Human Capital: DOD Should Fully Develop Its Civilian Strategic Workforce Plan to Aid Decision Makers
Published: 2014-07-09T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Strategic workforce planning can help DOD determine whether it has the civilian personnel with the necessary skills and competencies to perform a wide variety of duties and responsibilities, including mission-essential combat-support functions, such as logistics and maintenance, that traditionally have been performed by uniformed military personnel. In 2006, Congress enacted a requirement for DOD to produce strategic workforce plans, and GAO first reported on DOD's plans in 2008. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 mandates that GAO report to Congress on these plans.
GAO evaluated the extent to which (1) DOD's Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan addressed statutory requirements; and (2) DOD's plan is consistent with key strategic workforce-planning principles. GAO examined DOD's Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan and associated documents, relevant legislation, and key strategic workforce-planning principles, and interviewed officials from across the department involved in producing the plan.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Department of Defense's (DOD) Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan addressed or partially addressed 27 of the 32 statutory reporting requirements and did not address 5 of the requirements. The statute requires DOD, for example, to conduct assessments of critical skills and competencies, to assess gaps in the workforce, and to assess the appropriate mix of civilian, military, and contractor capabilities. DOD has taken steps to address many of its reporting requirements since 2008. However, DOD has not yet addressed the requirement to assess the appropriate mix of civilian, military, and contractor capabilities in its plan, as shown in the table below. GAO previously has made 10 recommendations regarding statutory compliance covering a range of issues. In addition to recommending that DOD conduct the required assessments, GAO also has recommended providing clearer guidance for developing the plan and enhancing performance measures and is not making further recommendations related to statutory compliance at this time.
DOD's strategic workforce plan does not fully incorporate key strategic workforce-planning principles. There are six key strategic workforce-planning principles, and most are similar to elements of the statutory reporting requirements, such as assessing critical skills and competencies. A key principle that is not addressed in the statutory requirements is strategic alignment, which links workforce strategies to an agency's mission and goals, and aligns them with, among other things, budget formulation. DOD's 2013-2018 plan noted the need to integrate the department's plan with the budget process but did not include specific details and, according to officials, DOD does not have actions underway to do so. Further, the plan identified strategies addressing some critical-skill staffing gaps, but did not provide specific information on the funding required to implement most of these strategies. The plan also did not align with recent recruiting, retention, and readiness initiatives to improve the morale of DOD's civilian workforce as reported to congressional defense committees. Without aligning its workforce plan with the budget process and management workforce initiatives, such as those to address recruiting and retention issues associated with declining morale, the department will not be in the best position to make informed management and resource decisions about its workforce.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommends that DOD align its workforce plans with the budget process and other workforce management initiatives. DOD concurred with GAO's recommendation.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Current budget and long-term fiscal pressures necessitate that federal  government agencies, including the Department of Defense (DOD),  operate more strategically and efficiently than ever before, and this  includes cost-effective management of human-capital policies and  practices. We have previously reported that strategic workforce  planning—an integral part of human-capital management—helps  organizations like DOD determine whether they have personnel with the  necessary skills and competencies to achieve organizational missions  and strategic goals. For fiscal year 2015, DOD budgeted approximately  $74 billion for a civilian workforce of approximately 782,000 full-time  equivalents. DOD’s civilian workforce performs a wide variety of duties  and responsibilities, including mission-essential combat-support  functions—such as logistics, support, and maintenance—that traditionally  have been performed by the uniformed military. To successfully address  such complex challenges as national security, and other evolving national  issues, it is necessary for DOD to attract and retain skilled personnel.  Three important elements of workforce planning include determining the  critical skills and competencies necessary to achieve programmatic goals,  conducting gap analyses, and developing strategies that are tailored to  address any identified gaps.
In 2001, we added strategic human-capital management for all federal  civilians—including those at DOD—to our High-Risk List because of the  long-standing lack of leadership commitment in this area. While the Office of Personnel Management, individual agencies such as DOD, and  Congress have taken important steps over the last few years to better  position the government to close current and emerging critical skills gaps  that are undermining agencies’ abilities to meet their vital missions, the  area remains high risk because more work is needed in implementing  specific corrective strategies for addressing critical skills gaps and  evaluating their results.
Our body of work on strategic workforce planning has shown the  importance of having the right people, with the right skills, doing the right  jobs, in the right places, at the right time. We first reported on DOD’s  need for strategic workforce plans for its civilian workforce in 2004, and  since have published several reports on DOD’s strategic workforce   In February 2008, we found that DOD did not address most  plans. statutory requirements in its strategic workforce plan, and recommended  that DOD submit a plan that addresses all the statutory requirements.DOD disagreed with our recommendation and stated that its plan  reflected a centralized enterprise-wide strategic perspective, while  acknowledging it did not necessarily provide the information specified by  the law. Subsequently, in February 2009, we found that DOD partially  addressed each of the statutory requirements that existed then and  recommended that DOD develop performance plans, to include  implementation goals and time frames, for its program offices that have  responsibilities to oversee development of the strategic workforce plan.  DOD partially concurred with our recommendation and noted that efforts  were underway at that time to develop performance plans. More recently,  in September 2010 and again in September 2012, we found that,  although DOD had demonstrated some progress in addressing the  legislative requirements related to its Civilian Human Capital Strategic  Workforce Plan, several key elements continued to be missing from the  process—including such elements as competency-gap analyses and  monitoring of progress. We discuss DOD’s progress on the plan and  related areas—including DOD’s response and any recommendations  implemented—in further detail later in this report.
Within the last decade, Congress has passed and amended legislation  requiring DOD to conduct strategic human capital planning efforts for the  department’s overall civilian workforce, its Civilian Senior Leader  workforce, and its Financial Management workforce. Specifically, Section  115b of Title 10 of the United States Code (Section 115b), enacted in  October 2009, requires DOD to develop and submit to congressional  defense committees on a biennial basis a strategic workforce plan to  shape and improve the department’s civilian workforce, and includes a list  of specific reporting requirements such as conducting assessments of  current and future critical skills and competencies of DOD’s civilian  workforce.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 mandates  GAO to report to congressional defense committees on DOD’s plan within  180 days of its submission. Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan. This report evaluates the  extent to which (1) DOD’s latest plan addresses the statutory reporting  requirements of Section 115b, and (2) DOD’s plan is consistent with key  strategic workforce-planning principles.
Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 1108 (2009).
Advisory Service, within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for  Personnel and Readiness, who are responsible for developing the plan.
