Department of Defense: Additional Actions and Data Are Needed to Effectively Manage and Oversee DOD's Acquisition Workforce
Released: 2009-03-25T00:00:00

Letter

Background

At the end of fiscal year 2007, the number of civilian and military personnel in DOD’s acquisition workforce totaled over 126,000—of which civilian personnel comprised 89 percent. According to DOD, these in- house personnel represent more than 70 percent of the total federal acquisition workforce. DOD defines its acquisition workforce to include 13 career fields, based on the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act of 1990. From fiscal years 2001 to 2007, the number of civilian and military acquisition personnel in these 13 fields declined overall by 2.5 percent; however, some career fields have increased substantially, while others have shown dramatic declines. Table 1 shows the 13 fields, the number of military and civilian personnel in each of these fields in 2001 and 2007, and the percentage change between those 2 years.

During this same time period, the number of contracting actions valued at over $100,000 increased by 62 percent and dollars obligated on contracts increased by 116 percent, according to DOD. Moreover, DOD has reported that the number of major defense acquisition programs has increased from 70 to 95. To augment its declining in-house acquisition workforce, DOD has relied more heavily on contractor personnel.

In addition to the overall decline in its in-house acquisition workforce and an increased workload, DOD faces shifting workforce demographics and a changing strategic environment. The U.S. workforce as a whole is aging and experiencing a shift in the labor pool away from persons with science and technical degrees. According to DOD, advances in technology, such as the ability to do jobs from almost anywhere in the world, are also driving workforce changes and increasing global competition for the most highly educated and skilled personnel. To address these and other challenges— including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an evolving mission to combat threats around the world, and an increased need to collaborate with both domestic and international partners—DOD has begun to establish a more centralized management framework for forecasting, recruiting, developing, and sustaining the talent pool needed to meet its national security mission.

Several components in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) share policy and guidance responsibility for the workforce. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness serves as the Chief Human Capital Officer for DOD—both for military and civilian personnel—and has overall responsibility for the development of the department’s competency-based workforce planning and its civilian human capital strategic plan. Within the Office of Personnel and Readiness, the Office of Civilian Personnel Policy has overall responsibility for managing DOD’s civilian workforce and has the lead role in developing and overseeing implementation of the plan. For example, the Implementation Report for the DOD Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010 lists enterprisewide skills and competencies for 25 mission-critical occupations, which the department has begun to assess in terms of future needs, budget-based projections, and anticipated gaps. Another OSD component, AT&L, is responsible for managing DOD’s acquisition workforce, including tailoring policies and guidance specific to the acquisition workforce and managing the training and certification of that workforce. As required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (2008 NDAA), AT&L has drafted an addendum for the implementation report for the civilian human capital strategic plan to specifically address management and oversight of the acquisition workforce.

Each military service has its own corresponding personnel and acquisition offices that develop additional service-specific guidance, and provide management and oversight of its workforce. The services have generally delegated the determination of workforce needs to the command levels and their corresponding program offices. Although each service uses a different management structure, the commands typically make overall organizational budgetary and personnel allocations, whereas the program offices identify acquisition workforce needs; make decisions regarding the civilian, military, and contractor makeup of the workforce; and provide the day-to-day management of the workforce. In addition, each service designates organizations aligned by one or more career fields to monitor and manage career paths and training, and to identify gaps in current skill sets.

DOD Lacks the Information Needed to Determine the Sufficiency of Its Acquisition Workforce

DOD lacks critical departmentwide information in several areas necessary to assess, manage, and oversee the acquisition workforce and help ensure it has a sufficient acquisition workforce to meet DOD’s national security mission. Specifically, AT&L does not have key pieces of information regarding its in-house acquisition workforce, such as complete data on skill sets, which are needed to accurately identify its workforce gaps. In addition, it lacks information on the use and skill sets of contractor personnel performing acquisition-related functions. Omitting these data from DOD’s assessments not only skews analyses of workforce gaps, but also limits DOD’s ability to make informed workforce allocation decisions. Critical success factors for human capital management include collecting data on workforce competencies and skills mix, and evaluating human capital approaches—including those for acquiring and retaining talent— for how well they support efforts to achieve program results. Such efforts, linked to strategic goals and objectives, can enable an agency to recognize, prepare, and obtain the knowledge, skills, abilities, and size for the workforce it needs to pursue its current and future missions.

