Know thyself

With a growing number of federal agencies searching for ways to better manage their workforces, the Office of Personnel Management has an opportunity to strengthen its position in the human capital management arena, according to the General Accounting Office.

OPM was created under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to serve as the personnel resource for the federal government. After complaints from federal managers that the government's rules were too rigid and inflexible, OPM got rid of its centralized hiring system during the 1990s, and gave agencies the opportunity to craft their own performance appraisal and rewards systems.

Now, many agencies are lobbying Congress for permission to sidestep various aspects of Title 5, the law that spells out how to manage personnel in the federal government. This governmentwide quest for increased personnel flexibilities gives OPM an opportunity to help shape civil service reform, GAO said in a recent report.

"OPM has the authority to reassess and make changes to its existing regulations and guidance to supply agencies with additional flexibilities," GAO reported. "Additionally, a federal agency can obtain authority from OPM to waive some existing federal human resources laws or regulations through an OPM-sponsored personnel demonstration project."

According to GAO, many agencies are unaware of the various flexibilities available to them that don't require congressional approval. OPM has made some effort to communicate the various human capital flexibilities agencies can use, including creating a handbook managers can access on the OPM Web site and best practices guides for performance management and accountability.

However, OPM should more actively publicize existing human capital flexibilities, make them easier to use and identify additional flexibilities agencies can use to better manage their workforces, GAO concluded.

"While it has taken some actions to inform agencies about what flexibilities are generally available and why their use is important, OPM has significant opportunities to strengthen its role as its moves forward to assist agencies as an integral part of the administration's human capital transformation efforts," the report said.

Personnel Design

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is creating an advisory committee to review the work of the team charged with coming up with a framework for the department's new human resources management system.

The law creating the department directed its leaders to craft its own personnel system, developing its own rules for pay, hiring, job classification, labor-management relations, performance evaluation and workplace dispute resolution.

According to a June 11 Federal Register notice, the Human Resource Management System Senior Review Advisory Committee make recommendations based on information gleaned from the design team to Ridge and Office of Personnel Management Director Kay Coles James who will then issue regulations for the new system. The committee will include senior DHS and OPM officials, major union leaders, policy experts and academics.

The design team, formed in April, is expected to present the new committee with ideas for the new personnel system at the end of the summer.