Defense Acquisition Workforce: DOD Increased Use of Human Capital Flexibilities but Could Improve Monitoring
Released: 2019-08-15T00:00:00

Letter

Background

A skilled acquisition workforce is vital to maintaining military readiness, increasing the department’s buying power, and achieving substantial long-term savings through activities such as systems engineering and contract administration. As of September 2018, DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce was comprised of about 157,000 civilian personnel (see figure 1).

About 60 percent of DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce personnel held positions in 3 of 14 acquisition career fields: engineering, contracting, and life cycle logistics (see table 1).

Prior Studies on DOD Acquisition Workforce Challenges

We have previously found that DOD has faced various challenges in growing and sustaining its acquisition workforce, including challenges with hiring, recruiting, and retaining personnel. In December 2015, we found that over the past 20 years, DOD has significantly reduced and then subsequently increased the size of its acquisition workforce.

During the 1990s, as defense budgets decreased, DOD reduced the size of its military and civilian acquisition workforce, and by the early 2000s it began relying more heavily on contractors to perform many acquisition support functions. According to DOD, between 1998 and 2008, the number of military and civilian personnel performing acquisition activities decreased 14 percent, from about 146,000 to about 126,000 personnel.

Due to concerns about skill gaps within the workforce and growing reliance on contractors, the Secretary of Defense announced his intention in 2009 to rebalance the workforce mix. In 2010, DOD issued an acquisition workforce plan that specified DOD would add 20,000 military and civilian personnel to its acquisition workforce by fiscal year 2015. DOD subsequently increased the size of its military and civilian acquisition workforce by 21 percent between 2008 and 2015 to about 153,000 personnel, but did not accomplish growth goals set for certain priority career fields, such as engineering and contracting. DOD officials stated that the shortfalls were largely the result of high attrition rates, difficulty hiring qualified personnel, and budget constraints.

In May 2018, we found that DOD’s Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories (defense laboratories), which include acquisition workforce personnel, experienced challenges with delays with security clearances and human resource processing of personnel actions, which contributed to a lengthy hiring process. We also found that the delays made it difficult for defense laboratories to hire highly qualified candidates.

Similarly, in June 2018, the Section 809 Panel identified DOD’s cumbersome hiring process as a challenge for shaping its acquisition workforce. The Section 809 Panel emphasized that these challenges undermine DOD’s ability to successfully recruit top candidates into the acquisition workforce.

Most recently, in March 2019, we reported that DOD had not developed metrics to track progress associated with shaping the future acquisition workforce, such as workforce targets as a whole or by specific career fields. For example, we reported that DOD issued an updated acquisition workforce strategic plan in October 2016 which, among other things, assessed its current capacity and capability, and identified risks that DOD needed to manage to meet future needs. In addition, in September 2017, DOD issued a workforce rationalization plan. However, neither the October 2016 strategic plan nor the September 2017 workforce rationalization plan established specific size targets. We noted that without such metrics, DOD would not be able to demonstrate that its strategic workforce planning efforts and associated initiatives were successful, despite increasing the size of its acquisition workforce beyond its earlier target.

Federal Hiring Process and Available Flexibilities

DOD’s challenges with hiring civilian acquisition workforce personnel are not unique within the federal government. The traditional method of hiring for the federal government, also known as the competitive examining process, has been characterized by federal agencies as rigid and lacking in flexibility. The traditional hiring method generally requires agencies to, among other things, notify the public that the government will accept job applications for a position, screen applications against minimum qualification standards, apply selection priorities such as veterans’ preference, and assess applicants’ relative competencies or knowledge, skills, and abilities against job-related criteria to identify the most qualified applicants. In 2008, OPM established a roadmap for the traditional hiring method, including an 80-day time-to-hire goal (see figure 2).

To address some of the human capital challenges federal agencies face, statutes have provided hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities that provide agencies with tools to help manage their workforces. Legislation has also provided hiring flexibilities exclusively to DOD for specified purposes, including hiring acquisition workforce personnel.

Hiring Flexibilities

Hiring flexibilities can help the government fill critical skills gaps or achieve certain public policy goals, such as employing veterans. As of September 2018, we identified 46 hiring flexibilities that DOD could use to hire civilian acquisition workforce personnel, including the following.

DOD Direct Hire Authorities. These authorities help expedite the hiring process by allowing DOD to hire candidates without regard to certain provisions in Title 5, such as veterans’ preference and applicant rating and ranking. According to DOD officials, using direct hire authorities can reduce the time to hire personnel by nearly half as compared to the traditional hiring method. We identified 14 DOD direct hire authorities in effect as of fiscal year 2018 that DOD could use to hire civilian acquisition workforce personnel. For example, the “expedited hiring authority for certain defense acquisition workforce positions” (expedited hiring authority for acquisition positions) permits the Secretary of Defense to determine that a shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need exists for certain acquisition workforce positions, and to recruit and appoint qualified persons directly to those positions. For the purposes of the expedited hiring authority, in December 2015, the Secretary of Defense had designated 12 of the 14 acquisition career fields as critical or understaffed, including the engineering, contracting, and life cycle logistics career fields.

