Report to the Ranking Minority 

Member, Subcommittee on Readiness, 

Committee on Armed Services, House 

of Representatives 

United States General Accounting Office 

GAO 

March 2003 DOD PERSONNEL

DOD Actions Needed 

to Strengthen Civilian 

Human Capital 

Strategic Planning and 

Integration with 

Military Personnel and 

Sourcing Decisions 

GAO-03-475 
Generally, civilian personnel issues appear to be an emerging priority among 

top leaders in DOD and the defense components. Although DOD began 

downsizing its civilian workforce more than a decade ago, it did not take 

action to strategically address challenges affecting the civilian workforce 

until it issued its civilian human capital strategic plan in April 2002. 

Top-level leaders in the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Defense Contract 

Management Agency, and the Defense Finance Accounting Service have 

initiated planning efforts and are working in partnership with their civilian 

human capital professionals to develop and implement civilian strategic 

plans; such leadership, however, was increasing in the Army and not as 

evident in the Navy. Also, DOD has not provided guidance on how to 

integrate the components’ plans with the department-level plan. High-level 

leadership is critical to directing reforms and obtaining resources for 

successful implementation. 

The human capital strategic plans GAO reviewed for the most part lacked 

key elements found in fully developed plans. Most of the civilian human 

capital goals, objectives, and initiatives were not explicitly aligned with the 

overarching missions of the organizations. Consequently, DOD and the 

components cannot be sure that strategic goals are properly focused on 

mission achievement. Also, none of the plans contained results-oriented 

performance measures to assess the impact of their civilian human capital 

initiatives (i.e., programs, policies, and processes). Thus, DOD and the 

components cannot gauge the extent to which their human capital initiatives 

contribute to achieving their organizations’ mission. Finally, the plans did 

not contain data on the skills and competencies needed to successfully 

accomplish future missions; therefore, DOD and the components risk not 

being able to put the right people, in the right place, and at the right time, 

which can result in diminished accomplishment of the overall defense 

mission. 

Moreover, the civilian strategic plans did not address how the civilian 

workforce will be integrated with their military counterparts or sourcing 

initiatives. DOD’s three human capital strategic plans-- two military and one 

civilian--were prepared separately and were not integrated to form a 

seamless and comprehensive strategy and did not address how DOD plans to 

link its human capital initiatives with its sourcing plans, such as efforts to 

outsource non-core responsibilities. The components’ civilian plans 

acknowledge a need to integrate planning for civilian and military 

personnel—taking into consideration contractors—but have not yet done so. 

Without an integrated strategy, DOD may not effectively and efficiently 

allocate its scarce resources for optimal readiness. 

The Department of Defense’s 

(DOD) civilian employees play key 

roles in such areas as defense 

policy, intelligence, finance, 

acquisitions, and weapon systems 

maintenance. Although downsized 

38 percent between fiscal years 

1989 and 2002, this workforce has 

taken on greater roles as a result of 

DOD’s restructuring and 

transformation. Responding to 

congressional concerns about the 

quality and quantity of, and the 

strategic planning for the civilian 

workforce, GAO determined the 

following for DOD, the military 

services, and selected defense 

agencies: (1) the extent of top-level 

leadership involvement in civilian 

strategic planning; (2) whether 

elements in civilian strategic plans 

are aligned to the overall mission, 

focused on results, and based on 

current and future civilian 

workforce data; and (3) whether 

civilian and military personnel 

strategic plans or sourcing 

initiatives were integrated. 

GAO recommends DOD improve 

the departmentwide plan to be 

mission aligned and resultsoriented; provide guidance to align 

component- and department-level 

human capital strategic plans; 

develop data on future civilian 

workforce needs; and set milestones for integrating military and 

civilian workforce plans, taking 

contractors into consideration. 

DOD comments were too late to 

include in this report but are 

included in GAO-03-690R. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-475.

To view the full report, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Derek B. 

Stewart at (202) 512-5559 or 

stewartd@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-03-475, a report to the 

Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee 

on Readiness, House Committee on 

Armed Services 

March 2003 

DOD PERSONNEL

DOD Actions Needed to Strengthen 

Civilian Human Capital Strategic Planning 

and Integration with Military Personnel 

and Sourcing Decisions 
Page i GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 4

Leadership Involvement in Strategic Planning for Civilian 

Personnel Not Extensive in the Past, but Is Increasing 8

Key Elements of Strategic Plans for DOD Civilian Personnel Not in 

Place 15

Strategic Plans for Civilian Personnel Not Yet Integrated with Plans 

for Military Personnel or Sourcing Initiatives 22

Conclusions 26

Recommendations for Executive Action 27

Agency Comments 28

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 29 

Appendix II Key Events Related to Strategic Planning for DOD 

Civilian Personnel 33 

Appendix III GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 34 

Figures 

Figure 1: Civilian Employment by DOD Component as of 

September 30, 2002 (670,166 Direct Hires) 6

Figure 2: Relationships among Several Key Elements of a Human 

Capital Strategic Plan 16

Figure 3: Key Events Related to Strategic Planning for DOD 

Civilian Personnel 33

Contents 
Page ii GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Abbreviations 

DCMA Defense Contract Management Agency 

DFAS Defense Finance and Accounting Service 

DOD Department of Defense 

GPRA Government Performance and Results Act 

OMB Office of Management and Budget 

OPM Office of Personnel Management 

QDR Quadrennial Defense Review 

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

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permission from GAO. It may contain copyrighted graphics, images or other materials. 

Permission from the copyright holder may be necessary should you wish to reproduce 

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Page 1 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

March 28, 2003 

The Honorable Solomon P. Ortiz 

Ranking Minority Member 

Subcommittee on Readiness 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

Dear Mr. Ortiz: 

With almost 700,000 civilian employees on its payroll, the Department of 

Defense (DOD) is the second largest federal employer of civilians in the 

nation. Defense civilian personnel, among other things, develop policy, 

provide intelligence, manage finances, and acquire and maintain weapon 

systems. Given the global war on terrorism, the role of DOD’s civilian 

workforce is expanding, such as participation in combat support functions 

that free military personnel to focus on warfighting duties for which they 

are uniquely qualified. Civilian personnel are also key to maintaining 

DOD’s institutional knowledge because of frequent military personnel 

rotations. However, since the end of the cold war, the civilian workforce 

has undergone substantial change, due primarily to downsizing, base 

realignments and closures, competitive sourcing initiatives, and changing 

missions. For example, between fiscal years 1989 and 2002, DOD reduced 

its civilian workforce by about 38 percent, with an additional reduction of 

about 55,000 personnel proposed through fiscal year 2007. Some DOD 

officials have expressed concern about a possible shortfall of critical skills 

because downsizing has resulted in a significant imbalance in the shape, 

skills, and experience of its civilian workforce and more than 50 percent of 

the civilian workforce becoming eligible to retire in the next 5 years. As a 

result, the orderly transfer of DOD’s institutional knowledge is at risk. 

These factors, coupled with the Secretary of Defense’s significant 

transformation initiatives, make it imperative for DOD to strategically 

manage its civilian workforce within a total force perspective, which 

includes civilian personnel as well as active duty and reserve military 

personnel and contractor personnel. This strategic management approach 

will enable DOD to accomplish its mission by putting the right people, in 

the right place, at the right time and at a reasonable cost. 

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

In April 2002, DOD published a strategic plan for civilian personnel.1 In 

response to your request, we reviewed strategic planning efforts for 

civilian personnel at DOD and selected defense components, including the 

four military services and two defense agencies (the Defense Contract 

Management Agency and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service).2

Specifically, we determined (1) the extent to which top-level leadership is 

involved in strategic planning for civilian personnel and (2) whether 

strategic plans for civilian personnel are aligned with the overall mission, 

results oriented, and based on data about the future civilian workforce. In 

addition, we determined whether the strategic plans for civilian personnel 

are integrated with plans for military personnel or sourcing initiatives.3

(See app. I for a description of our scope and methodology.) 

