Report 2015-608 Recommendation 5 Responses

Report 2015-608: High Risk: State Departments Need to Improve Their Workforce and Succession Planning Efforts to Mitigate the Risks of Increasing Retirements (Release Date: May 2015)

Recommendation #5 To: Human Resources, California Department of

To help ensure that state departments are prepared to address the loss of highly experienced employees, CalHR should obtain annually workforce and succession plans from all departments by June 30, starting in 2016, as well as any updates to and implementation status of the plans.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2016

As of June 30, 2016, CalHR completed the process of collecting department workforce and succession plans, as well as updates to the implementation status of their plans. CalHR is using the information collected from departments to formulate new strategies to improve the process of annually collecting information about department workforce and succession planning efforts. More importantly, this information is being used by CalHR to create new tactics to ensure more departments have plans in place when we collect workforce planning information at the end of fiscal year 2016-17.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

1-Year Agency Response

CalHR remains on schedule to implement this recommendation by June 30, 2016.

As explained in our six month progress report, prior to fully implementing a new process for annually collecting department workforce plans, CalHR's Statewide Workforce Planning Unit first sought to gain support from, and establish relationships with, all agency secretaries and department directors.

The face-to-face agency and director workforce planning interviews were completed on February 28, 2016. The meetings focused on workforce challenges of greatest concern to department directors, and how CalHR can support department efforts to address those challenges through workforce planning. The information elicited during these interviews will enable CalHR to identify statewide workforce trends, which is critical to creating a statewide workforce plan that identifies and addresses systemic workforce challenges.

CalHR is currently analyzing the results of the interviews and creating a Statewide Workforce Planning Report. Among other things, this report will provide fiscal year 2015/16 data regarding the status of department efforts to create and implement workforce and succession plans. When available, department workforce plans were obtained during the director interview process.

Concurrent with the agency and director interviews, CalHR has continued to work on developing its new process for annually collecting department workforce and succession plans. In addition to annually obtaining available workforce and succession plans, this new process will also collect updates on the status of department efforts to create and implement workforce and succession plans.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

CalHR is on schedule to implement this recommendation by June 30, 2016.

As explained in our 60 day progress report, CalHR is partnering with the CSI workforce planning project team to develop a new comprehensive process for regularly collecting, evaluating and reporting on the status of department workforce and succession plans.

Concurrent with creating a new annual process for collecting department workforce and succession plans, CalHR is scheduling face to face meetings with all Agency Secretaries and Department Directors to discuss workforce planning. A copy of the memo that explains this process will be sent under separate cover as Appendix D. These meetings, to be scheduled November through January, will focus on the following two topics:

1. Workforce challenges of greatest concern to department directors.

2. How CalHR can support department efforts to address workforce challenges through workforce planning.

By conducting workforce planning interviews with department directors, CalHR will be able to identify statewide workforce trends. This information is critical to creating a statewide workforce plan that identifies and addresses systemic workforce challenges. These interviews will also help CalHR build relationships with departments as we seek to understand how we can better support their efforts to create and maintain effective workforce and succession plans.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

CalHR is on schedule to implement this recommendation by June 30, 2016.

CalHR has been in contact and requested workforce and succession plans from all departments, most of which have already provided plans and/or the status of their plans. CalHR is also partnering with a CSI project team to develop a new comprehensive process for regularly collecting, evaluating and reporting on the status of department workforce and succession plans.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2015-608

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.