Report to the Ranking Member, 

Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, House of Representatives 

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 

October 2009 FEDERAL AVIATION 

ADMINISTRATION 

Human Capital System 

Incorporates Many 

Leading Practices, but 

Improving Employees’ 

Satisfaction with 

Their Workplace 

Remains a Challenge 

GAO-10-89 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

October 2009

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION 

Human Capital System Incorporates Many Leading

Practices, but Improving Employees’ Satisfaction 

Highlights of GAO-10-89, a report to the with Their Workplace Remains a Challenge 

Ranking Member, Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, House 

of Representatives 

Aviation is critical to the nation’s 

economic well-being, global 

competitiveness, and national 

security. The Federal Aviation 

Administration’s (FAA) 48,000 

employees guide aircraft, oversee 

safety, and maintain air traffic 

control equipment. FAA will need 

these skills and additional 

expertise to address evolving 

missions. As requested, GAO 

reviewed (1) how FAA’s human 

capital system compares with 

practices of leading organizations 

and (2) how FAA employees’ 

workplace satisfaction compares 

with that of other federal 

government employees. GAO 

reviewed documents and relevant 

studies, and interviewed FAA 

officials who implement human 

capital procedures and union 

representatives. GAO also 

reviewed survey data on workplace 

satisfaction. 

What GAO Recommends

FAA’s human capital system incorporates many practices used in leading 

organizations, but the agency’s placement near the bottom in best places to 

work rankings, published by the Partnership for Public Service and American 

University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, could 

pose challenges to employee recruitment, motivation, and retention. As part 

of strategic workforce planning, FAA determines the critical skills needed in 

its workforce and assesses individual worker skill levels. It also follows 

leading practices in performance management, but FAA officials and union 

representatives questioned the system’s fairness, echoing concerns that they 

have raised in the past. FAA follows fewer leading practices in diversity 

management, but has an opportunity to strengthen its efforts as it updates 

diversity outreach plans. Despite these efforts, FAA ranked 214th out of 216 

agencies in 2009 as the best place to work in the federal government, similar 

to its ranking in 2007. These low rankings could pose obstacles to FAA’s 

efforts to retain its existing workforce and recruit staff with the requisite skills 

needed to implement the Next Generation Air Transportation System. By 

fiscal year 2013, FAA projects that 38 percent of its employees who perform 

work that is critical to FAA’s mission will be eligible to retire. 

While FAA employee responses to governmentwide surveys indicate that they 

like their work, their responses are considerably less positive than the rest of 

the federal government regarding other factors that have an impact on 

employee recruitment, motivation, and retention (see figure). The percentage 

of FAA employees’ positive responses regarding communications, 

involvement in decisions that affect their work, and respect for their leaders 

were up to 19 points below those of the rest of the federal government (see 

figure). FAA has developed an action plan to improve leadership and create a 

performance-based culture that could improve employees’ workplace 

satisfaction. However, FAA has not established accountability for the plan’s 

success. 

FAA and Non-FAA Positive Responses to a 2008 Governmentwide Survey 

Selected impact item Percentage of positive responses

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

Percentage

Source: GAO analysis of Federal Human Capital Survey data.

I like the kind of work I do.

I have a high level of respect for my 

organization’s senior leaders.

How satisfied are you with your involvement 

in decisions that affect your work?

How satisfied are you with the information you

receive from management on what’s going on?

0 20 40 60 80 100

85

84

36

33

52

41

54

48

GAO makes recommendations in 

this report to the Secretary of 

Transportation aimed at improving 

diversity management by 

incorporating leading practices and 

establishing accountability for 

increasing employees’ satisfaction 

with their workplace. In 

commenting on a draft of this 

report, the Department of 

Transportation generally agreed to 

consider GAO’s recommendations 

and provided technical corrections, 

which GAO incorporated as 

appropriate.

View GAO-10-89 or key components.

For more information, contact Gerald 

Dillingham, Ph.D., at (202) 512-2834 or 

dillinghamg@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-10-89 

Contents 

Letter 1

Background 2 

FAA Incorporates Many Leading Human Capital Practices, but Its 

Low Ranking in Best Places to Work Could Pose Challenges in 

Recruitment, Motivation, and Retention 10 

FAA Is Considerably behind the Rest of the Federal Government in 

Key Measures of Workplace Satisfaction, and Is Taking Steps 

Aimed at Improvement 22 

Conclusions 33 

Recommendations for Executive Action 33 

Agency Comments 34 

Appendix I Scope and Methods 35 

Appendix II Key Leading Practices and FAA’s Activities in 

Strategic Workforce Planning, Training, Recruitment 

and Hiring, and Performance Management 37 

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 43 

Tables 

Table 1: FAA Human Resources Functions and Title 5 Exemptions 5 

Table 2: Retirement Eligibility Projections in FAA’s Mission-Critical 

Occupations 8 

Table 3: Key Leading Practices in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

and Examples of FAA Activities 11 

Table 4: Key Leading Practices in Training, and Examples of FAA 

Activities 13 

Table 5: Key Leading Practices in Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Examples of FAA Activities 15 

Table 6: Key Leading Practices in Performance Management, and 

Examples of FAA Activities 16 

 Federal Aviation Administration 
Figures 

Figure 1: Percentage of Positive Responses to Impact Items on 

OPM’s Survey from Employees at FAA and the Rest of the 

Federal Government in 2008 24 

Figure 2: FAA’s Leadership Competencies 26 

Abbreviations 

AFSCME American Federation of State, County, and Municipal 

 Employees 

ATO Air Traffic Organization 

EEO equal employment opportunity 

FAA Federal Aviation Administration 

ISPPI Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation 

MSPB Merit Systems Protection Board 

NAPA National Academy of Public Administration 

NATCA National Air Traffic Controllers Association 

NextGen Next Generation Air Transportation System 

OPM Office of Personnel Management 

OSI Organizational Success Increase 

PASS Professional Aviation Safety Specialists 

SCI superior contribution increase 

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

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

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

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

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately. 

Page ii GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Page 1 GAO-10-89 

 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

 

October 28, 2009 

The Honorable John L. Mica 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

House of Representatives 

Dear Mr. Mica: 

Aviation is critical to the nation’s economic well-being, global 

competitiveness, and national security. The Federal Aviation 

Administration (FAA) is tasked with ensuring that our nation’s airspace 

system operates safely and efficiently. FAA’s 48,000 employees1

 apply 

specialized skills to guide aircraft, ensure safety, install and maintain air 

traffic control systems, and coordinate with other countries. As significant 

portions of its employees retire in the coming years, FAA will need to 

replace these skills and also recruit employees with specialized 

acquisitions, systems integration, and program management skills required 

to support the transition of the current air traffic control system to the 

Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), which will rely 

more on satellites and automation, than today’s ground-based radars and 

aircraft-by-aircraft control. Additionally, FAA will also need to hire several 

thousand air traffic controllers to replace those who were hired in the 

years following a strike in 1981 and will become eligible to retire in the 

coming decade. A human capital system should provide the framework for 

recruiting, motivating, and retaining a talented and diverse workforce to 

enable an agency to achieve its missions and goals. However, FAA placed 

near the bottom of the ranking of the Best Places to Work in the Federal 

Government2

 in 2007 and 2009. Additionally, FAA employees’ expressed 

dissatisfaction with many facets of their workplace that the Office of 

Personnel Management (OPM) has determined affect recruitment, 

motivation, and retention of employees. This raises a concern about FAA’s 

ability to recruit, motivate, and retain the talented employees needed to 

accomplish its mission. 

1

FAA’s total employee count, including temporary employees, as of September 12, 2009. 

2

The Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of 

Public Policy Implementation publish rankings of the Best Places to Work in the Federal 

Government using data from the Office of Personnel Management’s biennial Federal 

Human Capital Survey. 

 Federal Aviation Administration 
 

As you requested, this report reviews FAA’s human capital system and 

discusses some of its key human capital challenges. We address the 

following questions: (1) How do FAA’s human capital practices compare 

with those of leading organizations? and (2) How does FAA employees’ 

workplace satisfaction compare with that of other federal government 

employees, and what areas, if any, are most in need of improvement? To 

address these questions, we compared the FAA’s human capital practices 

with leading practices—those that we have identified through previous 

work as being present in public and private organizations that are viewed 

as leaders in strategic human capital management and managing for 

results. We reviewed FAA documents and regulations, and relevant studies 

by other organizations, and interviewed key FAA operating officials who 

have responsibility for implementing human capital procedures within 

FAA’s major organizational entities. We also interviewed FAA’s human 

resource management officials and obtained the perspectives of organized 

labor through semistructured interviews with union representatives. This 

report provides examples of FAA activities that mirror leading practices 

and discusses leading practices that FAA has not implemented. We did not 

evaluate the effectiveness of FAA’s implementation of its human capital 

system. To compare FAA employees’ workplace satisfaction with that of 

other federal government employees, we analyzed the results of OPM’s 

Federal Human Capital Survey. Appendix I contains more detailed 

information on our scope and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from June 2008 to October 2009 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 

standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, 

appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence 

obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 

based on our audit objectives. We also conducted reliability assessments 

of the data we obtained electronically and determined those data to be of 

sufficient quality to be used for the purposes of this report. 

Background 

Human Capital Systems Federal agencies need effective human capital systems to support 

enhanced performance, ensure accountability, and help achieve their 

missions. Through our past work, we have identified five key components 

of human capital systems. 

Page 2 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

• Strategic workforce planning: The steps an agency takes to (1) align its 

human capital program with its current and emerging mission and 

programmatic goals and (2) develop long-term strategies for acquiring, 

developing, and retaining staff to achieve programmatic goals.3

• Training: Developing a strategic approach to establish training priorities 

and leveraging investment in training to achieve agency results; identifying 

specific training initiatives that improve individual and agency 

performance; ensuring effective and efficient delivery of training 

opportunities in an environment that supports learning and change; and 

demonstrating how training efforts contribute to improved performance 

and results.4

• Recruitment and hiring: Developing and implementing strategies to 

advertise positions and attract top candidates; assessing applicants’ 

relative competencies or knowledge, skills, and abilities against jobrelated criteria to identify the most qualified candidates; using a variety of 

candidate assessment tools, such as interviews, to make a selection; and 

coordinating the process of bringing a new hire on board.5

• Performance management: Planning work and setting individual 

performance expectations, monitoring performance throughout the year 

through ongoing feedback, developing individuals’ capacities to perform, 

and rating and rewarding individual performance.6

 

3

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

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

4

GAO, Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development 

Efforts in the Federal Government, GAO-04-546G (Washington, D.C.: March 2004). 

5

Merit Systems Protection Board, Reforming Federal Hiring: Beyond Faster and Cheaper 

(Washington, D.C.) and GAO, Human Capital: Transforming Federal Recruitment and 

Hiring Efforts, GAO-08-762T (Washington, D.C.: May 8, 2008); and Human Capital: 

Additional Collaboration Between OPM and Agencies Is Key to Improved Federal Hiring, 

GAO-04-797 (Washington, D.C.: June 7, 2004). 

6

GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage between Individual 

Performance and Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003). 

