Modernizing the Federal Workforce

Transformation of the Federal Workforce

The current Administration says it is making progress towards transforming the federal workforce and framework that governs it. Over the summer, low-scoring agencies improved employee engagement and chose executives to lead upcoming workforce initiatives.

Development is slow but headed in the direction of preparing the federal workforce for “future” skills while addressing hiring and performance management frustrations. The goal is to have a simplified hiring process, while giving agencies more flexibility, in place by March of 2019. (On average it took 106 days to hire a new employee in 2017.)

Employee and Performance Engagement

During the summer, NIH piloted a tool for employee and performance engagement, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). This tool has helped low-performing agencies find opportunities to improve employee engagement. OPM drafted guidance to help low-performing agencies improve the FEVS scores. In the future, all agencies will be asked to give OPM more detail on their plans to improve engagement.

Federal Workforce/ Private Sector Workforce

By April of 2019, results from a study of the federal government’s compensation package will be available to compare to the private sector.  Among other tasks, all supervisors and managers are scheduled to have performance management training, which will align the federal to the private sector workforce.

The goal of these new plans, measures, and tools is to prepare the federal workforce for future skills and address long-held performance management and hiring practices.

Please call EZGSA at 301-913-5000, if we can answer any questions.