To determine the extent to which DOD’s plan is consistent with key  strategic workforce planning principles, we compared DOD’s Fiscal Year  2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan with key principles of effective  strategic workforce planning. Specifically, we selected two key  principles—aligning workforce planning with strategic planning and  budget formulation and involving stakeholders, among others, in  developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce  plan—that do not overlap with the statutory requirements. Additionally, we  selected two other key principles—determining the critical skills and  competencies needed to achieve current and future programmatic results  and developing strategies that are tailored to address gaps—because  they are integral to developing a comprehensive strategic workforce plan  and because we have consistently found that DOD has not yet completed  actions to address issues related to them. We interviewed officials from  the Strategic Human Capital Planning Office to obtain information on  DOD’s approach to strategic workforce planning. We also interviewed  officials in 3 of DOD’s 22 functional communities to obtain additional  perspective on their approaches.
The three communities included (1) the Civilian Senior Leader functional  community, (2) the Financial Management functional community, and (3)  the Intelligence functional community. We selected these communities  because DOD is required specifically to include information about its  Civilian Senior Leader and its Financial Management workforces in its  Strategic Workforce Plan, and because our 2012 review of DOD’s 2010  Strategic Workforce Plan found that the department’s Intelligence functional community did not provide the mandated workforce  assessments or plan of action for shaping and improving that workforce.  We also selected the three communities to better understand how each of  their plans was developed based on the stated criteria. However, our  selection of these 3 functional communities does not constitute a  representative sample of DOD’s 22 functional communities. Thus, while  the results cannot be projected to all functional communities, they did  provide us with important insights. We also evaluated DOD’s processes  for conducting the strategic workforce planning efforts for these three  functional communities as part of the larger DOD strategic workforce  plan, including relevant instructions or guidance from the Office of the  Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. We then  evaluated the data presented in the plan to assess the extent to which  DOD’s latest plan is consistent with key strategic workforce-planning  principles; however, we did not assess the underlying accuracy of DOD’s  data.
We conducted this performance audit from September 2013 to July 2014  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. A full discussion of our scope  and methodology is presented in appendix I.
subsections: section_title: Background
subsections: section_title: Statutory Requirements for DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plan
paragraphs: Section 115b requires that the Secretary of Defense submit to the  congressional defense committees, in every even-numbered year, a  strategic workforce plan to shape and improve the civilian employee  workforce of DOD. The statute assigns overall responsibility for  developing and implementing the plan to the Under Secretary of Defense  for Personnel and Readiness. In turn, the Under Secretary has assigned  responsibility for developing the plan to the Defense Civilian Personnel  Advisory Service. The plan is required to include, among other things,  assessments of DOD’s existing and projected civilian workforce, and a  plan of action to address gaps in critical skills and competencies identified  in those assessments.
Section 115b further requires DOD to include in its strategic workforce  plan specific information on its Civilian Senior Leader—senior  management, functional, and technical—workforces. DOD’s senior  management, functional, and technical workforces consist of five career  Civilian Senior Leader workforces, which DOD relies on to operate and  oversee nearly every activity in the department. These workforces include  the following:
Senior Executive Service workforce. Most of the department relies on  these officials to fill positions with managerial, supervisory, or policy  advisory responsibilities.
Senior Level workforce. These officials fill positions that typically  require less than 25 percent of their time to be spent on supervisory or  related managerial responsibilities. Most Senior Level employees are  in nonexecutive positions whose duties are broad and complex  enough to be classified above the GS-15 level.
Senior Technical workforce. These officials perform high-level  research and development in the physical, biological, medical, and  engineering science fields.
Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service workforce. These  officials fill positions with managerial, supervisory, or policy advisory  responsibilities in the Intelligence functional community that falls  within DOD.
Defense Intelligence Senior Level workforce. These officials fill senior  positions within DOD’s Intelligence community that require less than  25 percent of their time to be spent on managerial or supervisory  responsibilities.
Section 1053 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year  2012 added a requirement for DOD to include specific information on its  Financial Management workforce in the department’s strategic workforce  plan. That section requires that DOD include specific steps that the  department has taken or plans to take to develop appropriate career  paths for civilian employees in the financial-management field, and  include a plan for funding improvements in the Financial Management  workforce of the department through the period of the current Future  Years Defense Program, including a description of any continuing  shortfalls in funding available for that workforce. DOD’s 2013-2018  Strategic Workforce Plan is the department’s first plan that is to include  information addressing this requirement. DOD’s financial-management  workforce was added to our High-Risk List in 1995.
section_title: Key Principles of Effective Strategic Workforce Planning
paragraphs: Strategic workforce planning is an iterative, systematic process that  addresses two critical needs: (1) aligning an organization’s human-capital  program with its current and emerging mission and programmatic goals  and (2) developing long-term strategies for acquiring, developing, and  retaining staff to achieve programmatic goals. While agencies’  approaches to workforce planning vary, key principles of strategic  workforce planning that should be addressed include the following: align workforce planning with strategic planning and budget  formulation;  involve top management, employees, and other stakeholders in  developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce  plan; determine the critical skills and competencies that will be needed to  achieve current and future programmatic results; 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; build the capability needed to address administrative, educational,  and other requirements important to support workforce planning  strategies; and 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.
With the exception of the first two principles, these principles are similar  to elements of DOD’s statutory reporting requirements.
section_title: DOD’s Approach to Strategic Workforce Planning
paragraphs: To conduct strategic human-capital planning efforts for the department’s  civilian workforce, DOD’s Strategic Human Capital Planning Office used  functional community categories to group together employees who  perform similar functions. In some cases, these communities include  mission-critical occupations. For its 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan,  DOD identified 22 functional communities and provided information on 30  of its 32 mission-critical occupations. DOD’s approach to developing its  strategic workforce plan includes meetings between functional community  leadership and officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service, an environmental scan as part of a continuous information- gathering process, and quarterly recruitment and retention data updates  provided to the functional communities.
According to DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plan, mission-critical  occupations are occupations or occupational groups that set direction,  directly impact, or execute performance of mission-critical functions or  services. Further, mission-critical occupations are positions key to DOD’s  current and future mission requirements, as well as those that present  recruiting and retention challenges. Appendix II shows DOD’s functional  communities and their associated mission-critical occupations.
section_title: Prior GAO Work Evaluating DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plans
paragraphs: We have conducted assessments of DOD’s strategic workforce plans  since 2008, and our body of work has found that DOD’s efforts to address  strategic workforce planning requirements have been mixed.February 2009 report, we recommended that the offices responsible for  addressing DOD’s strategic workforce-planning requirements develop  performance plans that include establishing implementation goals and  time frames, measuring performance, and aligning activities with  resources. DOD has since completed implementation of the actions it had  underway at that time to develop performance plans. In our most recent   In our  report in September 2012 on the department’s overall civilian strategic  workforce plan, we recommended that DOD  include in the guidance that it disseminates for developing future  strategic workforce plans clearly defined terms and processes for  conducting these assessments;  conduct competency-gap analyses for DOD’s mission-critical  occupations and report the results; establish and adhere to timelines that will ensure issuance of future  strategic workforce plans in accordance with statutory time frames; provide guidance for developing future strategic workforce plans that  clearly directs the functional communities to collect information that  identifies not only the number or percentage of personnel in its  military, civilian, and contractor workforces but also the capabilities of  the appropriate mix of those three workforces; and enhance the department’s results-oriented performance measures by  revising existing measures or developing additional measures that will  more clearly align with DOD’s efforts to monitor progress in meeting  the strategic workforce-planning requirements in section 115b of Title  10 of the United States Code.
