State Dept Orders Do-Over on Submitted Performance Reviews — Raising Wider Federal Concerns
New concerns are emerging about the federal performance management process after the State Department reportedly ordered managers to revise annual reviews that had already been submitted.
According to Federal News Network, the State Department’s HR office is asking managers to “review and recalibrate” employee performance reviews that are due later this month.
The directive follows the rollout of a new annual evaluation form for Foreign Service Officers (FSOs).
Three current and one former foreign service officer spoke anonymously to Federal News Network. They said grade inflation happened under the previous evaluation system, but noted the new performance system was rolled out at the last minute and is sowing confusion.
“The system is broken — all kinds of errors, losing data, not doing what it’s supposed to,” one Foreign Service officer said. “The new form is drastically different than what everyone is used to.”
According to another anonymous foreign service officer, leadership pressured officers to revise grades downward with junior officers being pressured to accept lower scores to ensure higher scores are available for more senior staff.
“The creation of an artificial, zero-sum game in the process has certainly pitted people against each other, including supervisors against their subordinates potentially,” said one of the officers.
Broader Policy Context
This comes amid a broader overhaul of performance management across the federal government with the Trump administration aiming to end so-called “ratings inflation.”
That includes a proposed rule to end the ban on forced distribution of rankings, allowing agencies to cap how many employees are ranked at the highest performance levels.
“If relative performance is not accurately measured in an employee’s rating of record, then the entire performance management system across the government is compromised,” OPM said.
The proposal was published in the Federal Register in February and is still pending finalization.
