FEMA faces challenges in carrying out two workforce initiatives, the Surge Capacity Force and the FEMA Corps, a GAO report has said, noting that as of January of this year the former was only at 26 percent of its staffing target of 15,400 personnel and that the agency does not have a plan for how it will increase the number of volunteers to meet that goal.
The report noted that FEMA uses both permanent and temporary employees to respond to disasters and that in 2012 the agency created those two initiatives.
“Since 2007, GAO has found that FEMA faced challenges in completing and integrating its strategic workforce planning efforts. As a result, GAO recommended that FEMA develop a plan that identifies workforce gaps and includes performance metrics for monitoring progress. GAO has also identified other workforce challenges at FEMA, including low employee morale,” it said.
GAO cited issues including lack of cost information for the FEMA corps and lack of performance measures that correspond to program goals.
FEMA officials pointed to plans including a new incident workforce planning model to determine the optimal mix of workforce components to include in FEMA’s disaster workforce, a new human capital strategic plan that will help ensure it has the optimal workforce to carry out its mission, and an executive-level steering committee to help ensure that these workforce planning efforts are completed and integrated.
