Thrift Savings Plan is hiring

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which oversees the Thrift Savings Plan, anticipates bringing on dozens of new hires during the next two years, according to a recent memo from Gisile Goethe, the board’s new acting director of resource management.

FRTIB is approved for 143 full-time staff positions, and Goethe said at a meeting Monday that 103 of those spots currently are filled; the board expects to end the year with 112 employees. “This will leave us with 31 open positions,” Goethe said in the memo, “and 21 of these are currently in-progress at various stages of the hiring process.”

In coming years and with improved processes in place, the board expects to have the hiring ability to bring on between 30 and 32 new employees a year, according to the memo.

FRTIB said earlier this year that it anticipates significant growth in coming years. It expects to manage an additional 4.4 percent in TSP assets by fiscal 2017 and to grow the size of its budget by 25 percent.

Previously, the board faced challenges in filling open positions because the hiring process was cumbersome. “Dozens and sometimes over a hundred applicants would need to be rated and scored, a time-consuming process,” Goethe wrote in the memo. The board has taken several steps to ease the process, including entering into an agreement with the Office of Personnel Management, which will provide staffing services to assist with hiring demands. “As our hiring needs change, we can dial up or dial down our support from OPM,” she added.

The board recently created the Office of Resource Management and tapped Goethe to head it until a permanent director is chosen. Current vacancies include a new personnel officer, according to the memo.

“We have had, for several years, an inability to fill open positions,” the board’s executive director Gregory Long said at a monthly board meeting Monday. “With [Goethe]’s help, we have come to throw some innovative ideas at how to hire new individuals.”

Long also explained that despite the authorization for new hires in the next two fiscal years, FRTIB’s budget proposal will still be up for reconsideration each year “to determine whether it is wise” to fill all open positions. Goethe said although the board will have the capability to “successfully hire and manage” 32 new employees in fiscal 2013 and 2014, she expects the actual number of new hires to taper off in the following fiscal years. Many of the vacancies are posted at USAJobs.gov.

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