HUMAN RESOURCES: Company is Meeting Hiring Goals but Has Opportunities to Improve Hiring Efficiency

Our objective was to assess the extent to which the company is prepared to hire, onboard, and retain a sufficient agreement workforce to execute its growth plans. During the audit, we revised our scope and methodology to identify any challenges in the Human Resources department that were contributing to delays and tracking issues in the hiring process.

Company officials told us they reached their workforce goals in FY 2023, and they expect to continue meeting hiring needs in FY 2024. We identified opportunities, however, for the company to improve the efficiency of its hiring processes. Specifically, we found that the company faces challenges with two distinct sets of data—hiring timeline data, which captures milestones in the hiring process, and clearance data, which tracks whether candidates have passed the company’s background checks and other preemployment requirements. Using more precise, reliable data and incorporating more comprehensive hiring metrics could help the company diagnose any potential delays in order to remain competitive in a tight labor market.

We recommended that the company validate the reliability of its hiring timeline data and implement tools to centrally analyze and routinely report performance metrics at each phase of its hiring process. In addition, we recommended that the company explore opportunities to minimize manual processes across preboarding clearance systems and implement a process to regularly confirm the accuracy of preboarding data (data on background checks, drug tests, and other actions to promote safe operations).