Our objective was to determine whether there were lessons to be learned from (1) IRS’ initial use of these procedures and their impact on IRS’ operations and (2) the reaction of redeployed employees and their supervisors to redeployment and the redeployment process. The resulting increase in training requirements and decline in productivity could have been minimized had the Redeployment Understanding (1) limited redeployment to those employees whose jobs were being eliminated and (2) allowed IRS to move employees who had the experience and skills needed for the new jobs. A supervisor of a section at that center who had gained redeployed employees said it had been a “costly transition” because “all employees were considered redeployment eligible even if their job had not been abolished.”

			Redeployment Procedures Limited IRS’ Ability to Direct Experienced Employees to Related Jobs

With some exceptions, such as hardships and placement actions resulting from a grievance, the November 1993 Redeployment Understanding generally required that vacancies for bargaining-unit positions that would be needed in the new environment were to be filled as follows:
Lateral reassignment (or change to lower grade), based on seniority, of eligible volunteers (1) from within the local commuting area and then, if the number of volunteers was insufficient, (2) from outside the local commuting area. Conclusions

Although it seems reasonable to expect some operational inefficiencies as an inherent part of any redeployment process, those inefficiencies were exacerbated at IRS, in our opinion, by redeployment procedures that made employees eligible for redeployment too soon and prevented IRS from redirecting employees to new jobs on the basis of their related work experiences. Consequently, many of the jobs vacated by redeployed employees had to be filled again by newly hired employees. Thus, IRS’ first redeployment experience came too early to be very effective in achieving the goal of redeployment—which is to move employees out of jobs that would not be needed in the new environment and into jobs that would. Those interviews identified some concerns relating to such things as training and the amount of redeployment information provided to employees; but they also indicated that employees were generally satisfied with their new jobs, and supervisors were generally satisfied with their new employees.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) initial efforts to redeploy employees under the terms of the Redeployment Understanding, focusing on whether there were lessons to be learned from: (1) IRS' initial use of redeployment procedures and their impact on IRS' operations; and (2) the reaction of redeployed employees and their supervisors to redeployment and the redeployment process.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) if IRS develops new redeployment procedures, there are several lessons to be learned from its initial redeployment experiences; (2) although redeployment was intended as a way to move employees out of jobs that would no longer be needed in IRS' modernized environment, it was initially used to move thousands of employees whose jobs were not in immediate jeopardy into new or existing positions that were expected to be needed in the new environment; (3) many jobs vacated by redeployed employees had to be filled by new employees, who may subsequently have to redeployed; (4) training requirements increased and productivity and taxpayer services declined as experienced employees were replaced by inexperienced employees; (5) although some operational inefficiencies, such as reduced productivity and increased training, can be expected as an inherent part of any redeployment process, the negotiated Redeployment Understanding exacerbated these inefficiencies because it generally made many IRS employees eligible for redeployment years before their jobs were expected to be eliminated, and did not allow IRS to fill jobs with employees who had related experience before bringing in volunteers from unrelated areas; (6) GAO's interviews of redeployed employees and supervisors pointed to other lessons that might be learned from IRS' initial redeployment efforts; and (7) most employees were generally satisfied with their new jobs, and supervisors were generally satisfied with their new employees, but many employees cited concerns about the information IRS provided to explain the redeployment process, the assistance IRS provided to help employees find jobs, and the training IRS provided.