Hiring reform deadline creates some headaches for agencies

Federal managers have celebrated progress to launch a new resume-based governmentwide hiring system by November, but agency action plans show challenges remain.

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on Tuesday said agencies are moving forward on hiring reform initiatives President Obama outlined in a May memorandum, such as increasing manager participation in the application process and reducing the average time to hire candidates to 80 days. Agencies in August submitted preliminary action plans to OPM and the Office of Management and Budget, and must meet other targets set out in the president's memo by Nov. 1. But some plans indicate agencies are struggling to roll out reforms.

"It's a mixed bag," said Tim McManus, vice president of education and outreach at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. "By and large, agencies are actually making good progress. But by and large, they actually are facing fairly significant issues."

The Defense Department is 94 percent on target to meet the Nov. 1 deadline, according to its report. But progress has been problematic, said Kathleen Ott, acting deputy undersecretary of Defense for civilian personnel policy, in part because the department has been compiling metrics manually as it lacks an automated tool to collect information, and employees use different methods to gather data. There now is a common metrics data dictionary to ensure the information collected is consistent, Ott said.

Many problems agencies face are information technology-related, said McManus. For example, agencies have in place automated systems to sort through knowledge, skills and abilities essays, but have not yet developed assessments based on shorter questionnaires and specific positions and qualifications.

"How do you assess in a way that's automated?" he said. "It's hugely important in this conversation because of the volume of applicants agencies get -- hundreds and even thousands of applications for a single position."

The Justice, Treasury and Veterans Affairs departments all identified delays caused by limited or antiquated IT systems. VA has relied on paper-based hiring methods and has faced union opposition to standing up USA Staffing, an automated system available governmentwide. The department doesn't expect to complete its rollout of USA Staffing until March 2011. Treasury also plans to make major changes to its IT system well into 2011, and Justice lacks a centralized automated hiring process. Managers must take additional steps to view candidate information, which delays hiring, the agency reports stated.

McManus said OMB and OPM are providing the right technical support, but pointed out that agencies will need more time and money to redesign their internal systems.

Several agencies, however, dinged OPM for providing limited support for reform. For example, Justice and the Agriculture Department reported the need for more information and funding for candidate assessment tools used to replace KSAs. There is a "lack of strategic attention and investment in hiring," the Justice report noted, and the department currently does not have the resources and personnel to develop and launch these tools.

Agencies also identified concerns about hiring manager involvement and the potential for review time to increase as reforms are implemented. The Agriculture report said there are insufficient resources available to train managers in hiring procedures, and the Education Department doesn't expect to meet the 80-day hiring goal in fiscal 2011 because of additional steps required to assess candidates.

"It's easy to say there are four key points we need to notify an applicant," said McManus. "The other piece, really that adaptive change, is how do you get someone to understand that this is actually crucial to getting the right person in the door? It doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't happen in six months."