DOD Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project (AcqDemo) Hiring Authorities. According to HCI officials, about 19 percent of DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce personnel participate in the AcqDemo performance management system, an alternative to the General Schedule pay system. Hiring managers under AcqDemo may use AcqDemo-specific hiring flexibilities, such as direct hire appointments for the business and technical management professional career path, in addition to hiring flexibilities available DOD-wide.

Veterans-Related Hiring Authorities. These authorities allow agencies to hire certain veterans without regard to certain provisions in Title 5. For example, agencies may appoint eligible veterans under the Veterans’ Recruitment Appointment authority without competition under limited circumstances or otherwise through excepted service hiring procedures.

Pathways Programs. These programs promote employment opportunities in the federal government for students and recent graduates through an exception to the competitive hiring rules for certain positions in the federal workforce.

Appendix I provides additional information on the hiring flexibilities that were available to DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce as of September 2018.

Recruitment and Retention Flexibilities

Sections of Title 5 outline recruitment and retention flexibilities that agencies can offer to prospective and current employees to help recruit and retain highly qualified personnel. Like other federal agencies, DOD can use these incentives to recruit and retain civilian personnel, including those in the acquisition workforce.

Recruitment bonuses may be paid to a newly hired federal employee if the agency determines that the position would be difficult to fill in the absence of a bonus.

Relocation bonuses may be paid to a current employee who must relocate for a position in a different geographic area if the agency determines that the position would be difficult to fill in the absence of a bonus.

Retention bonuses may be paid to a current employee if the agency determines that the unusually high or unique qualifications of the employee or a special need of the agency for the employee’s services makes it essential to retain the employee who would likely leave federal service in the absence of such a bonus.

Student loan repayments may be paid on behalf of a job candidate or a current employee to recruit or retain highly qualified personnel. The employees must sign a service agreement of at least 3 years with the agency that pays the loans. Federal agencies may pay up to $10,000 per employee per calendar year, totaling no more than $60,000 for any one employee.

DOD can fund the four monetary incentives with the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund (DAWDF)—a dedicated funding source for the recruitment, training, and retention of DOD’s acquisition personnel— as well as other sources, such as operations and maintenance appropriations.

Appendix II provides additional information on the recruitment and retention flexibilities available to DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce as of September 2018.

DOD Acquisition Workforce and Civilian Personnel Leaders

Several offices within DOD play key roles in managing how the department uses hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for the civilian acquisition workforce. For example, HCI oversees department- wide acquisition workforce strategic planning; DCPAS develops implementation guidance on how DOD flexibilities should be used; and civilian personnel centers track the extent to which flexibilities are used (see table 2).

DOD Has Increased Its Use of Hiring, Recruitment, and Retention Flexibilities for Its Civilian Acquisition Workforce

From fiscal year 2014 to 2018, DOD increased its use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce. During this period, DOD used hiring flexibilities for 90 percent of its approximately 44,000 civilian acquisition workforce hiring actions. This high usage rate came as USD (A&S), USD (P&R), and the military departments’ leadership encouraged their hiring managers and human resource specialists to use the hiring flexibilities to help reduce the length of the hiring process. Additionally, during this period, DOD’s human resource specialists issued guidance that helped address confusion about the requirements governing the hiring authorities. Currently, USD (P&R) is leading a DOD-wide effort to consolidate direct hire authorities in an attempt to simplify their application. During this 5-year period, DOD also increased its use of recruitment and retention flexibilities for the civilian acquisition workforce, increasing the dollar amount authorized for these flexibilities from $13.9 million in fiscal year 2014 to $33.7 million in fiscal year 2018. This increase came as DOD leadership emphasized the benefits of recruitment and retention flexibilities and oversaw concerted efforts to increase their usage through the dissemination of information to human resource specialists.

DOD Used Hiring Flexibilities for Vast Majority of Civilian Acquisition Workforce Hires from Fiscal Years 2014 to 2018

We found that DOD used hiring flexibilities for about 90 percent of DOD’s approximately 44,000 civilian acquisition workforce hiring actions between fiscal years 2014 and 2018. Further, DOD increased its use of these flexibilities, which include direct hire authorities, from 80 percent in fiscal year 2014 to 95 percent in fiscal year 2018 (see figure 3).

From fiscal year 2014 to 2018, DOD used the expedited hiring authority for acquisition positions more than any other direct hire authority for its civilian acquisition workforce. Congress enacted this authority in fiscal year 2009 and in fiscal year 2010, amended the authority to, among other things, allow hiring of all qualified applicants instead of only highly qualified applicants. Additionally, in November 2015, legislation eliminated the expedited hiring authority’s expiration date and made the authority permanent. Command officials told us that they used this authority often because it does not have as many requirements as other direct hire authorities and because of their familiarity with it. Nine of the 14 DOD direct hire authorities identified were not available for use until fiscal year 2017 because they were enacted after that year or DOD had not yet implemented the authority, either through memorandums or federal register notices (see table 3).

Since 2015, USD (A&S), USD (P&R), and leadership of the military departments have encouraged the use of hiring flexibilities—particularly direct hire authorities—over the traditional method.

