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The Defense Department's human capital plan is inadequate and could hinder its ability to fill certain mission-critical jobs with qualified personnel, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In a letter sent to key members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees on Wednesday, GAO said the Pentagon was not prepared to meet several looming workforce challenges, especially considering half of its civilian personnel are eligible to retire in the next few years.

"This is becoming a long-standing issue," GAO said. "Without a plan that addresses all of the elements essential to a successful workforce plan ... DoD's future workforce may not possess the critical skills and competencies needed."

A fiscal 2006 Defense authorization law directed the department to develop and submit to Congress a plan to shape and improve its civilian workforce. The plan was to include several key elements, such as skills required in future Defense employees to support national security, and projected workforce trends based on retirement or attrition. Defense submitted the blueprint to Congress on Nov. 6, 2007.

The law also required GAO to review and report on Defense's plan no later than 90 days after the plan was submitted.

GAO found that Defense's human capital plan did not address six out of the eight congressional reporting requirements. Specifically, GAO said, the plan did not include a required assessment of mission-critical competencies, future critical skills, gaps between current and future needs, or specific recruiting and retention goals.

Moreover, while the plan did address some of the law's requirements, it ignored other mandates. For example, the blueprint did not look at workforce planning over the next decade, GAO found. Specific strategies for training, compensating and motivating employees also were lacking.

Still, Defense has made some notable progress. For example, the department established a Hiring Heroes program and created a Web site to help disabled veterans return to productive employment. Defense also used the Pipeline Employment Program to enable employees with job-related injuries and illnesses to return to work.

Patricia Bradshaw, Defense deputy undersecretary for civilian personnel policy, disagreed with GAO's findings in a written response.

"Our response to the congressional reporting requirement reflected a centralized enterprisewide strategic perspective, which was called for in the report," Bradshaw wrote. "Our plan is to include more compressive documents in our required March 2008 report."

Specifically, Bradshaw said, the department disagreed with GAO's finding that the agency's workforce strategies did not address development, training and compensating employees over the next decade, and cited two examples of such efforts: the National Security Education Program, through which the department grants scholarships for the study of language and cultures, and the Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation program, which assists students with tuition in the science, technology and mathematics arena in exchange for a service commitment.

Defense also makes use of the student loan repayment benefit, special salary rates, recruitment, retention and relocation incentives, and compensation flexibilities offered by the National Security Personnel System, she added.

GAO recommended that Defense submit to Congress in March an updated human capital plan that addresses all of the statutory requirements in the 2006 law.

Otherwise, GAO said, "Congress will not have the information it needs to exercise effective oversight over DoD's efforts to hire, develop and retain the best possible civilian workforce for the 21st century challenges."

COMMENTS

• Having recently become a victum of the NSPS pay system I can assure you that all of the concerns and fears previuosly expressed by government employees are real. An expontential increase in the amount of DOD employee that retire early or obtain employment outside of DOD can be directly linked to NSPS. The NSPS pay system created invisible barriers called control points within the authorized 2008 pay bands which prohibited many senior DOD employees from receiving a fair, equal and proportionate base salary increases because of their position in the pay band. Even with a very high performance rating the contol points resulted in topped out employees incurring the equivilent of a half step demotion. The system that was sold as a way to attract talent and experience will quickly drive out the majority of seasoned employees who are under the CSRS retirement system by forever limiting the amount of base salary increases that would have counted toward their high three retirement. The control points that prohibited NSPS pay pools from awarding salary increases will have long term irreversible compounding adverse impact to Local Market Supplements, Social Security, retirement contributions, overtime and Life insurance benefits of NSPS employees. NSPS Posted April 9, 2008 7:22 PM
• Art said "Two issues with GAO findings. The much talked about "Retirement Flush" has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade, yet it has not come nor has a shortage of personnel been experienced." In our organization we have over 175 vacancies, nearly 25% of the workforce. Lots of people retiring and no one coming in to take their place. Most position announcements get no response and the ones that do are rarely filled because potential candidates withdraw their names when they find out we are under NSPS. Glenn Posted March 12, 2008 11:09 AM
• Mark, you said that... DOD doesn't hire America's best and brightest... that's not the issue. The issue is that once they are hired, NSPS will ensure they don't advance at anywhere near the same rate they used to. Here's a quick quiz... when has the government ever offered anything "new" that was actually better for the employee? Is FERS better than CSRS? any other examples? Amazed by the Lemmings Posted March 6, 2008 8:34 AM