produced during night hours and coordinates the scheduling during that period. There should be no realignment of procedures and responsibilities at this time. D. Personnel Policies and Practices Pages viii and 122 Recommendation: The Office of Personnel Service should be charged with the responsibility for providing GPO with identification and analysis of work force requirements. This effort should employ the solicitation of personnel needs for all line and staff units. Response: This recommendation apparently overlooks the fact that projection of manpower needs is an integral part of an integrated budget and planning process. GPO organizations are required to estimate their manpower requirements for both the immediate and long-term future in relation to their anticipated workloads. These estimates are subject to review and analysis before the organization's budget and plans are approved by management. Through these processes, the agency has a reliable forecast of its future manpower requirements. Page 122 Recommendation: Additional analysis of attrition and contributing factors is warranted if GPO expects to avoid a reduction-in-force. Response: The Production Department is the part of GPO most affected by technological developments and with the greatest possibility for a reduction-in-force. In fact, there appears to be little, if any, potential for a major RIF in any other GPO organization. The Office of the Production Manager is monitoring attrition within that Department very closely as part of its overall endeavor to avoid or at least minimize any RIF that might result from the Department's change from hot metal to electronic technology. At present, the likelihood of completely avoiding a reduction-in-force appears to be good. Pages viii and 123 Recommendation: GPO should seek to actively recruit individuals from the private sector to fill certain management and other professional positions. Additionally, a program should be developed aimed at providing managerial training as well as incentives to those motivated to pursue such training on their own time. 35-533 - 79 - 4 (Pt. 2) Response: Consideration of the career backgrounds of the agency's key executives does not substantiate this finding. The following current officials were originally hired from outside the GPO: Assistant Public Printer for Management and Administration, Assistant Public Printer (Superintendent of Documents), Assistant Public Printer (Planning), Deputy Assistant Public Printer (Superintendent of Documents), General Counsel, Director of Audits, Printing Procurement Manager, Customer Service Manager, Quality Control and Technical Manager, Director of Data Systems, Comptroller, Director of Engineering, Director of General Services, Director of Security, Director of Labor-Management Relations, Director of Personnel, Director of Documents Support Service, Director of Library and Statutory Distribution Service, Director of Documents Sales Service. Of the 24 GPO executives at or above the level of Department/Service/ Staff Office head, 18 do not have a craft background. Included among the professional positions at GPO are several Medical Doctors (MD)'s), a number of CPA's and attorneys, certified data processing professionals (CDP's), numerous college graduates with advanced degrees, including PHD's, etc. Additionally, the GPO has a formal Executive Manpower Resources Board Page 123 Recommendation: Since there are currently no plans to study this situation, it is our recommendation that a project be initiated to determine if the prevailing perceptions are accurate and the reasons why. Response: With regard to the recruiting and retention of young professionals, no such study is necessary because, in general, the agency has had very little difficulty in this area. There have been some problems in hiring auditors, accountants, engineers, and computer programmers, but these are shortage categories throughout the Government and in the private sector. Personnel Service monitors our losses of young professional employees and compares our retention rate to those of other Federal agencies. Interagency movement is to be expected for these employees as a group. They are generally more mobile than senior employees. The GPO planning process requires a complete reorientation in order for it to become an operational management tool. This means the current document must include timetables, rates of resource utilization, responsibility assignments, and measurement criteria, and links to the budget process. Response: The contractor has misconstrued the purpose of GPO's Five-Year Plan. The Public Printer established the Planning staff for the purpose of developing formal long-range strategic and contingency plans. The Five-Year Plan was not intended for use in day-to-day operations. Operational short-range planning is performed in the annual budget process by each cost center manager and it includes timetables, rates of resource utilization, responsibility assignments and measurement criteria as recommended by the contractor. In addition, the annual budget includes planned rental and/or procurement of equipment needed to modernize operations; alternative ways of performing existing work; and funding for resources needed to implement new technology. Although the Five-Year planning document, as currently formatted, appears to be more of a projection of short-range data as contained in the annual budget, increased emphasis will be placed on the long-range aspects of strategic and contingency planning. This is an ongoing process and appropriate action will be taken to ensure the planning emphasis applies as intended. Pages ix and 124 Recommendation: MBO and productivity must be integrated with each other and other processes, e.g., budget, planning, etc. Also, the 350-400 contemplated objectives for next year should be substantially reduced in order to prevent the process from becoming a mechanical reporting system as opposed to a management tool. Response: The contractor implies that GPO's MBO and Productivity Programs, etc., are not integrated. This is not so. Through the use of our budgeting process, the MBO's, productivity, planning, etc., processes are integrated at the cost center level. GPO has over 200 cost centers and each cost center manager is required, in the preparation of the annual budget, to include estimates of workload, staffing requirements necessary to accomplish this workload, functional objectives, planned capital improvements, etc. As we told the contractor at the initial interview, everything planned has not been accomplished. Integration of GPO's management information and control systems is a continuing effort. While we recognize that there is always room for improvement, GPO has come a long way in the past few years. The contractor also recommends that the number of objectives should be substantially reduced. The contractor's recommendation appears somewhat contradictory regarding the first part of the recommendation where more integration of MBO's with other processes is stressed. On one hand, the contractor suggests that MBO's be integrated with productivity and budget planning, etc., which implies greater use; and on the other hand, it suggests we reduce the number of MBO's. In addition to budget, productivity, etc., Public Law 95-454, dated October 13, 1978, an Act to reform the Civil Service laws, requires performance evaluations based on critical elements of an employee's job. Obviously, this will result in more than 400 critical elements. The MBO program requires the establishment of objectives and action plans which provide data that can be used for the multiple purpose discussed above. Pages x and 125 Recommendation: There needs to be a comprehensive "top-down" requirements analysis performed in order to inventory organization-wide information requirements, thereby promoting the development of integrated systems. Response: We have been doing this for a number of years as we so informed the contractor at the initial interview stage. In 1974, GPO established the Automated Data Services Steering Committee which is comprised of top management officials who are responsible for managing GPO's data processing resources including the establishment of integrated data bases. This is an ongoing project. Page 126 Recommendation: A GPO-wide data automation plan that is coordinated with the GPO FiveYear Plan should be developed. Additionally, the Data Base Administrator would develop guidelines and criteria for the implementation of a data base approach that would establish a single source for updating operating information. In this way, consistent results from operating data are ensured. Response: We agree with this recommendation, and a great deal of progress has been made toward this end. GPO should consider automation of cost accounting as an alternative to the highly labor intensive bookeeping process. Response: The recommendation strongly implies that none of the cost accounting system is automated. This is not so. As a matter of fact, almost every aspect of the cost accounting system has been automated and the contractor so acknowledges in various other parts of the Report. The remaining portions of the system to be automated are the hour cost books and the computation of the all inclusive hourly rate. Work is in process in this area, and we had advised the contractor that this automation was planned. Pages x and 216 Recommendation: GPO should adopt standard costing methodology to replace the continuous calculation and updating of the all inclusive rate. Such standards could be adjusted annually to maintain the revolving fund balance without the need for continuous interim monitoring. Response: The recommendation is based on an erroneous assumption, since the current cost accounting system is a standard cost accounting system and is recognized as such by the GAO. What the recommendation is implying is for GPO to establish a rigid rate and not to change the rate by interim monitoring. The only reason for adopting the contractor's recommendation would be to measure productivity with the standard cost system. This approach has two weaknesses. First, standard cost is a poor measure of productivity over the long run and we already have better means for measuring productivity. Second, the contractor's recommendation would destroy the effective use of standard costing methods for billing the customer agencies. |