Until recently, top-level leadership4

 at the department and the component 

levels has not been extensively involved in strategic planning for civilian 

personnel; however, civilian personnel issues appear to be a higher 

priority for top-level leaders today than in the past. Although DOD began 

downsizing its civilian workforce more than a decade ago, top-level 

leadership has not, until recently, developed and directed reforms to 

improve planning for civilian personnel. With the exception of the Army 

and the Air Force, neither the department nor the components in our 

review had developed strategic plans to address challenges affecting the 

 1

Civilian Human Resources Strategic Plan 2002-2008. At this time, DOD also published 

two strategic plans for military personnel (one addressing military personnel priorities and 

one addressing quality of life issues for servicemembers and their families). In a December 

2002 report (Military Personnel: Oversight Process Needed to Help Maintain Momentum 

of DOD’s Strategic Human Capital Planning, GAO-03-237), we addressed aspects of the 

two plans concerning benefits for active duty military personnel, noting that the plans were 

incomplete and that DOD needed a process to oversee the plans’ implementation. 

2

Throughout this report, the term “component” refers to all services and agencies in DOD. 

The term “service” refers to the Air Force, the Army, the Marine Corps, and the Navy. The 

term “agency” refers to the Defense Contract Management Agency and the Defense 

Finance and Accounting Service. 

3

Sourcing initiatives, which are undertaken to achieve greater operating efficiencies, 

include such efforts as public-private competitions under the Office of Management and 

Budget Circular A-76 for commercial activities and functions; direct conversions 

(converting positions from one sector to another without public-private competition); 

public-private partnerships; and privatization, divestiture, and reengineering. 

4

Top-level leaders include the Secretary of Defense, under or deputy secretaries, service 

secretaries, chiefs of staff of the services, and other DOD senior executive service 

personnel. 

Results in Brief 
Page 3 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

civilian workforce until 2001or 2002, which is indicative of civilian 

personnel issues being an emerging priority. In addition, top-level leaders 

in the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Defense Contract Management 

Agency, and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service have been or are 

working in partnership with their civilian human capital professionals to 

develop and implement civilian strategic plans; such partnership is 

increasing in the Army and not as evident in the Navy. Moreover, DOD’s 

issuance of its departmentwide civilian human capital plan5

 begins to lay a 

foundation for strategically addressing civilian human capital issues; 

however, DOD has not provided guidance on aligning the component-level 

plans with the department-level plan to obtain a coordinated focus to carry 

out the Secretary of Defense’s transformation initiatives in an effective 

manner. High-level leadership attention is critical to developing and 

directing reforms because, without the overarching perspective of such 

leaders, reforms may not be sufficiently focused on mission 

accomplishment, and without their support, reforms may not receive the 

resources needed for successful implementation. 

The human capital strategic plans we reviewed for the most part were not 

fully aligned with the overall mission of the department or respective 

components, results oriented, or based on data about the future civilian 

workforce. For example, the goals and objectives contained in strategic 

plans for civilian personnel were not explicitly aligned with the 

overarching missions of the organizations. Consequently, it is difficult to 

determine whether DOD’s and the components’ strategic goals are 

properly focused on mission achievement. In addition, none of the plans 

contained results-oriented performance measures that could provide 

meaningful data critical to measuring the results of their civilian human 

capital initiatives (i.e., programs, policies, and processes). Thus, DOD and 

the components cannot gauge the extent to which their human capital 

initiatives contribute to achieving their organizations’ mission. Also, for 

the most part, the civilian human capital plans in our review did not 

contain detailed information on the skills and competencies needed to 

successfully accomplish future missions. Without information about what 

is needed in the future workforce, it is unclear if DOD and its components 

are designing and funding initiatives that are efficient and effective in 

accomplishing the mission, and ultimately contributing to force readiness. 

 5

DOD and its components use the term human resources whereas we use the term human 

capital. 
Page 4 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Lastly, the civilian strategic plans we reviewed did not address how the 

civilian workforce will be integrated with their military counterparts or 

with sourcing initiatives. At the department level, the strategic plan for 

civilian personnel was prepared separately from corresponding plans for 

military personnel and not integrated to form a seamless and 

comprehensive strategy and did not address how DOD plans to link its 

human capital initiatives with its sourcing plans, such as efforts to 

outsource non-core responsibilities. For the most part, at the component 

level, plans set goals to integrate planning for the total workforce, to 

include civilian, military, and contractor personnel. The Air Force and the 

Army, in particular, have begun to integrate their strategic planning efforts 

for civilian and military personnel, taking contractor responsibilities into 

consideration. Without integrated planning, goals for shaping and 

deploying civilian, military, and contractor personnel may not be 

consistent with and support each other. Consequently, DOD and its 

components may not have the workforce with the skills and competencies 

needed to accomplish tasks critical to readiness and mission success. 

We are making recommendations to the Secretary of Defense to 

strengthen civilian human capital planning, including integration with 

military personnel and sourcing initiatives. We received comments from 

the Department of Defense too late to include them in the final report. 

These comments and our evaluation of them, however, were incorporated 

into a subsequent report (DOD Personnel: DOD Comments on GAO’s 

Report on DOD’s Civilian Human Capital Strategic Planning, GAO-03-

690R). 

DOD’s civilian workforce has undergone a sizeable reduction but remains 

critical to DOD’s mission success. Strategic human capital management 

provides a framework for maximizing the value added by the civilian 

workforce through aligning its civilian human capital initiatives to support 

DOD’s overarching mission. 

Background 
Page 5 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Since the end of the cold war, DOD has undergone sizable reductions in its 

civilian workforce. Between fiscal years 1989 and 2002, DOD’s civilian 

workforce shrank from 1,075,437 to 670,166—about a 38 percent 

reduction.6 DOD accomplished this downsizing without proactively 

shaping the civilian workforce to have the skills and competencies needed 

to accomplish future DOD missions. As a result, today’s workforce is older 

and more experienced, but 58 percent will be eligible for early or regular 

retirement in the next 3 years. Moreover, the President’s fiscal year 2003 

budget request projects that DOD’s civilian workforce will be further 

reduced by about 55,000 through fiscal year 2007. As shown in figure 1, at 

the end of fiscal year 2002, the military departments employed 85 percent 

of DOD’s civilians; 15 percent were employed by the other defense 

organizations. 

 6

These numbers do not include indirect hire employees, for example, persons rendering 

service to the federal government under agreements or contracts with a foreign 

government. 

Current Size, Distribution, 

and Changing Roles of 

DOD’s Civilian Workforce 
Page 6 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Figure 1: Civilian Employment by DOD Component as of September 30, 2002 

(670,166 Direct Hires) 

Note: GAO’s analysis of DOD data. 

a

Other defense organizations include defense agencies, DOD field activities, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense. 

b

Department of the Navy includes Navy and Marine Corps personnel. 

Furthermore, the 2000 Defense Science Board Task Force report7

observed that the rapid downsizing during the 1990s led to major changes 

in the roles of and balance between DOD’s civilian and military personnel 

and contractor personnel. The roles of the civilians and private-sector 

workforce are expanding, including participation in combat functions—as 

a virtual presence on the battlefield—and in support duties on both the 

domestic and international scenes. These changing roles call for greater 

attention to shaping an effective civilian workforce to meet future 

demands within a total force perspective. This perspective includes a clear 

understanding of the roles and characteristics of DOD’s civilian and 

military personnel and the most appropriate source of 

capabilities—military, civilian, or contractor. 

 7

The Defense Science Board Task Force on Human Resources Strategy, February 2000. 

The Defense Science Board is a federal advisory committee established to provide 

independent advice to the Secretary of Defense. 
Page 7 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is the 

principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary 

of Defense for total force management as it relates to readiness, personnel 

requirements and management, and other matters. The Under Secretary’s 

office develops policies, plans, and programs for recruitment, training, 

equal opportunity, compensation, recognition, discipline, and separation 

of all DOD personnel, including active, reserve, and retired military and 

civilian personnel. This office also analyzes the total force structure as it 

relates to quantitative and qualitative military and civilian personnel 

requirements. Within this office is the Office of the Deputy Under 

Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy, which formulates 

plans, policies, and programs to manage the DOD civilian workforce. 

