Library of Congress: Strong Leadership Needed to Address Serious Information Technology Management Weaknesses Page: 26

                                
steps is consistent with activities outlined in human capital management
models that we and the Office of Personnel Management have
developed.47
Although its human capital plan calls for the organization to assess gaps
in current and anticipated skills across all employees within the Library,48
such an assessment has not been performed for IT skills. Additionally,
although identifying skills and competencies that are clearly linked to an
agency's mission and longer-term IT goals is essential-especially in an
organization like the Library, which has IT staff in every service unit-the
Library's IT human capital plan does not provide information about future
IT human resource needs.
The former acting CIO acknowledged that the Library has not performed
an organization-wide assessment of skills or future needs. Instead,
according to the acting CIO, each service unit is responsible for managing
its own human capital skills. For example, that official told us that, with
respect to OSI, skills and competencies are identified when an individual
leaves the organization, or when OSI plans to hire additional staff.
However, this approach does not provide the CIO with visibility into the
service units' IT human capital efforts. We have previously reported that
CIOs at executive branch agencies without sufficient influence over the
hiring of IT staff were limited in their ability to ensure appropriate IT staff
were being hired to meet mission needs.49
The Library has taken initial steps to assess the needs of its IT workforce.
According to the Director of Human Resources Services, the Library's
Human Capital Planning Board conducted a pilot initiative in the
Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate within Library Services
to identify competencies and skills, including those relating to IT.
According to the Director of Human Resources Services, the Library
plans to identify skills and competencies, including those relating to IT, to
be used initially in order to assess the skills for three succession planning
47Office of Personnel Management, Human Capital Assessment and Accountability
Framework-Systems, Standards, and Metrics
(http://www.opm.gov/hcaafresource_center!).
48Library of Congress, Human Capital Management Plan (December 2010).
49GAO, Federal Chief Information Officers: Opportunities Exist to Improve Role in
Information Technology Management, GAO-11-634 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2011).

GAO-15-315 Library of Congress IT Management

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