DOD either concurred or partially concurred with the recommendations in  our September 2012 report, stating that, among other things, the  department was deliberate in applying lessons learned from previous  workforce plans and identifying specific challenges and the actions being  taken to address those challenges to meet statutory planning  requirements by 2015.
In our September 2012 report on the department’s Civilian Senior Leader  strategic workforce plan, we recommended that DOD conduct  assessments of the skills, competencies, and gaps within all five career  Civilian Senior Leader workforces and report them in DOD’s future  strategic workforce plans.and stated that the department fell short of conducting assessments of  skills, competencies, and gaps within three of the five Civilian Senior  Leader workforces as a result of their technical roles in the DOD  leadership hierarchy, and that, as roles are refined, this work will be   DOD concurred with our recommendation  reflected in future plans as appropriate. The status of these and other  prior recommendations may be found in appendix III.
section_title: DOD’s Plan Partially Addresses Most Statutory Requirements and Does Not Provide Comprehensive Workforce Information for Decision Makers
paragraphs: Our assessment of DOD’s Fiscal Years 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce  Plan found that DOD’s plan addresses 8 and partially addresses 19 of the  32 statutory requirements. The plan does not address 5 of the 32  statutory requirements. As a result, DOD’s plan does not provide decision  makers with comprehensive information on DOD’s workforce. The 2013- 2018 plan represents an improvement since 2008 when we found that  DOD’s 2006-2010 Civilian Human Capital Strategic Workforce Plan did   However, since  not meet six of eight statutory reporting requirements.2008, Congress has expanded the number and scope of statutory  requirements for DOD to include, among other things, details about its  civilian senior-leader and financial-management workforces. Table 1  provides the results of our analysis of the extent to which DOD’s plan for  the overall, civilian senior-leader, and financial-management workforces  addressed the Section 115b statutory requirements.
Section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code requires DOD to  develop a strategic workforce plan to shape and improve the civilian  employee workforce of the department, to include specific elements such  as an assessment of the current critical skills and competencies of the  civilian workforce; any gaps in the existing or projected workforce; and the  appropriate mix of civilian, military, and contractor capabilities. DOD also  was required to identify the specific funding needed to achieve recruiting  and retention goals, and the funding needed to implement strategies for  developing, training, deploying, compensating, and motivating the civilian  employee workforce of the department. In addition to addressing the  overall civilian workforce, the legislation also requires the department to  include separate chapters to address the shaping and improvement of  specific workforces, including: (1) the Civilian Senior Leader workforce  and (2) the Financial Management workforce. We summarize the results  of our assessment of DOD’s overall civilian, Civilian Senior Leader, and  Financial Management workforce plans below. In addition, we provide  detailed information in appendix IV on the extent to which the 2013-2018  Strategic Workforce Plan addressed the statutory requirements.
subsections: section_title: Overall Civilian Workforce
paragraphs: With regard to the overall civilian workforce, we found that DOD’s Fiscal  Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan addresses three of the  statutory requirements, partially addresses six requirements, and does  not address one requirement. For example, DOD’s plan addressed the  requirement to provide an assessment, using results-oriented  performance measures, of the progress the department has made in  implementing the plan in the prior year. Specifically, DOD’s plan identified  six performance measures the department is using to assess progress.  These measures include, among others, (1) the percentage of workforce  planning key milestones completed by each functional community, then  aggregated across all communities; (2) the percentage difference  between actual workforce levels and target workforce levels for the  mission-critical occupations; and (3) the number of mission-critical  occupations for which competency models will be developed and  deployed by September 2014.
By contrast, DOD’s overall civilian plan partially addresses, among  others, the requirements to assess the department’s critical skills and  competencies of both the existing and future workforces. We found that  DOD assessed its critical skills by identifying and providing information on  the mission-critical occupations. However, DOD’s plan did not include  competency assessment information for most of the workforces. In  subsequent discussions, DOD officials told us that, as of April 2014, the  department had completed competency models for the current mission- critical occupations, but had not yet completed the assessments of the  competencies associated with those occupations and, therefore, could  not include the required assessments in the plan. Those officials also told  us that they intend to include the results of these assessments in future  strategic workforce plans.
Finally, DOD’s overall civilian workforce plan does not address the  requirement to include an assessment of the appropriate mix of military,  civilian, and contractor personnel capabilities. According to the plan, in  fiscal year 2012 the department initiated a pilot study of the process to  assess capabilities being delivered by the federal government career  civilian workforce, military personnel, and contract support for three  mission-critical occupations. Although the plan discussed the existence of  this pilot program, it did not provide the actual assessment of those  occupational series’ mix of capabilities, as directed by the requirement. At  the time of our review, Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service  officials told us that the plan did not include specific information on the  results of the pilot because the program was being reevaluated during the  fiscal year 2014-2019 Strategic Workforce Plan cycle and will be updated  for future reporting. According to the plan, the department’s goal is to  assess a broad range of mission-critical occupation capabilities by fiscal  year 2016, but the department did not provide further details on these  plans, such as interim milestones or the number of mission critical  occupations it intends to assess.
section_title: Civilian Senior Leader Workforce
paragraphs: With regard to the Civilian Senior Leader workforce, we found that DOD’s  2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan addresses four of the statutory  requirements, partially addresses seven requirements, and does not  address one requirement. For example, DOD’s plan addresses the  requirement to include specific strategies for developing, training,  deploying, compensating, motivating, and designing career paths and  career opportunities. Specifically, DOD’s plan identified the department’s  effort to revise the scope of its Defense Executive Advisory Board to  help the department maintain the caliber of its Senior Executive Service  leadership. In addition, the plan discussed efforts by the department to  promote diversity and interest among civilian employees to join the  executive ranks.
However, we found that the Civilian Senior Leader plan partially  addresses, among others, the requirements to assess the critical skills  and competencies of the current and future workforces because the plan  only provided competency information for the Senior Executive Service.  More specifically, the plan provided information on the 16 Office of  Personnel Management government-wide competencies and 2 DOD- specific competencies for the Senior Executive Service, which includes  strategic thinking, leveraging diversity, and developing others, among  others. The department’s plan did not, however, provide an assessment  of the critical skills needed by the Civilian Senior Leader workforce, which  is also a part of the statutory requirement. In addition, DOD’s Civilian  Senior Leader workforce plan partially addresses the requirement to  assess critical skill and competency gaps because, while it did include  information on the process used for assessing gaps in its Senior  Executive Service workforce, it did not include similar gap information for  the other Civilian Senior Leader workforces.