Page 3 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

• Diversity management: A process intended to create and maintain a 

positive work environment where the similarities and differences of 

individuals are valued, so that all can reach their potential and maximize 

their contributions to an organization’s strategic goals and objectives.7

An agency’s human resources organization, the agency’s leaders, and staff 

have roles to play in implementing these components. For example, the 

human resources organization, with the participation of agency 

management, would develop performance management policies and 

procedures, but the agency’s leaders implement those policies and 

procedures. Additionally the agency’s leaders identify a requirement to 

recruit and the skill set needed to fill a vacancy, but the human resource 

organization performs the mechanics of posting the vacancy and ensuring 

that agency procedures are followed in reviewing applications and making 

the selection. The agency’s staff may be involved in vetting new system 

proposals or participating in process improvement teams. In FAA, the 

Office of Human Resource Management has the primary responsibility for 

developing and implementing the agency’s human capital system. 

However, senior officials in each of FAA’s four major entities, called lines 

of business, oversee the implementation of human capital procedures 

within their respective organizations. 

FAA’s Human Capital 

Reform 

In September 1993, the National Performance Review concluded that 

federal budget, procurement, and personnel rules prevented FAA from 

reacting quickly to the needs of the air traffic control system. In response 

to a congressional mandate resulting from this review, the Secretary of 

Transportation prepared a report8

 in 1995 that concluded that the most 

effective reform would be to exempt FAA from most federal personnel 

rules and procedures contained in title 5 of the United States Code. On 

November 15, 1995, Congress exempted FAA from a number of title 5 rules 

and procedures (see table 1) and directed the FAA Administrator to 

develop and implement a new personnel management system.9

 The law 

also required that FAA’s new personnel management system address the 

 

7

GAO, Diversity Management: Expert-Identified Leading Practices and Agency 

Examples, GAO-05-90 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2005). 

8

Federal Aviation Administration, Background Paper: Personnel Management Reform for 

the Federal Aviation Administration (Washington, D.C.: August 1995). 

9

Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Pub. L. No. 

104-50, § 347. 

Page 4 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

unique demands of the agency’s workforce and, at a minimum, provide 

greater flexibility in the compensation, hiring, training, and location of 

personnel. Subsequent legislation added the requirement for FAA to 

negotiate with its labor unions any changes made to its personnel 

management system.10 On April 1, 1996, FAA introduced its new personnel 

management system and, over the next several years, initiated a number of 

efforts to address the following reform objectives: 

• FAA acquires, develops, and deploys required expertise (people) where 

and when needed. 

• Human resource systems support employees’ achievement of goals. 

• FAA has effective leadership and management. 

• FAA is perceived as a desirable place to work. 

• Human resource management systems are efficient and adaptable. 

Table 1: FAA Human Resources Functions and Title 5 Exemptions 

Title 5 exempt Title 5 non-exempt 

• Staffing • Labor Relations 

• Compensation • Strike Prohibition 

• Performance Management • Whistleblower Protection 

• Training and Development • Veteran’s Preference 

• Reduction-in-Force • Retirement Systems 

• Employee Relations - Discipline and 

Removal 

• Employee Relations - Appeals 

• Executive Systems • Prohibition of Discrimination 

• Permanent Change of Station • Health, Life, Workers’ Compensation 

 and Unemployment Insurance 

• Human Resource Information System 

Technology 

• Restrictions on Certain Political Activities 

• Follow Merit System Principles (done 

voluntarily by FAA) 

 

• Most Prohibited Personnel Practices 

Source: Adapted from FAA. 

 

1049 U.S.C. § 40122(a). 

Page 5 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

In 2003, we reported that FAA had implemented many of its reform 

initiatives, but changes to its compensation system, workforce planning 

initiatives, and implementation of a new performance management system 

remained incomplete.11 FAA had (1) developed a new broadbanded, 

performance-based pay structure aimed at providing a wider range of pay 

and greater managerial flexibility to recruit, retain, and motivate 

employees and (2) implemented the pay structure in varying forms for 

about 75 percent of its workforce. FAA had planned to cover the 

remainder of the workforce under the new compensation plan as it 

negotiated new labor agreements with unions representing those 

workforces. As of July 2009, 88 percent of FAA’s workforce was under one 

or more components of performance-based compensation. However, FAA 

and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA)—-the union 

representing FAA’s air traffic controllers—agreed to a new contract in 

September 2009 that removed nearly 16,000 employees from performancebased compensation, thereby reducing the percentage of the workforce 

under performance-based compensation to about 55 percent.12

As part of its reform efforts, FAA also developed a new performance 

management system consisting of a narrative evaluation of employees’ 

performance against performance standards combined with feedback and 

coaching. FAA began developing its new performance management system 

in 1999 and first implemented it within segments of the agency in 2001. At 

the time of our 2003 report, about 20 percent of FAA’s workforce was 

under the new performance management system. As of July 2009, FAA had 

expanded the performance management system’s coverage to more than 

95 percent of its workforce. Under FAA’s new contract with NATCA, air 

traffic controllers continue to be covered by the new performance 

management system. While the contract requires that controllers’ 

performance be evaluated against written standards, and that the 

supervisor and controller discuss the evaluation, the contract does not 

provide for interim or midpoint performance feedback during the 

performance appraisal cycle. 

FAA also sought, received, and implemented flexibilities in hiring, 

relocating, and training employees. However, at the time of our 2003 

 

11GAO, Human Capital Management: FAA’s Reform Effort Requires a More Strategic 

Approach, GAO-03-156 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 3, 2003). 

12This percentage is based on FAA’s total employee count, including temporary employees, 

as of September 12, 2009. 

Page 6 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

report, FAA had not completed efforts to incorporate these flexibilities 

into strategic workforce plans. Workforce planning should include 

developing strategies for integrating hiring, recruiting, training, and other 

human capital activities in a manner that meets the agency’s long-term 

objectives to ensure that appropriately skilled employees are available 

when and where they are needed to meet an agency’s mission. We 

reported that FAA had established agencywide corporate policies and 

guidance for developing workforce plans for executives, managers, and 

supervisors and for specific occupations, but these initiatives were at 

varying degrees of implementation. As we discuss later in this report, FAA 

has developed workforce plans for its major organizational segments and 

for specific workforces. 

In 2003, we also noted that FAA lacked baseline data against which to 

measure the impact of its initiatives, and that FAA had not adequately 

linked initiative goals to the agency’s mission goals. While FAA’s human 

resource officials maintained that the new compensation system 

addressed recruitment and retention objectives, FAA could not support 

this assertion with data because the agency did not establish any baseline 

data from which to measure improvements. Consequently, we were unable 

to evaluate the effectiveness of FAA’s reform efforts. We recommended 

that FAA develop empirical data and establish performance measures, 

develop linkages between human capital reform initiatives and program 

goals, establish time frames for data collection and analysis, and hold 

managers accountable for the results of human capital management 

efforts. FAA has implemented these recommendations. 

FAA’s Workforce 

Demographics and 

Expertise Requirements 

In the coming years, FAA risks losing significant amounts of institutional 

knowledge as its employees retire. The dramatic shifts that are occurring 

in the nation’s population are reflected in FAA’s workforce, where more 

than three-fourths of its employees are age 40 or older. By fiscal year 2013, 

FAA projects that 38 percent of its employees who perform work that is 

critical to FAA’s mission will be eligible to retire (see table 2).13 For 

example, in the next 5 years, 42 percent of air traffic controllers, who 

ensure the safe and smooth movement of air traffic in the air and on the 

ground at airports; 31 percent of airway transportation system specialists, 

who install and maintain air traffic control systems; and 48 percent of 

aviation safety inspectors, who perform critical safety oversight of the 

 

13FAA’s projections are based on end of fiscal year 2008 data. 

Page 7 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

aviation industry and air operators, are projected to be eligible to retire.14

However, the current economic downturn could affect FAA’s retention 

and recruitment. FAA’s losses from retirement and other causes, for all 

occupations, declined by 27 percent during the first 4 months of fiscal year 

2009, compared with the corresponding months of the prior fiscal year. 

Additionally, a July 2009 vacancy announcement for controllers attracted 

nearly 9,000 applications and a recruitment fair for people with disabilities 

was successful. 

Table 2: Retirement Eligibility Projections in FAA’s Mission-Critical Occupations 

Title 

Employees 

(end of fiscal 

year 2008) 

Employees 

eligible to 

retire by 2013

Percentage 

of employees 

eligible to 

retire by 2013

Air traffic controllers 15,381a6,447 42%

Airway transportation system specialists 6,084 1,886 31

Aviation safety inspectors 4,162 1,991 48

Engineers 2,893 845 29

Information technologists 1,845 485 26

Security/Certification/Compliance 

inspectors 452 154 34

Human resources specialists 420 176 42

Contract specialists 244 90 37

Community planners 29 9 31

Total 31,510 12,083 38%

Source: FAA. 

a

This number does not include about 4,000 air traffic controllers who do not actively control aircraft. 

These employees are traffic management coordinators, supervisors, instructors at the FAA Academy, 

and staff specialists and those in leadership positions in headquarters and regions. 

In addition to replacing institutional knowledge, FAA will need to obtain 

expertise to support the transition of the national airspace system to 

NextGen. NextGen envisions a fundamental change in air traffic 

management by moving to a structure that is adaptable to growth in 

operations as well as shifts in demand, and that is network-centric, 

meaning everyone using the system has easy access to the same 

information at the same time. NextGen will entail a number of 

 

14FAA’s operational air traffic controllers—those who are actively involved in the 

separation and control of aircraft—are eligible to retire at age 50 with 20 years of service 

and cannot control air traffic after age 56 without a special waiver. 

Page 8 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

transitions—from ground-based to satellite-based navigation and 

surveillance; from voice communications to digital data exchange; from a 

fragmented weather forecast delivery system to a system that uses a 

single, authoritative source; and from limited operations in poor visibility 

conditions to more operations that can proceed in adverse weather. While 

FAA plays a central role in these transitions, the Departments of Defense, 

Commerce, and Homeland Security; the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration; and the White House Office of Science and Technology 

Policy also participate. In previous work, we questioned whether FAA had 

the required systems integration expertise, given the complexity of this 

effort.15 FAA responded by engaging the National Academy of Public 

Administration (NAPA) to identify (1) the skills needed to accomplish the 

transition to NextGen and (2) strategies for acquiring the necessary 

workforce competencies. NAPA assembled a panel of experts (NAPA 

Panel) to perform the study and reported on the panel’s findings in 

September 2008.16

The NAPA Panel found that acquisitions will be an important element in 

NextGen. FAA defines its acquisition workforce broadly, following the 

Office of Management and Budget’s guidance, to include program and 

project managers, researchers and engineers, business and financial 

analysts, contracting officers and specialists, contracting officer’s 

technical representatives, integrated logistics specialists, test and 

evaluation personnel, and other specialized support. Consequently, the 

acquisition workforce includes individuals who determine requirements; 

plan acquisition strategies; establish business relationships to obtain 

needed goods and services; and ensure that the government’s needs are 

met by testing, evaluating, and monitoring contractor performance. FAA’s 

acquisition workforce also includes experts in subject matter areas, such 

as finance, who support the business process. FAA recently estimated that 

it will need to hire several hundred additional staff to implement NextGen, 

and most of these staff will be part of the acquisition workforce. However, 

as FAA attempts to hire these staff, it will be competing with a projected 

governmentwide hiring surge. For example, the Partnership for Public 

 

15GAO, Next Generation Air Transportation System: Progress and Challenges Associated 

with the Transformation of the National Airspace System, GAO-07-25 (Washington, D.C.: 

Nov. 13, 2006). 

16National Academy of Public Administration, Volume 1: Identifying the Workforce to 

Respond to a National Imperative...the Next Generation Air Transportation System 

(NextGen) (Washington, D.C.: September 2008). The report states that the views expressed 

are those of the panel and do not necessarily reflect the views of NAPA as an institution. 