From July 2015 to November 2017, USD (A&S) and USD (P&R) convened five joint acquisition and human resource summits to provide a recurring forum for discussing leading practices in sustaining the acquisition workforce, including the improved use of hiring flexibilities.

In October 2016, USD (A&S) issued its current acquisition workforce strategic plan for DOD and used this document to encourage implementation of direct hire authorities as appropriate.

In November 2017, senior leadership in the USD (P&R) office issued a Federal Register Notice that updated and consolidated AcqDemo’s rules and guidance, including introducing additional AcqDemo hiring flexibilities (see appendix I, table 8 for additional information on these flexibilities).

In 2018, the Secretary of the Navy, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs each issued memorandums to their respective departments stating that the use of direct hire authorities be considered first in the hiring process, as appropriate. These memorandums note that direct hire authorities provide significant advantages in timeliness compared to the traditional hiring process, and encourage maximum use of direct hire authorities to the extent appropriate.

In addition to DOD leadership emphasis, command officials credited DCPAS and the military departments’ civilian personnel centers for taking actions to help DOD increase its use of direct hire authorities. These officials explained that confusion among hiring managers and human resource specialists over the numerous requirements that apply to each direct hire authority constituted one of the main challenges that had previously limited DOD’s use of direct hire authorities. To illustrate the potential for confusion, table 4 presents some of the direct hire authority requirements a hiring manager would have to consider under two different hiring authorities.

To help address the confusion stemming from the direct hire authorities’ numerous requirements, in 2017 and 2018, DCPAS and the personnel centers consolidated information on the available direct hire authorities and the requirements that govern each of them into concise and comprehensive guidance documents. As a result, command-level and personnel center officials told us that human resource specialists can now quickly find and compare available direct hire authorities to determine what may work best for their hiring needs.

Factors That Contributed to Limiting the Use of Hiring Flexibilities

We found that the military departments’ use of certain direct hire authorities was limited by the amount of time it took DOD leadership to implement some of the authorities. DCPAS officials told us that although Congress enacts direct hire authorities in legislation, DOD human resource personnel and hiring managers do not use the authorities until DOD and the components issue implementing guidance. We found that DOD implemented the 14 DOD direct hire authorities anywhere from 2 to 42 months after an authority’s enactment (see figure 4).

In May 2018, we reported on the 30-month lapse between the enactment of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics direct hire authority for students at the defense laboratories and DOD’s issuance of corresponding implementation guidance. Defense laboratory officials told us it took longer than anticipated to publish the federal register notice that allowed the laboratories to use the hiring authority, and they attributed the delays to coordination issues among relevant offices during the approval process. In December 2018, we found that the defense laboratories hired significantly fewer students than authorized because of the delays. To address the delays, in May 2018, we recommended that DOD establish and document time frames for its coordination process to help ensure the timely implementation of defense laboratory hiring authorities in the future. DOD concurred with our recommendation and identified actions the department plans to take to improve oversight and coordination of the defense laboratories’ hiring efforts.

DOD acquisition workforce and human resource officials told us that they also did not use certain direct hire authorities as much from fiscal years 2014 to 2018 because the requirements associated with them made them harder to use. For example, according to DOD guidance documents we reviewed, most of the DOD direct hire authorities applicable to the civilian acquisition workforce have expiration dates or limits on the number of hires. Table 5 provides examples of requirements governing direct hire authorities that officials identified as making the authorities more difficult to use.

Going forward, HCI and DCPAS officials told us that USD (P&R) is leading a DOD-wide effort to advise Congress on which direct hire authorities could be consolidated and which requirements could be eliminated. For example, HCI officials said that USD (P&R) recently provided Congress input on consolidating four cybersecurity-related authorities into one authority. DCPAS officials also told us they previously provided input to Congress on certain challenges hiring managers experienced in using some of the direct hire authorities. According to command officials, DCPAS recommended that Congress raise the limits on the number of personnel that could be hired under the defense laboratory direct hire authorities.

DOD Increased Its Use of Recruitment and Retention Flexibilities from Fiscal Years 2014 to 2018

We found that DOD increased its use of recruitment and retention flexibilities from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2018. We also examined two other issues related to recruitment and retention—post-employment restrictions on military personnel and authorities to remove civilian acquisition workforce employees for unacceptable performance. DOD officials did not identify either issue as a major challenge for managing the civilian acquisition workforce.

Recruitment and Retention Flexibilities

We found that DOD increased its use of recruitment bonuses, relocation bonuses, retention bonuses, and student loan repayments from $13.9 million in fiscal year 2014 to $33.7 million in fiscal year 2018 (see figure 5).

As part of the increased total amount of funds authorized for recruitment and retention flexibilities, DOD had increased the number of awarded recruitment and retention flexibilities by approximately 140 percent between fiscal years 2014 to 2018 (see table 6).