Finally, the Civilian Senior Leader plan also does not address the  requirement to include an assessment of the appropriate mix of military,  civilian, and contractor personnel capabilities. Although the plan provided  a breakdown of the projected requirements for each of the department’s  Civilian Senior Leader workforce categories through fiscal year 2018, and  also stated that the department may use military personnel, among  others, to fill gaps in its Civilian Senior Leader workforce, it did not  discuss any requirements for the department’s senior military personnel.  The plan further stated that there is little to no need for a contractor  workforce at the Civilian Senior Leader workforce level.
section_title: Financial Management Workforce
paragraphs: With regard to the Financial Management workforce, we found that  DOD’s 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan addresses one, partially  addresses six, and does not address three of the statutory requirements.  For example, DOD’s plan addresses the requirement to include specific  steps that the department has taken or plans to take to develop  appropriate career paths for its workforce, among other things. The plan  outlined six major milestones for developing the enterprise-wide financial  management career paths, beginning, for example, with collecting the  component-specific career paths.
Consistent with the other two plans, however, we found that DOD’s  Financial Management workforce plan partially addresses the  requirements to assess the critical skills and competencies of the current  and future workforces. Although the plan identified 4 of the community’s  13 occupational series as mission-critical occupations, which DOD  considers its critical skills, and identified the projected trends associated  with those occupational series due to retirement, the plan did not provide  an assessment of the overall Financial Management workforce’s 23  competencies. According to officials, this information was not included in  the plan because the community did not begin to conduct its competency  assessments until April 2014 and the results of the assessments are not  expected to be available until July 2014.
Additionally, the plan partially addresses the requirement to include  specific strategies for developing, training, deploying, compensating, and  motivating the workforce to address gaps in critical skills and  competencies, as well as the program objectives and funding for those  strategies. We found that, although the plan included a specific strategy  for, among other things, developing and training the Financial  Management workforce, the plan did not identify the funding needed for  this strategy. The plan stated only that the community coordinated  funding needs with DOD’s components and that these funding needs  were included in the fiscal year 2014 President’s Budget. Although not  included in the plan, officials from the Comptroller’s office told us that they  realigned approximately $13 million to $14 million per year across the  fiscal year 2014-2018 Future Years Defense Program to address training  shortfalls and to provide funding for additional web-based course  development. Officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service told us that they did not include specific cost information for a  majority of the goals and strategies because strategy information comes  from the functional communities and, in some cases, each service  implements the identified goals and strategies, as needed, and builds any  resultant costs into their individual budgets. However, the information we  obtained separately from the Financial Management functional  community, if included in the plan, would have contributed toward DOD’s  ability to meet this statutory requirement.
The Financial Management workforce plan also does not address the  requirement to include an assessment of civilian, military, and contractor  capabilities. As noted above, the department took preliminary steps to  assess its workforce mix capabilities through a pilot program; however,  the financial management mission-critical occupations were not included  as part of that pilot program, and details of the program were not included  as part of DOD’s plan. According to the plan, the community focused  primarily on the civilian Financial Management workforce and, therefore,  only provided demographic information on civilians in the mission-critical  occupations. The plan did not, however, provide similar demographic and  projected target data for the military portion of the Financial Management  workforce, nor did it address the statutory requirement to provide an  assessment of the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor  personnel capabilities.
According to officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service responsible for the overall Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic  Workforce Plan, the department did not address all requirements because  the plan comprises individual submissions from each of the 22 functional  communities and the communities are at different stages in the planning  process. In addition, officials also told us that the department tried to  provide a consistent level of information for each workforce and, in some  cases, omitted available information—such as information on specific  workforces—that would address some of the statutory requirements.  DOD officials also stated that some requirements were not addressed in  the Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan because additional  efforts are ongoing to address those requirements and the requirements  will be reported on in future iterations of the plan.
The department provided its own self-assessment as part of the plan in  which it rated its progress addressing the statutory requirements, and  found that further work was needed to assess its critical competencies  and appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor workforce  capabilities. Without ensuring that all statutorily required information is  included in the strategic workforce plan, DOD risks producing a plan that  does not effectively address the department’s needs and will not aid the  decision-making process for total workforce management. Although DOD  has not met all statutory requirements in its strategic workforce plan, we  are not making recommendations at this time because we previously  recommended that DOD include these requirements in the plan, as  discussed in additional detail in appendix III. We will continue to monitor  DOD’s progress in implementing these recommendations.
section_title: DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plan Is Not Consistent with Some Key Strategic Workforce-Planning Principles
paragraphs: DOD has not fully incorporated key strategic workforce-planning  principles into the development of its strategic workforce plan.  Specifically, although DOD has begun to take steps that are consistent  with these key principles, we found that the department’s plan was not  fully aligned with the budget process or the department’s other strategic  workforce-management initiatives—such as those to address recruiting,  retention, and readiness issues—and did not involve stakeholders within  its Intelligence functional community. Further, DOD has begun to conduct  competency-gap assessments, which may help them in implementing the  key principles. However, DOD’s plan did not include a complete  assessment of the competencies that will be needed to achieve current  and future programmatic results nor strategies tailored to address gaps in  the critical competencies needed to achieve those results.
subsections: section_title: DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plan Is Not Fully Aligned with the Budget Process or Other Strategic Workforce- Management Initiatives
paragraphs: DOD’s strategic workforce plan is not fully aligned with the budget  process or the department’s other strategic workforce-management  initiatives. While this practice is not part of DOD’s statutory reporting  requirements, key practices in human-capital management identify  strategic alignment—which occurs when an agency’s workforce strategies  are linked with its mission and goals, and integrated into its strategic plan,  performance plan, and budget formulation—as one of six leading  principles for effective strategic workforce planning. In addition,  according to one model of strategic human-capital management for  federal agencies to use when designing their human-capital management  plans, the highest level of strategic integration and alignment occurs  when an agency considers human-capital initiatives or refinements in light  of both changing organizational needs and the demonstrated successes  or shortcomings of its human capital efforts.model, the human-capital needs of the organization and new initiatives or  refinements to existing human-capital approaches should be reflected in  strategic workforce-planning documents.
Further, according to that  DOD’s Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan is missing key  funding information that would facilitate DOD’s budget decisions because  it is not aligned to the budget process. DOD’s plan identified 31 strategies  for addressing workforce gaps, but did not provide specific information on  the funding required—an important element in budget planning  decisions—to implement most of these strategies. Only 1 of the 31  strategies—developed by the Intelligence functional community and  identified in the plan—provided detailed information on the amount of  funding required to implement the strategy. However, for some strategies,  DOD’s plan stated that funding was, among other things, at the discretion  of the DOD components or to be included in component budgets. For  other strategies, DOD’s plan stated that additional funding may be  necessary. In each case where funding information was not provided, the  plan provided no additional detail on the amount of funding needed to  implement the strategies.
