The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is concerned about four agencies that had particularly high retirement processing error rates in September. The Social Security Administration and departments of Agriculture, Interior and Veterans Affairs topped the list. Congress now wants the Government Accountability Office to review the process that agencies and the Office of Personnel Management each use to review a retirement claim.
The Office of Personnel Management said that agencies need to ensure employees have at least three hours either before or after work to attend their polling places.
Experts say until the government moves to a continuous evaluation program of employees and contractors with clearances, threats from employees will continue to grow.
Two big changes are coming to the Combined Federal Campaign, the federal workforce's annual giving campaign, next year. One change lets federal employees volunteer with certain charities and have that time count toward the campaign. The second lets federal retirees submit donations.
Hispanics represented 8.5 percent of the permanent federal workforce in 2015, a 0.1 percent bump over fiscal 2014's numbers. Though 2015 marks the sixth consecutive year where the Hispanic federal population has increased, leaders within the Office of Personnel Management are noticeably disappointed that the progress is happening slowly.
Agency information security officers say the most effective cybersecurity workforce is one that encourages equal use of left and right brains.
The source of the Office of Personnel Management's data on workforce programs like telework and sick leave may not be entirely accurate, the Government Accountability Office said. Payroll data that OPM collects and stores in its Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system is unreliable and largely unavailable to other agencies and organizations.
The Office of Personnel Management released the full results of the 2016 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which give greater insight into federal employees' thoughts on their leaders and supervisors, overall job satisfaction and training and development opportunities. OPM this year focused on making comparisons of agencies by size. Specifically, OPM broke down organizations' results by very large, large, medium, small and very small agencies. The report gives a more detailed view of agencies' progress on employee engagement and inclusion.
The Office of Personnel Management engineered a sharp upturn in retirement claims processed during the month of September.
President Barack Obama signed a memorandum promoting diversity and inclusion in the national security workforce. The memo calls for the collection, analysis and dissemination of demographic data, as well as develop practices for exit and stay interviews.
Agencies are starting to embrace rotational assignments — one of the four main priorities in a recent executive order on the Senior Executive Service — as an opportunity to give SES members new experiences and developmental opportunities.
The Office of Personnel Management issued new guidance last month about human resource matters for SESers and outgoing political appointees. GAO plans to develop an app to focus on top federal management priorities for the next administration and members of Congress.
With 31 percent of the federal workforce eligible to retire by September 2019, most agencies acknowledge they're racing against the clock to recruit and hire the next generation of federal employees. But repeat, persistent challenges are preventing them from recruiting new, young talent, agency chief human capital officers say.
Charlie Phalen has spent four decades in the personnel security business, most recently at Northrop Grumman, and before that, in top security positions at the CIA and FBI.
Federal employees and their families will see a 4.4 percent increase in their Federal Employee Health Benefit premiums next year. But FEHBP participants will pay 6.2 percent toward their health care costs. The government share is 3.7 percent.