Policy leadership and human resource programs and systems are provided 

through the Civilian Personnel Management Service. 

Strategic human capital management involves long-term planning that is 

fact based, focused on program results and mission accomplishment, and 

incorporates merit principles. Studies by several organizations, including 

GAO, have shown that highly successful performance organizations in 

both the public and private sectors employ effective strategic management 

approaches as a means to prepare their workforce to meet present and 

future mission requirements as well as achieve organizational success. In 

our 2001 High-Risk Series and Performance and Accountability Series and 

again in 2003, we designated strategic human capital as a high-risk area 

and stated that serious human capital shortfalls are threatening the ability 

of many federal agencies to economically, efficiently, and effectively 

perform their missions.8

 We noted that federal agencies, including DOD 

and its components, needed to continue to improve the development of 

integrated human capital strategies that support the organization’s 

strategic and programmatic goals. 

In March 2002, we issued an exposure draft of our model of strategic 

human capital management to help federal agency leaders effectively lead 

 8

U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-01-263 (Washington, 

D.C.: Jan. 2001); Performance and Accountability Series—Major Management Challenges 

and Program Risks: A Governmentwide Perspective, GAO-01-241 (Washington, D.C.: 

Jan. 2001); and Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: A Governmentwide 

Perspective, GAO-03-95 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2003). 

Strategic Human Capital 

Management 
Page 8 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

and manage their people.9 The model is designed to help agency leaders 

effectively use their people and determine how well they integrate human 

capital considerations into daily decision making and planning for the 

program results they seek to achieve. Similarly, the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have 

developed tools that are being used to assess human capital management 

efforts. In October 2001, OMB developed standards for success for 

strategic human capital management—one of five governmentwide reform 

initiatives in the President’s Management Agenda. In December 2001, OPM 

released a human capital scorecard to assist agencies in responding to the 

OMB standards for success; later, in October 2002, OMB and OPM 

developed—in collaboration with GAO— revised standards for success. 

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

the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework. In April 

2002, the final report of the Commercial Activities Panel,10 mandated by 

Congress and chaired by the Comptroller General, sought to elevate 

attention to human capital considerations in making sourcing decisions. 

Federal organizations are increasingly concerned with sourcing issues 

because they are being held accountable for addressing another 

President’s Management Agenda initiative that calls for determining their 

core competencies and deciding how to build internal capacity or contract 

out for services. 

Until recently, top-level leadership at the department and component 

levels has not been extensively involved in strategic planning for civilian 

personnel; however, it is of higher priority to top-level leadership today 

than it has been in the past. With the exception of the Air Force, 

leadership at the component level has not been proactive, but is becoming 

more involved in responding to the need for strategic planning, providing 

guidance, or supporting and working in partnership with civilian human 

capital professionals. 

We have previously emphasized that high-performing organizations need 

senior leaders who are drivers of continuous improvement and also 

stimulate and support efforts to integrate human capital approaches with 

 9

U.S. General Accounting Office, Exposure Draft: A Model of Strategic Human Capital 

Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002). 

10Commercial Activities Panel, Improving the Sourcing Decisions of the Government: 

Final Report (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 2002). 

Leadership 

Involvement in 

Strategic Planning for 

Civilian Personnel 

Not Extensive in the 

Past, but Is Increasing 
Page 9 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

organizational goals. There is no substitute for the committed involvement 

of top leadership.11

Strategic planning for the Department of Defense civilian workforce is 

becoming a higher priority among DOD’s senior leadership, as evidenced 

by direction given in 2001 in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and 

the Defense Planning Guidance and by the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness to develop a civilian and military human 

resources strategic plan. We previously reported that a demonstrated 

commitment to change by agency leaders is perhaps the most important 

element of successful management reform and that leaders demonstrate 

this commitment by developing and directing reform.12 OMB and OPM 

have similarly advocated the need for top leadership to fully commit to 

strategic human capital planning. The Defense Science Board reported in 

2000 that senior DOD civilian and military leaders have devoted “far less” 

attention to civilian personnel challenges than the challenges of 

maintaining an effective military force.13

In 1992, during the initial stages of downsizing, DOD officials voiced 

concerns about what they perceived to be a lack of attention to identifying 

and maintaining a balanced basic level of skills needed to maintain 

in-house capabilities as part of the defense industrial base. In our 2000 

testimony, Strategic Approach Should Guide DOD Civilian Workforce 

Management,

14 we testified that DOD’s approach to civilian force 

reductions was less oriented toward shaping the makeup of the workforce 

than was the approach it used to manage its military downsizing. In its 

approach to civilian workforce downsizing, the department focused on 

mitigating adverse effects (such as nonvoluntary reductions-in-force) 

through retirements, attrition, hiring freezes, and base closures. (See 

app. II for a time line of key events related to DOD’s civilian workforce 

downsizing.) 

 11U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk Series: Strategic Human Capital 

Management, GAO-03-120 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2003). 

12GAO-02-373SP. 

13The Defense Science Board Task Force on Human Resources Strategy. The report also 

stated that DOD must give greater priority to the management of its civilian workforce in 

order to create the proper civilian force structure for the future. 

14GAO/T-GGD/NSIAD-00-120 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 9, 2000). 

Department-level 

Leadership Involvement in 

Strategic Planning for 

Civilian Personnel Has 

Increased in Recent Years 
Page 10 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

DOD initiated a more strategic approach when it published its first 

strategic plan for civilian personnel (Civilian Human Resources Strategic 

Plan, 2002-2008) in April 2002. In developing the departmentwide plan, 

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

made efforts to work in conjunction with defense components’ civilian 

human capital communities by inviting their leaders to contribute to 

working groups and special meetings and reviewing the services’ civilian 

human capital strategic plans. However, DOD has yet to provide guidance 

on how to integrate component-level civilian human capital strategic plans 

with its departmentwide civilian strategic plan. DOD officials said that full 

integration would be difficult because of the wide array of human capital 

services and mission support provided at the component level. However, 

one of the lessons learned in our previous work on strategic planning in 

the defense acquisition workforce was the need for leadership to provide 

guidance for planning efforts.15 Without guidance, defense components 

may not be able to effectively function together in support of the 

departmentwide plan. For example, DOD’s goal to provide management 

systems and departmentwide force planning tools may not be fully or 

efficiently achieved without a coordinated effort among all defense 

components. The component-level plans we reviewed included goals, 

objectives, or initiatives to improve analysis or forecasting of workforce 

requirements, but they did not indicate coordination with the 

departmentwide effort or with one another. 

Civilian human capital planning has emerged as an issue in another 

DOD-related forum for top leaders. In November 2002, the Human 

Resources Subcommittee of the Defense Business Practice 

Implementation Board released its report to DOD’s Senior Executive 

Council recommending, among other things, the establishment of a 

“Human Capital Transformation Team” to help implement agreed upon 

changes to transform human capital management in DOD’s civilian 

workforce.16

 15U.S. General Accounting Office, Acquisition Workforce: Status of Agency Efforts to 

Address Future Needs, GAO-03-55 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 18, 2002). 

16Defense Business Practice Implementation Board, Report to the Senior Executive 

Council, Department of Defense: Human Resources Task Group Report FY02-1, 

November 15, 2002. 
Page 11 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Leadership participation in strategic planning varies among the defense 

components we reviewed. High-level leaders in the Air Force, the Marine 

Corps, the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), and the 

Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) have provided the 

impetus for strategic planning and are partnering with civilian human 

capital professionals to develop and implement their strategic plans. Such 

partnership is increasing in the Army and not as evident in the Department 

of the Navy. 