Furthermore, the importance of DOD aligning its workforce plan with other  strategic workforce initiatives is demonstrated in a December 2013 letter   That letter  that DOD provided to the congressional defense committees.outlined steps the department is taking to minimize any negative effect on  the morale of its civilian workforce and long-term consequences on  recruiting and retention due to DOD’s implementation of civilian furloughs  conducted during the summer of 2013. DOD’s letter stated the morale of  the civilian workforce had been declining for a number of reasons,  including the furloughs, and stated that the department expected future  furloughs and budget uncertainties to further this downward trend. The  department also stated it anticipates that these issues will factor heavily  into employees’ decisions about when to depart, as well as individuals’  decisions about when to apply for positions within the department, which  will have an effect on recruiting, retention, and readiness.
We recognize that DOD’s letter to the congressional defense committees  on this matter was sent after its strategic workforce plan was provided to  Congress. We note, however, that the steps outlined in DOD’s letter are  targeted at minimizing the declining morale of the department’s civilian  workforce. The strategic workforce plan includes recruitment, retention,  and development strategies aimed specifically at addressing gaps in  critical skills within the department’s functional communities. However,  without aligning the steps DOD describes in its letter to congressional  defense committees with its strategic workforce plan, DOD may lack  assurance that these efforts will support its overall strategic workforce- planning goals including, for example, how it will address gaps.
To address these issues, DOD stated that the department continues to  focus on its strategic workforce-planning efforts that include strategies  identified and carried out by the functional communities aimed to recruit,  retain, motivate, and develop the present and future civilian workforce.  However, DOD officials stated during this review that the recruiting,  retention, and workforce development strategies outlined in the  department’s strategic workforce plan are developed by the individual  functional communities and are implemented and funded as appropriate  primarily at the component level. Therefore, these strategies do not  constitute a department-wide approach to addressing morale,  recruitment, and retention issues related to past or future furloughs or  budget uncertainties. Further, as our analysis of DOD’s current strategic  workforce plan shows, DOD has not completed its competency or  competency-gap assessments to know where it should target its efforts,  nor did its plan include the funding required to carry out such strategies.
DOD’s strategic workforce plan currently is not fully aligned with the  budget process or other workforce initiatives because there is no  requirement for DOD’s plan to be aligned with these other efforts.  Additionally, there is not a common understanding of how the  department’s strategic workforce plan will be or should be used within the  Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.  Officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service, who have  overall responsibility for DOD’s strategic workforce plan, told us they do  not envision the plan being linked to other strategic workforce efforts, but  added that they believe the workforce planning process itself has value  for those involved in the development process.
In contrast, officials from the Total Force Requirements and Sourcing  Policies Directorate within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense  for Personnel and Readiness told us that the strategic workforce plan in  its current form is more useful as a source of demographic information on  the department’s civilian workforce than as a strategic document intended  to guide workforce decisions. These officials further stated that the plan  would be more useful as a strategic document if certain actions were  taken, such as aligning the strategic workforce plan with the DOD budget  process, among other things. In addition, although the plan states that  DOD intends to align it with the DOD budget and total force–management  processes, it did not include specific details or time frames for doing so.
According to officials with the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service, they have been unable to make progress on these efforts  because of a lack of information and challenges in coordinating with other  offices within DOD. These officials further stated that they do not foresee  these challenges being resolved before the department issues its next  strategic workforce plan. Our analysis of the Fiscal Year 2013-2018  Strategic Workforce Plan in particular indicates that without fully aligning  DOD’s strategic workforce plan with the budget process and management  workforce initiatives, such as those to address recruiting, retention, and  readiness issues associated with declining morale, the department will  not be in the best position to make informed management and resource  decisions about its workforce.
What we found in our analysis of the Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic  Workforce Plan is in line with a body of work we have conducted in recent  years examining other DOD strategic workforce efforts, which found that  not aligning the plan with other strategic workforce initiatives is a long- standing issue within DOD. These include workforce-sizing decisions and  total force–management efforts.
In July 2012, we testified on our observations of DOD’s planning for  its civilian workforce requirements and reported on DOD’s efforts  since the 1990s to reduce its civilian workforce. Specifically, we found  that these efforts did not focus on taking a strategic approach to its  workforce downsizing and reshaping efforts, which resulted in  imbalances to the shape, skills, and retirement eligibility of its  workforce. We found that this was especially true of the civilian  acquisition workforce, which from September 1989 to September  1999 was reduced by almost 47 percent. This rate of reduction  substantially exceeded that of the rest of the DOD workforce. We  concluded that 11 consecutive years of downsizing produced serious  imbalances in the skills and experience of the highly talented and  specialized civilian acquisition workforce, putting DOD on the verge of  a retirement-driven talent drain. Moreover, we found that the lack of  an adequate number of trained acquisition and contract-oversight  personnel has, at times, contributed to unmet expectations and placed  DOD at risk of potentially paying more than necessary.
In January 2013, we reported on DOD’s efforts to implement its self- imposed cap on its civilian workforce levels, and found that the  department had not completed its competency-gap assessments— identifying gaps in the existing or projected civilian workforce that  should be addressed to ensure the department has continued access  to needed critical skills and competencies. As a result, we  concluded that information on competency gaps was unavailable to  help inform decision making about DOD’s civilian workforce when  implementing the cap. We also concluded that a fully developed  workforce plan, with all completed gap assessments, would help DOD  make informed decisions about reducing its workforce and develop  strategies to mitigate skill shortages that affect achieving the mission.  As a result, we recommended that DOD involve functional community  managers and use information from its critical skill and competency- gap assessments as they are completed to make informed decisions  for future changes to the workforce and that it document its strategies.  DOD partially concurred with our recommendation and stated that it  aligns its workforce, both in size and structure, to mission  requirements and justifies the current size and possible reductions or  increases to the workforce based on mission workload rather than  competency or skill gaps needed to deliver capabilities. However, we  concluded in that report that DOD is not in a position to justify the size  of its workforce until it has fully addressed its statutory requirement to  identify areas of critical-skill and competency gaps within the civilian  workforce. At the time of our current review, DOD maintained its  civilian workforce cap, and, in addition, section 955 of the National  Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 required the  Secretary of Defense to ensure that the civilian and service contractor  workforces are appropriately sized to support and execute the  National Military Strategy, taking into account military personnel and  force-structure levels, and to develop an efficiencies plan for those  workforces. Section 955 further requires that the efficiencies plan  achieve savings in total funding of the civilian and service contractor  workforces that are not less than certain savings achieved from  reductions in military end strength over a 6-year period, subject to  certain exceptions.
