Most people agree our federal government needs to get with the times and reform itself into an organization that is more agile, sleek, and responsive to the needs of its people. For example, its personnel hiring systems have changed little during the last 70 years.
The main initiative for reform is the President’s Management Agenda, known as PMA. Under it, not only are there efforts to change the workforce, but also information technology (IT) and how data is handled. Once implemented to the full extent, these three items are predicted to be the main drivers that will enable the federal government to function at a much higher level than it does today. Just like in the private sector, government agencies often argue that people are their greatest resource – but are its current hiring and personnel efforts designed with recruiting and retaining a first class federal workforce? Reform efforts argue there is still much to be done, specifically in a few key areas:
- Mission – Federal employees must be accountable for results that support the mission to its people. Merely doing their jobs will not be enough in the future.
- Service – Customer service to the people must equal, if not exceed, what the private sector offers its customers.
- Stewardship – Fraud, improper payments and inefficient use of taxpayer money must stop. Achieving a higher level of stewardship will save the taxpayer an estimated $187 billion over the next 10 years.
The workforce on the PMA’s radar is the one in which most Federal employees are employed – the General Schedule. The main proposed changes focus on three initiatives – actively managing the workforce, developing agile operations and acquiring top talent.
Actively managing the workforce
One proposed change in this regard is rewarding high performing employees and better management of lower performing ones through the use of incentive awards. No longer will there be a straight percentage across the board pay increase for all government employees regardless of their performance (or lack thereof).
Developing agile operations
Senior leaders and front-line managers must have the latitude to align their staff to the evolving needs of the mission. For example, under the current system, many jobs require a college degree according to the job description, when in fact a degree is not needed to do the job. Elimination of a degree requirement, when one is not needed, will open up jobs to a broader group of applicants who have the relevant skills, training or experience, but lack the sheepskin showing they have a degree. Changing the requirements of a job description is not something a supervisor can do right now under the current system.
Acquiring top talent
Only 42% of federal employees think the government hires people with the right skills for a job. Part of the problem is the current hiring process. With its slow and awkward 14-step process, much of the talent vying for a federal government job gets frustrated and gives up. By streamlining the hiring process, the right talent for the right job can be acquired more quickly into evolving job areas where a special talent is needed – like cybersecurity. By hiring according to the needs of the mission and not the needs of the current staffing requirement, employees that better match the needs of the job can be hired more quickly.
As these changes and more are implemented, the goal is for the federal government to become more responsive to the needs of the people and to serve them at a level much the same as is done in the more competitive private sector. It’s clear the PMA has effectively identified many of the key difficulties in the federal workforce – now it has the difficult job of implementing the solution.