Page 9 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Service’s survey, “Where the Jobs Are 2009,” indicates that from fiscal 

years 2010 through 2012, the federal government could hire more than 

16,000 employees to fill needs in general administration/program 

management; engineering (electrical, aerospace, and computer); finance; 

and contracts.17 FAA is developing a 5-year acquisition workforce plan that 

the agency expects will address, among other things, challenges and 

strategies to address workforce requirements. FAA expects to complete 

the plan in October 2009. 

FAA’s human capital system employs many leading practices in strategic 

workforce planning, training, recruitment and hiring, and performance 

management. FAA has implemented few leading diversity management 

practices, but is developing a diversity outreach plan. The agency’s 

consistent placement near the bottom in published best places to work 

rankings could pose challenges in recruiting, motivating, and retaining 

employees to replace those retiring and to meet current and future mission 

requirements. 

FAA Incorporates 

Many Leading Human 

Capital Practices, but 

Its Low Ranking in 

Best Places to Work 

Could Pose 

Challenges in 

Recruitment, 

Motivation, and 

Retention 

FAA Incorporates Many 

Leading Human Capital 

Practices in Strategic 

Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and 

Hiring, and Performance 

Management 

FAA’s human capital system mirrors many leading human capital practices 

in strategic workforce planning, training, recruitment and hiring, and 

performance management, but FAA officials with responsibility for 

implementing human capital procedures in major segments of the agency 

and union representatives criticized FAA’s practices in performance 

management. Union representatives also criticized FAA’s training 

practices. Pending legislation to reauthorize FAA contains provisions 

related to a number of these practices. 

 

17Partnership for Public Service, Where the Jobs Are 2009: Mission-Critical Opportunities 

for America, available at http://data.wherethejobsare.org/wtja/home (last accessed on 

Sept. 9, 2009). 

Page 10 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

This practice focuses on developing long-term strategies for acquiring, 

developing, and retaining an organization’s total workforce to meet the 

needs of the future. Such planning is essential to ensure that an agency’s 

human capital program uses its workforce’s strengths and addresses 

related challenges in a manner that is clearly linked to achieving missions 

and goals. Table 3 lists the key leading strategic workforce management 

practices that we identified in our past work and examples of FAA’s 

activities. See appendix II for an expanded list of FAA’s activities that align 

with key leading practices. 

Strategic Workforce Planning 

Table 3: Key Leading Practices in Strategic Workforce Planning, and Examples of FAA Activities 

Key leading practice Examples of FAA activities 

Involve top management, employees, and 

other stakeholders in developing, 

communicating, and implementing the 

strategic workforce plan. 

FAA executives sign workforce planning documents for the workforces under their 

purview. Executives were actively engaged in developing and leading implementation 

of the plans for the controller and acquisition workforces. 

Determine the critical skills and competencies 

that will be needed to achieve current and 

future programmatic results. 

FAA has identified 16 leadership competencies and is using these competencies to, 

among other things, select employees for leadership development programs. FAA 

also contracted with NAPA to help determine the workforce competencies needed to 

transition to and implement NextGen. 

Develop strategies that are tailored to 

address gaps in number, deployment, and 

alignment of human capital approaches for 

enabling and sustaining the contributions of 

all critical skills and competencies. 

FAA assesses the skill levels of its nonsupervisory and supervisory workforces to 

identify gaps between target and actual skill levels and formulates strategies to close 

the gaps. FAA establishes its goals in its strategic plan, known as the “Flight Plan,” 

and develops workforce plans for major organizational segments and specific 

workforces, such as air traffic controllers. These plans detail the demographics of the 

workforce and strategies to address agency goals and missions and future workforce 

challenges. 

Build the capability needed to address 

administrative, educational, and other 

requirements important to support workforce 

planning strategies. 

Building capability includes providing clear and transparent guidelines and holding 

managers accountable for following them. FAA has a Human Capital Planning Council 

that serves as an internal community of practice for workforce planning in the agency 

and a focal point for sharing best practices and disseminating guidance. FAA has 

established a system of accountability that holds the organization, managers, and 

human resource officers accountable for efficient and effective human resource 

management. Accountability and measurement is one of FAA’s leadership 

competencies. 

Monitor and evaluate the agency’s progress 

toward its human capital goals and the 

contribution that human capital results have 

made toward achieving programmatic results. 

FAA has established performance metrics for human capital goals, tracks 

performance, and posts the results on its Web site. 

Sources: GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 

2003) and GAO analysis of FAA practices. 

Page 11 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

FAA has made progress in strategic workforce planning since 2003, when 

we issued our previous report. FAA has established an agencywide 

strategic human capital plan that lays out human capital goals, and 

strategies and initiatives under each goal. FAA annually updates its 

strategies and initiatives to maintain alignment with the strategic plan—

the Flight Plan—and to reflect emerging or changing mission demands. 

FAA has also established workforce plans for each of its four major 

entities, called lines of business—the Air Traffic Organization (ATO), 

Aviation Safety, Airports, and Commercial Space Transportation—and has 

established plans to manage specific workforces, such as air traffic 

controllers, and technical operations. 

The House has passed and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, 

and Transportation has reported out FAA reauthorization bills that would 

require the agency to undertake additional workforce planning.18 For 

example, the bills would require FAA to (1) study and prepare a report to 

Congress on the frontline manager staffing requirements at air traffic 

control facilities, taking into account, among other things, the facility type 

and complexity of air traffic handled and managerial responsibilities, and 

(2) develop a staffing model for safety inspectors. Additionally, the bills 

would require FAA to make the appropriate arrangements with the 

National Academies of Science for studies of the assumptions and 

methods used to determine the staffing needs for controllers and airway 

transportation systems specialists. 

Training and development programs can assist the agency in achieving its 

mission and goals by improving individual and, ultimately, organizational 

performance. In our past work, we identified numerous leading training 

practices, which we have segmented into the four key components shown 

in table 4, along with examples of FAA’s activities that align with these key 

components. See appendix II for an expanded list of FAA’s activities that 

align with key leading practices. 

Training 

 

18The House passed H.R. 915, titled “FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009.” The Senate 

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has reported out S. 1451, titled 

“FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act.” 

Page 12 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Table 4: Key Leading Practices in Training, and Examples of FAA Activities 

Key leading practice Examples of FAA activities 

Planning/Front-End Analysis: Strategically link 

training and development programs to agency 

goals and to the skills and competencies 

needed for the agency to perform effectively. 

FAA requires that training be based on a systematic analysis of knowledge, skills, and 

abilities required to achieve the organization’s mission. FAA determines gaps between 

desired and current organizational performance; determines if training is the 

appropriate solution; and, if so, addresses those learning needs in annual business 

plans. For example, FAA’s Human Resource Management business plan has a 

strategic initiative to identify leadership skill gaps for managers on the basis of the 

FAA Managerial Success Profile and to promote continuing managerial training to 

address these gaps. 

Design: Conduct the appropriate analyses 

when designing training and development 

efforts. 

To determine whether to design training programs internally or use an external source, 

FAA developed criteria on the basis of industry Instructional Design Standards. 

Additionally, consistent with the standards, FAA conducts analyses to choose among 

different mixes of training delivery mechanisms. FAA officials noted that FAA is 

moving to a more “blended approach” to training delivery, including the use of 

computer-based training where possible. 

Implementation: Agency leaders 

communicate the importance of training and 

developing employees and foster an 

environment conducive to effective training 

and development. 

FAA’s leadership promotes participation in training programs by encouraging 

employees to develop annual learning plans—identifying occupational performance 

requirements, job- and career-related learning needs, and learning strategies for 

meeting them—in conjunction with their annual performance plans. Additionally, FAA 

has communicated its commitment to ensuring that adequate funds will be set aside 

for position-essential training. 

Evaluation: Systematically plan for and 

evaluate the effectiveness of agency training 

and development efforts, using the 

appropriate analytic approaches and 

performance data. 

According to FAA officials, the agency evaluates training at several levels. First, FAA 

evaluates the satisfaction of the training participant. Second, FAA evaluates whether 

the training improved the participant’s skill, knowledge, or abilities by comparing preand posttraining test scores. According to FAA officials, the agency is working toward 

evaluating how the training affected the use of learning on the job. 

Sources: GAO, Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts in the Federal Government,

GAO-04-546G (Washington, D.C.: March 2004) and GAO analysis of FAA practices. 

In 2005, we reviewed FAA’s technical training for aviation safety 

inspectors and found that the program followed some leading practices. 

For example, the training efforts are intended to support FAA’s goals for 

improving aviation safety, and FAA has established clear accountability 

for ensuring that inspectors have access to technical training. Additionally, 

the technical training program contains an evaluation component. 

However, we made several recommendations aimed at, among other 

things, improving the timeliness of training, improving FAA’s identification 

of gaps in inspectors’ technical knowledge, and developing measures of 

the impact of training on achieving organizational goals. FAA has 

implemented most of these recommendations. For example, FAA has 

taken steps to deliver training in a more timely manner, such as developing 

new Web-based courses that inspectors can complete when the training is 

needed. Additionally, in 2007, FAA conducted a feasibility analysis that 

explored different methods to measure training’s impact on achieving 

organizational goals. In August 2009, FAA was working to address the 

remaining recommendations by providing more guidance on when 

Page 13 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

accepting training for in-kind services is appropriate and revising 

inspector guidance to clarify that free training does not preclude FAA from 

fulfilling its oversight and enforcement role. The Senate’s FAA 

reauthorization bill would require FAA to report on the training provided 

to safety inspectors. 

Union representatives provided comments regarding how FAA designs 

and implements training. The President of the Professional Aviation Safety 

Specialists (PASS)—the union representing, among others, FAA 

employees who maintain air traffic control equipment—said that the 

technical training for airway systems specialists is often unnecessarily 

time-consuming and costly, because FAA customizes the training to make 

it unique to FAA and then requires that employees travel to the FAA 

Academy to receive technical training. The union President said that FAA 

could streamline the process by allowing staff to take training courses 

from private vendors who offer the same training at locations closer to 

their home office. FAA noted that the academy is the only location that 

replicates every piece of equipment that aviation systems safety specialists 

use, and that equipment in air traffic control facilities cannot be taken offline for training. However, FAA’s Director of Technical Training and 

Development told us that FAA is exploring how to validate locally 

provided courses for equivalency to the training provided at the FAA 

Academy. Additionally, FAA is increasing the availability of Web-based 

training, simulations, and other alternative training methodologies that 

will allow greater opportunities for on-site training, according to another 

FAA training official. We are currently reviewing airway transportation 

system specialist training under another engagement. 

NATCA representatives criticized how FAA implements controller 

training. In their opinion, FAA relies too much on memorandums and 

other impersonal methods, rather than in-person training that would allow 

staff to directly pose questions to instructors and engage in open 

discussion on topics that require clarification. FAA’s Director of Technical 

Training and Development believes this criticism to be an overstatement, 

and noted that FAA offers many specialized courses at the FAA Academy 

and fills the spaces allocated. 

NATCA representatives also believe that controllers have fewer 

opportunities to attend training because there are not enough experienced 

controllers to handle air traffic while others attend training. A 2008 report 

from the Department of Transportation Inspector General questioned 

whether FAA had sufficient numbers of experienced controllers to train 

the large numbers of new controllers that it was hiring. The report noted 

Page 14 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

that the hiring process was outpacing the capabilities of many air traffic 

facilities to efficiently process and train new hires. The Inspector General 

made a number of recommendations, and FAA agreed or partially agreed 

with most of them.19 FAA notes that the agency continues to monitor its 

hiring and training programs to achieve a balance between a facility’s 

trainees and the facility’s training capacity,20 and to help ensure that 

trainees progress through each stage of training while ensuring safety. The 

House and Senate FAA reauthorization bills would require that FAA study 

the adequacy of training provided to air traffic controllers. 

