What is any high performing organization’s most valuable asset? Its workforce!

Full-time employees, volunteers, part-time staff, executives, frontline workers, consultants, managers, and contractors comprise the “human capital” of an organization, and are an essential component to an organization’s success. In the federal government, however, strategic human capital management is a pervasive challenge. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has included human capital on its high-risk list. Past and current presidential administrations emphasize workforce planning and restructuring that require federal agencies to flatten their organizational hierarchy and improve their work processes. To optimize the services they provide, federal employees must understand the link between their daily work and the results their organization seeks to achieve.

How do organizations effectively invest in employees and align policies to support people and organizational performance goals? This question is explored in a report by the GAO entitled, “Human Capital: Practices that Empowered and Involved Employees.”

The authors reviewed five government agencies (IRS, FAA, VA, FEMA, and OPM) to determine the common practices used to help empower and involve employees, and to illuminate the organizational and cultural barriers that inhibit their implementation.
    
Officials at each agency were asked to identify the programs that empowered their employees. Interviews were conducted with executives, managers, supervisors, and front-line employees for their opinions of the most valuable initiatives. Six key practices were determined to empower and involve employees.

The following list outlines these key practices:

1)    Demonstrate top leadership commitment, without which new ideas and changes will not succeed.
Examples:
•    Think strategically about areas where innovation would make good business sense
•    Create an environment of trust and honest communication
•    Target investments and provide incentives to facilitate change

2)    Engaging employee unions in making changes.
Examples:
•    Develop and maintain an ongoing working relationship with unions
•    Build trust over time

3)    Training employees to enhance their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Job specific training should also include training in teamwork and communication, as well as encouragement through mentoring and networking as they adapt to new ways of working and changes in their roles and job expectations.
Examples:
•    Provide a mix of on-the-job and formal training
•    Commit to sufficient funding and time to training

4)    Using employee teams to help accomplish agency missions. Assume a teams-based approach to operations, using open communication. This approach enhances flexibility when meeting job demands and provides a sense of shared responsibility for accomplishing agency goals.
Examples:
•    Create teams of employees who represent multiple organizational functions and different grade levels (a “diagonal slice" of the organization)
•    Establish an integrated working environment with common goals (avoiding isolated “silos”)
•    Assign team responsibilities and provide an environment for learning

5)    Involving employees in planning and sharing performance information. This can ensure all employees understand the organization’s goals and how it is going to get there.
Examples:
•    Post performance information throughout the workplace
•    Share performance information in meetings
•    Survey employees on their views regarding organizational direction

6)    Delegating authorities to front line employees. This will enable employees to control their own work processes and schedules.
Examples:
•    Empower on-site staff with authority to make decisions
•    Eliminate layers of review
•    Provide more time for managers to focus on problem areas or policy matters

Additionally, the study examined the barriers that inhibited the actual application of these six key practices. Three common barriers were identified:

1)    Lack of trust
2)    Resistance to change and lack of buy-in
3)    Implementation issues

The report concluded that in order to implement new workforce-based strategies, all members of an organization must understand the rationale for the change and accept it before large initiatives can take shape and influence future performance. The agencies in this report developed strategies to address these barriers, such as maintaining open communication, and reassigning and hiring personnel. In implementing the practices to empower and involve employees, agencies identified a range of examples to demonstrate the performance improvements these efforts have accomplished.  

If you’re interested in reading the entire report, copy and paste the following link into your web browser: www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-01-1070

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