Strategic Workforce Planning: Challenges Impair USAID’s Ability to Establish a Comprehensive Human Capital Approach

Audit Report
Report Number
9-000-22-001-P

Why We Did This Audit

For nearly 30 years, USAID has worked to improve its strategic planning to maintain a talented, diverse, and adaptable workforce. In December 2019, Congress appropriated funding to USAID to increase its civil service and Foreign Service permanent staffing levels. However, the Agency has struggled to achieve the congressionally funded levels amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly impacted USAID’s hiring efforts.

Our objectives were to determine the extent to which USAID (1) met congressionally funded staffing targets, identifying factors that facilitated or impeded those efforts, and (2) identified Agency-wide skill gaps and tracked progress toward addressing those gaps through its hiring practices and mechanisms.

Key Findings

Due to reduced human capital staffing levels, short hiring timelines, and COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, USAID was unable to reach congressionally funded staffing levels. Despite adjusting its processes to reach hiring targets, USAID faced challenges in disseminating guidance to help staff navigate hiring changes and in addressing the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, USAID did not have an Agency-specific definition of "skill gap" or a centralized tool to track skill gaps. As a result, USAID did not centrally track skill gaps or its progress toward closing skill gaps across all hiring mechanisms.

We made five recommendations to improve USAID’s staffing, strategic workforce planning guidance, and skill-gap tracking.

9-000-22-001-P.pdf2.01 MB

Recommendations

Recommendation
1

Develop a plan to fill and retain the allocated number of Office of Human Capital and Talent Management staff needed to fulfill its duties in the hiring and onboarding process.

Questioned Cost
0
Funds for Better Use
0
Recommendation
2

Develop and disseminate policies for the revised civil service recruitment and hiring process and standard operating procedures for the modified Foreign Service staff hiring and onboarding processes.

Questioned Cost
0
Funds for Better Use
0
Recommendation
3

Create a USAID-specific definition of skill gaps to address both competency and staffing skill gaps across its hiring mechanisms.

Questioned Cost
0
Funds for Better Use
0
Recommendation
4

Finalize strategic workforce planning guidance, to include USAID's updated Strategic Workforce Plan, workforce planning Automated Directives System chapter, and materials to assist Agency operating units in identifying and addressing skill gaps.

Questioned Cost
0
Funds for Better Use
0
Recommendation
5

Conduct an analysis to determine whether personnel tools-e.g., Talent Analytics, LaunchPad, the Workforce Planning Model, or the Competency Exploration for Development and Readiness-can be utilized to track skill gaps at both an Agency and operating unit level and implement changes as appropriate based on this analysis.

Questioned Cost
0
Funds for Better Use
0