Beginning next year, Senior Executive Service members will be subject to new accountability measures under performance management regulations released by the Office of Personnel Management.
Part of a two-year SES overhaul, the new regulations are supposed to hold executives accountable by allowing agencies to craft performance measures based on an agency's mission and by strengthening the connection between performance management and strategic planning.
Agencies will also be required to weigh organizational results, customer satisfaction and employee perspectives in SES evaluations.
According to OPM officials, the new regulations put the focus on results, rather than process.
"The evaluations ensure accountability and compensation is tied to that," an OPM official said.
OPM's balanced approach to performance measures is just one of several efforts to revamp the SES that have been approved since OPM began considering SES reform in 1998. Other reform efforts include requiring agencies to make executive leadership the most important skill requirement for SES applicants.
"Certainly the administration's interest in focusing on performance management and managing for results is understandable," said Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association. "However, our concern is that the balanced measures [approach] is still evolving. If you look at the difficulty some agencies have had with satisfying Congress with regard to [the Government Performance and Results Act], it does seem to be a little premature to assume that balanced measures can be successfully and fully implemented with regard to the SES."
Under the new regulations, agencies can set their own appraisal cycles, with a minimum appraisal period of 90 days. Bonosaro said that isn't long enough to evaluate an executive's performance.
"We argued that the minimum period for appraisal should be 120 days, not just 90 days," she said.
Bonosaro also said the timing for implementing the new performance measures may be bad, with an imminent change in presidential administrations.
According to OPM officials, current SES members will not be evaluated under the new regulations until 2001.
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