Rules, Rights and RIFs

The Office of Personnel Management this week issued final regulations on how agencies should help employees who are laid off find new jobs.

Under the regulations, which are effective July 9, agencies are required to provide career transition assistance to employees who are targeted for reductions-in-force (RIFs). Most agencies already have programs to help laid-off workers.

According to OPM, agencies' career transition assistance efforts should include the following:

• A program that provides job hunting assistance for employees who are served RIF notices. Agencies must brief employees on assistance that is available to them.
• Policies for retraining employees for new career opportunities.
• A policy that gives employees who are laid off preference for vacant positions within the agency.
• A policy that gives employees who are laid off from other agencies preference for vacant positions, after employees who are laid off from within the agency.

During the test period for the regulations, OPM received complaints from employees facing RIFs who said agencies didn't inform them if they were being considered for positions for which they applied under the regulations' preference policy. Agencies are now required to provide employees with written notice of the status of their applications.

The regulations also extend preferential status to certain groups of employees, including lawyers, chaplains, teachers in Defense Department schools, medical professionals in the Department of Veterans Affairs and other employees who fall under Schedules A and B of the excepted service.

Many agencies have developed comprehensive career transition assistance programs.

The Defense Department's Priority Placement Program found new jobs for more than 9,000 employees who faced layoffs during fiscal 1996. Non-defense agencies placed more than 1,000 laid-off workers using similar programs. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program placed 418 RIFed employees in other agencies during fiscal 1996.

Employees from several federal agencies developed a Web site for displaced employees called "Planning Your Future," at safetynet.doleta.gov. The site includes several guides for RIFed employees on finding new jobs and what will happen to their benefits.

In the Washington area, centers have been set up to help displaced employees under the Metro Area Reemployment Project.