OPM defines leaders, supervisors

The Office of Personnel Management wants federal human resource professionals and managers to know once and for all the differences between team leaders, work leaders and supervisors.

OPM officials hope that a new publication, called the General Schedule Leader Grade Evaluation Guide, will enable agency classifiers to isolate job responsibilities and match employees to their proper job title and grade level. The guide is available for download at the OPM Web site.

Work leaders are defined as those who lead three or more employees in clerical or other one-grade interval occupations in the General Schedule. Work performed by a work leader is of the same kind and level as that done by the team he or she leads. Work leaders are responsible to their supervisors for performing 14 different duties, including: distributing and balancing workload, estimating the expected time of completion of work, instructing employees in specific tasks and giving on-the-job training to new employees.

Positions that meet these criteria should be identified by adding the word "Lead" to the title of the position and should be classified one GS grade above the highest level of non-supervisory work led, according to the guide.

Team leaders, the guide says, are people who, "as a regular and recurring part of their assignment and at least 25 percent of their duty time," lead a team of other GS employees in accomplishing two-grade interval work.

A team leader assists his or her supervisor by using techniques such as group facilitation, coordination, coaching, problem solving, interpersonal communication and integration of work processes. Team leader positions are classified one full GS level above the highest grade level of GS-9 or higher work that is carried out for 25 percent or more of the time by team members.

The guide also clarifies differences between supervisors and team leaders.

"It is the nature of responsibility for the work of others, rather than the number of employees involved, that distinguishes between leader and supervisory jobs," according to the guide.

For a position to be considered supervisory, managerial responsibilities must involve the accomplishment of work through combined technical and administrative direction of others. A supervisor, according to OPM, plans and schedules work, accepts or rejects completed work, assures accuracy requirements are met, appraises performance and approves leave.