DOD leadership has emphasized the benefits of recruitment and retention flexibilities, which helped increase their use. For example, in DOD’s October 2016 acquisition workforce strategic plan, USD (A&S) stated that the acquisition workforce would increase the use of these flexibilities by leveraging DAWDF. Additionally, in November 2016, USD (A&S) and USD (P&R) held a joint acquisition and human resource summit, which highlighted efforts of an integrated product team established to expand the use recruitment and retention flexibilities. For example, the integrated product team developed a fact sheet to answer frequently asked questions about incentives from human resource specialists and hiring managers within the military departments.

Officials from the commands and DACMs generally agreed that recruitment and retention flexibilities were useful tools in helping them recruit and retain acquisition workforce talent. To receive these monetary incentives, employees must enter into written service agreements to remain with the department for a specific period.

DACM and defense agency officials, however, noted that retention bonuses were the least effective of the monetary recruitment and retention flexibilities. For example, Defense Contract Management Agency and Air Force officials told us they do not use retention bonuses as widely because they do not view them as effective tools in retaining talent. Defense Contract Management Agency officials explained that most of the personnel who leave their agency for other jobs go to other DOD organizations or federal agencies, and retention bonuses are generally used only for employees who are likely to leave federal service. The Air Force DACM’s representatives told us the Air Force decreased its use of DAWDF for retention bonuses as a result of a 2016 RAND Corporation study that found that private sector companies made minimal use of retention bonuses. According to this study, none of the 21 companies in RAND’s sample—among Fortune’s “100 best companies to work for”—identified retention bonuses as a primary tool to retain talent. Lastly, command and personnel center officials we interviewed also noted that a number of factors outside of monetary recruitment and retention flexibilities influence an employee’s decision to join or remain with DOD. These factors include the organization’s mission and work-life programs and policies.

Post-Employment Restrictions

DOD military personnel are subject to certain post-employment restrictions that could potentially dissuade them from seeking further employment with the department as civilian personnel, but DACM and command officials told us these restrictions have not significantly affected their ability to recruit new hires. For example, the “180-day rule” prevents DOD from appointing retired military personnel to civil service positions within 180 days of the military person’s retirement unless the appointment, which must be in the competitive service, is authorized by the Secretary of Defense or a designee, OPM approves the appointment, and the minimum rate of basic pay has been increased. DACM and command officials noted that retired military personnel could elect to work for private sector companies during the 180-day period. However, these officials did not cite post-employment restrictions as a major recruitment challenge for the civilian acquisition workforce and instead cited other challenges, such as limited resources dedicated to recruiting civilian personnel and hiring delays due to the security clearance process.

Removal Authority

DOD does not have specific statutory authority in Title 10, U.S. Code for removing civilian acquisition workforce personnel for unacceptable performance. However, DOD’s civilian employees are subject to a longer probationary period than other civilian federal employees, and DACM and command officials told us that removing underperforming staff is easier during a probationary period than when staff are permanently employed. Officials also noted that staff tend to leave on their own accord if they are not performing well within the department.

DOD Does Not Regularly Monitor Hiring, Recruitment, and Retention Flexibilities or Assess Their Effectiveness

DOD does not regularly monitor its use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce, and despite ongoing efforts, is not yet able to systematically assess the effectiveness of these flexibilities. HCI, the office responsible for DOD-wide acquisition workforce strategic planning, regularly monitors the overall health of the acquisition workforce, in part by reviewing and reporting statistics on workforce size, workforce gains and losses, and other workforce-related metrics on a quarterly basis. Further, as previously noted, DOD has increased its overall use of human capital flexibilities. However, HCI does not regularly monitor the military departments and defense components’ specific use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities. As a result, HCI is missing opportunities to identify variations in usage rates, and use that information to determine whether there are specific issues or challenges being encountered. For example, we found that the Air Force and Navy used direct hire authorities twice as often as the Army in fiscal year 2018. Further, while DOD leadership has emphasized that using hiring flexibilities improves DOD’s ability to recruit and hire high-quality talent in a timely manner, HCI is not yet able to assess how effective the hiring flexibilities have been in achieving these goals. This is because DCPAS has not yet developed a plan to consistently measure how long it takes to hire new personnel across the department. Similarly, DCPAS has not yet established metrics to assess the quality of the new personnel DOD hires. DCPAS has efforts underway to address these issues and plans to start using these metrics in 2019.

HCI Does Not Regularly Monitor Usage of Hiring Flexibilities

DOD policy states HCI should implement strategies and policies to help attract and retain acquisition workforce personnel. To this end, HCI officials told us they monitor the overall health of the acquisition workforce in various ways, including outreach to the DACMs on workforce challenges, as well as holding knowledge-sharing events, such as a May 2018 acquisition workforce human capital symposium. Additionally, HCI reviews and reports statistics on workforce size, workforce gains and losses, and other workforce-related metrics on a quarterly basis. For example, in its fiscal year 2019 first quarter assessment, HCI reported data on the current size of the acquisition workforce; acquisition workforce education and certification levels; and workforce gains, losses, retirement eligibility and attrition rates, among other things, both on a DOD-wide basis as well as by acquisition career field. HCI officials told us they use these data to identify potential or emerging workforce challenges. HCI officials noted that if they identify any issues, they further analyze data to identify the root cause of the issues.

