Skills gaps contributed to 20 of the 37 high-risk areas on its latest list. The report covers the state of affairs after the last two years of the Biden administration, prior to current wave of mass dismissals. Image: Valery Evlakhov/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffEven before the ongoing and planned cuts in federal employment, “strategic human capital management” remained on the GAO’s high-risk list, as it had in those biennial reports since first being added in 2001.
“Skills gaps, both within federal agencies and across the federal workforce, pose a high risk to the nation because they impede the government from cost effectively serving the public and achieving desired results. Agencies experience skills gaps when they have an insufficient number of individuals or individuals without the appropriate skills or abilities to successfully perform their work,” it said.
In a report that essentially covers the state of affairs after the last two years of the Biden administration, GAO said that leadership commitment and capacity to address that problem were only partially met. However, it did credit OPM with taking steps during that time such as promoting the “pooled hiring” approach and addressing skills gaps in its own workforce in areas such as project management, organizational performance, leadership development, and data analytics.
GAO also found only partial progress toward development of a government-wide action plan at OPM and of individual plans by agencies, as well as toward monitoring skills gaps to determine if mitigation strategies are successful. Both OPM and agencies further “need to demonstrate improvement in their capacity to perform workforce planning, train staff effectively, and recruit and retain the appropriate number of staff with the necessary skills,” it said.
GAO added that skills gaps contributed to 20 of the 37 high-risk areas on its latest list.
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