“The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have a clear sense of how many people it needs to accomplish certain tasks, particularly those with direct patient care roles, the agency’s inspector general said.”
“A VA-wide staffing model — one that tracks mission needs by facility and then determines the manpower requirements necessary to meet those demands — is still in the works, and the efforts to develop a cohesive one have been disjointed and often mired in confusion, the VA IG said in a recent report.”
“Without clear staffing models, VA and the Veterans Health Administration don’t have consistent ways of determining how many employees they need, auditors said. VA is the second-largest federal agency.”
“The department plans to develop initial staffing models for all direct-care positions by fiscal 2022, with the goal of validating them by 2024. VA told the IG it may develop new models more quickly, if it has more staff to work on them.”
“VA has long struggled to fill vacancies, particularly at VHA, which tracked 29,787 vacancies as of March of this year, according to the most recent public data available. Those numbers are an improvement over recent years, when VA consistently tracked 40,000-to-50,000 vacancies across the system.”
“Those numbers have actually improved in recent years, particularly as the VHA has hired more staff more quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA still lacks a clear picture of its workforce needs, auditors say – By Nicole Ogrysko. August 20, 2021. Federal News Network.