HCI officials acknowledged, however, that HCI does not regularly collect or review data on the defense components’ specific use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities as part of its quarterly assessments. HCI officials stated that they collect and review hiring flexibilities data on an as-needed basis, such as in preparation for DOD acquisition workforce governance forums, including senior steering board and workforce management group meetings, in which the use of the flexibilities will be on the agenda, or in response to Congressional requests. HCI officials also noted that because the use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities are made at the command level within the military departments, the military departments are better positioned to regularly monitor usage. However, the military departments are not in a position to identify variations in usage rates across DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce, which are significant. For example, we found that the Air Force and the Navy used direct hire authorities for 85 percent and 84 percent of their respective hiring actions in fiscal year 2018, while the Army used direct hire authorities for 42 percent of its hiring actions that year.

Similarly, some career fields use the hiring flexibilities at higher rates than others. While hiring flexibilities comprised 95 percent of total civilian acquisition workforce hiring actions in fiscal year 2018, the auditing and purchasing career fields used hiring flexibilities for only 68 percent and 62 percent of their respective hiring actions that year. Without regularly monitoring usage rates for hiring flexibilities across the civilian acquisition workforce, HCI lacks visibility into these types of variations and opportunities to investigate and address them, as appropriate.

Lastly, HCI focuses its efforts on those recruitment and retention flexibilities funded by DAWDF because HCI is responsible for DAWDF’s management. Based on DAWDF reports and DCPDS data, we found that the amount of dollars obligated for DAWDF-funded recruitment, retention, and recognition initiatives in 2017 was $15 million or about two-thirds of the total dollars authorized for the recruitment and retention flexibilities for DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce in fiscal year 2017. The remaining amount (about one-third) was funded by other sources, such as the military departments’ operations and maintenance appropriations, but is not included as part of HCI’s annual review.

Since 2002, we have repeatedly found that agencies should strategically manage their use of human capital flexibilities—including hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities—to address human capital challenges. Additionally, federal internal control standards state that an agency’s management should obtain relevant data on a timely basis to effectively monitor activities to achieve objectives. Based on these standards, in May 2018, we recommended that DOD’s defense laboratories routinely monitor data on its use of hiring authorities. DOD concurred with our recommendation and planned to determine the appropriate data to be collected and establish routine reporting requirements. Because HCI is not regularly reviewing hiring flexibility usage, it may be similarly missing opportunities to help identify challenges, inconsistencies, or needed improvements in using the flexibilities.

DOD Cannot Yet Accurately Report on How Long It Takes to Hire New Personnel or the Quality of New Hires

DOD leaders have repeatedly emphasized that hiring flexibilities— particularly direct hire authorities—can help the department hire high- quality talent in a more timely manner. We have previously found that time-to-hire and quality-of-hire are useful metrics that help agencies evaluate their hiring efforts, which can include the use of hiring flexibilities. To this end, DCPAS collects and reports time-to-hire data to measure DOD’s progress in improving hiring practices. For example, according to DCPAS, from fiscal year 2016 through 2018, DOD took an average of 127 days to hire civilian personnel under the traditional hiring method compared to an average of 110 days when using DOD direct hire authorities. DCPAS also noted variations in time-to-hire across the direct hire authorities, reporting that DOD took anywhere from 77 to 111 days to hire civilian personnel using the 14 DOD direct hire authorities applicable to the civilian acquisition workforce. For the expedited hiring authority for acquisition positions—the direct hire authority used most frequently to hire civilian acquisition workforce personnel—DCPAS reported an average time-to-hire of 106 days from fiscal year 2016 through 2018.

While these time-to-hire metrics could be helpful in determining which direct hire authorities most effectively expedite the hiring process, HCI officials told us they do not use these metrics to inform management decisions for the civilian acquisition workforce because they are not yet consistently measured. DCPAS officials explained that the military departments and their major commands developed their own approaches for inputting and reporting time-to-hire data based on their individual needs and data systems. HCI and DCPAS officials acknowledged that this resulted in different ways to record and track the data, which in turn prevented meaningful comparisons between the time-to-hire metrics produced by each of the components.

According to HCI and DCPAS officials, this difference, in part, is attributable to the variation in how DOD personnel input certain data. For example, one human resource specialist may initiate a request for a personnel action—which is generally the starting date for time-to-hire metrics—on the day the hiring manager submits a job description, while another human resource specialist may initiate a request for personnel action after the job announcement has been posted publicly. Moreover, our analysis of DCPAS data for all DOD civilian personnel hires from fiscal year 2014 to 2018 shows that about 36,000 of 420,000 personnel actions, or about 9 percent, were initiated on or after the individuals’ start dates, producing a zero or negative time-to-hire figure. DCPAS officials told us they omit these figures when they report time-to-hire metrics. Until time-to-hire metrics are consistently measured DOD-wide, HCI will not be able to use this data to assess which direct hire authorities have most effectively expedited the hiring process, which DOD components have been the most successful in using these authorities, or identify potential issues in using these authorities.