In a highly competitive job market, having an effective hiring process can 

help an agency compete for talented people who have the requisite 

knowledge and up-to-date skills to accomplish missions and achieve goals. 

Table 5 lists the key recruitment and hiring practices that we have 

identified in our past work and provides examples of FAA’s activities. See 

appendix II for an expanded list of FAA’s activities that align with key 

leading practices. 

Recruitment and Hiring 

Table 5: Key Leading Practices in Recruitment and Hiring, and Examples of FAA Activities 

Key leading practice Examples of FAA activities 

Evaluate recruitment strategies to attract 

applicants. 

FAA sets performance targets in the strategic planning process and reports on the 

extent to which these targets have been met in annual performance and accountability 

reports. 

Ensure that the best candidates are selected 

by refining assessment tools. 

FAA refined vacancy announcements for aviation safety inspector positions to better 

incorporate key competencies against which officials evaluate applicants. 

Use an automated hiring process, including 

computerized systems to prescreen, rate, and 

rank applicants. 

For most externally advertised vacancies, FAA uses its Automated Staffing and 

Application system. The system automates vacancy announcement posting, the 

application process, applicant rating and ranking, and the selection process. 

Use available flexibilities to recruit, hire, and 

manage workforces. 

FAA’s hiring flexibilities include on-the-spot hiring and monetary incentives for 

recruitment, retention, and relocation. 

Sources: Merit Systems Protection Board, Reforming Federal Hiring: Beyond Faster and Cheaper, (Washington, D.C.); GAO, Human 

Capital: Transforming Federal Recruitment and Hiring Efforts, GAO-08-762T (Washington, D.C.: May 8, 2008) and Human Capital: 

Additional Collaboration Between OPM and Agencies Is Key to Improved Federal Hiring, GAO-04-797 (Washington, D.C.: June 7, 

2004); and GAO analysis of FAA practices. 

In recent years, FAA has used its flexibilities mostly to hire, relocate, and 

retain air traffic controllers. However, FAA also has used flexibilities to 

hire expertise in other fields, such as program management, aerospace 

 

19Department of Transportation, Office of the Inspector General, Review of the Air Traffic 

Controller Facility Training Program, AV-2008-055 (Washington, D.C.: June 5, 2008). 

20A facility’s training capacity is affected by the number of experienced controllers, training 

contractors, and simulators. 

Page 15 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

engineering, and environmental protection. The House and Senate FAA 

reauthorization bills would require FAA to increase the number of safetyrelated positions, such as safety inspectors, commensurate with available 

funding. 

An effective performance management system can be a strategic tool to 

drive internal change and achieve desired results. Our work has identified 

numerous leading practices in performance management, which we 

summarize in table 6. The table also provides examples of FAA’s activities 

that align with these key leading practices. See appendix II for an 

expanded list of FAA’s activities that align with key leading practices. 

Performance Management 

Table 6: Key Leading Practices in Performance Management, and Examples of FAA Activities 

Key leading practice Examples of FAA activities 

Align individual performance expectations with 

organizational goals. 

FAA requires that each supervisor and employee develop a performance plan that 

describes employee tasks and responsibilities and provides a line of sight from 

those items to the goals in FAA’s Flight Plan. 

Define competencies that individuals need to 

effectively contribute to organizational results. 

FAA uses performance standards—which include necessary skills and supporting 

behaviors—to describe each employee’s major responsibilities and expected 

outcomes. 

Provide and routinely use objective performance 

information to track progress toward achieving 

organizational priorities. 

At the organizational level, FAA tracks progress toward multiple agency 

performance targets, as outlined in the Flight Plan, and reports its performance in 

annual performance reports. FAA officials told us that each organizational unit rolls 

up subordinate levels of individual performance progress to ultimately determine 

organizational progress toward meeting the agency’s performance targets, and 

reports the status annually in performance and accountability reports, which FAA 

posts on its Web site. 

Make meaningful distinctions in individual 

performance; link pay to organizational and 

individual performance. 

FAA uses a two-phased process to make distinctions in performance and distribute 

performance-based compensation linked to organizational and individual 

performance. However, FAA and union officials told us that implementation of the 

performance management system does not make meaningful distinctions in 

performance. 

Involve employees and other stakeholders in the 

development of the performance management 

system. 

During the development of its current performance management system, FAA 

involved its employees to verify employee survey results and obtain employee 

suggestions for improvements in the system. 

Employ safeguards to ensure the transparency 

of the performance management system. 

FAA publishes information on internal Web sites about the results of pay decisions, 

such as the average pay increase. 

Sources: GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage between Individual Performance and Organizational Success,

GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003) and GAO analysis of FAA practices. 

FAA officials responsible for implementing human capital procedures 

within the lines of business, as well as representatives of several unions, 

criticized components of FAA’s performance management system. For 

example, because FAA’s system calls for a performance rating of either 

“meets expectations” or “does not meet expectations,” an official from 

FAA’s largest line of business and union officials characterized the system 

Page 16 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

as “pass/fail.” Because nearly everyone is rated “meets expectations,” they 

believe that the system does not make distinctions above the “meets 

expectations” level.21

For employees who have met expectations, FAA further distinguishes 

performance by distributing performance-based “superior contribution 

increases” (SCI). FAA distributes the SCI based on supervisors’ summaries 

of employee performance that are based on (1) personal observations of 

employees’ performance and contributions and (2) the employees’ selfassessments. The supervisor’s summary focuses on three areas: 

collaboration, customer service, and impact on organizational success. A 

fourth area, management and leadership, applies only to managers. Up to 

65 percent of employees who meet expectations can receive either a 1.8 

percent or 0.6 percent SCI. 

FAA’s practice of awarding pay increases based on employee 

contributions aligns with its reform objective that human resource 

systems support employees’ achievement of organizational goals, but FAA 

officials with responsibility for implementing human capital procedures in 

the ATO, Aviation Safety, and Airports lines of business, as well as union 

representatives, expressed fairness concerns about the impacts of these 

increases, similar to the concerns on which we reported in 2003.22 The 

FAA officials believe that the SCI is not large enough to motivate 

performance, and because more than one-half of the employees receive 

the increase, it creates morale problems among those employees whom 

officials believe are solid performers, but received no SCI. Union 

representatives said that, from the employee’s perspective, it is n

how supervisory recommendations are translated into decisions about 

which employees receive these increases. Union representatives also 

expressed fairness concerns in saying that, in some cases, the same 

employees receive the increases every year and that, in other cases, 

increases appear to be given on a rotating basis, without resp

ot clear 

ect to level of 

performance. 

he 

 

All employees who meet expectations also receive an Organizational 

Success Increase (OSI), which FAA provides when the agency has met at 

least 90 percent of its performance targets. The total funding pool for t

21During fiscal year 2008, 33 of about 45,000 FAA employees did not meet expectations. 

22The ATO, Aviation Safety, and Airports lines of business include about 43,000 of FAA’s 

48,000 employees. 

Page 17 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

OSI consists of the amount of the governmentwide General Schedule 

increase for a given year, plus an additional 1 percent. As with t

OSI aligns with the reform objective of supporting employees’ 

achievement of organizational goals. However, FAA and union offic

criticized the OSI component of performance pay because, in their 

opinion, it rewards or penalizes employees for organizational performanc

that they cannot influence. For example, FAA may withhold a porti

the OSI because the agency did not achieve its target for reducing 

operational errors, even though there are many employees, such as 

contract specialists, whom FAA official

he SCI, the 

ials 

e 

on of 

s and union representatives believe 

have no influence over such activities. 

y, one 

nce 

n 

in the 

. We discuss this action plan in more 

detail later in this report. 

e 

 

FAA has taken actions to improve the implementation of its performance 

management system. For example, in 2008, FAA issued a memorandum to 

senior leadership and managers emphasizing policy requirements for, and 

reiterating the importance of, midcycle progress reviews. Additionall

FAA organization is developing guidance for managers on providing 

feedback and, according to FAA officials, managers receive automatic 

notifications that midpoint feedback and end-of-cycle reviews are due to 

help ensure that these activities take place. FAA also recently initiated a 

series of briefings for employees and managers regarding the performa

management and pay for performance systems.23 Additionally, FAA is 

assessing the percentage of employees who receive midterm feedback to 

identify whether corrective action is needed. Recently, FAA developed a

action plan aimed, in part, at creating a performance culture with

agency. The plan contains steps to improve managers’ use of the 

performance management system

Diversity management is a process intended to create and maintain a

positive work environment where the similarities and differences of 

individuals are valued, so that all can reach their potential and maximiz

their contributions to an organization’s strategic goals. The concept of 

managing diversity focuses on inclusion, which involves engaging the 

talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and capabilities of individuals and groups 

working toward common goals and therefore serves as a complement to

equal employment opportunity (EEO). Implementing effective diversity 

 Aviation Administration

Management Practices 

FAA Has Implemented 

Few Leading Diversity 

23The sessions will be offered at headquarters, in each of the nine regions, and at the Mike 

Monroney Aeronautical and William J. Hughes Technical Centers. 

Page 18 GAO-10-89 Federal
 

management helps an organization foster a work environment in which 

people are enabled and motivated to contribute to mission 

accomplishment and provide both accountability and fairness for all

employees. Through our past work, we identified the following key 

practices that experts agree are leading diversity management practices.24

lan that are developed and aligned with 

e organization’s strategic plan. 

ram that attracts a supply of qualified, diverse 

pplicants for employment. 

ployee involvement to drive diversity throughout the 

rganization. 

emonstrates and communicates throughout an organization. 

y training to inform and educate management and staff 

bout diversity. 

asures of the impact of 

arious aspects of an overall diversity program. 

iversity 

essment and compensation to the 

rogress of diversity initiatives. 

g a diverse pool of talent for an organization’s 

otential future leaders. 

and 

tivity and help 

prove individual and organizational performance. 

s, FAA’s 

onal 

 

• Develop a diversity strategy and p

th

• Establish a recruitment prog

a

• Encourage em

o

• Ensure that top leadership provides a vision of diversity that it

d

• Conduct diversit

a

• Establish a set of quantitative and qualitative me

v

• Establish a means to ensure that leaders are held accountable for d

by linking their performance ass

p

• Include in succession planning an ongoing, strategic process for 

identifying and developin

p

• Link diversity to performance by understanding that a more diverse 

inclusive work environment can yield greater produc

im

Rather than emphasizing the broad range of these leading practice

diversity plans and activities more narrowly focus on recruitment 

activities and compliance with EEO. In response to a congressi

concern about diversity in FAA’s controller and aviation safety 

24GAO-05-90.

Page 19 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

workforces, FAA has prepared plans and annual updates aimed at 

increasing diversity in these workforces.25 FAA’s recruiting efforts, as 

described in these plans and other FAA documents, focus on attracti

supply of qualified, diverse applicants for employment and FAA has

implemented efforts that could serve to expand its applicant pool. 