Since the mid-1990s, Air Force leadership has been relatively active in 

strategic planning for civilian human capital. In 1999, high-level Air Force 

leadership recognized the need for strategic human capital planning to 

deal with the significant downsizing that had occurred over the last several 

years. For the civilian workforce, this recognition culminated in the 

publication in 2000 of the Civilian Personnel Management Improvement 

Strategy White Paper; the Air Force produced an update of this document 

in 2002.17 Air Force leadership also has recognized that it must further 

enhance its efforts with greater attention to integrated, total force 

planning. Air Force leadership has demonstrated this commitment by 

incorporating civilian human capital leaders into broader Air Force 

strategic planning and resource allocation processes. Air Force leaders 

created a human resources board (the Air Force Personnel Board of 

Directors) composed of 24 senior civilian and military leaders. The board 

convenes semi-annually to address military and civilian human capital 

issues in an integrated, total force context. It is fostering integrated 

planning with the intent of developing an overarching strategy—holistic, 

total force strategy—designed to meet Air Force workforce demands for 

the present and the future and intended to encompass the needs of active, 

reserve, civilian, and contractor personnel by 2004. Furthermore, the Air 

Force began to allocate resources for civilian human capital initiatives in 

fiscal year 2002 due to the strong support from Air Force leaders. 

In recent years, strategic human capital planning has generally received 

increasing top-level leadership support in the Marine Corps, DCMA, DFAS, 

and the Army. A Marine Corps official told us that the Commandant of the 

Marine Corps and other top Marine Corps leaders became involved with 

civilian human capital strategic planning in 2001. The Commandant, in 

October 2002, endorsed the civilian human capital strategic plan, which 

 17Air Force officials told us that this document and the Vision Implementation Plan 

together represent the Air Force’s civilian human capital strategic plan. 

Component-level 

Leadership Involvement in 

Strategic Planning for 

Civilian Personnel Varies 

Air Force Leadership 

Increasingly Proactive on 

Strategic Planning for Civilian 

Personnel 

Strategic Planning for Civilian 

Personnel Is an Emerging 

Priority in the Marine Corps, 

DCMA, DFAS, and the Army 
Page 12 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

outlines the Corps’ vision, intent, core values, expected outcomes, and 

strategic goals for civilian human capital. Officials are currently 

developing an implementation plan, which is expected to contain specific 

objectives, milestones, points of accountability, resource requirements, 

and performance measures. DCMA began strategic human capital planning 

in 2000 in response to guidance from the Office of the Under Secretary of 

Defense, Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, and issued its first human 

capital strategic plan in 2002. DCMA officials told us that their human 

resources director is a member of DCMA’s broader executive management 

board and that human capital—civilian and military—is a standing agenda 

issue at the board’s monthly meetings. DFAS officials told us their director 

includes human capital professionals in DFAS’s management decisionmaking processes. Further, human capital is a key element in the DFAS 

agencywide strategic plan. DFAS initiated its human capital strategic 

planning efforts in 2002, but it has not yet published its plan. 

Within the Army, top-level leadership involvement in strategic planning 

efforts for civilian human capital has been limited but increasing. The bulk 

of such efforts has instead originated in the Army’s civilian human capital 

community. The Army’s civilian human capital community recognized the 

need for strategic civilian human capital planning in the mid-1990s and 

developed strategic plans. The Army’s civilian human capital community 

also initiated, in 2000, an assessment of the civilian workforce situation 

and developed new concepts for human resource systems and workforce 

planning.18 Since 2002, Army top-level leadership has become more 

explicitly involved in their civilian human capital community’s initiatives. 

For example, in January 2003, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army formally 

endorsed the Army’s human capital strategic plan. Also, in January 2003, 

Army top leaders endorsed the recommendations of a study to improve 

the development and training of the Army’s civilian workforce, which 

followed three companion studies with similar objectives for military 

personnel. Additionally, as of March 2003, Army top leaders accepted the 

rationale and validated the requirement for another initiative to centrally 

manage senior civilian leaders by basing selection and retention decisions 

on long-term Army needs rather than on the short-term needs of local 

commanders. The Army plans to establish a management office to begin 

this effort in fiscal year 2004. Army officials told us that all of these efforts 

 18The Army refers to this effort as the Civilian Personnel Management System XXI (CPMS 

XXI). See The Wexford Group International, Army CPMS XXI Transforming Civilian 

Workforce Management White Paper (Vienna, Va., revised May 11, 2001). 
Page 13 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

have not yet been fully funded. Without the commitment and support of 

Army top leaders, the Army’s civilian human capital community has 

limited authority to carry out reforms on its own and limited ability to 

ensure that its reforms are appropriately focused on mission 

accomplishment. 

In addition, Army civilian human capital officials’ contributions to broader 

strategic planning efforts have been increasing. Specifically, officials told 

us that while the Army’s civilian human capital community has a voice in 

the Army’s resource allocation deliberations, getting civilian personnel 

issues included in top-level Army planning and budgeting documents is 

sometimes challenging. Within the past year, however, civilian human 

resource issues have been included in the Army-wide strategic readiness 

system (a balanced scorecard) and an Army well-being initiative 

(balancing the demands and expectations of the Army and its people). 

Within the Department of the Navy, top-level leadership involvement in 

strategic planning efforts for civilian human capital has been limited. 

Department of the Navy leadership invested in studies related to strategic 

planning for its civilian workforce, but it has been slow to develop a 

strategic plan for its civilian human capital. Two documents published in 

August 2000 and May 2001 reported the results of work sponsored by a 

personnel task force established by the Secretary of the Navy to examine 

facets of the Department of the Navy’s human resources management. 

One, a study conducted and published by the National Academy of Public 

Administration’s Center for Human Resources Management, focused on 

Department of the Navy civilian personnel issues; the other reported on 

the rest of the findings of the task force.19 Department of the Navy human 

capital officials told us that they have not implemented the 

recommendations of those studies because (1) many require new 

legislation and (2) the studies were future oriented, looking as far ahead as 

2020, and it will take time to implement the recommendations. These 

officials said that although the Department of the Navy had not yet 

developed a strategic plan for its civilian human capital, the Navy major 

commands (referred to as claimants) did their own human capital strategic 

planning as necessary, adding that they believed these efforts were 

 19The 2000 National Academy of Public Administration, Civilian Workforce 2020: 

Strategies for Modernizing Human Resources Management in the Department of the 

Navy (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 18, 2000), and the 2001 Department of the Navy: A Strategic 

Human Resource Management System for the 21st Century, Vols. I and II (Washington, 

D.C.: May 2001). 

Navy Leadership Involvement 

in Strategic Planning for 

Civilian Personnel Is Limited 
Page 14 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

sufficient. More recently, however, these officials told us that they are 

developing (on their own initiative) a strategic plan for the Department of 

the Navy’s civilian workforce. 

In addition, the Navy has very recently undertaken other strategic planning 

efforts. In July 2002, the Navy established a new organization to develop a 

consolidated approach to civilian workforce management that centers on 

21 core competency functional areas. Navy officials view this recent 

initiative, which involves senior military and civilian leaders, as the first 

step in developing a total force concept (civilian, active and reserve 

military, and contract employees). In March 2003, the Department of the 

Navy established (1) a new position that will provide a liaison for the Navy 

and Marine Corps strategic planning processes and (2) a Force 

Management Oversight Counsel, co-chaired by top Navy and Marine Corps 

officials, which will develop an overarching framework for Navy and 

Marine Corps strategic planning. 

With the looming uncertainty of continued downsizing, anticipated 

retirements, and increased competitive sourcing of non-core functions, 

strategic planning for the civilian workforce will grow in importance. If 

high-level leaders do not provide the committed and inspired attention to 

address civilian human capital issues (that is, establish it as an 

organizational priority and empower and partner with their human capital 

professionals in developing strategic plans for civilian human capital), 

then future decisions about the civilian workforce may not have a sound 

basis. 
Page 15 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

For the most part, the strategic plans we reviewed lacked such key 

elements as mission alignment, results-oriented performance measures, 

and data-driven workforce planning.20 Mission alignment is demonstrated 

by clearly showing how the civilian workforce contributes to 

accomplishing an organization’s overarching mission. It is also evident in 

descriptions of how the achievement of human capital initiatives will 

improve an organization’s performance in meeting its overarching mission, 

goals, and objectives. Results-oriented performance measures enable an 

organization to determine the effect of human capital programs and 

policies on mission accomplishment. Finally, data on the needed 

knowledge, skills, competencies, size, and deployment of the workforce to 

pursue an organization’s missions allow it to put the right people, in the 

right place, at the right time. The interrelationships of these three key 

elements are shown in figure 2. Without adequate alignment, performance 

measures, and workforce data, DOD and its components cannot be certain 

their human capital efforts are properly focused on mission 

accomplishment. 

