FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2010
Contact: Samantha Donaldson
202-775-9111
REPORT WARNS FEDERAL HR STAFF MAY NOT BE UP TO THE TASK OF IMPLEMENTING PRESIDENT'S HIRING REFORM PLAN
WASHINGTON – The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton LLP today released Closing the Gap: Seven Obstacles to a First-Class Federal Workforce, a report examining the state of federal human capital management. The report is based on in-depth interviews with the government’s primary policy advisors on human resource management issues, the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) and other HR leaders.
Closing the Gap found that the ability to build and maintain a high-quality federal workforce is being seriously hampered by a number of longstanding, systemic and often dysfunctional practices and policies.
The federal government’s arcane hiring system has long been identified as one of the primary obstacles, an issue President Obama is seeking to address with plans slated to be fully implemented this November that will make the process more applicant-friendly, improve the speed and quality of hiring, and more fully involve managers in the hiring decisions. But many of the HR leaders worried that a significant proportion of their HR staff lack the ability and skills to successfully carry out the important reforms.
“We applaud the president for his leadership in addressing a number of pressing federal workforce issues, including the flawed federal hiring system,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. “But we are alarmed by the report’s finding that our federal government’s human resource leaders have serious doubts that their HR employees— the very people who will be on the frontlines implementing the needed reforms — have the right resources, training and support to get the job done.”
The CHCOs reported that far too many of the 25,000 federal HR employees lack the necessary skills to help their agencies improve their human resource operations and workforce management. They also believe this situation may get worse with the new demands and expectations driven by hiring and other reforms.
Besides the hiring process and HR staff capabilities, the CHCOs identified five other key obstacles to creating a first-class federal workforce: pay, classification and performance management systems; a sometimes tense relationship between federal agencies and the central HR authority, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); the leadership capabilities of federal managers; substandard HR information technology systems; and labor relations. The CHCOs also noted that insufficient resources are devoted to HR training. The individuals interviewed offered a number of recommendations for addressing these issues.
Federal workforce issues have also been a matter of concern for other federal executives. According to Grant Thornton Director Scott Cameron, a former CHCO at the Department of the Interior, “Grant Thornton has been surveying the federal management community—Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Acquisition Officers—for more than a decade. The common and continual thread across all these communities is a concern about human capital. In fact, it is typically the number one concern by a wide margin.”
Closing the Gap is the third in a series of surveys with CHCOs conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton LLP.
The Partnership for Public Service is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to revitalize the federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve and by transforming the way government works.
To download a copy of the report, go to ourpublicservice.org.
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The Partnership for Public Service is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to revitalize our federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve and by transforming the way government works.
