GAO Emerges as Vanguard In Personnel Management
It's a point David M. Walker, comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office, makes repeatedly when he testifies before congressional committees that oversee the federal workforce: "We strive to lead by example."</br></br>Since his arrival in November 1998, Walker has worked tirelessly to brand the GAO a model agency -- what he calls a world-class professional services organization -- that has a strategic plan, standards for judging job performance and salary scales that reward the best employees but also reflect the realities of the labor market.</br></br>Walker has used his position to help shape Bush administration policies on personnel management. He introduced the buzz phrase "human capital" to the federal government, as he did to the consulting world before coming to the GAO. Awkward as the term might be, Walker uses it to promote the idea that employees should be viewed as assets, valuable resources, not liabilities.</br></br>He regularly invokes his efforts to reorganize and reinvigorate the GAO when advising Congress on government-wide personnel policy and the progress of two large departments -- Homeland Security and Defense -- that are crafting plans to move their employees into performance-based systems.</br></br>Changes in how employees are paid and promoted are often the most sensitive issues that an agency head can tackle and, if bungled, can lower staff morale and productivity. A new study sponsored by IBM's Center for the Business of Government portrays Walker's changes as on the right track and suggests that Homeland Security, Defense and other agencies should pay more attention to the lessons learned at the GAO.