In September 2018, to address inconsistent time-to-hire methodologies across DOD, we recommended that the DOD Chief Management Officer require that all DOD human resource providers adopt consistent time-to- hire measures. DOD concurred with our recommendation, and in June 2019, DCPAS officials told us they were in the process of developing a plan to implement consistent time-to-hire metrics across the department. DCPAS officials anticipate completing the plan by July 2019 and will start implementation after DOD leadership approves this plan. HCI officials told us that they plan to use the time-to-hire metrics to assess the civilian acquisition workforce’s hiring efforts, including the use of flexibilities, when the metrics are comparable.

Similarly, HCI officials told us that they cannot systematically assess quality-of-hire across the civilian acquisition workforce because DCPAS has not developed guidance that outlines how quality-of-hire should be measured. DOD’s June 2018 civilian human capital operating plan outlines an initiative to improve the quality of civilian hires, among other things. As part of this initiative, DCPAS is to establish quality-of-hire metrics using data collected from an OPM hiring satisfaction survey tool. Using the OPM survey, DOD’s hiring managers are to rate the performance of new employees 6 months after they are hired. DCPAS officials stated that various DOD components have used the survey since 2011, but acknowledged hiring managers completed the survey for only 1 percent of all DOD hires in fiscal year 2018. In March 2019, USD (P&R) leadership issued a memorandum to DOD human capital offices encouraging wider implementation of the survey, including outlining roles and responsibilities and milestones for implementation. Starting in fiscal year 2020, USD (P&R) plans to set quality-of-hire goals using the fiscal year 2019 survey results and incorporating these into future civilian human capital operating plans. HCI officials told us that they plan to use the quality-of-hire metrics to evaluate the civilian acquisition workforce’s hiring efforts, including the use of flexibilities, once DCPAS completes its efforts.

Conclusions

Congress has provided DOD with a number of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities to help the department manage its acquisition workforce. DOD leadership has encouraged the use of these flexibilities across the department in recent years, and usage has increased significantly since 2014. However, HCI does not regularly monitor defense components’ use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for their civilian acquisition workforce to identify challenges, inconsistencies, or needed improvements in using these tools. As a result, HCI may be missing opportunities to develop strategies or inform efforts aimed at improving the usage of these flexibilities.

Recommendation for Executive Action

The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Director of Human Capital Initiatives regularly monitors usage of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for the civilian acquisition workforce—across the military departments and acquisition career fields—to help develop strategies or inform efforts aimed at improving the usage of these flexibilities. (Recommendation 1)

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to DOD for review and comment. DOD provided written comments, which are reprinted in appendix VII, and concurred with our recommendation. In concurring with our recommendation, DOD stated it would provide guidance to DOD components to monitor usage of flexibilities and provide the results to HCI at least annually.

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Secretaries of the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy; the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment; the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness; the Director of the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service, and the Director of Human Capital Initiatives. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or dinapolit@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 key contributions to this report are listed in appendix VIII.

Appendix I: Key Hiring Flexibilities Available to the Department of Defense’s Civilian Acquisition Workforce

Sections of Title 5 of the U.S. Code include, among other things, requirements that agencies must follow to hire personnel, such as those associated with the competitive examining hiring authority. Competitive examining has been the traditional method of hiring for the federal government since 1978. The traditional hiring method requires agencies to notify the public that the government will accept applications for a job; screen applications against minimum qualification standards; apply selection priorities such as veterans’ preference, where applicable; and assess applicants’ relative competencies or knowledge, skills, and abilities against job-related criteria to identify the most qualified applicants.

Hiring flexibilities were established beyond the traditional hiring method to expedite the hiring process and achieve certain public policy goals. We identified 46 hiring flexibilities available to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) civilian acquisition workforce as of September 2018—3 specific to the DOD acquisition workforce; 6 specific to DOD’s Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project; 20 available DOD-wide, including its acquisition workforce; and 17 available government-wide. Further, of the 46 hiring flexibilities, 14 are DOD direct hire authorities provided in statute that we have identified as being directly applicable to the DOD civilian acquisition workforce—3 of which are specific to the DOD acquisition workforce and 11 of which are available DOD-wide. Tables 7 through 10 provide additional information on each of the 46 hiring flexibilities and denote the 14 DOD direct hire authorities and their legal authorities.

Appendix II: Key Recruitment and Retention Flexibilities Available to the Department of Defense’s Civilian Acquisition Workforce

Recruitment and retention flexibilities assist federal agencies in attracting and retaining employees who possess unusually high or unique qualifications, or who fill essential needs for the agencies. Additionally, they allow agencies more control over compensation and are intended to help government compete with the private sector. We identified nine recruitment and retention flexibilities available to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) civilian acquisition workforce as of fiscal year 2018— four monetary incentives and five work-life balance policies and programs (see tables 11 and 12).