In May 2013, we reported on DOD’s total force–management efforts  and found that DOD had taken some steps to improve its  understanding and management of its total workforce, but it had not  assessed the appropriate mix of its military, civilian, and contractor  personnel capabilities in its strategic workforce plan as required by  law. We concluded that the department was hampered in its ability  to make more-informed strategic workforce mix decisions, which are  crucial to meeting DOD’s statutory responsibility to manage its total  workforce. We recommended that DOD revise its existing workforce  policies and procedures according to current statutory requirements in  Section 129a of Title 10 of the United States Code as well as  regulatory requirements set forth in the Office of Federal Procurement  Policy’s September 2011 policy letter to address the (1) determination  of the appropriate workforce mix, and (2) identification of critical  functions. DOD partially concurred and stated that the department’s  strategic workforce plan is an integral tool in informing policies and  procedures for retention, recruitment, and accession planning and  helps inform the demographic makeup of its civilian personnel  inventory. DOD also stated that the department justifies its workforce  size based on mission workload, rather than competency or skills  gaps. However, we concluded in that report that DOD is required by  law to establish policies and procedures that require the use of the  strategic workforce plan when making determinations of the  appropriate mix of total workforce personnel necessary to perform its  mission, and to include in the strategic workforce plan an assessment  of the appropriate mix of military, civilian, and contractor personnel  capabilities. As of May 2014, DOD has not taken action to implement  these recommendations.
section_title: DOD’s Approach to Developing Its Plan Did Not Fully Involve Stakeholders within Its Intelligence Functional Community
paragraphs: DOD’s approach to developing its Fiscal Years 2013-2018 Strategic  Workforce Plan did not fully involve stakeholders within the Intelligence  functional community to help ensure statutorily required information is  included. While this kind of stakeholder involvement is not statutorily  required, a key principle of effective strategic workforce planning is to  involve top management, employees, and other stakeholders in  developing, communicating, and implementing strategic workforce  plans. In addition, federal internal-control standards state that decision  makers need complete and relevant information to manage risk  associated with achieving objectives, such as those outlined in strategic  plans.
DOD’s Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan did not fully  involve some stakeholders within the Intelligence functional community  throughout the development of the plan, which resulted in the omission of  key stakeholder input. Specifically, during the strategic workforce  planning process, the Intelligence functional community compiled  workforce information on its one mission-critical occupation—the 0132  Intelligence series—and the two senior-leader workforces over which the  Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence has oversight— the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and the Defense  Intelligence Senior Level workforces. DOD relies on these two senior- leader workforces to oversee key activities within the defense intelligence  community. The Defense Intelligence functional community includes  personnel in intelligence occupations from the military departments as  well as the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency,  the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence  Office, and the department’s Defense Intelligence civilian senior-leader  workforces—Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and Defense  Intelligence Senior Level.
DOD is required to include information on the two Intelligence Civilian  Senior Leader workforces in its strategic workforce plan. According to  Intelligence functional community managers, they provided information on  these two workforces to the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service.  However, our review found disparities between the level of detail of the  information provided and the information that was incorporated in the  strategic workforce plan about these two workforces. For example, the  strategic workforce plan included one paragraph of descriptive  information on both categories of defense intelligence senior-leader  workforces in the Senior Executive Service workforce plan. In contrast,  the Intelligence functional community provided detailed information on the  Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and Defense Intelligence  Senior Level workforces to the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service for inclusion in the strategic workforce plan. This information  included details that would have supported an assessment of the critical  skills and competencies, among other things, of the defense intelligence  civilian senior-leader workforces, which is required by law to be included  in DOD’s strategic workforce plan. However, the Defense Civilian  Personnel Advisory Service did not fully incorporate this information on  the workforces’ critical skills and competencies into the final version of  DOD’s strategic workforce plan.
During the course of our review, we discussed these disparities with  officials from both the Intelligence functional community and the Defense  Civilian Personnel Advisory Service to try to determine the cause of the  missing information. According to officials from the Defense Civilian  Personnel Advisory Service, the office revised and omitted select  information provided by the Intelligence functional community on defense  intelligence civilian senior-leader workforces, but they believed the level  of detail provided was sufficient to address the statutory requirements.  However, our assessment of the information raises questions as to  whether the officials responsible for the Civilian Senior Leader strategic  workforce plan checked these omissions against the statutory reporting  requirements, and if not, as a result excluded key information from the  strategic workforce plan on defense intelligence civilian senior-leader  workforces that was statutorily required.
In our discussions, officials within the Intelligence functional community  responsible for the initial development of this required information and  officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service were  unclear as to why, in the final coordination of the plan, all stakeholders  from the Intelligence functional community were not involved in helping to  ensure the inclusion of key statutorily-required information. In subsequent  discussions, officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service stated that they would be vigilant of such omissions during the  development of future plans to help ensure all available, statutorily  required information is included and that all appropriate stakeholders are  involved in the development and review processes.
section_title: DOD’s Plan Did Not Include Complete Competency-Gap Assessments or Strategies for Addressing Critical Competency Gaps
paragraphs: DOD’s Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan did not include  completed competency-gap assessments or strategies for addressing  critical competency gaps. A leading principle of effective strategic  workforce planning is that agencies should determine the critical skills  and competencies that will be needed to achieve current and future  programmatic results and develop strategies tailored to address gaps and  human-capital conditions in critical skills and competencies that need  attention. Although we found that DOD has taken steps to determine the  critical skills needed by the department through the identification of its  mission-critical occupations, our evaluation of DOD’s Fiscal Year 2013- 2018 Strategic Workforce Plan found that the department has not  completed its competency and competency-gap assessment or included  strategies to address competency gaps based on such assessments.
In 2004, we recommended, and DOD partially concurred, that the  department develop workforce strategies to fill the identified skills and  competency gaps. Additionally, in 2012, we recommended DOD  conduct competency-gap assessments for its mission-critical occupations  and report the results. DOD concurred with our recommendation and  stated in its agency comments that competency gaps would be assessed  in the future. To date, however, the department’s strategic workforce plan  has only included strategies that address staffing gaps—which are aimed  at addressing gaps in the critical skills, but not the critical competencies,  needed in a workforce—within its mission-critical occupations.
