GAO was among government agencies singled out in a recent report by international accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as having a good plan for executive succession. Others, the report said, don’t seem to be paying enough attention to the issue, even as demographics point to a “leadership crisis” as key senior executives approach retirement.

There’s a “strong linkage between the HR function and the strategy of the organization,” said Scott McIntyre, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers and head of the firm’s federal business advisory practice.

While government agencies face unique challenges in attracting and retaining good leaders—top executives typically are paid less than their counterparts in private industry, and policies and regulations provide less flexibility in hiring, firing and promotion decisions—there are ways to overcome those obstacles, McIntyre said. The report identified six key elements of a successful leadership succession policy:

1. Understand the current state of the pipeline: At GAO, executive attrition is reviewed quarterly, and a sophisticated computer model based on demographics and past attrition predicts hiring needs for each department at all levels. Each year, department heads are given this data and asked to forecast their needs. From there, the agency makes plans for leadership succession and hiring.

2. Understand the process of leadership development: GAO’s executive candidate program puts 10 to 12 potential “core” executives through 18 months of on-the-job and in-class training to expose them to different aspects of the agency’s mission. The agency used to select a new class of recruits every two years, but “because of the demographics of the baby boom, we now run it on an annual basis,” Harper said. The program is open to external candidates as well as current GAO employees, and similar programs are provided for senior technical experts not on a management track, she said.

3. Know how to fill the pipeline: It’s important to track gaps in the talent pool in order to understand how and where to fill them quickly, the report said. NASA, another agency praised in the report for its succession planning, uses outside contractors to perform many functions, so its leadership-training efforts are focused on oversight. “We manage the people doing the work, versus having the huge workforce to do the work,” said Doc Mirelson, the agency’s news chief. “You develop smart managers and you devote enough expertise to it and keep the agency going forward.”

4. Track the talent within the pipeline: Once a leadership pipeline is established, it’s important to constantly evaluate how the people in it and the needs of the organization are likely to change over time, McIntyre said. “You want to be looking at your pipeline and saying, ‘This is a snapshot. I recognize that by tomorrow there are going to be elements of it that are obsolete,’ ” he said. Training programs can be useful if they are well managed, but McIntyre cautioned that having a plan is not enough if it’s not constantly being monitored and evaluated.

5. Use the talent pipeline data: “The federal government has got to be one of the best talent pools in our entire economy,” McIntyre said. “The best practice would be to do governmentwide succession planning.” Outside of that, he said, planning should be done at “the highest level possible”—at the department, rather than agency, level, for example.

6. Add a leadership position and focus resources to support the pipeline: Having a “central steward of the leadership talent pipeline” has helped many private companies develop their succession plans, the report said. This “unifies” the oversight of “often-separate” training and selection processes.