 20This review primarily focused on aspects of leadership and strategic human capital 

planning—two of four cornerstones in our model for strategically managing human capital 

(GAO-02-373SP). We did not focus on aspects of the other two important cornerstones— 

(1) acquire, develop, retain, and deploy the best talent and elicit the best performance for 

mission accomplishment and (2) results-oriented organizational cultures that promote high 

performance and accountability (such as individual performance management that is fully 

integrated with the organization’s mission and is used as the basis for managing the 

organization) and empower and include employees in setting and accomplishing 

programmatic goals. 

Key Elements of 

Strategic Plans for 

DOD Civilian 

Personnel Not in 

Place 
Page 16 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Figure 2: Relationships among Several Key Elements of a Human Capital Strategic 

Plan 

Previously, we emphasized that high-performing organizations align their 

human capital initiatives with mission and goal accomplishment. 

Organizations’ strategic human capital planning must also be results 

oriented and data driven, including, for example, information on the 

appropriate number and location of personnel needed and their key 

competencies and skills. High-performing organizations also stay alert to 

emerging mission demands and human capital challenges and reevaluate 

their human capital initiatives through the use of valid, reliable, and 

current data.21

The human capital goals and objectives contained in strategic plans for 

civilian personnel were not, for the most part, explicitly aligned with the 

overarching missions of the organizations we reviewed. Moreover, none of 

the plans fully reflected a results-oriented approach to assessing progress 

toward mission achievement. Human capital strategic plans should be 

aligned with (i.e., consistent with and supportive of) an organization’s 

overarching mission. Alignment between “published and approved human 

capital planning documents” and an organization’s overarching mission is 

advised in OPM’s Human Capital Assessment and Accountability 

 21GAO-03-120. 

Strategic Plans for Civilian 

Personnel Are Not 

Mission Aligned and 

Results Oriented 
Page 17 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Framework. With regard to assessing progress, programs can be more 

effectively measured if their goals and objectives are outcome-oriented 

(i.e., focused on results or impact) rather than output-oriented (i.e., 

focused on activities and processes), in keeping with the principles of the 

Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). Congress anticipated 

that GPRA would be institutionalized and practiced throughout the federal 

government; federal agencies are expected to develop performance plans 

that are consistent with the act’s approach. 

Based on the above criteria, we analyzed the human capital strategic plans 

that five of the seven organizations in our review have published22 for the 

following: 

• Human capital goals and objectives that explicitly describe how the 

civilian workforce helps achieve the overarching mission, goals, and 

objectives. 

• Results-oriented measures that track the success of the human capital 

initiatives in contributing to mission achievement. 

All of the civilian human capital plans we reviewed referred to their 

respective organizations’ mission; however, the human capital goals, 

objectives, and initiatives did not explicitly link or describe how the 

civilian workforce efforts would contribute to the organizations’ 

overarching mission achievement, and more importantly how the extent of 

contribution to mission achievement would be measured. Aspects of 

DCMA’s plan, however, demonstrate alignment by including a general 

explanation of the overarching mission inclusive of human capital goals, 

objectives, and initiatives that further define how its civilian workforce 

contributes to achieving the overarching mission. For example: 

• DCMA’s overarching mission is to “Provide customer-focused 

acquisition support and contract management services to ensure 

warfighter readiness, 24/7, worldwide.” DCMA’s human capital plan 

demonstrates the alignment of the agency’s workforce by stating that 

the agency will accomplish its overarching mission by “Partner[ing], or 

strategically team[ing] with customers to develop better solutions, and 

ensur[ing] warfighter success on all missions” and “Providing expertise 

 22DOD, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and DCMA have published civilian human capital 

strategic plans. DFAS and Department of the Navy are in the process of developing such 

plans. 
Page 18 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

and knowledge throughout the acquisition life cycle, from cradle to 

grave; from factory to foxhole and beyond”.23

• DCMA’s plan contains one human capital goal, among other agencywide goals, directed at aligning workforce efforts with mission 

accomplishment. The goal is to enable DCMA people to excel by 

building and maintaining a work environment that (1) attracts, 

(2) develops, and (3) sustains a quality workforce. 

• Several objectives and initiatives in DCMA’s plan demonstrate a link to 

this human capital goal and to the overarching mission. Examples of 

these initiatives include determining ways to (1) making DCMA 

employment attractive, (2) establishing a professional development 

framework that is integrated and competency-based as well as 

developing an advanced leadership program, and (3) sustaining a 

quality workforce by ensuring recognition and awards to 

high-performing personnel. This alignment of DCMA’s workforce, 

initiatives, and goals to the overarching mission helps DCMA ensure 

that its civilian workforce has the necessary expertise and knowledge 

to provide customer-focused acquisition support and contract 

management services. 

The other plans in our review generally did not demonstrate this degree of 

alignment. For example, in the Army civilian human capital strategic plan, 

four of the six human resource goals are more narrowly directed toward 

the role played by the human resource community and only indirectly tie 

the civilian workforce to the achievement of the Army’s overall mission. 

However, two goals—“systematic planning that forecasts and achieves the 

civilian work force necessary to support the Army’s mission” and 

“diversity through opportunity”24 —link more explicitly to the Army’s 

overarching mission. Also, DOD’s departmentwide civilian human capital 

plan refers to the overarching mission by including broad references to 

DOD’s overarching strategic plan. However, the plan is silent about what 

role DOD’s civilian workforce is expected to play in achievement of the 

mission. The plan recognizes the need for aligning the civilian workforce 

with the overarching mission by proposing to develop a human resource 

management accountability system to guarantee the effective use of 

human resources in achieving DOD’s overarching mission. 

 23DCMA Human Capital Strategic Plan. 

24The Army’s goal for diversity through opportunity states: “A civilian force that is as richly 

diverse as America itself, and a work environment that promotes individual respect and 

encourages collaboration through sharing of different views and perspectives to improve 

effectiveness and quality.” 
Page 19 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Moreover, none of the plans in our review contained results-oriented goals 

and measures. For example, DOD’s strategic goal to “promote focused, 

well-funded recruiting to hire the best talent available” is not expressed in 

measurable terms (i.e., it does not define “focused, well-funded, and best 

talent available”), and the measures for this goal are process oriented 

(i.e., developing or publishing a policy or strategy; reviewing programs) 

rather than results oriented. DOD’s plan, however, indicates that mission 

achievement measures are being developed. At the component level, the 

Army, in particular, has developed metrics related to its personnel 

transaction processes; although these measures are important, they are 

not focused on measuring outcomes related to mission accomplishment. 

Army officials recognize the importance of relating outcomes to mission 

accomplishment and are presently working to develop such measures. 

Without results-oriented measures, it is difficult for an organization to 

assess the effectiveness of its human capital initiatives in supporting its 

overarching mission, goals, and objectives. 

Officials at DOD and the defense components in our review told us they 

recognize the importance of alignment and results-oriented measures in 

strategic human capital planning. In fact, the Air Force has recently 

undertaken an initiative to develop a planning framework aligning 

strategy, vision, execution, measurement, and process transformation. 

Many human capital officials we spoke with noted they have only recently 

begun to transition from their past role of functional experts—focused 

primarily on personnel transactions—to partners with top leadership in 

strategically planning for their civilian workforce. In their new role, they 

expect to make improvements in strategically managing civilian personnel, 

including identifying results-oriented performance measures in future 

iterations of their plans. Until such elements are in place, it is difficult to 

determine if the human capital programs DOD and its components are 

funding are consistent with overarching missions or if they are effectively 

leading to mission accomplishment. 
Page 20 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

The civilian human capital strategic plans for DOD and its components 

include goals focused on improving their human capital initiatives, but 

only two components include workforce data that supported the need for 

those particular initiatives. GAO and others25 have reported that it is 

important to analyze future workforce needs to (1) assist organizations in 

tailoring initiatives for recruiting, developing, and retaining personnel to 

meet its future needs and (2) provide the rationale and justification for 

obtaining resources and, if necessary, additional authority to carry out 

those initiatives. We also stated that to build the right workforce to 

achieve strategic goals, it is essential that organizations determine the 

critical skills and competencies needed to successfully implement the 

programs and processes associated with those goals. To do so, three types 

of data are needed: (1) what is available—both the current workforce 

characteristics26 and future availability, (2) what is needed—the critical 

workforce characteristics needed in the future, and (3) what is the 

difference between what will be available and what will be needed—the 

gap. Without this information, DOD cannot structure its future workforce 

to support the Secretary of Defense’s initiatives or mitigate the risk of 

shortfalls in critical personnel when pending civilian retirements occur. 

