Management Chief: Trump Administration Will Renew Push for Performance Pay Fund

In an interview with NextGov, OMB Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert said the Trump administration would push for civil service reform legislation.

The Trump administration's management chief said last week that it is past time for Congress to make updates to the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.

“We all know that it’s been 40 years since the last major civil service reform,” said Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, in an interview with NextGov. “In the president’s State of the Union address and in other forums, we’ve talked about other areas that need to evolve from something that was utterly relevant and on point in 1978, to the digital workforce and a workforce that is characterized by Moore’s Law—moving at the speed of computing, not at the speed of paper.”

More immediately, Weichert said the Trump administration will renew its push to fill a proposed $1 billion interagency workforce fund designed to support agencies’ pay-for-performance pilot programs and give departments flexibility when hiring in high-demand fields.

“We would very much like to see Congress fund [the workforce fund] in [fiscal] 2019,” she said. “The $1 billion would be essentially creating the capacity to look at the roles and the jobs and the critical capabilities we need for the 21st century, and line up performance-oriented pay and innovative programs to attract, retain and reward the best talent, and line that up with the market priorities.”

Weichert elaborated on her comments at the launch of President Trump’s Management Agenda in Kansas City last month, stressing the need to modernize agencies in a holistic way, completing IT updates in conjunction with changes to how the federal workforce operates.

“It’s not just modernizing IT in a vacuum,” she said. “It’s understanding what data elements are associated with that technology, who is affected by that tech and using it to serve citizens or may be blocked from helping citizens because of tools they don’t have or the challenges of working with multiple legacy systems.”

She also advocated for the administration’s plan to test the waters on automation, following OMB, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Defense Department’s quarterly update to the management agenda, which noted that 60 percent of federal jobs could see 30 percent of their work activities automated, and another 5 percent of jobs could be made entirely redundant. Weichert said simply moving many agencies’ paper-based processes to the digital space could free up federal workers to focus on more important activities to serve the public.

“A lot of folks know that the government is kind of staggering under the weight of all the paper we have,” she said. “We all have examples of working with the government, where there’s a paper form that comes in over here, and then is digitally entered over there . . . A lot of errors can be introduced that way, and there’s just no value added.”

And while she acknowledged that a small group of mostly administrative jobs could be lost in the process of automation, she said officials hope that other advances in reskilling and redeploying workers could mitigate any job losses.

“While I am not familiar with the details of that particular data element, there are a very small handful of jobs that will be displaced as we go to digitally native activities,” Weichert said. “To the extent that a job exclusively is to move paper from one place to another, that is not necessarily something that is going to have long-term legs . . . But we have any number of new types of jobs created around data, cyber, even things like law enforcement that we struggle to fill. We have this dedicated workforce that has passed a background check . . . so how do we reskill and redeploy those employees so they have the skills aligned with a 21st century workforce.”

To that end, Weichert touted OPM’s plans to develop a uniform digital record for federal workers, that officials say will help people who want to transfer from one position to another and across agencies more easily.

“We need to be able to move people around,” she said. “In the private sector, people don’t stay in the same jobs and only do one thing for their whole career. We need to be more like the private sector and learn how to continuously learn and have the workforce learn too.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.