Federal agencies in general have experienced difficulties in defining
practical and meaningful measures that assess the impact human capital
strategies have on programmatic results. For example, in its fiscal
year 2003 performance plan, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
identified goals of streamlining its organization and developing its
workforce, but listed no measures to gauge progress for either
goal.[Footnote 29] In contrast, the Environmental Protection Agency's
(EPA) fiscal year 2003 performance plan includes measures of the
agency's efforts to achieve activity-oriented human capital goals, such
as implementing a workforce planning model at five offices by the end
of the year and completing a comprehensive pay review. These
performance measures provide a base upon which EPA can seek to gauge
how well its human capital efforts help the agency to achieve its
programmatic goals.