Appendix III: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Section 843 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 included a provision for us to review and report on the effectiveness of hiring and retention flexibilities for the Department of Defense’s (DOD) acquisition workforce, with a focus on its civilian acquisition workforce, including (a) the extent to which DOD experiences challenges with recruitment and retention of the acquisition workforce, such as post-employment restrictions; (b) a description of the hiring and retention flexibilities available to DOD to fill civilian acquisition positions and the extent to which DOD has used the flexibilities available to it to target critical or understaffed career fields; (c) the extent to which DOD has the necessary data and metrics on its use of hiring and retention flexibilities for the civilian acquisition workforce to strategically manage the use of such flexibilities; (d) an identification of the factors that affect the use of hiring and retention flexibilities for the civilian acquisition workforce; (e) recommendations for any necessary changes to the hiring and retention flexibilities available to DOD to fill civilian acquisition positions; and (f) a description of the flexibilities available to DOD to remove underperforming members of the acquisition workforce and the extent to which any such flexibilities are used.

This report: (1) provides information on DOD’s use of available hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce personnel from fiscal years 2014 to 2018; and (2) determines the extent to which DOD has monitored and assessed its use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce. In doing so, the report addresses elements (a) through (f) identified above.

To examine DOD’s use of available hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce personnel from fiscal years 2014 to 2018, we reviewed relevant statutes, reports, and DOD policies and guidance to identify hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities available to DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce. Based on our review, we identified the following hiring authorities: competitive examination, which we refer to as “the traditional hiring method,” and

46 alternatives to the traditional hiring method, which we refer to as “hiring flexibilities” for the purposes of our review.

Appendix I provides additional information on these 46 hiring flexibilities.

We also identified four monetary incentives and five work-life balance programs that DOD can use to recruit and retain civilian acquisition workforce personnel. We scoped our analysis to the four monetary incentives DOD can use to recruit and retain civilian acquisition workforce personnel—(1) recruitment bonuses, (2) retention bonuses, (3) relocation bonuses, and (4) student loan repayments—and collectively refer to these four incentives as “recruitment and retention flexibilities” for the purposes of our review. We focused our review on the four government-wide monetary flexibilities with personnel data in the Defense Civilian Personnel Data System (DCPDS), DOD’s central repository for civilian personnel transactions data, and required for submission to the Defense Manpower Data Center. Appendix II provides additional information on these four recruitment and retention flexibilities.

We also analyzed personnel data from DCPDS. We obtained DCPDS data on hiring actions from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (USD) for Personnel and Readiness (P&R) – Defense Manpower Data Center. We obtained DCPDS data on dollars authorized for recruitment and retention flexibilities from USD (P&R) – Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service (DCPAS). We also obtained acquisition workforce data for fiscal years 2014 through 2018 from DOD’s DataMart, a central repository of acquisition workforce data, from the Defense Manpower Data Center. We analyzed the DataMart data to determine which DOD civilian personnel were in DOD’s acquisition workforce at the end of each fiscal year, the military department or organization in which these personnel worked, and the career fields in which these personnel held positions.

For our analysis of hiring flexibilities, we included all hiring actions for the DOD civilian acquisition workforce with effective dates from fiscal year 2014 through 2018, except for actions with legal authority codes designated as transfers. We did not include hiring actions designated as transfers because they include hiring actions between military departments as well as transfers from outside of DOD. We excluded all of these transfer hiring actions because the data did not include enough information for us to distinguish between internal and external transfers. We identified 44,291 hiring actions for this 5-year period, and used the legal authority code data fields for each hiring action to determine the type of hiring authority or flexibility that DOD used. We analyzed DOD’s usage of hiring flexibilities from fiscal years 2014 through 2018 across each of DOD’s 14 acquisition career fields and the military departments.

Of the hiring flexibilities, we focused our analysis on DOD direct hire authorities because they comprised the single largest category of hiring authorities used by the DOD civilian acquisition workforce for hiring actions from fiscal year 2014 through 2018—26,385 of 44,291 DOD hiring actions or 60 percent. DCPDS, however, did not include enough information for us to determine which specific direct hire authority DOD used for each hiring action. For these actions, the human resource specialists manually entered the details of the specific type of DOD direct hire authority they used in DCPDS. To determine the type of DOD direct hire authority used, two analysts independently reviewed each description and identified the appropriate DOD direct hire authority. For 360 of the 26,385 the hiring actions (or 1.4 percent), the descriptions did not contain enough information for us to determine the specific DOD direct hire authority used.

For the purposes of our analysis, we established three categories of hiring actions based on the DOD’s designations in DCPDS (see table 13).

For our analysis of recruitment and retention flexibilities, we included all actions authorizing recruitment bonuses, retention bonuses, relocation bonuses, and student loan repayments for the DOD civilian acquisition workforce from fiscal year 2014 through 2018. We identified 13,643 authorization actions. We used the award amount data field for each authorization action to determine the amount of dollars authorized for these four types of incentives. We analyzed DOD’s usage of the recruitment and retention flexibilities from fiscal years 2014 through 2018 across each of DOD’s 14 acquisition career fields.

We assessed data reliability by electronically testing these data, reviewing relevant data standards and guidance, and interviewing DCPAS and Defense Manpower Data Center officials. We determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of reporting the frequency with which DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce used hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for fiscal years 2014 through 2018.

We also identified factors that affected DOD’s use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce by reviewing DCPAS and military departments’ policies and guidance for using human capital flexibilities, including implementation of 14 DOD direct hire authorities provided in statute, and efforts by DCPAS to improve DOD’s use of the flexibilities.