Additionally, FAA officials told us that they have partnered with the 

League of United Latin American Citizens through which information

pertaining to FAA careers can be forwarded throughout the league’s 

leadership network, and that they have reached out to other groups, such 

as the Professional Society of Black Engineers. FAA also prov

to newly appointed managers on EEO-related topics such as 

antidiscrimination laws, sexual harassment aware

ng a 

ides training 

ness and prevention, and 

the administrator’s policy on nondiscrimination. 

reness of 

nd 

formance 

at 

 increase diversity in its controller and 

aviation safety workforces. 

 

FAA’s actions are important steps toward creating a more diverse 

workforce, but they fall short of the full range of leading diversity 

management practices that we have observed in high performing 

organizations. For example, rather than focusing training on EEO-related 

topics, diversity training would provide employees with an awa

their differences—including cultural, work style, and personal 

presentation—and an understanding of how diverse perspectives can 

improve organizational performance. Diversity training would also teach 

employees about the importance of the organization’s diversity goals a

the skills required to work effectively in a diverse workforce. Without 

diversity training, FAA is missing an opportunity to maximize per

by drawing on the strengths of employees at all levels and of all 

backgrounds. Insights from the efforts of agencies that we profiled in our

diversity management report,26 as well as the nine leading practices th

we have previously listed, could be instructive to FAA as it develops 

annual updates to its plans to

25House Report 110-238, which accompanied the Departments of Transportation and 

Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2008, 

contained an expectation that FAA would prepare plans to increase diversity in the 

controller and aviation safety workforces, submit these plans to the House and Senate 

Committees on Appropriations, and provide annual updates of the plans. See Federal 

Aviation Administration, Aviation Outreach Plan, Air Traffic Controller Workforce, Fiscal 

Year 2008 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 23, 2008); and Aviation Safety Diversity Plan, Fiscal 

Year 2008 (Washington, D.C.: undated). As of October 19, 2009, the 2009 updates of these 

plans were being reviewed by the Secretary of Transportation. 

26GAO-05-90.

Page 20 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

FAA’s ranking near the bottom in Best Places to Work in the Federal 

Government in 2007 and 2009, as published by the Partnership for Public 

Service (the Partnership) and American University’s Institute for the Study 

of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI), could present a barrier to 

recruiting, motivating, and retaining the talented employees that FAA 

needs to meet future mission requirements. The Partnership and ISPPI 

develop their ranking on the basis of analysis of OPM’s biannual Federal 

Human Capital Survey results. The survey contains over 80 items that 

gauge employee satisfaction with pay, leadership, and collaboration, 

among other things. The Partnership and ISPPI ranked FAA 204th out of 

222 agencies in 2007 and 214th out of 216 agencies in 2009.27

FAA’s Low Ranking in Best 

Places to Work Could Pose 

Challenges in Recruitment, 

Motivation, and Retention 

These published rankings are important to FAA because an agency’s 

reputation is a key factor in recruiting and hiring applicants. A recent 

Partnership report noted that a good reputation is the most frequently 

mentioned factor in choosing potential employers, and agencies with high 

satisfaction and engagement scores were seen as desirable by college 

graduates seeking employment.28 The Partnership report also noted that 

college students are rating some government agencies as ideal employers. 

Similarly, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) reported that 

employees’ willingness to recommend the federal government or their 

agency as a place to work can directly affect an agency’s recruitment 

efforts, the quality of the resulting applicant pool, and the acceptance of 

employment offers.29 In 2005, compared with 1989, MSPB found that 

considerably more federal employees would recommend the government 

as a place to work, and that more federal employees reported satisfaction 

with their pay. Moreover, the job security that federal employment offers 

is a major selling point in the current economic downturn. While FAA 

generally follows leading recruitment and hiring practices, FAA may be 

able to take only limited advantage of these favorable trends, since only 

about one-half of FAA employees’ responses to the OPM survey item, “I 

 

27In 2005, the Partnership and ISPPI did not publish the rankings of subagencies (e.g., FAA), 

that ranked in the bottom half of all ranked subagencies. FAA was in the bottom half in the 

2005 subagency rankings, according to a Partnership official. 

28Partnership for Public Service, Great Expectations: What Students Want in an 

Employer, and How Federal Agencies can Deliver It (Washington, D.C.: January 2009). 

29Merit Systems Protection Board, The Federal Government: A Model Employer or a Work 

in Progress? Perspectives from 25 Years of the Merit Principles Survey (Washington, 

D.C.: September 2008). 

Page 21 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

would recommend my organization as a good place to work,” were 

positive in 2008.30 About 65 percent of the employees in the rest of the 

federal government responded positively, putting FAA about 15 

percentage points behind other agencies. Moreover, MSPB noted that 

prospective employees would rather work for an agency billed as one of 

the best places to work as opposed to an agency at the bottom of the list. 

Clearly, when Congress passed legislation allowing FAA to implement a 

new personnel management system, FAA recognized the importance of 

this point by establishing the reform objective that FAA be perceived as a 

desirable place to work. However, FAA’s low rankings in 2007 and 2009 

would not indicate to prospective applicants that FAA is perceived as a 

desirable place to work. 

FAA employee responses to OPM’s 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey 

placed the agency well behind the rest of the federal government in overall 

job and organizational satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with their 

leaders and their leaders’ competencies in communications and building 

teamwork and cooperation. FAA is taking steps that could improve 

employee satisfaction, but has not established accountability for 

improvements. 

FAA Is Considerably 

behind the Rest of the 

Federal Government 

in Key Measures of 

Workplace 

Satisfaction, and Is 

Taking Steps Aimed at 

Improvement 

 

30Positive responses, as discussed in this report, are aggregates of the top two most positive 

responses, such as strongly agree and agree; very good and good; and very satisfied and 

satisfied. 

Page 22 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

FAA Employees Indicated 

Less Satisfaction Than the 

Rest of the Federal 

Government with Their 

Jobs; Organization; and 

Items That Affect 

Recruitment, Motivation, 

and Retention 

Compared with employees in the rest of the federal government, FAA 

employees indicated less satisfaction with key items in OPM’s 2008 

Federal Human Capital Survey. FAA employees provided 59 percent 

positive responses regarding overall job satisfaction—9 percentage points 

lower than employees in the rest of the federal government, and 41 

percent positive responses regarding overall satisfaction with their 

organization—17 percentage points lower than employees in the rest of 

the federal government. Moreover, FAA employees were less positive 

concerning many of the items that OPM has identified as indicators of an 

agency’s ability to recruit, motivate, and retain employees. On the basis of 

its analysis of its past two Federal Human Capital Surveys, OPM 

determined that responses to 16 items—called “impact items”—really 

make a difference in whether people want to come, stay, and contribute 

their fullest to an agency. FAA’s percentage of positive responses to these 

impact items and the difference between FAA’s percentage of positive 

responses and that of the rest of the federal government appear in figure 1. 

Page 23 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Figure 1: Percentage of Positive Responses to Impact Items on OPM’s Survey from Employees at FAA and the Rest of the 

Federal Government in 2008 

Impact item Percentage of positive responses Difference between

percentage of FAA

positive responses

and the rest of the

federal government 

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

FAA

Non-FAA

Percentage

Source: GAO analysis of Federal Human Capital Survey data.

-19

-15

-13

-12

-12

-11

-10

-11

-10

-9

-7

-7

-6

-5%

not statistically

significant

not statistically

significant

I like the kind of work I do.

My work gives me a feeling of personal 

accomplishment.

My talents are used well in the workplace.

My workload is reasonable.

Considering everything, how satisfied are you

with your pay?

How satisfied are you with the training you

receive for your present job?

I am given a real opportunity to improve my skills

in my organization.

How satisfied are you with your opportunity to 

get a better job in your organization?

How satisfied are you with the recognition you

receive for doing a good job?

How good a job do you feel is being done by 

your immediate supervisor/team leader?

Employees have a feeling of personal 

empowerment with respect to work processes.

Managers communicate the goals and priorities

of the organization.

How satisfied are you with the information you

receive from management on what’s going on?

How satisfied are you with your involvement in 

decisions that affect your work?

How satisfied are you with the policies and 

practices of your senior leaders?

I have a high level of respect for my 

organization’s senior leaders.

0 20 40 60 80 100

85

84

70

73

57

62

54

60

54

61

48

55

55

64

29

39

40

51

56

66

33

44

48

60

36

48

41

54

28

43

33

52

Page 24 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Note: All percentage estimates have 95 percent confidence intervals of within +/- 3.1 percentage 

points of the estimate. Percentage differences between FAA and the rest of government are 

statistically significant, except where noted. 

FAA responses to the top two items in figure 1 indicate that FAA 

employees said they like the work they do and derive considerable 

satisfaction from it; and FAA employees’ satisfaction on these topics was 

close to that of employees in the rest of the federal government. However, 

for the remainder of the items, FAA employees expressed less satisfaction 

than employees in the rest of the federal government. These lower levels 

of workplace satisfaction represent potential hurdles when competing for 

talent with other federal agencies. FAA’s strained labor-management 

relations could be contributing to the low percentages of positive 

responses. Several bargaining units have had contract negotiations stretch 

over many years with no settlement. For example, nearly 4,000 employees, 

represented by PASS, remain under the provisions of contracts that date 

back to 1988 and 1993, while new contracts are under negotiations. 

Additionally, in 2006, FAA encountered difficulties in negotiating a new 

labor contract with NATCA, which represents about one-third of FAA 

employees.31 In May 2009, FAA and NATCA began mediated bargaining to 

reach agreement on a new contract. In September 2009, FAA and NATCA 

signed a new 3-year contract. FAA and NATCA reached agreement on 

most contract items, but required binding decisions from the mediators for 

some items, including compensation. FAA views the new contract as a 

framework for helping to meet the challenges of implementing NextGen. 

While improvement in any of the impact items that OPM identified could 

help FAA improve its attractiveness as an employer of choice, the items 

for which FAA is farthest behind the rest of the federal government 

provide a focus for FAA to target its improvement efforts. Those items 

revolve around employee perceptions of their leaders and the leadership 

competencies of communication and building teamwork and cooperation. 

 

3149 U.S.C § 40122 (a)(2) provides that if FAA and labor cannot reach an agreement, and 

mediation is not successful, FAA’s proposed changes to the human capital system may not 

become effective until 60 days after FAA sends the proposed change to Congress, along 

with labor’s objections and the reasons for the objections. After an unsuccessful period of 

mediation, FAA sent its proposal to Congress, and it became legally effective 60 days later, 

in June 2006. However, FAA did not implement the terms until September 3, 2006, due to 

the programmatic changes necessary to effectuate them. The changes resulted in lower pay 

bands for newly hired controllers. Incumbent controllers retained their pay levels, but if 

their pay levels were above the maximum of the new pay bands, they received performance 

pay as a bonus, rather than as a permanent pay increase. 

Page 25 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Research has shown that employees who are led by strong leaders are 

more satisfied, engaged, and loyal than employees with weak leaders.32

FAA employees provided 28 percent positive responses regarding 

satisfaction with the policies and practices of senior leaders, and 33 

percent positive responses regarding having a high level of respect for 

senior leaders. These two items were the farthest behind the positive 

responses to impact items from the rest of the federal government. 

Additionally, positive responses to “How good a job do you feel is being 

done by your immediate supervisor or team leader?” were 10 percentage 

points behind the positive responses from the rest of the federal 

government. 

Consistent with FAA’s reform objective, FAA has identified 16 leadership 

competencies grouped under 4 dimensions (see fig. 2).33

Figure 2: FAA’s Leadership Competencies 

Source: FAA.