AT&L Lacks Information on the Use of Contractor Personnel in Its Acquisition Workforce

DOD has increasingly relied on contractors to perform core missions, but has yet to develop a workforce strategy for determining the appropriate mix of contractor and government personnel. Our prior work has noted the importance of effective human capital management to better ensure that agencies have the right staff who are doing the right jobs in the right place at the right time by making flexible use of its internal workforce and appropriate use of contractors. We have also reported that decisions regarding the use of contractors should be based on strategic planning regarding what types of work are best done by the agency or contracted out.

While DOD planning documents state that the workforce should be managed from a “total force” perspective—which calls for contractor personnel to be managed along with civilian and military personnel — DOD does not collect departmentwide data on contractor personnel. Program offices, however, do have information about contractor personnel. Data we obtained from 66 program offices show that contractor personnel comprised more than a third of those programs’ acquisition- related positions (see table 2). According to MDA officials, the agency collects and uses such data in its agency-level workforce allocation processes, which in turn has helped inform staffing and resource decisions at the program office level. Because contractor personnel likely comprise a substantial part of all personnel supporting program offices, AT&L is missing information on a key segment of the department’s total acquisition workforce (in-house and contractor personnel).

DOD also lacks information on factors driving program offices’ decisions to use contractor personnel rather than hire in-house personnel. DOD guidance for determining the workforce mix outlines the basis on which officials should make decisions regarding what type of personnel— military, civilian, or contractor—should fill a given position. The guidance’s primary emphasis is on whether the work is considered to be an inherently governmental function, not on whether it is a function that is needed to ensure institutional capacity.

The guidance also states that using the least costly alternative should be an important factor when determining the workforce mix. However, of the 31 program offices that reported information about the reasons for using contractor personnel, only 1 indicated that reduced cost was a key factor in the decision to use contractor personnel rather than civilian personnel. Instead, 25 cited staffing limits, the speed of hiring, or both as main factors in their decisions to use contractor personnel. Additionally, 22 program offices cited a lack of in-house expertise as a reason for using contractor personnel, and 17 of those indicated that the particular expertise sought is generally not hired by the government. In addition, at 3 of the 4 program offices we visited, officials said that they often hire contractors because they may face limits on the number of civilian personnel they can hire, and because budgetary provisions may allow program offices to use program funds to pay for additional contractor personnel, but not for hiring civilian personnel. Program officials also cited the lengthy hiring process for civilian personnel as a reason for using contractor personnel.

AT&L Lacks Key Pieces of Information Necessary to Conduct Gap Analyses

AT&L’s lack of key pieces of information hinders its ability to determine gaps in the number and skill sets of acquisition personnel needed to meet DOD’s current and future missions. At a fundamental level, workforce gaps are determined by comparing the number and skill sets of the personnel that an organization has with what it needs. However, AT&L lacks information on both what it has and what it needs.

With regard to information on the personnel it has, AT&L not only lacks information on contractor personnel, but it also lacks complete information on the skill sets of the current acquisition workforce and whether these skill sets are sufficient to accomplish its missions. AT&L is currently conducting a competency assessment to identify the skill sets of its current acquisition workforce. While this assessment will provide useful information regarding the skill sets of the current in-house acquisition workforce, it is not designed to determine the size, composition, and skill sets of an acquisition workforce needed to meet the department’s missions.

AT&L also lacks complete information on the acquisition workforce needed to meet DOD’s mission. The personnel numbers that AT&L uses to reflect needs are derived from the budget. Because these personnel numbers are constrained by the size of the budget, they likely do not reflect the full needs of acquisition programs. Of the 66 program offices that provided data to us, 13 reported that their authorized personnel levels are lower than those they requested. In a report on DOD’s workforce management, RAND noted that the mismatch between needs and available resources means that managers have an incentive to focus on managing the budget process instead of identifying the resources needed to fulfill the mission and then allocating resources within the constraints of the budget.

Recent Initiatives May Not Yield the Information Needed to Assess, Manage, and Oversee DOD’s Total Acquisition Workforce

AT&L has begun to respond to recent legislative requirements aimed at improving DOD’s management and oversight of its acquisition workforce, including developing data, tools, and processes to more fully assess and monitor its acquisition workforce. Each service has also recently initiated, to varying degrees, additional efforts to assess its own workforce at the service level. Some recent DOD efforts aimed at improving the broader workforce may also provide information to support AT&L’s acquisition workforce efforts. While it is too early to determine the extent to which these efforts will improve the department’s management and oversight, the lack of information on contractor personnel raises concerns about whether AT&L will have the information it needs to adequately assess, manage, and oversee the total acquisition workforce.