Of the five organizations in our review that had civilian human capital 

strategic plans,27 two—the Air Force and DCMA—included some 

information about the future workforce and indicated the gaps to be 

addressed by its civilian human capital initiatives. The Air Force’s plan 

includes a chart that illustrates, in terms of years of federal service, the 

current workforce compared to a 1989 baseline (prior to the downsizing of 

its civilian workforce) and a target workforce for fiscal year 2005. This 

information was generally based on data that were readily available but 

considered to be a less-than-adequate indicator for level of experience, 

and it is not clear how the target workforce data were derived. According 

 25GAO-02-373SP; National Academy of Public Administration, Building Successful 

Organizations: A Guide to Strategic Workforce Planning (Washington, D.C.: May 2000); 

International Personnel Management Association, Workforce Planning Resource Guide for 

Public Sector Human Resource Professionals (Summer 2002); and RAND, An Operational 

Process for Workforce Planning (Forthcoming). 

26Workforce characteristics are concrete and measurable aspects of a group of workers 

that are critical for organizational success and can be influenced by policy decisions. 

Examples include occupation; grade level; experience; academic degree or discipline; 

certification; leadership; multifunctional skills; deployment; or military, civilian, and 

contractor mix. 

27The Department of the Navy and DFAS do not yet have plans. 

Strategic Plans for Civilian 

Personnel Generally Lack 

Data on Workforce Needs 
Page 21 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

to the Air Force, its analysis illustrated the shortfall in the number of 

civilians with less than 10 years of service when compared to the Air 

Force’s long-term requirements. Using this and other analyses, the Air 

Force initially developed workforce-shaping activities in four 

areas—accession planning, force development, retention/separation 

management, and enabling activities, which included 27 separate 

initiatives. 

DCMA’s plan describes the agency’s workforce planning methodology, 

which focuses on identifying gaps between its current and future 

workforce. DCMA’s strategic workforce planning team analyzes 

quantitative data on the current workforce and employs an interview 

protocol to gather and analyze information from DCMA managers and 

subject matter experts pertaining to future work and workforce 

requirements.28 According to DCMA, this methodology allows it to link the 

desired distribution of positions, occupational series, and skills to 

organizational outcomes, processes, and customer requirements and to 

DOD’s transformation guidance, goals, and initiatives. Although DCMA has 

not completely identified or quantified its future workforce requirements, 

it identified the following: requirements for new technical skills, especially 

software acquisition and integration; upgrading general skills and 

maintaining the existing skill base; correcting imbalances in geographic 

locations; requirements for hiring about 990 employees per year through 

2009; and obtaining additional positions to support anticipated increasing 

procurements. 

In contrast to the Air Force and DCMA plans, the DOD, Army, and Marine 

Corps plans lack information about future workforce needs. For example, 

DOD’s civilian human capital plan contains data on those civilians eligible 

for retirement by grade level and by job category. However, the plan does 

not address key characteristics such as skills and competencies that will 

be needed in the future workforce to support changes being undertaken by 

DOD.29 Without this information and a methodology to analyze and identify 

the gaps that exist between what will be available and what will be 

 28DCMA developed this qualitative approach because it does not have (1) workforce 

modeling or projection tools that can be used as a basis to establish the number of future 

positions and types of future competencies required and (2) data on current workforce 

competencies to establish the baseline needed to assess future competency gaps. 

29Changes include such initiatives as DOD’s transformation to a capabilities-based 

organization and competitive sourcing under OMB Circular A-76. 
Page 22 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

needed, it is not clear that the human capital initiatives in DOD’s plan will 

result in the desired future workforce. 

All of the plans we reviewed acknowledge strategic workforce planning 

shortfalls by setting goals or initiatives to improve in this area. For 

example, DOD’s plan includes a goal to obtain management systems and 

tools that support total force planning and informed decision making. 

DOD has begun adopting the Army’s Civilian Forecasting System and the 

Workforce Analysis Support System for departmentwide use, which will 

enable it to project the future workforce by occupational series and grade 

structure. However, the systems (which are based on a regression analysis 

of historical data) are not capable of determining the size and skill 

competencies of the civilian workforce needed in the future. Also, DOD 

has not yet determined specifically how this new analytic capability will be 

integrated into programmatic decision-making processes. DOD officials 

stated that its first step was to purchase the equipment and software, 

which was accomplished in 2002. DOD is now analyzing users’ needs. As 

of December 2002, DOD officials were testing the systems, but they 

expressed concerns that the Army systems may not serve the needs of a 

complex and diverse organization such as DOD. 

The civilian human capital strategic plans we reviewed did not address 

how the civilian workforce would be integrated with their military 

counterparts or sourcing initiatives to accomplish DOD’s mission. The 

2001 QDR states that future operations will not only be joint but also 

depend upon the total force—including civilian personnel as well as active 

duty and reserve personnel. The QDR also emphasizes that DOD will focus 

its “owned” resources in areas that contribute directly to warfighting and 

that it would continue to take steps to outsource and shed its non-core 

responsibilities. The 2000 Defense Science Board Task Force report states 

that DOD needs to undertake deliberate and integrated force shaping of 

the civilian and military forces, address human capital challenges from a 

total force perspective, and base decisions to convert functions from 

military to civilian or to outsource functions to contractors on an 

integrated human resource plan.30 In addition, the National Academy of 

Public Administration, in its report on the Navy civilian workforce 2020, 

notes that as more work is privatized and more traditionally military tasks 

require support of civilian or contractor personnel, a more unified 

 30The Defense Science Board Task Force on Human Resources Strategy. 

Strategic Plans for 

Civilian Personnel 

Not Yet Integrated 

with Plans for Military 

Personnel or Sourcing 

Initiatives 
Page 23 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

approach to force planning and management will be necessary; serious 

shortfalls in any one of the force elements will damage mission 

accomplishment.31 The Academy’s report also states that the trend towards 

greater reliance on contractors necessitates a critical mass of civilian 

personnel expertise to protect the government’s interest and ensure 

effective oversight of contractors’ work. Further, the 2002 Commercial 

Activities Panel final report indicates that sourcing and human capital 

policies should be inextricably linked together, and it calls for federal 

sourcing policies to be “consistent with human capital practices designed 

to attract motivate, retain, and reward a high performing workforce.”32

DOD’s overall human capital strategy, however, consists of three separate 

plans: one for civilians, one for military personnel, and one for quality of 

life issues for servicemembers and their families. DOD has not integrated 

the contractor workforce into these plans. Although DOD officials 

maintain that these plans are intended to complement each other, the 

plans are not integrated to form a seamless and comprehensive strategy. 

The civilian plan was prepared separately from the other two military 

plans with little direct involvement of key stakeholders, such as 

representatives from military personnel and manpower requirements 

communities. 

Although not reflected in its departmentwide civilian human capital 

strategic plan, DOD acknowledged—in its response to the President’s 

Management Agenda to accomplish workforce restructuring, 

reorganizations, delayering, outsourcing, and reengineered and 

streamlined processes—that these efforts could only be accomplished 

through coordinating and integrating civilian and military components. 

The departmentwide civilian plan includes a longer-term objective to 

assess the need for and the capabilities of automated information 

management tools to primarily integrate civilian and military personnel 

and transaction data. We believe these tools can also provide information 

for planning and analysis, but they may not provide DOD with the 

information needed to proactively shape the total DOD workforce in 

response to current changes (i.e., the Secretary’s transformation of the 

department, increasing joint operations, and competitive sourcing 

initiatives) because (1) contractor data are not included and (2) the 

 31Civilian Workforce 2020: Strategies for Modernizing Human Resources Management in 

the Department of the Navy. 

