Summary
Training can play a key role in helping the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) successfully address the challenge of transformation and cultural change and help ensure that its workforce possesses the knowledge and skills needed to effectively respond to current and future threats. This report discusses (1) how DHS is addressing or planning to address departmentwide training and the related challenges it is encountering; (2) examples of how DHS training practices, specifically those related to planning and evaluation, reflect strategic practices; and (3) examples of how DHS uses training to foster transformation and cultural change.
DHS has taken several positive steps toward establishing an effective departmentwide approach to training, yet significant challenges remain. Progress made in addressing departmentwide training issues, but efforts are still in the early stages and face several challenges. Actions taken by DHS include issuing its first training strategic plan in July 2005, establishing training councils and groups to increase communication across components, and directly providing training for specific departmentwide needs. However, several challenges may impede DHS from achieving its departmental training goals. First, the sharing of training information across components is made more difficult by the lack of common or compatible information management systems and a commonly understood training terminology. Second, authority and accountability relationships between the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer and organizational components are not sufficiently clear. Third, DHS's planning may be insufficiently detailed to ensure effective and coordinated implementation of departmentwide training efforts. Finally, according to training officials, DHS lacks resources needed to implement its departmental training strategy. Examples of planning and evaluation of training demonstrate some elements of strategic practice. Specific training practices at both the component and departmental levels may provide useful models or insights to help others in DHS adopt a more strategic approach to training. We found that some components of DHS apply these practices, while others do not. For example, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) aligns training priorities with strategic goals through planning and budgeting processes. In the area of evaluation, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center obtains feedback from both the trainee and the trainee's job supervisor to inform training program designers in order to make improvements to the program curriculum. Training has been used to help DHS's workforce as it undergoes transformation and cultural change. The creation of DHS from different legacy organizations, each with its own distinct culture, has resulted in significant cultural and transformation challenges for the department. At the departmental level, one of the ways DHS is addressing these challenges is by encouraging the transformation to a shared performance-based culture through the implementation of its new human capital management system, MAXHR. DHS considers training to be critical to effectively implementing this initiative and defining its culture. Toward that end, the department is providing a wide range of training, including programs targeted to executives, managers, and supervisors. For example, at the component level, CBP has developed cross-training to equip employees with the knowledge needed to integrate inspection functions once carried out by three different types of inspectors at three separate agencies.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change
from "In process" to "Implemented" or "Not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director:
Team:
Phone:
George H. Stalcup
Government Accountability Office: Strategic Issues
(202) 512-9095
Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: To help DHS establish and implement an effective and strategic approach to departmentwide training, the Secretary of Homeland Security should adopt additional good strategic planning and management practices to enhance the department's training strategic plan by (1) creating a clearer crosswalk between specific training goals and objectives and DHS's organizational and human capital strategic goals and (2) developing appropriate training performance measures and targets.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: GAO has made attempts to contact cognizant DHS officials for an update on, as well as any supporting documentation of, the department's efforts to address this recommendation and we are still awaiting a response. According to an update from DHS received in March 2007, the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) is in the process of addressing this recommendation. Toward this end, DHS states that they have prepared a Learning and Development Strategic Plan to Establish a Homeland Security University System to institutionalize department and employee training, education, and professional development activities. As part of this process, DHS has informed us that: (1) the department is linking efforts to provide enterprise supervisory, leadership and development programs as a component of career path progression; and (2) training program performance measures have been identified and are being developed by the OCHCO Learning Management Program office and Training Leaders Council's Training Quality and Evaluation subgroup. We are seeking additional information and documentation regarding these efforts.
Recommendation: To help DHS establish and implement an effective and strategic approach to departmentwide training, the Secretary of Homeland Security should clearly specify authority and accountability relationships between the Chief Human Capital Officer office and organizational components regarding training as a first step to addressing issues DHS has identified for fiscal year 2006.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: GAO has made attempts to contact cognizant DHS officials for an update on, as well as any supporting documentation of, the department's efforts to address this recommendation and we are still awaiting a response. According to an update from DHS received in March 2007, the department has addressed this recommendation. Specifically, DHS states that, working in collaboration with the DHS Training Leaders Council (TLC), the department has substantially revised the two-page Management Directive (MD) 3210 referenced on pages 25 and 26 of GAO-05-888. The revised draft MD 3210 "Employee Training, Education, and Professional Development," under review by the DHS Undersecretary for Management, significantly clarifies roles, responsibilities, policy, and procedures. We are seeking additional information and documentation, including a copy of the revised MD 3210 once it becomes final.
Recommendation: To help DHS establish and implement an effective and strategic approach to departmentwide training, the Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure that the department and component organizations develop detailed implementation plans and related processes for training initiatives.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: GAO has made attempts to contact cognizant DHS officials for an update on, as well as any supporting documentation of, the department's efforts to address this recommendation and we are still awaiting a response. According to an update from DHS received in March 2007, the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) is in the process of addressing this recommendation. Toward this end, DHS states that the department's revised Management Directive 3210, Appendix A, "DHS Training Leaders Council," outlines the roles and relationships between the Training Leaders Council and the recently established DHS Learning and Development Executive Steering Committee and addresses obtaining resources to achieve common departmental objectives. We are seeking additional information and documentation, including a copy of the revised MD 3210 once it becomes final, regarding this effort.
Recommendation: To help DHS establish and implement an effective and strategic approach to departmentwide training, the Secretary of Homeland Security should, when setting funding priorities, give appropriate attention to providing resources to support training councils and groups to further DHS's capacity to achieve its departmentwide training goals.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: GAO has made attempts to contact cognizant DHS officials for an update on, as well as any supporting documentation of, the department's efforts to address this recommendation and we are still awaiting a response. According to an update from DHS received in March 2007, the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) is in the process of addressing this recommendation. Toward this end, DHS states that the department's revised Management Directive 3210, Appendix A, "DHS Training Leaders Council," outlines the roles and relationships between the Training Leaders Council and the newly-established DHS Learning and Development Executive Steering Committee and addresses obtaining resources to achieve common departmental objectives. We are seeking additional information and documentation, including a copy of the revised MD 3210 once it becomes final, regarding this effort.