Achieving Resultsa

• Managing organizational performance

• Accountability and measurement

• Problem solving

• Business acumen

• Customer focus

Leading People

• Building teamwork and cooperation

• Building the model equal employment 

opportunity program

• Developing talent

Building Relationships

• Communication

• Building alliances

• Interpersonal relations and influence

• Integrity and honesty

Leading Changeb

• Vision

• Strategy formulation

• Agility

• Innovation

a

Listed as “Achieving Operational Results” in the Executive Success Profile. b

Listed as “Leading Strategic Change” in the Executive Success Profile. 

 

32P. Bernthal and R. S. Wellins, Leadership Forecast: 2003-2004 (Bridgeville, Pa.; 

Development Dimensions International, Inc.: 2004), cited in Robert M. Fulmer, Ph.D., and 

Jared L. Bleak, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, 

Strategic Leadership: Part 1: Applying Lessons Learned from Research about Strategic 

Leadership Development, http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/072/leadership.html (downloaded 

June 3, 2009). 

33Although the dimensions and competencies are essentially the same for managers and 

executives, the behavioral indicators listed for each competency differ somewhat between 

those for managers and those for executives. 

Page 26 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

FAA’s assessed the competency levels of its leaders in 2005, 2007, 2008, 

and 2009. The results showed that the communications competency 

approached or slightly exceeded the agency target level each year. 

However, as figure 1 shows, employee perceptions of communications 

from managers remained 12 percentage points behind the rest of the 

federal government, suggesting that further work remains. The senior 

executives who assisted the NAPA Panel34 also perceived a need for FAA’s 

leaders to improve communications about NextGen. They pointed out that 

FAA’s leaders will need to better communicate a clear vision for NextGen, 

better define what it is, and get support and buy-in from staff at all levels 

of the organization. FAA officials believe that the NextGen Implementation 

Plan, issued in January 2009, addresses these concerns.35 In developing the 

plan, FAA’s objective was to allow a broad audience to gain a common 

understanding of NextGen. The plan provides technical information in its 

appendixes, which officials said address the needs of specific 

stakeholders. 

The way leaders communicate with their employees can impact 

employees’ perceptions of leaders’ honesty and integrity, which, in turn, 

can affect the level of employees’ respect for their senior leaders—another 

impact item among those for which FAA’s responses were farthest behind 

the rest of the federal government. The president of a local union of the 

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees 

(AFSCME) provided an example that he believes demonstrates the 

relationship between these competencies.36 The union representative said 

that FAA provided little information to employees between 2003 and 2004 

as FAA planned for and implemented a sweeping reorganization that 

created the 36,000 employee ATO. After the reorganization, FAA 

management characterized ATO as a model organization, but after the first 

 

34NAPA held two colloquia to seek advice from senior executives with broad experiences in 

the public and private sectors about the knowledge requirements, skills, and leadership 

competencies needed to deliver NextGen. The participants included government 

executives, executives from aerospace and information technology industries, as well as 

academia. 

35Federal Aviation Administration, FAA’s NextGen Implementation Plan 2009 

(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 30, 2009). 

36At the time of our interview, AFSCME had a number of local unions that represented 

different groups of FAA employees. The representative who provided this information was 

president of one of those local unions. Since that time, AFSCME consolidated several local 

unions. As of October 5, 2009, the former president was designated as a local point of 

contact, pending establishment of a structure within the consolidated unit. 

Page 27 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Chief Operating Officer departed, FAA reorganized the responsibilities of 

ATO’s Vice Presidents.37 The representative believes that FAA’s lack of 

communications regarding these reorganizations likely contributed to a 

decline in trust of FAA management. 

FAA employees also provided fewer positive responses for impact items 

related to the supervisory competency, building teamwork and 

cooperation. The survey items related to teamwork and cooperation are 

“How satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your 

work?” and “Employees have a feeling of personal empowerment with 

respect to work processes.” We and others have reported on this as an 

area of governmentwide concern under topics such as empowerment, 

collaboration, teamwork, and employee engagement. For example, we 

have reported that empowering employees plays a crucial role in 

establishing a results-oriented culture. Additionally, as we previously 

noted in this report, a leading diversity management practice is to 

understand that a more diverse and inclusive workforce can yield greater 

productivity, and that diversity training could provide an awareness of 

how diverse perspectives can improve organizational performance. 

Moreover, MSPB has concluded that further engaging the federal 

workforce is critical as agencies attempt to improve their operations 

within budget constraints, and as they face increasing numbers of 

retirement-eligible employees in a labor market where there is intense 

competition for top talent.38 MSPB found that engaged employees have 

less intention to leave their current agency, use less sick leave, and work

in agencies that produce better programmatic results. For the purposes o

this report, we use collaboration to include teamwork, cooperation, 

employee engagement, and employee empowerment. 

f 

 

Improving collaboration has implications for FAA’s successful 

implementation of NextGen, because 98 percent of FAA’s employees who 

are eligible to be members of a bargaining unit are represented by a union. 

The NAPA Panel noted that although FAA’s labor-management relations 

had been strained for years, FAA had no clear strategy to engage the 

unions. In the past, FAA’s failure to collaborate with the ultimate users 

early in a system’s design contributed to cost growth and schedule 

37FAA’s Chief Operating Officer is the head of the ATO. 

38Merit Systems Protection Board, The Power of Federal Employee Engagement 

(Washington, D.C.: September 2008). 

Page 28 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

delays.39 The panel concluded that FAA’s success in leading the transition 

to NextGen will depend, in part, on its willingness to review its past efforts 

and learn from challenges and mistakes. 

Although controllers will be end users of NextGen’s technology, NATCA 

representatives told us they perceive that FAA management has little 

interest in collaboration. NATCA testified to Congress (1) that NextGen 

will only be successful if it is done with complete participation and 

agreement from government, labor, and industry groups and (2) that 

collaboration will help FAA to identify and address potential issues early 

on in the process, thereby saving time, money, and resources and avoiding 

safety risks. 

In FAA’s view, the agency has always desired to include end users in 

developing NextGen technology and procedures. According to FAA, a 

dispute arose over whether FAA or NATCA would make the final 

determination concerning the specific union members who would serve as 

subject matter experts. At the present time, FAA is using controllers as 

subject matter experts in testing and developing new technology and 

procedures, but NATCA has not endorsed their participation, according to 

a senior FAA official. 

Other union representatives discussed collaboration in more general 

terms. A PASS representative described a culture in which employees 

speak only when asked, and said that speaking up and suggesting 

solutions to problems is not encouraged. The representative also said that 

many supervisors feel frustrated because they would like to change this 

culture, but FAA does not provide any encouragement to do so. A 

representative of the American Federation of Government Employees said 

the union had been optimistic years ago about a 1996 contract that had an 

emphasis on partnership, but nothing materialized in subsequent years. 

The following section of this report describes several actions that FAA is 

taking to improve elements of workplace satisfaction, including 

 

39We reported that FAA’s failure to include stakeholders during the development phase of 

the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, also known as STARS, 

contributed to unplanned work, which, in turn, contributed to cost growth, schedule 

delays, and eventually a reduction in the number of systems to be deployed. See GAO, 

National Airspace System: Transformation will Require Cultural Change, Balanced 

Funding Priorities, and Use of All Available Management Tools, GAO-06-154

(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 14, 2005). 

Page 29 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

collaboration. Additionally, the Senate FAA reauthorization bill contains 

provisions aimed at increasing collaboration with employee groups. For 

example, the bill would require FAA to establish a process for 

collaborating with employees, who are selected by the bargaining unit, in 

planning and developing projects that would affect them. 

FAA Is Working to Address 

Workplace Satisfaction, 

but Has Not Established 

Accountability for 

Improvement 

FAA is taking actions that could improve employee satisfaction with their 

leaders over time. In 2007, FAA established its Senior Leadership 

Development Program to provide a pipeline of senior managers qualified 

to fill executive-level vacancies. To identify emerging leaders among its 

nonsupervisory employees, FAA initiated the Program for Emerging 

Leaders in 2009. FAA evaluates applicants for these programs on the basis 

of their demonstration of the leadership competencies shown in figure 2. 

Over time, as more of FAA’s leaders graduate from these programs, 

perspectives of employees about their leaders could change for the better. 

Evaluating the outcome of FAA’s leadership development programs will 

help FAA assess its progress in meeting its reform objective to improve 

leadership and management. To evaluate the outcome of its leadership 

development programs, FAA collects evaluations of participants’ 

satisfaction with the training and the classroom experience and obtains 

progress reviews that focus on the demonstrated achievement of 

developmental objectives. FAA is also measuring overall programmatic 

outcomes tied to succession planning goals, such as the ratio of candidates 

in development to projected vacancies, number of graduates appearing on 

best-qualified lists, and graduates placed in leadership positions. However, 

because FAA has so far graduated 1 cohort of 16 participants from its 

leadership development programs, substantial data are not yet available. 

To measure the impact of these programs on leadership within the agency, 

FAA is beginning to track movement in the results of its periodic 

leadership competency assessments. 

FAA also has recently taken some steps to create a more collaborative 

climate. For example, in February 2009, FAA invited NATCA to collaborate 

on the implementation phase of the En Route Automation Modernization 

system—a key component of the NextGen transition. According to 

NATCA, FAA and the union have held several constructive negotiation 

sessions on the system’s implementation. In another example, FAA agreed, 

in collaboration with NATCA, to provide immunity from discipline for 

employees who report safety issues under certain conditions, through 

program implementation by a joint union-management committee. FAA 

credits this agreement for allowing significant strides toward a safety 

Page 30 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

management culture, with the support of organized labor. FAA also used a 

collaborative approach to reach agreement in 2008 on a contract covering 

headquarters employees represented by AFSCME. This was the first 

successful contract negotiation since the units were first certified in 1999. 

A representative of PASS also noted some positive initiatives. He said the 

union recently attended a few meetings regarding development of ATO’s 

5-year strategic plan, suggesting that FAA management is starting to 

embrace the idea that collaboration with union groups results in a better 

product. 

Additionally, FAA’s new Administrator is emphasizing employee 

engagement.40 FAA has established an Employee Engagement Steering 

Committee comprised of FAA executives. According to FAA, these 

executives will engage, listen to, and act upon the issues, ideas, 

suggestions, and recommendations made by employees to improve the 

FAA work environment, management practices, and organizational 

culture, with the goal of becoming one of the best places in government to 

work. Moreover, the Administrator has expressed his commitment to 

employee engagement in a speech to one of the agency’s largest unions 

and sent an e-mail to all FAA employees describing a number of initiatives 

aimed at hearing what employees are thinking. According to FAA Human 

Resource Management officials, the Administrator also plans to provide 

monetary awards to individuals and teams that make significant 

contributions to improving workplace satisfaction. 

FAA’s actions, as we have previously described, align with 

governmentwide initiatives to improve workplace satisfaction. OPM, in 

collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget, has requested 

agencies to develop action plans to increase employee satisfaction in areas 

where the Federal Human Capital Survey indicated low satisfaction, and to 

include their plans as part of their fiscal year 2011 budget submissions. 

FAA has developed a Federal Human Capital Survey 2009-2010 Action 

Plan, which it intends to include with its 2011 budget submission. 

FAA’s action plan focuses on improving FAA’s positive response rates to 

selected survey items related to leadership and creating a performance 

culture. Some of these items are among those that OPM has identified as 

affecting an agency’s recruitment, motivation, and retention. FAA has 

included the activities envisioned for the Employee Engagement Steering 

 

40J. Randolph (Randy) Babbitt was sworn in as FAA’s 16th Administrator on June 1, 2009. 