As required by the 2008 NDAA, AT&L plans to issue an addendum to the Implementation Report for the DOD Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan 2006-2010. According to DOD, this addendum will lay out AT&L’s strategy for managing and overseeing the acquisition workforce. The addendum is to provide an analysis of the status of the civilian acquisition workforce and discuss AT&L’s efforts for implementing the Acquisition Workforce Development Fund, which the 2008 NDAA required DOD to establish and fund. AT&L has focused its implementation efforts in three key areas: (1) recruiting and hiring, (2) training and development, and (3) retention and recognition. AT&L has established a steering board responsible for oversight on all aspects of the fund, including the approval of the use of funds for each proposed initiative. In addition to the addendum to the implementation report, AT&L created its own human capital plan in an effort to integrate competencies, training, processes, tools, policy, and structure for improving the acquisition workforce. AT&L has also developed some tools and begun initiatives designed to help with its management of the acquisition workforce, such as its competency assessment that is scheduled to be completed in March 2010. AT&L recently established the Defense Acquisition Workforce Joint Assessment Team tasked with assessing and making recommendations regarding component workforce size, total force mix, future funding levels, and other significant workforce issues. According to an AT&L official, the team will also develop an estimate of the acquisition workforce needed to meet the department’s mission that is unconstrained by the budget. Table 3 provides a brief description of AT&L’s recent efforts.

Each service has also begun to take a more focused look at its acquisition workforce by developing service-specific acquisition workforce plans and designating leads tasked with monitoring career paths and training, and identifying gaps in current skill sets. For example, responsibility for different aspects of the Navy’s acquisition workforce has recently been distributed among a number of corporate-level offices—such as Manpower and Reserve Affairs; Research, Development, and Acquisition; and Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Education. To illustrate, Research, Development, and Acquisition will develop and maintain acquisition strategic guidance and provide management oversight of the capabilities of the Navy’s acquisition workforce. Table 4 provides examples of service-level workforce initiatives.

In addition to the AT&L and service-level initiatives, some DOD efforts aimed at improving the broader workforce may provide information that can assist AT&L in assessing, managing, and overseeing the acquisition workforce. Some promising initiatives include the following: The Office of Civilian Personnel Policy recently established a Civilian Workforce Capability and Readiness Program, and in November 2008 officially established a corresponding program management office tasked with monitoring overall civilian workforce trends and conducting competency assessments and gap analyses.

DOD, through its components, is developing an annual inventory of contracts for services performed in the preceding fiscal year. This inventory is required to include, among other things, information identifying the missions and functions performed by contractors, the number of full-time contractor personnel equivalents that were paid for performance of the activity, and the funding source for the contracted work. The Army issued its first inventory, which determined the equivalent number of contractor personnel it used in fiscal year 2007 based on the number of hours of work paid for under its service contracts.

DOD has issued guidance directing programs to consider using DOD civilian personnel to perform new functions or functions currently performed by contractor personnel in cases where those functions could be performed by DOD civilian personnel. The guidance also requires that DOD civilian personnel be given special consideration to perform certain categories of functions, including functions performed by DOD civilian personnel at any time during the previous 10 years and those closely associated with the performance of an inherently governmental function. When the inventory of contracts for services is completed, DOD is mandated by the 2008 NDAA to use the inventory as a tool to identify functions currently performed by contractor personnel that could be performed by DOD civilian personnel. DOD is developing additional guidance and a tool to assist in developing cost comparisons for evaluating the use of in-house personnel rather than contractor personnel.

These initiatives have the potential to enhance DOD’s acquisition workforce management practices and oversight activities. However, these efforts may not provide the comprehensive information DOD needs to manage and oversee its acquisition workforce. For example, although the Army has issued its first inventory of its service contracts, inventories for all DOD components are not scheduled to be completed before June 2011. Further, as currently planned, the inventory will not include information on the skill sets and functions of contractor personnel.

Practices of Leading Organizations Could Provide Insights for DOD’s Acquisition Workforce Efforts

As DOD continues to develop and implement departmentwide initiatives aimed at providing better oversight of the acquisition workforce, some of the practices employed by leading organizations for managing their workforces could provide insights for DOD’s efforts. These practices include: identifying gaps in the current workforce by assessing the overall competencies needed to achieve business objectives, compared to current competencies; establishing mechanisms to track and evaluate the effectiveness of initiatives to close workforce gaps; taking a strategic approach in deciding when and how to use contractor personnel to supplement the workforce; and tracking and analyzing data on contractor personnel.

We have previously reported many of these practices as critical factors for providing good strategic human capital management.

