Thank you Mr. Chairman. You and I have worked together to give agencies the tools and resources needed to recruit, retain, and manage their workforce. I was pleased to join you in offering an amendment to the Homeland Security Act providing a number of new workforce flexibilities for the federal government, including direct hire authority for certain skilled employees, targeted buyouts and early retirement, categorical ranking, as well as the creation of chief human capital officers and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council. It is in that spirit that I thank you for holding today's hearing to review the implementation, use, and training and education related to these new flexibilities.
According to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, agencies cite several barriers to using the new flexibilities, including the lack of guidance and rigid regulations from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Although OPM has recently engaged in a number of activities to address this issue, I am interested in hearing OPM's long-term strategy to help agencies use flexibilities effectively.
The need for stronger leadership from OPM in the use of workforce flexibilities is not new. In 2003, GAO found that while OPM had taken several actions to assist agencies, such as issuing a handbook that identified available flexibilities, human resources directors gave mixed views on OPM's role. According to GAO, even though the level of satisfaction was higher for OPM in identifying additional flexibilities, OPM fell below the satisfaction level for assistance with existing flexibilities. This long-standing problem requires systematic change.
I wish to be fair to OPM because this problem is larger than OPM. Agencies must do their part too by engaging in strategic workforce planning and skills assessments and working with the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to determine best practices, eliminate internal red tape, and utilize the flexibilities best suited to meet their needs.
Such action is essential as, despite continuing efforts to reduce inefficiencies and reform the hiring process, studies show that the federal government lags far behind the private sector in its ability to recruit, hire, retain, and manage a skilled workforce.
A striking example is its failure to take advantage of the talents and skills of the more than 50,000 student interns federal agencies utilize each year. Approximately 25 percent of private sector interns are hired as permanent employees after an internship while the federal government retains less than 5 percent of its interns on a permanent basis. These numbers are quite troubling in light of an increased interest in federal employment during the past few years and the number of employees eligible to retire. We may be winning the hearts and minds of Americans seeking employment with the federal government, but we are still losing the talent war.
We in Congress must do our part to ensure that the federal government has the right people, with the right skills, in the right place at the right time. Chairman Voinovich, you and I have committed ourselves to that cause, and I look forward to our continued partnership. I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses
