NASA: Major Management Challenges and Program Risks Page: 4 of 17
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NASA believes that similar workforce problems affect the entire agency
and that, as a result, its ability to perform future missions and manage its
programs may be at risk. Currently, the average age of NASA's workforce
is over 45, and 15 percent of NASA's science and engineering employees
are eligible to retire; within 5 years, about 25 percent will be retirement
eligible. At the same time, the agency is finding it difficult to hire people
with science, engineering, and information technology skills-fields
critical to NASA's missions. Within the science and engineering workforce,
the over-60 population currently outnumbers the under-30 population
nearly 3 to 1. As the pool of scientists and engineers shrinks, competition
for these workers intensifies. The agency also faces the loss of significant
procurement expertise through 2007, according to NASA's Inspector
General.4 Coupled with these concerns, NASA has limited capability for
personnel tracking and planning, particularly on an agencywide or
programwide basis. Furthermore, NASA acknowledges that it needs to
complete and submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a
transformation workforce restructuring plan, which it notes that, in
conjunction with its strategic human capital plan, will be critical to
ensuring that skill gaps or deficiencies do not exist in mission- critical
occupations.5
NASA is taking steps to address its workforce challenges. For example:
* NASA is developing an agencywide integrated workforce planning and
analysis system that aims to track the distribution of NASA's workforce
across programs, capture critical competencies and skills, determine
management and leadership depth, and facilitate gap analyses. NASA has
completed a pilot of an interim competency management system to
facilitate analyses of gaps in skills and competencies. NASA plans to
implement the interim system agencywide in 2003 and integrate it with the
new comprehensive workforce planning and analysis system in 2005. The
new system should foster better management of the existing workforce
and enable better strategic decisions about future workforce needs.
* NASA has developed a strategic human capital plan, which identifies
human capital goals, problems, improvement initiatives, and intended
4See National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Audit Report: Procurement
Workforce Planning, IG-01-041 (Washington, D.C.: September 2001).
5As stated in President's Management Agenda Action Plans for the National Aeronautics
And Space Administration, (Washington, D.C.: May 9, 2002). This document is an
agreement between NASA and OMB on NASA's plans for addressing the governmentwide
initiatives in The President's Management Agenda.GAO-03-849T NASA Challenges and Risks
Page 3
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United States. General Accounting Office. NASA: Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, text, June 12, 2003; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc290235/m1/4/: accessed March 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.