Officials Highlight Pay for Performance, Streamlined Firing in New Management Document

Inaugural quarterly management agenda report encourages more training and support for managers, as well as efforts to improve employee engagement.

Just weeks after the announcement of President Trump’s management agenda, three agency leaders have put together the first roadmap for implementation of the White House’s workforce goals.

In a quarterly report released last week, the Office of Personnel Management, the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget described some aspects of the federal civil service system as “a relic of an earlier era that ill-serves federal managers and employees.” The document focuses on three key goals: improving employee performance management and engagement; reskilling and redeploying human capital resources; and enabling simple and strategic hiring practices.

Although the report, issued by OPM Director Jeff Pon, Defense Chief Management Officer Jay Gibson, and OMB Associate Director for Performance and Personnel Management Peter Warren, noted that some of the White House’s workforce reform initiatives will require legislative and regulatory action, it outlined a number of short-term goals that can be achieved administratively.

By the third quarter of the 2018 fiscal year, all agencies will be required to identify their “bottom 20 percent” of work units in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey’s Employee Engagement Index and target a 20 percent improvement in their scores by the end of 2020.

On the topic of employee performance, OPM committed to identifying “leading practices for” incentives to reward, recruit and retain high performers by the fourth quarter of 2018, while OPM and the Defense Department will identify policies to best address poor performers by the first quarter of 2019.

All agencies were instructed to update their policies to remove “non-statutory steps from the discipline process” by the second quarter of 2019, and by the fourth quarter they will need to improve training and support for managers on performance management and addressing poor performers.

The General Services Administration has a unique role in the management agenda roll-out: a “tiger team” of personnel experts, led by Boris Arriata, senior adviser for the Performance Improvement Council, will complete “at least five” organizational assessments on poor-performing work units across government. And in conjunction with OPM, the acquisition agency will develop a “parachute team” to assist agencies on performance management issues.

Some targets hint at the Trump administration’s future plans to implement broader changes to the federal civil service system. OPM and the Defense Department will “examine best practices of alternative personnel systems” by the fourth quarter of 2018, and officials will consider new ways to gauge the qualifications of prospective members of the Senior Executive Service on a rolling basis over the next two years.

In an effort to ease the federal hiring process, OPM will develop the “initial capability” of an automated hiring adviser for managers later this year, as well as identify an official to be responsible for governmentwide HR and workforce development. And next year, the agency will begin development of a “standard employee digital record” to make it easier for workers to transfer between agencies.

The report outlined plans to begin consideration of introducing automation to federal agencies, noting that 5 percent of federal occupations could be automated entirely, while an additional 60 percent could see at least 30 percent of their work activities automated.

“Although the impact of machine assistance varies by occupation, the use of automation has the potential to provide employees with time to focus on more important work,” officials wrote.

To that end, OPM and OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy will develop pilot programs to test automation in three areas of government by early 2019, and they will develop “a reskilling plan” to provide employees negatively affected by automation to do other work.

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.