The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a final rule on staffing plans, human capital, and oversight. The rule puts into place many of the changes already announced by the Trump administration including the formation of Strategic Hiring Committees and ending the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS).
According to OPM, the rule modernizes the “framework governing personnel management and strategic human capital management in Federal agencies.”
Changes include establishing Strategic Hiring Committees to oversee hiring within each agency, streamlining human capital planning and reporting requirements through Annual Staffing Plans, and strengthening Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) authority and visibility.
The rule also replaces the governmentwide FEVS with smaller agency-administered surveys and removes references to workforce diversity from regulatory text.
Comments Addressed
In its final rule, OPM addressed comments received from its preliminary rule issued in July.
It disputed comments that having hiring committees will lead to more politicized hiring, saying that the committees are not involved in ranking or certification of applicants but instead are meant to “ensure that the agency’s hiring is directed to its highest-need positions and is consistent with its mission needs and its Annual Staffing Plan.”
OPM also noted that “Nothing in the merit system requires that appointment decisions be insulated from agency leadership.”
OPM did make some changes in response to the comments. It clarified that staffing plans implement broader strategic workforce plans instead of replacing them, and it tied staffing plan development to the budget formulation cycle.
In addition, agencies must now have their heads certify annually that CHCOs have sufficient visibility, oversight, and control over human capital management. Any identified gaps must be documented along with a timeline for corrective action.
Employee Surveys
On employee surveys, OPM ordered agencies to issue their own version of a workforce survey by the end of the year, stating that individualized surveys are more effective than FEVS.
“Part of the reason the FEVS was discontinued was because its one-size-fits-all approach makes it difficult for agencies to assess their own needs without also doing their own survey in addition to participating in the FEVS,” stated OPM.
However, ten core questions will still be required governmentwide.
Rather than asking questions about workload, job satisfaction, and whether employees would recommend their agency as a good place to work, the new governmentwide core questions will include two questions about how poor performers are handled within employees' work units.
Agencies may still include additional questions about workload, satisfaction, and other workforce issues in their own surveys.
OPM also agreed with a recommendation to publish a “bridge analysis” connecting the previous survey questions with the new ones to help agencies track changes over time. OPM said it will “publish a crosswalk discussing the relationship between retiring and incoming items” as part of upcoming implementation guidance.
