New personnel rules to come out this week
Federal managers could have more discretion in hiring decisions, while federal workers could get the government to pay for academic degrees, under regulations that the Office of Personnel Management will publish this week.
Federal managers could have more discretion in hiring decisions, while federal workers could get the government to pay for academic degrees, under regulations that the Office of Personnel Management will publish this week.
OPM Director Kay Coles James on Wednesday said that the hiring and training regulations will be published in the Federal Register on Friday. James made the announcement at the first meeting of the government's new Chief Human Capital Officers Council, at the Old Executive Office Building's Indian Treaty Room in Washington.
"These are hard-fought and hard-won flexibilities," James told the human capital officers, who were appointed last month as the top personnel officials in each major agency.
The regulations stem from civil service reforms tucked in the 2002 Homeland Security Act, the main purpose of which was the creation of the Homeland Security Department. The regulations include changes to the federal hiring process that managers have long sought, including the ability to directly hire candidates without going through extensive bureaucratic processes and the ability to select from more than the three designated top applicants.
The standard hiring process will still be in effect, under which applicants are rated based on an assessment process and then placed on a list of eligible candidates, ranked in order of their scores in the assessment process. Under the so-called "rule of three," managers must select an employee from the top three candidates on the list.
But agencies will be able to use two alternative hiring processes under the new regulations, direct hire authority and categorical ranking. Agencies will be able to directly hire candidates only for jobs for which an agency has a severe shortage of candidates or a critical need to fill positions quickly. The direct hire authority allows agencies to bypass the usual lengthy hiring process. Under categorical ranking, agencies assess applicants and then put candidates into categories such as "most qualified," "qualified," and "not qualified." Then managers can select any candidate in the top category, giving first dibs to any military veterans in the category. Categorical ranking is an acknowledgement of federal managers' widely held belief that the current ranking system does not always place the best candidates in the top three spots on candidate lists.
The other major regulation to be issued on Friday, and based on a reform included in the Homeland Security Act, allows agencies to more easily pay for employees' academic training. Current law places numerous restrictions on when agencies can reimburse or pay for employees to get degrees. The new rule will allow agencies to pay for degrees as long as the training meets an agency need and is not designed only to help an employee get a promotion. Members of the Senior Executive Service and employees in certain policymaking jobs are not eligible for the benefit.
The Homeland Security Act also ordered agencies to appoint chief human capital officers and created the new Chief Human Capital Officers Council. Their first meeting, chaired by OPM Director James, focused on administrative issues and on a review of OPM initiatives, including the regulations to be issued Friday.
David Chu, chief human capital officer for the Defense Department, urged the council to focus on improving the government's recruitment strategies. Bill Leidinger, chief human capital officer for the Education Department, said the council will need to be involved in policymaking and strategy development. If the council is only a conduit for messages from OPM, people won't attend its meetings, Leidinger said.
James said the council will set policy and strategy. "This is a make-stuff-happen council," she said. She also said that chief human capital officers will not be permitted to send subordinates to the meetings. "If we allow representatives, by the end of the summer, I'll be meeting with summer interns," James said.
The chief human capital officers are supposed to bring a more strategic approach to agencies' workforce management than human resources directors managed to demonstrate in the past. A key task will be reforming agencies' personnel processes to change the view of many front-line supervisors and mid-level managers that federal human resources offices get in the way of, rather than help with, creating a strong workforce.
"I believe with leadership there's a lot that can be done," James said.