An IG report has identified “staffing gaps, frequent turnover, poor oversight, and inexperienced and undertrained staff” as a major management challenge at the State Department, adding that those issues “frequently contribute to the department’s other management challenges.”
It cited as an example one report finding that staffing constraints, a large number of temporary staff and turnover “led to a lack of institutional memory and subject matter expertise, reactive operations, an inability to properly monitor foreign assistance, and difficulty managing the workload while maintaining a work-life balance.”
“The lack of appropriate training was another aspect of this challenge, detailed in multiple reports,” it said. Among those were reports finding that certain embassies did not conduct required training on safety, health, and environmental management, failed to provide a locally employed staff training program, and training related to the operation and maintenance of heavy machinery.
“This issue of training often underlies” a separate management challenge of overseeing contracts and grants, it said. It listed other management challenges as protecting people and facilities, managing and securing information, managing property and finances, and operating in contingency and critical environments.
It added that problems it first identified in 2016 with internal communications are continuing in the decade-old ConsularOne Modernization Program, which aims to consolidate legacy technology systems. That has “led to misunderstandings among staff and contractors concerning office priorities, eroded trust between divisions, and reduced operational effectiveness.”
Part of the problem it added, is that “leadership responsible for the program was unable to provide a clear, uniform definition of the ConsularOne program, what components it included, and which contracts supported the program, creating confusion for stakeholders.”
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