OPM floats new workforce management rules for agencies

The Office of Personnel Management is sharpening and formalizing requirements for how federal agencies manage their employees.

OPM published detailed expectations in Tuesday's Federal Register for agency compliance with the 2002 Chief Human Capital Officers Act, which created a council of human resources officials.

The proposed regulation centers on a new requirement for agencies to provide a detailed annual accounting of their human resources plans, including projections of personnel needs in the coming years, most critical occupations, attrition and hiring estimates, and training investments.

The regulation also sends a strong message about the division of labor between OPM and individual agencies in implementing the law.

"While OPM has an overarching leadership role in the strategic management of the federal government's human capital, employing agencies have ultimate responsibility and accountability for their respective workforce," the proposed rules stated.

Doris Hausser, a senior policy adviser at OPM, said the shift is a result of agencies' increasingly different workforces and goals.

"To be strategic -- adaptable to changing labor markets, to changing technologies -- we've got to operate our human resources management system in a fashion that is not so one-size-fits-all," Hausser said. "The onus is on the agency to be able to demonstrate to itself, to the taxpayer, to OPM, to the president [and] to the Congress that they are accountable for how they run HR and the results they achieve."

Under the new approach, OPM takes responsibility for developing metrics for assessing personnel management, which agencies can use in their annual progress reports.

OPM also will supply agencies with theories surrounding personnel management, available online at the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework resource center. HCAAF seeks to be a one-stop shop for managers. It provides reports, checklists and text of legislation on topics such as recruitment, retention, rewards and performance measurement.

OPM, under the 2002 law's authority, also will require agencies to set tangible goals in human resources. The announcement said goals must be "comprehensive [and] integrated…with detailed policy and program priorities." Agencies will have to come up with milestones to demonstrate to OPM their progress in achieving their goals.

In addition to reporting on the status of their workforce and their goals for improvement, agencies will have to annually assess their progress for OPM. The regulations require that such reports be formal, approved by OPM, involve agency leadership and include findings from an independent audit to ensure the legality of human resources operations.

Annual human capital reports must also describe deficiencies in personnel policy, and agencies' actions to correct them.

Hausser said many of the regulation's requirements are merely the formalization of work that already is going on within agencies under the President's Management Agenda.

"It's kind of like in the background offstage we've been doing [this work] for the last several years and now we're bringing everyone on stage," she said.

OPM will allow smaller agencies, on a case by case basis, to apply for a waiver from the annual reporting requirement if their budgets prevent them from meeting it.