Furthermore, our analysis of three functional communities’ strategic  workforce plans found that the Intelligence and Financial Management  functional communities have not completed their competency-gap  assessments or developed strategies for addressing competency gaps in  their workforces. In regard to the Civilian Senior Leader functional  community, DOD’s strategic workforce plan provided information on  competencies for one of the five categories of Civilian Senior Leader  workforces—the Senior Executive Service. Our analysis of these three  functional communities’ strategic workforce plans suggests that additional  attention is needed in DOD’s approach to strategic workforce planning to  fully address our prior recommendations with regard to critical skill and  competency assessments.
subsections: section_title: Intelligence Functional Community
paragraphs: The Intelligence functional community has identified broad competencies  for its one mission-critical occupation—the 0132 Intelligence series—but  further progress in competency development and assessment for its  workforce will not be complete until the community develops a common  standard for titling occupational specialties (e.g., Human Intelligence and  Signals Intelligence) within its 0132 Intelligence series workforce.  According to Intelligence functional community officials and the  Intelligence community’s own workforce plan, eight broad competencies  have been identified for its mission-critical occupation. However,  competency assessments and gap assessments cannot be completed  until the community completes development of standard civilian  intelligence job titles for occupational specialties within the Intelligence  series mission-critical occupation. Officials from the Intelligence functional  community told us they are coordinating with relevant stakeholders within  the defense intelligence community and the Defense Civilian Personnel  Advisory Service on an occupational titling standard to address this issue.  Those officials also stated that efforts are underway and it may take up to  2 years to complete the development of the occupational titling standard.  Once the standard is developed, competency models for each  occupational specialty within the intelligence series will be further  developed for the workforce, according to officials.
section_title: Financial Management Functional Community
paragraphs: The Financial Management functional community is currently in the  process of developing a strategy that, in part, addresses its workforce’s  skills and competencies and is scheduled to assess the competencies of  its mission-critical occupations. The strategy being developed—the  Financial Management Certification Program—is a program that is  expected to consolidate multiple Financial Management workforce  development efforts across the department into a mandatory program to  educate, train, and certify both civilian and military financial management  personnel. In addition, competency assessments for the Financial  Management functional community’s mission-critical occupations were  scheduled to begin using an enterprise-wide competency assessment  tool from April 7 to April 25, 2014, and extended the assessment period  through May 9, 2014. The results of this assessment were not yet  available to the functional community, and officials stated that they would  receive the results from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service  by July 2014. At the time of our review, officials from the Office of the  Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) were waiting for the Defense Civilian  Personnel Advisory Service to analyze the competency-assessment data.  According to DOD, this effort, which included key financial-management  and leadership competencies, will enable the community to assess and  close the gaps between current capabilities and the competencies  required by DOD’s future Financial Management workforce.
section_title: Civilian Senior Leader Functional Community
paragraphs: The strategic workforce plan for DOD’s Civilian Senior Leader functional  community—a cross-cutting workforce that includes personnel from the  Senior Executive Service and Senior Level workforces, among others— identifies the competencies of its Senior Executive Service workforce but  does not include information on the competencies and competency  assessments of its other Civilian Senior Leader workforces. The  department’s Civilian Senior Leader workforce plan provides information  on Office of Personnel Management–and DOD-specific competencies for  DOD’s Civilian Senior Leader workforce. However, the plan does not  include information on the competencies and competency assessments  for its Senior Level and Senior Technical workforce. According to the plan  and officials responsible for the development of the Civilian Senior Leader  strategic workforce plan, these senior-leader workforces are specialized  in nature and they are evaluated primarily on the technical or functional  competencies found within their specific occupational series. The plan  also does not provide information on the competency and competency  assessments for the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and  Defense Intelligence Senior Level workforces. Furthermore, the plan does  not identify any specific strategies for addressing competency gaps for  the Civilian Senior Leader workforces, though it does identify some  minimal competency gaps for its senior executive service workforce.
Because we previously recommended that DOD conduct competency- gap analyses as part of our 2004 and 2012 reports, we are not making  new recommendations to address this issue in this report. We continue to  believe that our prior recommendations have merit and would improve  DOD’s strategic workforce plan. We will continue to monitor DOD’s efforts  to address our prior recommendations.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: In this time of budgetary and fiscal constraint, a strategic workforce plan  that includes relevant and complete workforce analyses and associated  plan of action is crucial for DOD to effectively and efficiently manage all of  its civilian workforces. Since our first report in 2008 on DOD’s strategic  workforce plan, we have consistently reported that DOD has made  progress in addressing strategic workforce planning requirements. In that  time, however, we have also identified consistent issues in DOD’s efforts  to develop its plan, such as the department not assessing and reporting  on mission-critical competencies and gaps. We recognize the effort that  DOD is putting forth to include this information in its recurring strategic  workforce plans and address all mandated strategic workforce planning  requirements. However, without ensuring that all statutorily required  information is included in the strategic workforce plan, DOD risks  producing a plan that does not effectively address the department’s  needs and will not aid the decision-making process for total workforce  management. As a result, we continue to believe that DOD should fully  implement our past recommendations on including all required  information.
While this is the last of DOD’s strategic workforce plans we are mandated  to evaluate, we believe that, moving forward, it is important for DOD to  continue its efforts to complete development of its strategic workforce  plans to help ensure that the department has the right people, in the right  place, at the right time. This type of workforce planning can also help  DOD focus limited resources on those human-capital programs that most  affect their ability to accomplish the department’s wide array of missions.  However, until DOD aligns its strategic workforce plan with the budget  process and other strategic management initiatives, such as those to  address recruitment, retention, and readiness issues, both DOD and  congressional decision makers may not have visibility over the areas  most in need of attention. Through greater alignment, DOD can help to  better ensure that its strategic workforce plan appropriately addresses the  human-capital challenges of the future and better contributes to the  agency’s efforts to meet its missions and goals.
section_title: Recommendation for Executive Action
paragraphs: To help ensure that decision makers and Congress have the necessary  information to provide effective oversight of DOD’s civilian workforce and  that the strategic workforce plan can be used effectively, we recommend  that the Secretary of Defense direct the Office of the Under Secretary of  Defense for Personnel and Readiness align DOD’s strategic workforce  plan with the budget and management workforce initiatives, such as  those to address recruiting, retention, and readiness issues associated  with declining morale among its civilian workforces.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to DOD for comment.  In written  comments, DOD concurred with our recommendation. DOD’s comments  are reprinted in their entirety in appendix V.
DOD concurred with our recommendation to align the department’s  strategic workforce plan with the budget and management workforce  initiatives, such as those to address recruiting, retention, and readiness  issues associated with declining morale among its civilian workforces. We  are encouraged that DOD recognizes the importance of linking its  strategic workforce plan with the budget and other management  workforce initiatives.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional  committees, the Secretary of Defense, and the Under Secretary of  Defense for Personnel and Readiness. In addition, this report is available  at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please  contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for our  Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on  the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to  this report are listed in appendix VI.
section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To determine the extent to which the Department of Defense’s (DOD)  Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan addressed the statutory  requirements of Section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code, we  evaluated DOD’s 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan and supporting  documentation to determine the degree to which the plan addresses,  partially addresses, or does not address each of the required elements.  Using a scorecard methodology, we assigned a rating of “addresses” if all  elements of a legislative requirement were cited, even if specificity and  details could be improved upon. We assigned a rating of “partially  addresses” if an assessment or plan of action did not include all of the  elements of a legislative requirement. A rating of “does not address” was  assigned when elements of a characteristic were not explicitly cited or  discussed or any implicit references were either too vague or too general  to be useful. To make this determination, two GAO analysts  independently evaluated and scored each element in DOD’s plan, and  then met to resolve any differences in their respective independent  analyses. When different initial ratings were given by the two analysts,  they met to discuss and resolve the differences in their respective  scorecards. In addition, our Office of General Counsel reviewed the  team’s completed analysis.