Page 31 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

Committee, as we have previously described, as part of its plan to improve 

leadership. These activities could help increase positive responses 

regarding employee empowerment and employees’ involvement in 

decisions that affect their work. FAA’s positive responses for these items 

were, respectively, 11 and 13 percentage points behind the rest of the 

federal government in the 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey. 

Additionally, the section of the plan focused on creating a performance 

culture contains actions aimed at improving the performance management 

system’s effectiveness, which FAA officials and union representatives 

criticized. For example, the plan includes providing training on effectively 

applying the performance management system, with the expectation of 

achieving a better understanding of how to use the system so that 

employees and managers establish clear performance expectations as a 

basis for ongoing performance feedback and coaching. The plan also 

includes improving FAA’s policies and evaluation process to better ensure 

that the performance management system is used effectively. 

These efforts represent a good start. MSPB noted that among the steps 

that agencies can take to improve collaboration is recruiting supervisors 

on the basis of their supervisory abilities, something that FAA has already 

begun to do. FAA is also striving to create a line of sight between an 

employee’s work and the goals of the agency, which is another step 

toward increased employee engagement, according to MSPB. Also, MSPB 

encourages agencies to ensure a good person-to-job fit. Based on survey 

responses, FAA appears to have achieved some success in this area. As 

figure 1 shows, the impact items “I like the kind of work I do,” “My work 

gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment,” and “My talents are used 

well in the workplace” received the three highest percentages of positive 

responses from FAA employees and were the closest to the percentage of 

positive responses from employees in the rest of the federal government. 

However, FAA has not established accountability for the plan’s success. 

Although the action plan sets a goal of a 7 percent improvement in positive 

response rates to the eight selected survey items, FAA has not made 

successful achievement of this goal a performance expectation for 

managers, according to FAA Human Resource Management officials. 

Because strong leadership is key to creating a performance culture, adding 

an expectation for improvement in survey responses could increase 

chances for success. Disclosing the plan and its actions, goals, and 

outcomes in publicly available reports to Congress, such as the annual 

performance and accountability report, would also help to ensure 

accountability. 

Page 32 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

FAA has made good progress in developing a human capital system that 

addresses many of its reform objectives and has structures and processes 

that exhibit leading practices. FAA’s efforts to increase its workforce 

diversity by developing an expanded applicant pool are important, but 

they do not embrace the full range of leading diversity management 

practices. FAA could take steps to move beyond recruitment activities and 

toward diversity management by incorporating leading practices in future 

updates of its congressionally directed plans to increase diversity in the 

controller and aviation safety workforces. 

FAA employees’ dissatisfaction with their workplace, expressed in their 

responses to OPM’s Federal Human Capital Survey, suggests that FAA has 

not achieved the reform objective to be perceived as a desirable place to 

work, and could hinder FAA’s effort to recruit, motivate, and retain the 

workforce it needs for current and future missions. FAA’s Federal Human 

Capital Survey Action Plan represents a positive step to reach beyond the 

structures and processes of its human capital system and address the 

underlying causes of employee dissatisfaction with their workplace. 

Establishing accountability within FAA, and externally to Congress and 

the American people, represents the next step to increase the probability 

of the plan’s success. 

To ensure that FAA can hire, motivate, and retain the talented staff it 

needs to operate the national airspace system and implement the 

transition to NextGen, we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation 

direct the FAA Administrator to take the following three actions: 

Conclusions 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

1. ensure that key leading practices in diversity management are 

incorporated in future updates of FAA’s plans to increase diversity in 

the controller and aviation safety workforces; 

2. hold its managers accountable for the outcomes of the Federal Human 

Capital Survey Action Plan by establishing a performance expectation 

that FAA managers will achieve the plan’s stated increases in positive 

responses to designated survey items; and 

3. hold the agency accountable to Congress and the American people by 

disclosing the plan, actions, goals, and outcomes in publicly available 

reports to Congress, such as the annual performance and 

accountability report. 

Page 33 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
 

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Department of Transportation 

generally agreed to consider GAO’s recommendations and provided 

technical corrections that GAO incorporated as appropriate. 

Agency Comments 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 14 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to interested 

congressional committees, the Secretary of Transportation, the 

Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, and other parties. In 

addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

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

at (202) 512-2834 or dillinghamg@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 

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

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

are listed in appendix III. 

Sincerely yours, 

am, Ph.D. 

Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues 

Gerald L. Dillingh

Page 34 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Appendix I: Scope and Methods Appendix I: Scope and Methods 

To determine how the components and practices of the Federal Aviation 

Administration’s (FAA) human capital system compare with those of 

leading organizations, we reviewed FAA documents and regulations—

which detailed FAA policies and practices in the functional areas of 

workforce planning, training, recruiting and hiring, performance 

management, and diversity management. We also reviewed relevant 

studies by other organizations, including the National Academy of Public 

Administration. We discussed the structure and processes of FAA’s human 

capital system, and how the system is addressing FAA’s challenges, with 

officials from the Office of Human Resource Management and the Office 

of Civil Rights, and with FAA officials who have responsibility for 

implementing human capital procedures within each line of business—

Commercial Space Transportation, Aviation Safety, Airports, and the Air 

Traffic Organization. We conducted our interviews with FAA officials at 

FAA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and, via teleconference, Oklahoma 

City, Oklahoma. Additionally, we obtained perspectives of organized labor 

on the human capital system through semistructured interviews with 

representatives of FAA’s four largest unions—the National Air Traffic 

Controllers Association (about 19,000 members); the Professional Aviation 

Safety Specialists (about 11,100 members); the American Federation of 

State, County, and Municipal Employees (about 2,200 members); and the 

American Federation of Government Employees (about 1,800 members)—

which, collectively, represent about three-fourths of FAA’s workforce. We 

conducted a high-level comparison of FAA’s practices to leading practices. 

More detailed comparisons could disclose specific leading practices that 

FAA is not following, beyond those discussed in this report. We did not 

assess the effectiveness of FAA’s human capital system, because other 

factors—outside of FAA’s human capital system—may also affect FAA’s 

performance. 

To determine how FAA employees’ workplace satisfaction compares with 

that of other federal government employees, and what steps FAA is taking 

to improve workplace satisfaction, we reviewed FAA employee responses 

to the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) biennial Federal Human 

Capital Surveys for 2004, 2006, and 2008. We specifically analyzed the 

responses to 16 “impact items” that, according to OPM, make a difference 

in employee recruitment, motivation, and retention. Through document 

review and interviews with FAA officials, we determined FAA’s actions 

and plans to improve employee satisfaction for those items for which FAA 

employee satisfaction was the farthest behind the rest of the federal 

government. 

Page 35 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration 
Appendix I: Scope and Methods 

We conducted this performance audit from May 2008 to October 2009 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 

standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, 

appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence 

obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 

based on our audit objectives. We also conducted reliability assessments 

of the data we obtained electronically and determined those data to be of 

sufficient quality to be used for the purposes of this report. 

Page 36 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Page 37 GAO-10-89 

Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s 

Activities in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Performance Management 

Key leading practices FAA activities 

Strategic workforce planning 

Involve top management, employees, 

and other stakeholders in developing, 

communicating, and implementing the 

strategic workforce plan. 

• Works with stakeholders in annually reviewing and updating the Federal Aviation 

Administration (FAA) Human Capital Plan. 

• Has executives sign workforce planning documents for the workforces under their 

purview. 

Determine the critical skills and 

competencies that will be needed to 

achieve current and future programmatic 

results. 

• Develops workforce plans for major organizational segments and for specific 

workforces, such as air traffic controllers; plans provide workforce demographics and 

strategies to address workforce challenges. 

• Strives to achieve strategic alignment among people, goals, and mission 

accomplishments when annually updating workforce plans. 

• Examines human capital challenges to determine the extent to which the current 

workforce, systems, and practices meet future business requirements and determines 

where challenges exist. 

• Developed a 16-competency leadership success profile and revalidates it every 2 

years through a managementwide survey. 

• Mandates annual skill assessments for all managers and establishes recurring 

management training requirements. 

• Uses a competency model for human resource specialists that includes numerous 

technical and general competencies. 

• Enlisted the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) for assistance in 

determining the workforce competencies needed to lead and implement NextGen. 

• Bases its human capital planning framework on guidance from the Office of 

Management and Budget, GAO, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

• Developed an acquisition workforce plan that officials said will include acquisitions 

competencies, based in part on information from the NAPA Panel’s review. 

• Partnered with agencies across the federal government to establish a federal 

certification program for program and project managers based on recognition of 

common, essential competencies. 

Develop strategies that are tailored to 

address gaps in the number, deployment, 

and alignment of human capital 

approaches for enabling and sustaining 

the contributions of all critical skills and 

competencies. 

• Established a Senior Leadership Development Program to provide a pipeline of 

candidates to compete for leadership positions; uses leadership competencies to 

evaluate candidates for the program. 

• Established a Program for Emerging Leaders to assess, develop, and demonstrate 

candidates’ management potential; provide structured training; and provide a 

corporate perspective of FAA; uses leadership competencies to evaluate candidates 

for the program. 

• Participates in several governmentwide competency analysis efforts for mission 

critical workforces, such as information technologists, engineers, community planners, 

and human resource specialists. 

• Identifies gaps in workforce competencies and formulates closure strategies. 

Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s Activities 

in Strategic Workforce Planning, Training, Recruitment 

and Hiring, and Performance Management 

 Federal Aviation Administration 
Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s 

Activities in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Performance Management 

Key leading practices FAA activities 

Build the capability needed to address 

administrative, educational, and other 

requirements important to support 

workforce planning strategies. 

• Established a Human Capital Planning Council to serve as an internal community of 

practice for workforce planning and to provide a focal point for sharing best practices 

and disseminating guidance. 

• Engages in knowledge transfer by partnering with OPM, the Department of 

Transportation, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, NAPA, GAO, and other 

government agencies; learning institutions; and the private sector to ensure that the 

best possible decisions are made through shared lessons learned, feedback, and 

expertise. 

• Uses a six-stage process that includes aligning human capital policies, practices, and 

initiatives with the Flight Plan; scanning external trends to identify those that can affect 

the organization; scanning trends in workforce supply; and establishing and 

measuring progress against human capital goals. 

• Established a system of accountability that holds the organization, managers, and 

human resource officers accountable for efficient and effective human resources 

management. 

• Included accountability as a leadership competency. 

Monitor and evaluate the agency’s 

progress toward its human capital goals 

and the contribution that human capital 

results have made toward achieving 

programmatic results. 

• Established performance metrics in the Flight Plan for the time to fill vacancies, 

workplace injury rates, grievance processing time, and meeting staffing targets for air 

traffic controller and safety workforces. 

• Uses an automated system to track performance. 

• Administrator reviews progress on initiatives against performance targets and goals in 

monthly meetings. 

• Posts performance results against the human capital goals on its Web site. 

• Analyzes the results of employee surveys and takes action to improve specific areas. 

Training 

Planning/Front-End Analysis: 

Strategically link training and 

development programs to agency goals 

and to the skills and competencies 

needed for the agency to perform 

effectively. 

. 

• Establishes training programs that align with agency goals. 

• Requires that training be based on a systematic analysis of the knowledge, skills, and 

abilities required to achieve the organization’s mission. 

• Determines gaps between desired and current organizational performance, 

determines if training is the appropriate solution, and, if so, addresses those learning 

needs in annual business plans. 

• Incorporates training strategies as a significant part of workforce planning efforts by, 

for example, establishing corporate employee training programs to build leadership 

competence within the FAA workforce, support professional development, and 

promote continuous learning. 

