The Trump administration is giving federal agencies until the end of this week to deliver lists of all their employees who are still within their one-year probationary periods, while also reminding agency leaders that newly hired members of the workforce are the easiest to fire.

In a memo sent to agency heads Wednesday evening, regarding “critical potential personnel actions,” OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell reminded agencies that newly hired federal employees can be terminated “without triggering [Merit System Protection Board] appeal rights.” OPM is giving agencies until Friday to submit a report to OPM that includes a list of all employees currently in their probationary period.

“Agencies should promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency,” Ezell wrote in the memo.

Under federal statue, federal employees with a competitive service appointment are considered to be in a probationary period during their first year of service. For employees with an excepted service appointment, the probationary period can last for up to two years.

The probationary period is meant to give agencies some flexibility in deciding if a new hire is the right fit for a federal job. If an agency determines that an employee hasn’t demonstrated fitness for a federal position, the agency can “swiftly terminate” federal employees during their probationary period, OPM’s website states. Most newly hired federal employees have limited ability to appeal a termination to MSPB during that time.

The memo could pave the way for agencies to potentially remove some newly hired workers while skirting the civil service protections most career federal employees have once they pass the one-year mark in the federal workforce.

Kevin Owen, a partner at Gilbert Employment Law, which specializes in federal employment law, said OPM’s memo appears to be a series of reminders to agencies about existing legal flexibilities for federal workforce changes.

“But what strikes me as interesting is that they’re bringing it up at all, and whether or not this is a signal that there are going to be significant layoffs or terminations of probationary employees as the first step in reducing the size of the federal workforce,” Owen said in an interview.

Since the Trump administration also ordered a federal hiring freeze, most agencies would not be able to replace any potentially terminated employees.

The exact number of employees who may be impacted by OPM’s new memo is unclear. In March 2024, the most recent data currently available in Fedscope, more than 220,000 federal employees were within their one-year probationary period. That number may indicate generally how many newly hired employees are in the federal workforce at any given time.

According to the March 2024 data, about 56,000 — more than a quarter — of the new federal employees were working at the Veterans Health Administration at the time. More than 14,000 employees, or about 6.5%, were new hires at the IRS.

Monday’s memo from OPM also told agencies to consider using paid administrative leave for employees working in any components that are being “eliminated or restructured,” or in cases where an employee’s role changes as a result of “workforce realignment.”

“It also may be appropriate when a new agency manager determines that the absence of the employee from the office ‘is in the interest of the agency or of the government as a whole,’” Ezell wrote. “Agencies are encouraged to use flexibilities associated with paid administrative leave as they implement agency restructuring initiatives or determine the best ways to manage agency components going forward.”

At the end of the Biden administration, OPM issued final regulations to cap paid administrative leave to 10 days per year, particularly for feds who are under investigation or awaiting a decision on an adverse personnel action. But the Trump administration’s OPM pointed to the deadline for agencies to be in compliance with the final rule 270 days after its publication.

“OPM thus believes that agencies are not required to comply with the administrative leave rule and new regulations until September 13, 2025, the deadline for agencies to issue their own implementing regulations,” Ezell wrote. “OPM requests that agencies not issue any agency-specific rules until such rules have been reviewed and approved by OPM.”

In the memo, OPM also said agency heads should have “broad discretion” to temporarily transfer federal employees or put them “on detail” for up to 120 days, noting that an employee can be temporarily assigned to “unclassified duties.”

“Such details may provide additional flexibilities to agencies during the transition period and as agencies undertake reorganization efforts and close offices,” Ezell wrote.

Owen pointed to a separate OPM memo, also published Monday, which he said may work in tandem with the reminders on administrative leave, details and transfers. The separate memo temporarily gives agencies “unlimited use” of Temporary Transition Schedule C appointments.

The expansion “is necessary to drive the unusually expansive and transformative agenda the American people elected President Trump to accomplish,” OPM wrote in the memo.

To appoint a temporary Schedule C employee, though, agencies have to use a full-time equivalent (FTE) position to accommodate the new appointment in an agency’s workforce.

“In theory, agencies could place the existing employee on administrative leave while they’re working out the detailed paperwork to give them new duties,” Owen said. “That could be how that’s framed.”

The OPM memos come at the same time as President Donald Trump signed more than two dozen executive orders on his first day in office, including several actions targeting federal employees, such as issuing a federal hiring freeze.

The Trump administration’s plans to restructure the federal workforce did not come as a surprise. But Ron Sanders, a federal workforce policy expert and former chairman of the Federal Salary Council during the first Trump administration, said agencies’ budgets should be a much bigger part of the conversation around the future of the workforce.

“Unless you know what your long-term budget is and what your long-term workforce plan is, you run the risk of creating severe skills imbalances. Attrition and hiring freezes put you at the mercy of your very best employees who will undoubtedly leave for other opportunities, and leave you stuck with your very worst employees who don’t have other opportunities,” Sanders said in an interview. “Congress needs to give agencies a budget, and based on that budget, agencies need to decide how many full-time equivalent federal employees they’re going to have, how many employees in the pipeline they’re going to have and how many contractors they’re going to have.”

Owen added that the swath of announcements and executive actions from the Trump administration Monday was not unexpected.

“Anytime you have a new administration coming in, announcing very broad and bold policy change, then having the ability to appoint and bring in individuals for the administration may help push together some of these items,” Owen said. “They’re going to need people who are specialists in that area, and this may be signaling that they’re bringing in their own team to do it.”

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