The leading organizations we reviewed develop gap analyses and workforce plans from estimates of the number and composition of personnel with specific workforce competencies needed to achieve the organization’s objectives. For example, Lockheed Martin assesses the skill mix needed to fulfill future work orders and compares this with the firm’s current skill mix to identify potential workforce gaps. An official at Lockheed Martin said one such assessment indicated that the company needed skill sets different from those needed in the past because it is receiving more proposals for logistics work associated with support and delivery contracts, rather than its traditional system development work. Table 5 provides examples of how companies we reviewed link workforce assessments to their organizational objectives.

These leading organizations also assess their efforts to close workforce gaps by tracking data on specific recruiting and retention metrics. For example, Microsoft assesses the quality of its new hires based on the performance ratings and retention for their first 2 years with the company. According to a company official, this allows Microsoft to compare the results of using its different hiring sources, such as college recruiting and other entry-level hiring methods. Similarly, Deloitte uses performance ratings, retention data, and employee satisfaction surveys to help determine a return on investment from its college recruiting efforts and to identify schools that tend to supply high-quality talent that the company is able to retain. Table 6 provides examples of recruiting and retention metrics used by the companies we reviewed. In addition to tracking data on metrics, Deloitte uses quantitative models that analyze workforce demographics and other factors to predict actions of job candidates and employees. Data from such metrics and models can be used to inform other workforce decisions and focus limited resources for use where the greatest benefit is expected.

Finally, the companies we reviewed take a strategic approach to determining when to use contractor support. Officials from Deloitte, General Electric, and Rolls Royce said they generally use contractors to facilitate flexibility and meet peak work demands without hiring additional, permanent, full-time employees. Some of the companies also place limits on their use of contractor employees. General Electric, for example, uses contractor personnel for temporary support and generally limits their use for a given operation to 1 year in order to prevent the use of temporary personnel to fill ongoing or permanent roles. Additionally, General Electric and Lockheed Martin limit the use of contractor personnel to noncore functions. An official from General Electric said that it rarely outsources essential, sophisticated, or strategic functions, or large components of its business. Likewise, Lockheed Martin does not outsource capabilities that are seen as discriminators that set the company apart from its market competitors.

Deloitte, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Microsoft also maintain and analyze data on their contractor employees in order to mitigate risks, ensure compliance with in-house regulations and security requirements, or to ensure that reliance on contractor support creates value for the company. An official at Deloitte noted, for example, that if work involving contractor support continues for an extended period, the business unit might be advised to request additional full-time employee positions in its next planning cycle or streamline its process to eliminate the need for contractor support. At Rolls Royce, an official told us that one unit uses an algorithm to determine the percentage of work being outsourced by computing the number of full-time-equivalent personnel needed to complete the same level of work performed through outsourcing. This information is important because of the cost of outsourcing. According to the company official, outsourcing may be more costly—all other factors being equal—because of the profit consideration for the contractor. As a result, outsourcing decisions can become a trade-off between multiple factors, such as cost, quality, capacity, capability, and speed.

Conclusions

Major shifts in workforce demographics and a changing strategic environment present significant challenges for DOD in assessing and overseeing an acquisition workforce that has the capacity to acquire needed goods and services, as well as monitor the work of contractors. While recent and planned actions of AT&L and other DOD components could help DOD address many of these challenges, the department has yet to determine the acquisition workforce that it needs to fulfill its mission or develop information about contractor personnel. While DOD has begun to estimate the number of full-time-equivalent contractor personnel through its inventory of contracts for services, this effort will not identify the skill sets and functions of contractor personnel performing acquisition-related work or the length of time for which they are used. At the same time, DOD lacks guidance on the appropriate circumstances under which contractor personnel may perform acquisition work. Without such guidance, DOD runs the risk of not maintaining sufficient institutional capacity to perform its missions. Until DOD maintains detailed departmentwide information on its contractor personnel performing acquisition-related work, it will continue to have insufficient information regarding the composition, range of skills, and the functions performed by this key component of the acquisition workforce. Without this information upon which to act, the department runs the risk of not having the right number and appropriate mix of civilian, military, and contractor personnel it needs to accomplish its missions.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To better ensure that DOD’s acquisition workforce is the right size with the right skills and that the department is making the best use of its resources, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following four actions: Collect and track data on contractor personnel who supplement the acquisition workforce—including their functions performed, skill sets, and length of service—and conduct analyses using these data to inform acquisition workforce decisions regarding the appropriate number and mix of civilian, military, and contractor personnel the department needs. Identify and update on an ongoing basis the number and skill sets of the total acquisition workforce—including civilian, military, and contractor personnel—that the department needs to fulfill its mission. DOD should use this information to better inform its resource allocation decisions.

