating, strategic planning, 

systems thinking,

and vision

Management Analytical thinking/reasoning, financial management, human 

resources management,

information analysis, problem solving,

process management, project management,

and technology management

Customer orientation Advertising, customer focus, distribution,

market analysis, message development, message packaging, 

and product knowledge

Technical Attention to detail; HR automation,

HR laws, regulations, and policies; information management 

research methods and techniques; 

and technology application
Page 24 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Joint Actions Result in 

Shared Accountability

As the role of the human capital organization evolves to include serving the 

individual employee and helping to achieve the organization’s strategic 

objectives, the accountability for human capital management is 

increasingly being shared by top management, line managers, and human 

capital professionals. Successful organizations, according to our Model of 

Strategic Human Capital Management, include human capital 

professionals acting together with agency leaders and line managers in 

developing strategic and program plans to accomplish agency goals. 

Through this joint action, agency and human capital leaders and their staffs 

share accountability for successfully integrating strategic human capital 

approaches into the planning and decision making of the agency.

Assuming Shared Accountability 

for Achieving Program Goals

Agency and human capital leaders, human capital professionals, and line 

managers share responsibility for achieving agency programmatic and 

human capital goals, and they ultimately share accountability for effective, 

legally compliant human capital management. According to OPM, agencies 

have delegated more key human capital authorities to line managers.22 In a 

recent report, we highlighted the importance of delegating authority and 

holding line managers accountable for the effective use of human capital 

flexibilities, important tools that assist agencies in managing their 

workforces.23 Agencies are also following a more collaborative approach 

between managers and human capital professionals for those human 

capital authorities retained by the human capital staff members. 

Additionally, more agency and human capital leaders are linking human 

capital policies and practices to organizational outcomes and expecting 

more collaboration between line managers and human capital 

professionals.

IRS, for example, has dispersed human capital professionals throughout 

the agency’s divisions to help apply strategic thinking to each operating 

division’s unique interest. Human capital staff members are responsible 

for advising operating division managers on how to best apply human 

capital strategy to improve results. The human capital professional may 

have responsibility, for example, for assisting managers in anticipating 

22 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Merit Systems Oversight and 

Effectiveness, HRM Accountability System Development Guide (Washington, D.C.: 

December 1998).

23 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Effective Use of Flexibilities Can Assist 

Agencies in Managing Their Workforces, GAO-03-2 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 6, 2002).
Page 25 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

changes in the labor market and recommending strategies for sustaining a 

well-qualified and productive workforce. The operating division managers 

are responsible for rating the performance of the human capital 

professionals working with them. According to IRS officials, some of the 

benefits of the shared accountability of human capital professionals 

working with operating division managers have included customized 

support for recruitment plans and hiring products and a facilitated merit 

promotion process. 

FEMA line managers and human capital staff members have developed a 

system where the human capital staff works with line managers to quickly 

identify available employees for deployment as soon as disasters are 

declared. FEMA employs approximately 2,600 full-time employees and as 

many as 4,000 temporary and reserve employees who are deployed during 

federal disasters. In response to this need, the human capital office has 

implemented the Automated Disaster Deployment System. This automated 

system allows the staff to track employee credentialing (including 

knowledge and experience levels and performance ratings), availability, 

past and present assignment locations, dates of employment, and other 

vital employee data. According to FEMA officials, the system enables 

human capital staff and line managers to share accountability for 

identifying employee training and promotion needs, matching employee 

expertise with specific disaster site victim needs, and creating a selection 

routine that rotates available employees, thereby avoiding employee 

burnout. The process has reduced the time necessary to complete the 

staffing review and selection from days to hours. Additionally, centralized 

deployment provides a dedicated staff that acts upon all deployment 

requests within 3 hours.

Increasing Role for Line 

Managers in Human Capital 

Management

Line managers have always played a key role in human capital 

management. They interact with, teach, evaluate, reward, develop, and 

promote employees from the day they join an organization. According to 

OPM, many agencies are now pursuing the strategy of delegating key 

human capital authorities to managers thereby making the delegated 

authorities within the agency shared responsibilities of the manager and 

the human capital staff.24 SSA officials, for example, described how 

responsibility for recruiting new employees is now shared between human 

capital professionals and line managers. SSA involves agency line 

24 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Merit Systems Oversight and 

Effectiveness, HRM Accountability System Development Guide.
Page 26 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

managers in the preliminary recruiting determinations and has human 

capital professionals take over in the final, technical stages. 

Some agencies have developed tools and services to help line managers 

assume more human capital authority. Within our selected agencies, SSA, 

for example, has a link on its Office of Personnel Web site that contains, 

“Information for Managers.” The Web site presents a myriad of 

information, from addressing poor performance to life resources 

counseling. GSA’s CPO has issued a supervisory desk guide to provide 

supervisors with basic information on human capital topics. The desk 

reference guide provides an overview of personnel and administrative 

practices and procedures that supervisors should know. According to the 

guide, it is not meant to make supervisors into personnel experts or 

provide the answers to all personnel-related or administrative questions. 