To determine the extent to which DOD has monitored and assessed its use of hiring, recruitment, and retention flexibilities for its civilian acquisition workforce, we reviewed acquisition workforce human capital plans from the Office of Human Capital Initiatives (HCI) within USD for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S); acquisition workforce plans from the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy; and data and metrics collected by HCI and DOD’s four Directors for Acquisition Career Management (DACM)— one for each of the military departments and a fourth for the defense agencies and field activities outside the military departments. We assessed DOD’s efforts against our key practices for effectively managing human resource flexibilities and federal internal control standards, including that management should use quality information to achieve the entity’s objectives. We also reviewed reports by the Advisory Panel on Streamlining and Codifying Acquisition Regulations—commonly referred to as the Section 809 Panel after the legislative provision that required the Secretary of Defense to establish an advisory panel on streamlining acquisition regulations—and interviewed Section 809 Panel commissioners to supplement our analysis.

For both objectives, we interviewed officials from

HCI, the office responsible for DOD-wide acquisition workforce

DCPAS, the office responsible for developing DOD’s civilian human resources policies and programs; the Defense Manpower Data Center, the office responsible for collecting and maintaining DOD’s civilian personnel data; the Directors for Acquisition Career Management (DACM) for each military department and the Fourth Estate, which is responsible for the 30 defense agencies and field activities outside the military departments; the Air Force Personnel Center;

Army’s Civilian Human Resources Agency;

Navy’s Office of Civilian Human Resources; and the command within each military department that had the largest number of civilian acquisition workforce personnel in fiscal year 2018: Air Force Materiel Command, Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, and Naval Sea Systems Command. We also interviewed officials from the Defense Contract Management Agency, which had the largest number of civilian acquisition personnel of the other defense agencies with acquisition workforce personnel. Collectively, these four organizations comprised about 38 percent of DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce in fiscal year 2018.

We also interviewed personnel from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is responsible for developing and promulgating government-wide human capital policies; and personnel from the Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest human resources membership group, who were familiar with metrics used by the private sector to monitor hiring and retention efforts.

We conducted this performance audit from August 2018 to August 2019 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.

Appendix IV: The Department of Defense’s Usage of Hiring Flexibilities for the Acquisition Workforce by Career Field

Section 843 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 included, among other things, a provision for us to review the extent to which the Department of Defense (DOD) has used hiring flexibilities available to it to target critical or understaffed career fields. In its December 2015 memo on using the expedited hiring authority for certain defense acquisition workforce positions, DOD designated 12 of the 14 acquisition workforce career fields as shortage or critical needs categories. We identified 44,291 DOD hiring actions from fiscal year 2014 to 2018 for the civilian acquisition workforce, and categorized them as (1) traditional hiring method actions, (2) actions using DOD direct hire authorities, or (3) other hiring flexibilities (see appendix I for additional information on these hiring flexibilities, including DOD direct hire authorities). We further categorized the hiring actions by DOD’s 14 acquisition workforce career fields and ordered the career fields by total number of hiring actions in fiscal year 2018. Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9 provide data on the use of hiring flexibilities for each of the 14 acquisition workforce career fields.

Appendix V: The Department of Defense’s Usage of Hiring Flexibilities for the Acquisition Workforce by Military Department

We identified 44,291 Department of Defense (DOD) hiring actions from fiscal year 2014 to 2018 for the civilian acquisition workforce, and categorized them as (1) traditional hiring method actions, (2) actions using DOD direct hire authorities, or (3) other hiring flexibilities (see appendix I for additional information on these hiring flexibilities, including DOD direct hire authorities). We further categorized the hiring actions by military departments and defense agencies. Figure 10 provides data on the use of hiring flexibilities for each of the military departments and the Fourth Estate, which is responsible for the 30 defense agencies and field activities outside the military departments.

Appendix VI: The Department of Defense’s Usage of Recruitment and Retention Flexibilities for the Acquisition Workforce

Section 843 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 included, among other things, a provision for us to review the extent to which the Department of Defense (DOD) has used retention flexibilities available to it to target critical or understaffed career fields. In its December 2015 memo on using the expedited hiring authority for certain defense acquisition workforce positions, DOD designated 12 of the 14 acquisition workforce career fields as shortage or critical needs categories. We identified $123.9 million authorized in recruitment and retention flexibilities for DOD’s civilian acquisition workforce from fiscal year 2014 to 2018, and categorized them as (1) recruitment bonuses, (2) relocation bonuses, (3) retention bonuses, and (4) student loan repayments (see appendix II for additional information on these recruitment and retention flexibilities). We further categorized the recruitment and retention flexibilities by DOD’s 14 acquisition workforce career fields and ordered the career fields by total dollars authorized by DOD. See figures 11 through 14 below.

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Nathan Tranquilli (Assistant Director), Claire Li (Analyst-in-Charge), TyAnn Lee, and Ashley Rawson made key contributions to this report. Lorraine Ettaro, Christopher Falcone, Lori Fields, Cynthia Grant, Laura Greifner, and Sylvia Schatz also contributed to this report.