Summary: GAO conducted a general management review of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), focusing on its leadership role in addressing governmentwide human resource problems.
GAO found that: (1) the federal government has difficulty hiring, managing, and retaining quality staff; (2) such factors as lack of comparable pay with the private sector, a widespread negative image of federal service, and short-term budget cuts have been cited as limiting the government's ability to hire and retain quality personnel; (3) OPM has not developed a systematic planning effort to identify and resolve current and future human resource problems governmentwide; (4) OPM has not established a database to measure the quality of the federal workforce and has approved only four research and demonstration projects in 10 years; and (5) OPM has not provided agencies with workforce planning guidelines to properly identify governmentwide staffing needs. GAO believes that OPM needs to: (1) develop a program to continually assess its hiring efforts; (2) assist other agencies in their efforts to improve performance management and productivity; (3) reinforce its oversight and evaluation efforts; and (4) resolve internal management morale and communications problems.
