The panel also recommended that CDC examine, strengthen and integrate its management data systems, needed to enhance the management and implementation of awards and compensation programs.
It said CDC’s historical workforce data has significant gaps and inconsistencies and that the agency has been hampered to some extent by the lack of an internal human capital function, a software conversion, and too many systems operating under too many different requirements.
For example, AHRC and OWCD rely on 115 individual record systems, according to the report.
It said CDC also lacks quantitative and qualitative data as to why people come to work there and why they leave, and has made limited use of HHS’s entrance and exit survey tool even though it pledged to make greater use of it as far back as 2005.
Just as it tracks public health data to support its mission, the CDC must also collect, maintain and analyze relevant and consistent workforce data, the panel said.
It called on CDC to take the following actions: make a financial investment in revamping current systems to ensure data quality and consistency; demonstrate a leadership commitment to move beyond a historical predisposition against centralized reporting and tracking; link budget and payroll systems to increase their allocation and tracking capabilities; coordinate the data and definitions used in different payroll and human capital systems; and, automate CDC component-level organizational charts and senior-level staffing patterns/contact information, making it available online or an the agency’s intranet.
