The Trump administration is seeking to increase accountability for federal employees by implementing new performance standards and training.
The Office of Personnel Management issued a memorandum published online Tuesday to fulfill President Donald Trump’s mandate for a federal workforce that prizes excellence, deals with underperformance, and fulfills its mission.
“Federal employees should be held to the highest standards of performance and accountability,” Chuck Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management and author of the memorandum, said in a statement.
“These reforms will ensure that strong performers are rewarded, poor performers are addressed, and the American people receive the effective and efficient service they deserve. OPM is proud to implement the president’s direction to create a culture of excellence throughout the federal workforce,” Ezell said.
The new standards are intended to reduce performance grade inflation among federal workers and to end the disproportionate number of highest performance-level reviews. They are also designed to improve the ability of federal supervisors to demote, remove, or fire employees who are underperforming.
The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, a self-described independent, quasi-judicial agency in the executive branch that adjudicates employee appeals, published a research brief in 2019 that found only 26% of supervisors answered in the affirmative that “[i]f a subordinate employee was deficient in a critical performance element after completion of a [Performance Improvement Period], are you confident that you would be able to remove that employee?”
That statistic was part of the rationale for the updated performance standards.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s new standards are designed to double down on rewarding excellence.
“[O]utstanding performance should be identified and rewarded in real time throughout the year. Supervisors should not wait for the next scheduled progress review to reward outstanding performance,” the OPM memorandum to the heads and acting heads of federal departments and agencies states.
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Author: Dillon B
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