From the making of laws to the writing of regulations and on down to the structures and processes of operating offices around the government, federal HR is struggling and often failing.

Why do I say that? We have a broken hiring system. Training is not a priority. Customers complain that they cannot get good service, except from a handful of HR superstars, in many agencies. Job applicants are treated more like product than people. Despite the efforts of a lot of good HR folks, from almost every perspective the HR function is broken.

The problems are not the fault of the majority of HR practitioners. Most agencies have a lot of dedicated HR folks. They work hard and do their best with the rules and tools they have to work with, doing the work the way they were taught to do it. The problem is that the rules and tools are inadequate and the way most people are taught to do the work was OK in the last millennium, but not in this one.