IRS speeds up hiring time, auditors find

Despite a current hiring freeze, the Internal Revenue Service has reduced the time it takes to bring in new employees, auditors reported.

The agency’s information technology office in particular has cut the wait time from 218 days in November 2009 to about 90 days, which is close to the Office of Personnel Management’s governmentwide goal of 80 days, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The IRS Wage and Price Division is also close to the goal of 80 days.

Improvements could made, the auditors added, in IRS monitoring of hiring-time data. Some internal reports have provided inaccurate timelines and others did not sufficiently document difficulties the agency faces in attracting qualified candidates.

In May 2011, OPM Director John Berry announced that on average the government had cut hiring time from 130 days to 105 days.

IRS, which employees 100,000, must surge its hiring during tax filing season, hiring 19,000 in fiscal 2011 to meet workload demand, the report noted. The Small Business and Self-Employed Division uses a hiring process based on bringing large groups of employees on board at the same time.

TIGTA recommended that the IRS Office of Human Capital division for employment, talent and security correct problems in software programming on hiring times and issue new guidance to its employment offices. IRS management concurred with both recommendations.