Report outlines lessons of GAO personnel reforms

Leaders of the movement to overhaul the government's personnel system would do well to heed the lessons of the Government Accountability Office's human resources efforts, according to a new report.

The report, from the IBM Center for the Business of Government, studied GAO's implementation of personnel reforms under authorities granted by Congress. The GAO is an oversight agency that audits federal agency activities for Congress.

As far back as 1980, Congress allowed GAO to establish a performance- and market-based pay system for employees. In the years following the act, GAO set up a management review group to establish individual raises. The group considers an employee's performance appraisal, a self-evaluation, firsthand knowledge of the employee by the review group members, and the worker's performance relative to other workers. The employee is then categorized as exceptional, meritorious, commendable or acceptable in order to determine pay.

Comptroller General David Walker, who began his 15-year term as head of GAO in 1998, has pushed further changes in the personnel system.

Walker's first major reform involved eliminating a layer of management at the agency, consolidating 35 working groups into 13, and reducing the agency's field offices from 16 to 11, the report states. At the same time, Walker gave research team leaders the responsibility for staff development, pushing personnel decisions down the chain of command.

The GAO Personnel Flexibilities Act of 2000 gave the agency the authority to offer buyouts to longtime staffers "as a way to rebalance what had become a very top-heavy agency," the report states.

In 2004, Congress gave GAO the discretion to make counteroffers to employees considering leaving the agency, which "several staff report were key in their staying at GAO," the report found.

GAO officials also had to deal with the issue of "evaluation inflation," the report found. "Looking at the distribution on a five-point scale, the average was 4.62," Walker said. "We were Lake Wobegon"-a reference to entertainer Garrison Keillor's fictional town where "all the children are above average."

To address ratings inflation, employees at GAO now are rated on 11 competencies such as "the ability to think critically, achieve results, and work within a team," the report stated.

Walker "has transformed GAO from a family-owned-style business to much more of a multinational corporation-like organization," GAO employee of 32 years Bob Robinson told the report's authors. "If you're a family-owned business, you're reluctant to make waves with people you work with, so you never say anything that might make them hurt or angry, and that's a very ineffectual approach from the standpoint of making anything better."

The report said that GAO still faces the challenge of providing substantial raises for top performers within budget constraints. "At some point," the report states, "GAO may simply have to consider getting somewhat smaller in order to maintain the promise of higher pay for high performance."

Unease among employees about changing evaluation and compensation procedures is inevitable, the report found. To address this issue, Walker created an Employee Advisory Council with 22 employee representatives. GAO also developed a three-step procedure for employees to air grievances about management. Employees first go to their supervisor, then to a regional director and finally to the chief operating officer to resolve their issues.

While the IBM report touts GAO as a model for the rest of the government, it also includes some voices of dissent, notably National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley.

"I'm familiar with what David Walker is trying and says he's accomplished," Kelley told the report's authors. "And if they've moved off the General Schedule, then maybe they've learned some things. I think what they're doing should be watched, but including the mistakes."

The report also acknowledged that because of GAO's highly skilled, relatively small workforce, and because it does not provide services directly to the public, it might not be an entirely appropriate model upon which to base personnel reform.