We then discussed the results of our analysis with officials from the  Strategic Human Capital Planning Office and the Defense Civilian  Personnel Advisory Service, within the Office of the Under Secretary of  Defense for Personnel and Readiness, who are responsible for  developing the plan. We also discussed the results of our assessment  with officials from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for  Intelligence and the Office of the Undersecretary (Comptroller) who serve  as the functional community managers for the Intelligence functional  community and the Financial Management functional community,  respectively. Officials from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory  Service have responsibility for the Civilian Senior Leader workforce plan.
To determine the extent to which DOD’s strategic workforce plan is  consistent with key strategic workforce planning principles, we compared  DOD’s 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan to key principles of effective  strategic workforce planning.principles—aligning workforce planning with strategic planning and  budget formulation and involving stakeholders, among others, in  developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce  plan—that do not overlap with the statutory requirements. Additionally, we  selected two other key principles—determining the critical skills and  competencies needed to achieve current and future programmatic results  and developing strategies that are tailored to address gaps—because  they are integral to developing a comprehensive strategic workforce plan  and we have consistently found that DOD has not yet completed actions  to address issues related to them.
GAO, Human Capital: DOD Needs Complete Assessments to Improve Future Civilian  Strategic Workforce Plans, GAO-12-1014 (Washington D.C.: Sept. 27, 2012). selection of these three functional communities does not constitute a  representative sample of DOD’s 22 functional communities. Thus, while  the results cannot be projected to all functional communities, they did  provide us with important insights. For each of the three functional  communities selected, we reviewed GAO and Office of Personnel  Management guidance regarding strategic workforce planning, and  compared DOD’s current approach to developing and integrating  functional community–specific information into its Strategic Workforce  Plan against that guidance.
Functional community managers are responsible for monitoring the strategic human- capital planning efforts for their respective communities, including workforce forecasting,  competency assessment, and strategy development. 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.
section_title: Appendix II: DOD’s Functional Communities and Mission-Critical Occupations
paragraphs: The Department of Defense (DOD) uses a functional-community  construct and functional-community categories to group together  employees who perform similar functions. Mission-critical occupations are  those occupations that are critical to the success of meeting the DOD  mission within its functional communities. For the Fiscal Year 2013-2018  Strategic Workforce Plan, the department expanded its functional  community construct from 12 functional communities to 22 functional  communities and from 24 mission-critical occupations to 32 mission- critical occupations. Table 2 identifies the department’s functional  communities and mission-critical occupations.
section_title: Appendix III: Status of Prior GAO Recommendations Related to Strategic Workforce Planning
paragraphs: In prior reports on the Department of Defense’s (DOD) strategic  workforce-planning efforts, we made several recommendations for  executive action to improve DOD’s strategic workforce plan and the  department’s approach to strategic workforce planning. We consider a  recommendation open if DOD has not taken or has not completed actions  to address a recommendation. We consider a recommendation closed– implemented once DOD has taken action to satisfy the intent of the  recommendation. We consider a recommendation closed–not  implemented if the intent of the recommendation has not been satisfied or  circumstances have rendered the recommendation invalid. We are  continuing to monitor DOD’s efforts to address these recommendations.  Table 3 summarizes our recommendations, DOD’s response to our  recommendations, and what actions, if any, DOD has taken to address  them.
section_title: Appendix IV: GAO’s Assessment of the Extent to Which DOD’s Civilian Workforce Plan Addresses Statutory Requirements
paragraphs: This appendix provides our assessment of the extent to which the  Department of Defense’s (DOD) Fiscal Year 2013-2018 Strategic  Workforce Plan for its overall civilian workforce, civilian senior-leader  workforce, and financial-management workforce address statutory  requirements in Section 115b of Title 10 of the United States Code in the  following three tables.
section_title: Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Defense
section_title: Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the above named contact, David Moser, Assistant Director;  James Kernen; Steven Lozano; Brian Pegram; Michael Pose; Terry  Richardson; Jennifer Weber; Erik Wilkins-McKee; and Michael Willems  made key contributions to this report.
section_title: Related GAO Products
paragraphs: Human Capital: Additional Steps Needed to Help Determine the Right  Size and Composition of DOD’s Total Workforce. GAO-13-470.  Washington, D.C.: May 29, 2013.
High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-13-283. Washington, D.C.: February  14, 2013.
Human Capital: Critical Skills and Competency Assessments Should Help  Guide DOD Civilian Workforce Decisions. GAO-13-188. Washington,  D.C.: January 17, 2013.
Human Capital: DOD Needs Complete Assessment to Improve Future  Civilian Strategic Workforce Plans. GAO-12-1014. Washington, D.C.:  September 27, 2012.
Human Capital: Complete Information and More Analyses Needed to  Enhance DOD’s Civilian Senior Leader Strategic Workforce Plan.   GAO-12-990R. September 19, 2012.
DOD Civilian Workforce: Observations on DOD’s Efforts to Plan for  Civilian Workforce Requirements. GAO-12-962T. Washington, D.C.: July  26, 2012.
Defense Acquisition Workforce: Improved Processes, Guidance, and  Planning Needed to Enhance Use of Workforce Funds. GAO-12-747R.  Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2012.
Defense Acquisitions: Further Actions Needed to Improve Accountability  for DOD’s Inventory of Contracted Services. GAO-12-357. Washington,  D.C.: April 6, 2012.
Defense Workforce: DOD Needs to Better Oversee In-sourcing Data and  Align In-sourcing Efforts with Strategic Workforce Plans. GAO-12-319.  Washington, D.C.: February 9, 2012.
DOD Civilian Personnel: Competency Gap Analyses and Other Actions  Needed to Enhance DOD’s Strategic Workforce Plans. GAO-11-827T.  Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2011.
Human Capital: Opportunities Exist for DOD to Enhance Its Approach for  Determining Civilian Senior Leader Workforce Needs. GAO-11-136.  Washington, D.C.: November 4, 2010.
Human Capital: Further Actions Needed to Enhance DOD’s Civilian  Strategic Workforce Plan. GAO-10-814R. Washington, D.C.: September  27, 2010.
Human Capital: Opportunities Exist to Build on Recent Progress to  Strengthen DOD’s Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan. GAO-09-235.  Washington, D.C.: February 10, 2009.
Human Capital: The Department of Defense’s Civilian Human Capital  Strategic Plan Does Not Meet Most Statutory Requirements.  GAO-08-439R. Washington, D.C.: February 6, 2008.
DOD Civilian Personnel: Comprehensive Strategic Workforce Plans  Needed. GAO-04-753. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2004.