Review and revise the criteria and guidance for using contractor personnel to clarify under what circumstances and the extent to which it is appropriate to use contractor personnel to perform acquisition- related functions.

Develop a tracking mechanism to determine whether the guidance has been appropriately implemented across the department. The tracking mechanism should collect information on the reasons contractor personnel are being used, such as whether they were used because of civilian staffing limits, civilian hiring time frames, a lack of in-house expertise, budgetary provisions, cost, or other reasons.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

DOD provided written comments on a draft of this report. DOD concurred with three recommendations and partially concurred with one recommendation. DOD’s comments appear in appendix I. DOD also provided technical comments on the draft report which we incorporated as appropriate.

DOD partially concurred with the draft recommendation to collect and track data on contractor personnel to inform the department’s acquisition workforce decisions. DOD stated that it agrees that information on contractor personnel supporting the acquisition mission is necessary for improved acquisition workforce planning, especially with regard to the number and the acquisition functions performed. The department also noted that establishing a contractual requirement to capture more detailed workforce information, such as skill sets and length of service of contractor personnel, needs to be carefully considered. We agree that the manner in which data on contractor personnel are to be collected should be carefully considered. We continue to believe that comprehensive data on contractor personnel are needed to accurately identify the department’s acquisition workforce gaps and inform its decisions on the appropriate mix of in-house or contractor personnel.

DOD concurred with our recommendation to identify and update on an ongoing basis the number and skill sets of the total acquisition workforce that it needs to fulfill its mission and stated that it has an ongoing effort to accomplish this. DOD states that its ongoing efforts will address this recommendation; however, the efforts cited in its response improve DOD’s information only on its in-house acquisition workforce and do not identify the total acquisition workforce, including contractor personnel, the department needs to meet its missions. We revised the recommendation to clarify that DOD’s acquisition workforce management and oversight should encompass contractor as well as civilian and military personnel.

DOD also concurred with our recommendations to revise the criteria and guidance for using contractor personnel to perform acquisition-related functions, and to develop a tracking mechanism to determine whether the revised guidance is being appropriately implemented across the department.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense. The report is also 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) 512-5274 or needhamjk1@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 II.

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Katherine V. Schinasi, Managing Director; Ann Calvaresi-Barr, Director; Carol Dawn Petersen, Assistant Director; Ruth “Eli” DeVan; Kristine Heuwinkel; Victoria Klepacz; John Krump; Teague Lyons; Andrew H. Redd; Ron Schwenn; Karen Sloan; Brian Smith; Angela D. Thomas; and Adam Yu made key contributions to this report.

Related GAO Products

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.

High Risk Series: An Update. GAO-09-271. Washington, D.C.: January 2009.

Department of Homeland Security: A Strategic Approach Is Needed to Better Ensure the Acquisition Workforce Can Meet Mission Needs. GAO-09-30. Washington, D.C.: November 19, 2008.

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

Defense Contracting: Army Case Study Delineates Concerns with Use of Contractors as Contract Specialists. GAO-08-360. Washington, D.C.: March 26, 2008.

Defense Management: DOD Needs to Reexamine Its Extensive Reliance on Contractors and Continue to Improve Management and Oversight. GAO-08-572T. Washington, D.C.: March 11, 2008.

Federal Acquisition: Oversight Plan Needed to Help Implement Acquisition Advisory Panel’s Recommendations. GAO-08-515T. Washington, D.C.: February 27, 2008.

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.

Defense Acquisitions: DOD’s Increased Reliance on Service Contractors Exacerbates Long-standing Challenges. GAO-08-621T. Washington, D.C.: January 23, 2008.

Department of Homeland Security: Improved Assessment and Oversight Needed to Manage Risk of Contracting for Selected Services. GAO-07-990. Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2007.

Federal Acquisitions and Contracting: Systemic Challenges Need Attention. GAO-07-1098T. Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2007.

Defense Acquisitions: Improved Management and Oversight Needed to Better Control DOD’s Acquisition of Services. GAO-07-832T. Washington, D.C.: May 10, 2007.

Highlights of a GAO Forum: Federal Acquisition Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century. GAO-07-45SP. Washington, D.C.: October 2006.

Framework for Assessing the Acquisition Function At Federal Agencies. GAO-05-218G. Washington, D.C.: September 2005.

A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management. GAO-02-373SP. Washington, D.C.: March 15, 2002.