We welcome you to JobBank USA and hope your job hunting experience
is a pleasant one. We hope you find our resources useful.
May 14, 2008
They've heard the complaints and they're fixing the problems.
The Office of Personnel Management says they have created some concrete steps to streamline the hiring process for both new federal employees and retirees who want to come back to work for the government.
Angela Bailey, Deputy Associate Director of the Center for Talent and Capacity Policy at OPM, testified about her agency's action before a Senate Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs subcommittee.
She joined hosts Tom Temin and Jane Norris on Wednesday's Federal Drive and told them about what's been working and what hasn't.
We have had some great success. For example, the 45 day model that a lot of people are familiar with, which tracks from the time a vacancy closes until an applicant is given a tentative offer. At one point in time we had absolutely no idea how long that process took, but through cooperation between the Office of Personnel Management and the agencies, what we've managed to do is get that down to where we not only have it within 45 days, and, quite frankly, most agencies are reporting that they've got that down to somewhere around 30 days, but what that doesn't answer . . . is all of the actual end to end.
That lack of end-to-end information is what has prompted OPM to take a different approach.
We're saying, "Look, it's not just about when a vacancy announcement closes and someone gets a tentative offer," because if it then takes another 90 days or 120 days before they ever come on board, they're still very frustrated with the process.
Bailey testified that OPM is taking a more holistic approach in order to solve this issue. The agency has rolled out a pilot program that starts from the beginning.
The beginning is not just when a job announcement closes. The beginning is really the whole workforce planning and analysis part of it. What exactly do you need as an agency? As a manager? What competencies are you looking for -- not just for today, but actually into the future so that you can prepare yourself so that you can actually have a good recruiting strategy to go after the kind of competencies that you need? If you're simply just filling vacancies for the sake of filling vacancies, then you have no cohesive strategy and you're not really helping anybody.
This, Bailey says, is how frustration often occurs in the federal workforce and is one of the reasons OPM is beginning to work with agencies on workforce planning.
We're working with the Departments of Army [and] Navy . . . the Office of Personnel Management is also doing what's called 'end-to-end'. They're starting at workforce planning. They're going through and doing a complete analysis of what they actually have on board, what their gaps are, what they're going to need, and then the next component of that would be a recruitment strategy. Now that you know what you need -- today and in the future -- what universities are you going to target? What specific conferences are you going to target?
Bailey says OPM is also looking at things such as high school career fairs in order to get the word out about public service even before students enter college. She says the bottom line is to get federal agencies out into the public square.
The whole idea of just this passive recruiting is kind of out the window. Let's start being a whole lot more strategic in what we're trying to go after and then also be much more assertive in the efforts that we want to apply to recruiting.
The federal government isn't simply struggling with new hires, however. Agencies are also trying to figure out how to get experienced feds back into the workforce -- and OPM has a plan for that, as well.
We currently have legislation that is pending -- a proposal that's on the Hill -- to actually be able to, without agencies having to come through OPM to get prior approval to be able to have the ability to bring folks back into the workforce that would . . . be able to pass on their knowledge [and] mentor this new generation of federal workers that are coming in.
All of this, Bailey says, would hopefully be done without an offset waiver.
They wouldn't be penalized for drawing a retirement from the federal government and then turning around and providing part time services to us -- or on a time-limited basis. You can't use this in place of succession planning -- good succession planning -- [but] the intent of it is, instead, to be used truly to help us mentor and bring along and pass on the knowledge and keep that continuity between the generation that is leaving federal service and the new generation that is coming in.
Bailey says the bill has bipartisan support and would serve as a win-win for everyone in the federal government.
In addition to trying to attract two different age groups, OPM is also working to get agencies to write job announcements in 'plain language' and reach out to communities of interest to pass those announcements around.
Email This Page!