Page 38 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s 

Activities in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Performance Management 

Key leading practices FAA activities 

Design: Conduct the appropriate 

analyses when designing training and 

development efforts. 

• Developed criteria based on industry Instructional Design Standards to determine 

whether to design training programs internally or use an external source. FAA officials 

stated that these criteria also capture FAA’s processes for developing training 

internally. 

• Uses a mixed approach to centralizing management of training programs. 

• Conducts managerial and leadership training on an agencywide basis to enable 

consistent training across the agency. 

• Conducts technical or professional training on a decentralized basis to 

accommodate subordinate organizations’ unique requirements. For example, 

officials from the Commercial Space line of business noted that, because much of 

its work is very technical and different from that of other lines of business, it 

designs and conducts much of its training internally. 

• Conducts analyses to choose among different mixes of training delivery mechanisms. 

For example, FAA officials noted that FAA is moving to a more “blended approach” to 

training delivery, using computer-based training where possible, which can help 

ensure that an agencywide audience receives the same message. 

Implementation: Agency leaders 

communicate the importance of training 

and developing employees and foster an 

environment conducive to effective 

training and development. 

• Encourages employees to work with their supervisors in creating individual 

development plans—identifying occupational performance requirements, job- and 

career-related learning needs, and learning strategies for meeting them—in 

conjunction with their annual performance plans. 

• Communicates management team commitment to ensuring that adequate funds will 

be set aside for position-essential training and has noted that funding for training in 

support of employees’ career development will be provided when possible. 

• Vests accountability for the enhanced performance of the workforce in the Office of 

Corporate Learning and Development and with line of business executives. 

• The Office of Corporate Learning and Development is responsible for 

managerial/leadership training and is accountable for improvements in that area. 

• The lines of business are responsible for developing technical and professional 

training and are accountable for employee technical performance. The Air Traffic 

Organization, for example, has several layers of training accountability for air 

traffic controller technical training, starting with the Vice President of Technical 

Training, who is responsible for Air Traffic technical training. 

Page 39 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s 

Activities in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Performance Management 

Key leading practices FAA activities 

Evaluation: Systematically plan for and 

evaluate the effectiveness of agency 

training and development efforts using 

the appropriate analytic approaches and 

performance data. 

• Evaluates learning and development activities to determine how well these activities 

meet short- and long-range program needs. 

• Establishes standards that address the quality of learning and development activities 

and delivery systems, achievement of learning objectives, impact on performance, 

accomplishment of organizational requirements and expectations, and written end-ofactivity evaluation. 

• Uses performance data from end-of-course evaluations to assess participant reaction, 

vendor and instructor performance, transfer of learning, learning outcomes, and the 

effectiveness of participatory learning techniques. 

• Compiles training evaluation results for use in future planning. 

• Assesses leadership skills every spring and uses the results of these assessments to 

refine the leadership curriculum for the following year. 

• Requires lines of business and staff organizations to plan and justify their training 

needs as part of the regular budget process. 

• Lines of business are responsible for maintaining records of all training activities, 

expenditures, and plans. 

• Manages costs through electronic delivery of Web-based courses. 

Recruitment and hiring 

Evaluate recruitment strategies to attract 

applicants. 

• Monitors the effectiveness of the Air-Traffic Selection and Training tool—the screening 

test for air traffic controller applicants—and has commenced a study aimed at 

assessing the effectiveness of the tool over the long term. 

• Uses the Chief Human Capital Officers Council Management Satisfaction survey to 

obtain hiring manager feedback on the hiring process and the quality of applicants. 

• Evaluates the success of its strategies by setting performance targets and reporting 

on its success in meeting them in annual performance and accountability reports. 

Ensure that the best candidates are 

selected by refining assessment tools. 

• Refines vacancy announcements so that they better incorporate key competencies 

and evaluates applicants against these competencies. 

• Uses feedback collected from job applicants to redesign its systems to improve 

usability. 

Use an automated hiring process, 

including computerized systems to 

prescreen, rate, and rank applicants. 

• Uses its Automated Staffing and Application system for most externally advertised 

vacancies to post vacancy announcements, obtain applications, rate and rank 

applicants, and complete the selection process. 

Use available flexibilities to recruit, hire, 

and manage workforces. 

• Uses on-the-spot hiring authority based on factors such as the number of applications 

received and the adequacy of job advertising efforts. 

• Uses recruitment incentives when extreme difficulty has existed for a prolonged period 

of time in attracting an adequate number of candidates, or when necessary to attract a 

candidate with unique competencies critical to an important agency mission. 

• Pays retention incentives when the unique qualifications of the employee or a special 

need for the employee’s services makes it essential to retain the employee and the 

employee would be likely to leave the federal service in the absence of a retention 

incentive. 

Page 40 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s 

Activities in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Performance Management 

Key leading practices FAA activities 

Performance management 

Use performance management system to 

improve performance by helping 

individuals see the connection between 

their daily activities and organizational 

goals and encouraging individuals to 

focus on their roles and responsibilities to 

help achieve these goals. 

• Aligns individual performance expectations with organizational goals by requiring that 

each supervisor and employee develop a performance plan that describes employee 

tasks and responsibilities and provides a line of sight from those items to the goals in 

the Flight Plan. 

• Clearly defines and widely communicates FAA’s performance expectations for the 

organization in FAA’s Flight Plan and business plans, and for individuals in employee 

performance plans. 

• Ties performance-based pay increases to an employee’s “Impact on Organizational 

Success.” 

• Rates employees on their ability to successfully set priorities and complete work 

that directly affects the ability of the organization to meet its performance 

objectives and deliver high-quality products and services. 

Use competencies to examine individual 

contributions to organizational results. 

Competencies, which define the skills 

and supporting behaviors that individuals 

are expected to exhibit to carry out their 

work effectively, can provide a fuller 

picture of an individual’s performance. 

• Uses two types of performance standards to describe employee’s major 

responsibilities and expected outcomes. 

• Uses “common” or “generic” performance standards when the work is repetitious 

in nature and is characterized by consistent processes, standard outcomes and 

expectations, and is task- or procedurally based. These plans contain 

standardized outcomes and expectations that apply to all employees doing the 

same or similar job(s). For example, all air traffic controllers are expected to 

recognize adverse and emergency situations and take timely corrective actions. 

• Uses a customized plan that applies to specific individuals for their specific duties 

when work is programmatic in nature and is characterized by unique processes 

and diverse outcomes, and expectations are project-oriented. 

Provide objective performance 

information to individuals to show 

progress in achieving organizational 

results. 

• Tracks progress toward multiple agency performance targets, as outlined in the Flight 

Plan, and issues periodic performance reports. 

• Reports the status quarterly on the agency Web site and annually in performance and 

accountability reports. 

Create pay, incentive, and reward 

systems that clearly link employee 

knowledge, skills, and contributions to 

organizational results. A key aspect of 

implementing such a system is making 

meaningful distinctions in individual 

performance and appropriately rewarding 

those who perform at the highest level. 

• Uses a two-phased process to appraise the performance of most employees and 

distribute performance-based pay increases. 

• Uses a secondary pay decision process to make more meaningful performance 

distinctions in determining performance-based pay increases. 

• Provides monetary awards for outstanding performance in categories such as 

ensuring safety, customer service, and leadership. 

• Granted over $5 million in cash awards and over 64,000 hours of time off under 

the incentive awards program in fiscal year 2007. 

Provide the necessary information and 

documentation to deal with poor 

performers. 

• Established procedures to deal with unacceptable performers, which require that 

supervisors provide employees with an opportunity to improve before taking 

performance-based action. Employees are placed on a performance improvement 

plan, called an “Opportunity to Demonstrate Performance,” for a period of time as 

specified in the governing labor agreement and, if the employee remains on the plan 

at the end of the performance cycle, the employee does not receive a performancebased increase.a

Page 41 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Appendix II: Key Leading Practices and FAA’s 

Activities in Strategic Workforce Planning, 

Training, Recruitment and Hiring, and 

Performance Management 

Key leading practices FAA activities 

Provide candid and constructive feedback 

to help individuals maximize their 

contribution and potential in 

understanding and realizing the goals 

and objectives of the organization. 

• Requires that supervisors conduct meetings with their employees halfway through the 

performance cycle and provide ongoing, informal feedback on the employee’s 

progress against the performance plan and identify opportunities for improvement. 

• Provides automatic notifications to managers that midpoint feedback and end-of-cycle 

reviews are due, to help ensure that these activities take place. 

• Disseminated a broadcast message to all FAA managers to remind them of the 

midcycle review requirement, the due date, and the reasons for the review. 

Actively involve employees and 

stakeholders, such as unions or other 

employee associations, when developing 

results-oriented performance 

management systems in order to help 

improve employees’ confidence and 

belief in the fairness of the system and 

increase their understanding and 

ownership of organizational goals and 

objectives. 

• Involved employees in Performance Management System design by conducting over 

50 focus groups with more than 500 total participants across all lines of business, 

unions, and pay grades to verify employee survey results and to obtain employee 

suggestions for improving the system. 

• Provided training for supervisors, managers, and employees when originally 

implementing its performance management system, by developing a variety of 

classroom training modules and interactive video sessions. 

• Developed an instructional guide for employees on the performance management 

system. 

• Developed a desk guide for managers on distributing superior contribution increases. 

• Recently conducted a series of briefings regarding the pay for performance system. 

Provide adequate safeguards that help to 

ensure transparency, which can improve 

the credibility of the performance-based 

pay system by promoting fairness and 

trust. 

• Established a process for handling disputes in its performance management system. 

The process is designed to be collaborative in nature, beginning with the jointly 

developed performance plans. FAA uses a grievance procedure or bargaining unit 

contracts, whichever apply, to resolve disputes and/or disagreements that are not 

resolved through the initial efforts. 

• Publishes information for employees on internal Web sites about the results of 

performance pay decisions. 

Sources: GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 

2003); Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts in the Federal Government, GAO-04-546G

(Washington, D.C.: March 2004); Human Capital: Transforming Federal Recruitment and Hiring Efforts, GAO-08-762T (Washington, 

D.C.: May 8, 2008); Human Capital: Additional Collaboration Between OPM and Agencies Is Key to Improved Federal Hiring,

GAO-04-797 (Washington, D.C.: June 7, 2004); Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage between Individual Performance 

and Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003); Merit Systems Protection Board, Reforming Federal 

Hiring: Beyond Faster and Cheaper (Washington, D.C.); and GAO analysis of FAA practices. 

a

The performance tool option does not apply to temporary employees or to employees in a 

probationary period. However, supervisors are encouraged to use the other elements of the system to 

mentor or counsel these employees or supervisors early in the process if their performance declines. 

Page 42 GAO-10-89 Federal Aviation Administration
Appendix III: GAO

A

 Contact and Staff 

cknowledgments 

Page 43 GAO-10-89 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D., (202) 512-2834 or dillinghamg@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Maria Edelstein, Assistant 

Director; Edmond Menoche, Senior Analyst; Sherwin Chapman; Peter 

DelToro; Jessica Evans; Colin Fallon; Cynthia Heckmann; Bert Japikse; 

Janice Latimer; Steven Lozano; Grant Mallie; Belva Martin; Sara Ann 

Moessbauer; Carol Petersen; Colleen Phillips; Mark Ramage; Beverly Ross; 

and Kiki Theodoropoulos made significant contributions to this report. 

 Federal Aviation Administration 

GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(540176) 
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