32Improving the Sourcing Decisions of the Government: Final Report. 
Page 24 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

projected date for accomplishing this objective, September 2008, may be 

too late to effect near-term decisions. In addition, officials in the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness recognize 

that integration of the military and civilian plans is important and are 

developing an umbrella document that will encompass all three 

components of the human capital strategy, but it has not established a 

time frame for completion. 

Furthermore, DOD’s civilian human capital strategic plan does not address 

the role of civilian vis-à-vis contractor personnel or how DOD plans to link 

its human capital initiatives with its sourcing plans, such as efforts to 

outsource non-core responsibilities. The plan notes that contractors are 

part of the unique mix of DOD resources, but none of the goals and 

objectives discusses how DOD will shape its future workforce in a total 

force (civilian, military, and contractor) context.33 We believe that effective 

civilian workforce planning cannot be accomplished in isolation from 

planning for military personnel or sourcing initiatives. As the Commercial 

Activities Panel report notes, it is particularly important that sourcing 

strategies support, not inhibit, the government organization’s efforts to 

recruit and retain a high-performing in-house workforce.34 We also noted in 

our High Risk report that careful and thoughtful workforce planning 

efforts are critical to making intelligent competitive sourcing decisions.35

At the service level, the Air Force’s strategic plans for civilian personnel 

were not initially developed in a total force context, but the current plans 

acknowledge the need to integrate strategic planning for civilians with 

their military counterparts, as well as taking into account contractors. For 

example, the Air Force has set a goal and taken steps to integrate planning 

for active, reserve, civilian, and contractor personnel by 2004.36 Air Force 

officials stated concerns about the significant budgetary consequences 

when planning does not take place in a total force context. For example, 

when civilian or contractor personnel perform functions previously 

 33Officials in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 

described a parallel effort to define civilian and contractor roles as part of identifying 

activities that are not inherently governmental as required by the Federal Activities 

Inventory Reform Act (P.L. 105-270). 

34Improving the Sourcing Decisions of the Government: Final Report. 

35GAO-03-120. 

36Air Force Personnel Vision Implementation Plan 2002. 
Page 25 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

conducted by military personnel, the defense component involved must 

obtain additional funds because payment for civilians and contractors 

cannot come from military personnel funds.37 The Air Force estimates that 

these costs could be $10 billion to $15 billion over the next 5 years. 

Although a proposed time frame is not provided, the Marine Corps’ civilian 

plan states the need to forecast military and civilian levels and workforce 

requirements based on strategic mission drivers, stratified workload 

demand, and business process changes; the requirements for its civilian 

marines will take into account the appropriate redistribution of work 

among the military, civilian, and contractor communities.38 The Army’s 

civilian human capital plan states that it will have to acquire, train, and 

retain its total force in an operational environment that will place different 

demands on human capital management. The Army’s human capital 

community has an objective to support the Army-wide “Third Wave” 

initiative, which focuses on privatization of non-core functions to better 

allocate scarce resources to core functions.39 (The Department of the Navy 

does not yet have a civilian human capital strategic plan.) 

The defense agencies we reviewed, which have relatively few military 

personnel compared to the military services, are taking or plan to take an 

integrated approach to strategic planning for their civilian and military 

workforces, but they do not indicate how they will integrate these efforts 

with their sourcing initiatives. DCMA’s human capital strategic plan 

includes both civilian and military personnel. For example, the plan 

includes a goal to address the underassignment of military personnel,40

because their absence further compounds the difficulties caused by the 

downsizing of civilian positions and the increasing workload. DFAS is 

planning to include both civilian and military personnel in the human 

 37U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Competitive Sourcing: Some Progress, but 

Continuing Challenges Remain in Meeting Program Goals, GAO/NSIAD-00-106

(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 8, 2000). 

38U.S. Marine Corps Civilian Workforce Campaign Plan 2003. 

39The Department of the Army’s Fiscal Year 02-07 Civilian Human Resources Strategic 

Plan and FY03 Army Civilian Human Resources Operational Plan. 

40In 2002, DCMA was authorized 630 military positions, but it filled 480. This chronic 

problem occurs because the services lack military personnel trained in the acquisition 

career fields and, therefore, do not have enough qualified military personnel to fill the 

DCMA positions. Currently, this shortage affects the Administrative Contracting and 

Acquisition Manager functions. 
Page 26 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

capital strategic plan that it is developing. Like DCMA, military personnel 

are a small but important part of the overall DFAS workforce, but they are 

projected to be less available in the future. For example, the Air Force has 

announced that it is reducing its military personnel presence at DFAS over 

the next several years. 

Without integrated planning, goals for shaping and deploying military, 

civilian, and contractor personnel may not be consistent with and support 

each other. Consequently, DOD may not have the workforce it needs to 

accomplish tasks critical to readiness and mission success. 

DOD has made progress in establishing a foundation for strategically 

addressing civilian human capital issues by developing its departmentwide 

civilian human capital strategic plan. However, the alignment of human 

capital goals with the overarching mission is unclear in DOD’s and the 

components’ strategic plans for civilian human capital, and resultsoriented performance measures linked to mission accomplishment are 

lacking. Without these key elements, DOD and its components may miss 

opportunities to more effectively and efficiently increase workforce 

productivity. Also, without greater commitment from and the support of 

top leaders, civilian human capital professionals in DOD and the defense 

components may design strategic planning efforts that are not 

appropriately focused on mission accomplishment and that do not have 

adequate support to carry out. 

Moreover, DOD top leadership has not provided its components with 

guidance on how to align component-level strategic plans with the 

departmentwide plan. Without this alignment, DOD’s and its components’ 

planning may lack the focus and coordination needed (1) to carry out the 

Secretary of Defense’s transformation initiatives in an effective manner 

and (2) to mitigate risks of not having human capital ready to respond to 

national security events at home and abroad. 

Although DOD and component officials recognize the critical need for 

ensuring that the future workforce be efficiently deployed across their 

organizations and have the right skills and competencies needed to 

accomplish their missions, their strategic plans lack the information 

needed to identify gaps in skills and competencies. As a result, DOD and 

its components may not have a sound basis for funding decisions related 

to human capital initiatives and may not be able to put the right people in 

the right place at the right time to achieve the mission. 

Conclusions 
Page 27 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Furthermore, as personnel reductions continue and DOD carries out its 

transformation initiatives, integrating planning in a total force context—as 

mentioned in the QDR—becomes imperative to ensure that scarce 

resources are most effectively used. However, military and civilian human 

capital strategic plans—both DOD’s and the components’—have yet to be 

integrated with each other. Furthermore, the civilian plans do not address 

how human capital policies will complement, not conflict with, the 

department-level or component-level sourcing plans, such as competitive 

sourcing efforts. 

To improve human capital strategic planning for the DOD civilian 

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

Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, to undertake the 

following: 

• Improve future revisions and updates to the DOD departmentwide 

strategic human capital plan by more explicitly aligning with DOD’s 

overarching mission, including results-oriented performance measures, 

and focusing on future workforce needs. To accomplish this, the 

revisions and updates should be developed in collaboration with top 

DOD and component officials and civilian and military human capital 

leaders. 

• Direct the military services and the defense agencies to align their 

strategic human capital plans with the mission, goals, objectives, and 

measures included in the departmentwide strategic human capital plan 

and provide guidance to these components on this alignment. 

• Define the future civilian workforce, identifying the characteristics 

(i.e., the skills and competencies, number, deployment, etc.) of 

personnel needed in the context of the total force and determine the 

workforce gaps that need to be addressed through human capital 

initiatives. 

• Assign a high priority to and set a target date for developing a 

departmentwide human capital strategic plan that integrates both 

military and civilian workforces and takes into account contractor 

roles and sourcing initiatives. 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 
Page 28 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

We received comments from the Department of Defense too late to 

include them in the final report. These comments and our evaluation of 

them, however, were incorporated into a subsequent report (DOD 

Personnel: DOD Comments on GAO’s Report on DOD’s Civilian Human 

Capital Strategic Planning, GAO-03-690R). 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Secretaries of the Air Force, 

Army, and Navy; the Commandant of the Marine Corps; and the Directors 

of DCMA and DFAS. 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. 

