The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued a memo to agencies notifying them of a change in how they should calculate and report “time to hire” (T2H) results. OPM hopes the change will be in effect for reporting due on March 20, 2020 to cover FY 2019. The changes are based on feedback the agency has received from agencies during human capital reviews (HCR) and other stakeholder feedback.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has appointed Shanna Devine to serve as the first Director of the Whistleblower Ombudsman Office of the House of Representatives. The office was created in the House Rules package passed at the outset of the 116th Congress to assist the House in developing best practices for whistleblower intake and to provide trainings to House offices on how to safely and confidentially receive information from whistleblowers.

After nearly three years of serving as Deputy Director for Management (DDM) at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Margaret Weichert has announced her return to the private sector. During her tenure, Weichert served concurrently as Acting Office of Personnel Management Director for nearly a year. Weichert led many administration priorities, including the reorganization of OPM.

The Census Bureau is working both internally and with its partners to guarantee local governments are aware of how to ensure hard-to-count populations are included in the 2020 census once enumeration begins on April 1. Kyla Fullenwider, who was the first Chief Innovation Officer for the U.S. Census Bureau, recently worked with Georgetown University’s Beeck Center to create a Digital Preparedness Playbook which guides local government through what to expect.

The White House has released the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget request complete with sweeping agency cuts and some new reorganization proposals. While the budget request rarely translates into law due to compromises in Congress, it does signal the president’s priorities for the year.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has released a memo to agencies with guidance on how to assist employees in responding to any concerns about exposure to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. The virus is a confirmed public health emergency of international concern according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The memo outlines leave options for employees and work schedule flexibilities available.

In the Merit Systems Protection Board’s (MSPB) 2019 Annual Report, the General Council reviews the board’s year with emphasis on how the lack of quorum, and a lack of board members entirely since March 2019, has crippled the board’s abilities. According to the report, at the end of FY2019 the board had a backlog of 2,378 pending cases at headquarters.

As the Census Listers work their way through Alaska, the largest barrier to an accurate count is linguistic differences between rural and native populations. To ensure a complete and accurate count, the Census Bureau has worked for several months with local organizers to create public service announcements and translate census guides into four Alaskan Native languages. Still, many Native Alaskan villages speak one of 20 different native languages.

The Pentagon issued the final contractor standards under the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) last week and explained long-term plans for implementation. The new framework is built from five levels of security standards known as Version 1.0 of the plan. The initial phase will be rolled out through requests for information this summer.

During a White House event Monday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requested ideas from across the federal community on ways to improve acquisition and supply chain management. The summit focused on various initiatives to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of contract management. The “call for ideas” is meant to continue these conversations and pose additional questions on ways to improve the system.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has provided supplemental information to accompany a December report on personnel management at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The information provides insight into how employees at the SEC reacted to the nearly three-year hiring freeze within the agency based on a GAO survey of executive and non-executive agency personnel.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) IT Office has announced the development of a balanced scorecard to measure the agency’s ability to manage modernization efforts. As the VA undergoes a cloud-driven transformation across their components, the scorecard will measure accomplishments and opportunity areas.

In a memo from the White House to agency leaders on January 9, 2020, Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought introduces the Protecting Employee, Enabling Reemployment (PEER) Initiative aimed at reducing work-related injuries. The initiative includes seven areas for federal agencies to focus on from now on.

A report released Friday from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) revealed a need for the Office of Information Technology Operations (OITO) to improve oversight of mobile phones. A lack of oversight resulted in the agency being billed $12,000 over two years for unused mobile phone services.

The President’s Pay Agent has approved of a series of recommendations from the Federal Salary Council in a report released by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) last month. Among these recommendations is the creation of a new locality pay area. The report also called upon Congress to reform the federal compensation process to be more reflective of how the total compensation federal employees receive compares to the private sector.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued a proposed rule to allow agencies to rehire former federal employees without competition to positions at any grade level for which the individual is qualified. The prosed rule aims to provide agencies with greater flexibility to recruit former employees who have developed their skillsets outside of government back to federal service.

The Eagle Hill Consulting Federal Workplace Culture Survey, conducted through the Government Business Council (GBC), identified key opportunity areas to improve federal workforce culture and the culture’s impact on mission delivery. The report found significant misalignment between organizations’ policies and core values and sought to explore why and how that misalignment plays out in the federal workforce.