Ron Sanders

Three members of the Federal Salary Council have made their official recommendations to the President’s pay agent suggesting how to improve the way government evaluates and compensates federal employees.

The Federal Salary Council also offered some reassurance to federal employees in at least four areas where locality pay is still pending. Locality pay rates should be finalized in time for employees’ first paychecks in January 2019, the Office of Personnel Management said.

In today’s Federal Newscast, after spending 2017 with low budgets, the head of the Coast Guard says his service is now punching at the middleweight class.

The Federal Salary Council will also review the methodology it currently uses to determine the locality pay program.

More and more agencies are turning to alternative personnel systems as a solution to hiring, accountability or performance challenges.

These COOs frequently occupy deputy secretary positions that require Senate confirmation, many of which are vacant in the current administration. But it’s the people occupying these offices that are best positioned to make real changes in the way agencies perform their missions.

Mallory Barg Bulman and Ron Sanders joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss the results of a joint study between the Partnership of Public Service and Booz Allen looking at what should happen when deputies are appointed to federal agencies.

The senior executive service faces an unprecedented time where criticism is rampant, the environment is fast-paced and the retirement bubble teeters on popping.

President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze memo leaves plenty of room for agency interpretation, human capital experts say. Specifically, it lets agencies ask for exemptions to the short term hiring freeze, until the Office of Management and Budget develops a plan to cut the size of the federal workforce through attrition. That concept, experts say, should worry agencies more than a 90-day freeze.

Retirement-eligible federal employees are largely split over whether the upcoming presidential transition will impact their decisions to retire. An exclusive Federal News Radio survey found roughly 35 percent of respondents say the transition won’t play a role in their decisions, but 18 percent say they’re not sure.