Please contact me at (202) 512-5559 if you or your staff have any questions 

concerning this report. Key contributors are listed in appendix III. 

Sincerely yours, 

Derek B. Stewart 

Director, Defense Capabilities 

and Management 

Agency Comments 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 29 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

As requested by the Ranking Minority Member of the House Committee on 

Armed Services, Subcommittee on Readiness, we reviewed civilian human 

capital strategic planning in the Department of Defense (DOD). 

Specifically, the objectives of this report were to assess (1) the extent to 

which top-level leadership is involved in strategic planning for civilian 

personnel and (2) whether strategic plans for civilian personnel are 

aligned with the overall mission, results oriented, and based on data about 

the future civilian workforce. We also determined whether the strategic 

plans for civilian personnel are integrated with plans for military 

personnel or sourcing initiatives. We focused primarily on civilian human 

capital strategic planning undertaken since 1988, when DOD began 

downsizing its civilian workforce. Our analyses were based on the 

documents that each organization identified as its civilian human capital 

strategic planning documents. Several documents had been published or 

updated either just prior to or during the time of our review (May 2002 to 

March 2003). Also, DOD and component strategic planning for civilian 

personnel is a continuous process and involves ongoing efforts. We did not 

review the implementation of the human capital strategic plans because 

most plans were too recent for this action to be completed. 

The scope of our review included examining the civilian human capital 

strategic planning efforts undertaken by DOD, its four military services, 

and two of its other defense organizations—the Defense Finance and 

Accounting Service (DFAS) and the Defense Contract Management 

Agency (DCMA). We selected the military services since they account for 

about 85 percent of the civilian personnel in DOD. To understand how 

civilian human capital strategic planning is being undertaken by other 

defense organizations, which account for the other 15 percent of the DOD 

civilian workforce, we determined the status of the human capital 

strategic planning efforts of 21 other defense organizations through a 

telephone survey. We judgmentally selected two defense agencies, DFAS 

and DCMA, because of their large size and because they perform different 

functions; therefore, they could offer different perspectives on strategic 

planning for civilians. DFAS and DCMA account for about 26 percent of 

the civilian personnel in other defense organizations. DFAS has about 

15,274 civilian employees and more than 1,000 military personnel, 

performs finance and accounting activities, and does not have a civilian 

human capital strategic plan, although it does have an overall agency 

strategic plan that includes human capital as a key element. DCMA has 

about 11,770 civilian employees and about 480 military personnel, 

performs acquisition functions, and has a civilian human capital strategic 

plan. 

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

Page 30 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

To assess the extent to which top-level leadership is involved in strategic 

planning for civilian personnel, we reviewed the civilian human capital 

strategic plans for discussions of the methodology used in developing 

them that indicated leadership involvement. Further, we compared the 

civilian human capital strategic plans publication dates to key events, such 

as the issuance of the President’s Management Agenda, which advocates 

strategic human capital planning. We discussed top leadership 

involvement in the development of human capital strategic plans with the 

applicable civilian human capital planning officials. These officials 

included representatives from the following offices: 

• Department of Defense: Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness, including Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Civilian 

Personnel Policy and Director, Civilian Personnel Management Service. 

• Department of Air Force: Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for 

Manpower and Reserve Affairs; Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Personnel Headquarters; Director of Strategic Plans and Future 

Systems, and Director, Air Force Personnel Operations Agency, Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Personnel; and Directorate of Personnel, Air Force 

Materiel Command. 

• Department of the Army: Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1. 

• Department of the Navy: Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 

Civilian Personnel Policy and Equal Employment Opportunity; Deputy 

Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower and Personnel; and Deputy 

Commandant of the Marine Corps for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. 

• Defense Contract Management Agency: Executive Director, Human 

Resources; and Director, Strategic Planning, Programming, and 

Analysis. 

• Defense Finance and Accounting Service: Human Resources 

Directorate and Resource Management Directorate. 

To assess whether strategic plans for civilian personnel are aligned with 

the overall mission, results oriented, and contained data about the future 

civilian workforce, we compared each plan with the concepts articulated 

in our model for strategically managing human capital and similar 

guidance provided by the Office of Budget and Management and the Office 

of Personnel Management (which are discussed in greater detail in the 

Background section of this report). Among the numerous sources we 

reviewed, we used the criteria described in our reports on Exposure Draft:

A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management; Human Capital: A 

Self-Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders; High-Risk Series: An 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 31 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Update; and Performance and Accountability Series – Major 

Management Challenges and Program Risks.

41 Specifically, we looked for 

(1) the alignment of human capital approaches to meet organizational 

goals, (2) the presence of results-oriented performance measures, and 

(3) the references to use of workforce planning data to justify human 

capital initiatives (i.e., policies and programs). To ensure consistency with 

our application of the criteria in other GAO engagements, we also 

reviewed approximately 100 of our reports that addressed their 

application within DOD and other federal agencies. Also, to better 

understand the existing human capital framework and its relationship to 

the strategic planning efforts, we gathered information about policies, 

programs, and procedures. Finally, we validated the results of our analyses 

of the plans with appropriate agency officials. 

To assess whether the strategic plans for civilian personnel are integrated 

with plans for military personnel or sourcing initiatives, we analyzed the 

civilian human capital strategic plans for (1) references to military 

personnel or a total force perspective and (2) discussions about 

competitive and strategic sourcing efforts being undertaken in a total force 

context. We also collaborated with other GAO staff who reviewed 

(1) DOD’s strategic plans for military personnel and quality of life issues 

for servicemembers and their families,42 (2) sourcing initiatives,43 and 

(3) DOD’s acquisition workforce.44 In addition, we discussed integration 

between civilian and military personnel plans with the applicable civilian 

human capital planning officials previously mentioned. 

 41U.S. General Accounting Office, Exposure Draft: A Model of Strategic Human Capital 

Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 2002); Human Capital: A SelfAssessment Checklist for Agency Leaders, GAO/OCG-00-14G (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 2000, 

Version 1); High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-01-263 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2001); and 

Performance and Accountability Series—Major Management Challenges and Program 

Risks: Department of Defense, GAO-03-98 (Washington, D.C.: Jan 2003). 

42U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Personnel Oversight Process Needed to Help 

Maintain Momentum of DOD’s Strategic Human Capital Planning, GAO-03-237

(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 2002). 

43Commercial Activities Panel, Improving the Sourcing Decisions of the Government: 

Final Report (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 2002). 

44U.S. General Accounting Office, Acquisition Workforce: Department of Defense’s Plans 

to Address Workforce Size and Structure Challenges, GAO-02-630 (Washington, D.C.: 

Apr. 30, 2002). 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 32 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

We conducted our review from May 2002 to March 2003 in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Appendix II: Key Events Related to Strategic 

Planning for DOD Civilian Personnel 

Page 33 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Figure 3 provides a time line of several key events and dates that affected 

DOD’s civilian workforce between 1988 and 2002. It also shows when DOD 

and its components published their human capital strategic plans. 

Figure 3: Key Events Related to Strategic Planning for DOD Civilian Personnel 

Note: Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC); Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA); 

National Defense Panel (NDP); Defense Science Board (DSB); Department of Defense (DOD); 

President’s Management Agenda (PMA); Office of Management and Budget (OMB); Office and 

Personnel Management (OPM); Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA); and Quadrennial 

Defense Review (QDR). 

Appendix II: Key Events Related to Strategic 

Planning for DOD Civilian Personnel 
Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Page 34 GAO-03-475 DOD Personnel 

Derek B. Stewart (202) 512-5559 

Christine Fossett (202) 512-2956 

In addition to the name above, Daniel Chen, Joel Christenson, Barbara 

Joyce, Janet Keller, Shvetal Khanna, Dan Omahen, Gerald Winterlin, Dale 

Wineholt, and Susan Woodward made key contributions to this report. 

Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contacts 

Acknowledgments 

(350198) 
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