The guide is meant to give supervisors basic information on topics such as 

internal and external recruitment, pay flexibilities, and worker’s 

compensation that will enable them to handle most situations and to 

provide references and contacts for more information.

Conclusions As agencies integrate their human capital strategies with their 

organizational missions, visions, core values, goals, and objectives, they are 

increasingly recognizing how human capital activities contribute to 

achieving missions and goals. Congress has recognized this through recent 

legislation creating a chief human capital officer position in major 

agencies. Effective human capital integration efforts require the 

cooperation of management and employees throughout the organization. 

All members of an organization must understand the rationale for making 

organizational and cultural changes because everyone has a stake in 

helping to implement the initiatives as part of the agency’s efforts to meet 

current and future challenges. 

In this report, we have identified actions agencies have taken to improve 

their integration of strategic human capital approaches with their strategies 

for accomplishing organizational missions and goals. Agency leaders 

included human capital leaders in key agency strategic planning and 

decision making. Human capital leaders transformed the agencies’ human 

capital organizations to better enable them to add value to the strategic 

activities of the agencies. Working together, agency leaders and human 

capital leaders have employed human capital professionals and agency line 

managers to share accountability for successfully integrating strategic 

human capital considerations into agency planning and decision making.
Page 27 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

As agencies take action to enhance their ability to meet organizational 

goals by linking their human capital activities with their strategic planning 

and decision making, agencies can consider the initiatives we identified. 

However, each federal agency will have to consider the applicability of 

specific actions to be taken within the context of its own mission, needs, 

and culture. 

Agency Comments We provided a draft of this report to the Director of OPM and to cognizant 

officials from the individual agencies we visited. OPM and five of the six 

agencies provided comments on the draft report. All generally agreed with 

the information presented.

Two of the agencies and OPM provided written technical comments to 

clarify specific points regarding the information presented. Where 

appropriate, we have made changes to reflect those technical comments. 

In other cases, agencies provided additional examples of actions they had 

taken to integrate human capital approaches to attain mission results. 

OPM noted that the results of the agency initiatives have not been 

evaluated, which is an important next step for agencies to take, but was not 

within the scope of this report. USCG noted that they had no comments on 

the report.

We will send copies of this report to appropriate congressional committees, 

the federal agencies and offices discussed in this report, and the Directors 

of OPM and OMB. We will also make copies available to others upon 

request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO 

Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

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

Doherty on (202) 512-6806 or on mihmj@gao.gov and dohertyw@gao.gov. 

The major contributors to this report were Clifton G. Douglas, Jr. and 
Page 28 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Judith Kordahl. Mark Braza, Matthew Tropiano, and Laura Turman also 

made key contributions.

J. Christopher Mihm

Director, Strategic Issues
Page 29 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

Appendix I

Objective, Scope, and Methodology AAppenednxidexiIs

Our objective in this self-initiated review was to identify examples of key 

actions that agencies have taken to integrate their human capital 

approaches with agency strategies for achieving mission objectives. 

To address our objective, we identified and focused on six federal agencies 

that were integrating their human capital approaches. We analyzed agency 

documents, such as planning and organizational restructuring documents, 

and previous studies on strategic human capital management. In addition, 

we conducted semistructured interviews with agency officials, human 

resources directors, and line managers from our selected agencies that 

were involved in designing or implementing their agencies’ human capital 

integration actions. We elicited their experiences and conclusions about 

the agency actions they believed were most important to the successful 

integration of their human capital functions. After reviewing and analyzing 

their responses, we developed a framework to classify and report on the 

types of actions identified. We did not attempt to independently verify the 

performance results that agencies attributed to their actions. 

To select the agencies we reviewed, we first held discussions with human 

capital experts from American University, the Center for Policy 

Implementation, George Washington University, and the National Academy 

of Public Administration. We asked these experts to identify federal 

agencies that they believed had taken actions to improve the integration of 

their strategic human capital management functions. We also reviewed our 

High-Risk Series, the Federal Managers’ Survey, and other documents for 

examples of federal agency integration efforts not identified by the human 

capital experts.1

 In addition, we considered the size, mission, and type of 

workforce of the pool of identified agencies to get a variation of federal 

agency experiences. We selected six agencies—the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency, the General Services Administration, the Internal 

Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, 

and the U.S. Geological Survey—to identify examples of human capital 

integration actions. Our selection process was not designed to provide 

examples that could be considered representative of all the actions at the 

agencies reviewed or of the federal government in general. By profiling an 

1

 See, for example, U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-01-

263 (Washington, D.C.: January 2001), and National Academy of Public Administration, 

Changes in Human Resources Competencies Since 1996: Implications for Federal HR 

Professionals (Washington, D.C.: March 2001). 
Appendix I

Objective, Scope, and Methodology

Page 30 GAO-03-446 Human Capital

agency for a particular action, we do not mean to imply complete success 

for the action or lack of success for others.

We conducted our work from February 2002 through January 2003 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

(450099)
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