Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today the release of a Management Advisory Memorandum to the Justice Management Division (JMD) identifying concerns related to the DOJ’s human resources (HR) policies.
The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identified deficiencies in DOJ’s HR policies during a review we undertook after including enhancing human capital in the OIG’s most recent report on Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Justice–2020. Our review found that DOJ lacked formalized Department-wide guidance for implementing and managing vital approaches for effective and progressive human capital administration. Moreover, DOJ has not fulfilled its internal requirement to review and update its HR policies every 5 years, which has resulted in significantly dated, and at times inaccurate, Department-wide policies. We also have concerns that DOJ lacks a centralized location for its HR guidance and various policies.
We believe that current, complete, and consistent HR policies are fundamental to DOJ’s HR infrastructure and human capital management efforts. The policy issues that we identified through this review may not only contribute to DOJ components’ lack of knowledge of essential HR authorities and procedures, but they could weaken the Department’s ability to recruit and retain high-performing employees and to remain competitive with other federal agencies.
The DOJ OIG made four recommendations to JMD to address the HR policy concerns that we identified. JMD agreed with all four recommendations and informed the OIG that it is taking steps to achieve the recommended results of the OIG’s MAM.