December 2023 Update

The Workforce Priority teams have continued to advance initiatives that strengthen and empower the federal workforce. This quarter, we are able to report significant updates in building a culture of workforce data across the Federal Government, enhancing onramp experience for early career talent, and expanding cross agency hiring. The Biden Administration exceeded its goal of hiring more than 5,800 targeted positions to support implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). 

Over the last two years, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has served as a strategic workforce partner for seven federal agencies and supported surge hiring for key positions, including engineers, scientists, project managers, Information Technology (IT) & Human Resource (HR) specialists, construction managers, and many more. OPM has deployed five interactive workforce dashboards to the 24 Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies including the OPM Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA), Attrition, Time-to-Hire, and Cyber Workforce dashboards. OPM has also launched five pooled hiring efforts to support multi-agency hiring for Human Resource Specialists, Data Analysts, IT Product Managers, IT Specialists (Data Management), and entry level IT Specialists. Looking ahead, OPM will continue to support multi-agency pooled hiring efforts for mission critical occupations, with the goal of launching eight in FY24. 

OPM co-hosted the October National Tech to Gov Virtual Forum and Job Fair in coordination with its agency and private sector partners, with over 3,000 registered participants representing 49 states. At the event, there were 3,200 one-on-one agency conversations across the 1,400 people who attended. Two-thirds of attendees said that they were more interested in government after the event than before. Leading up to the event, OPM, Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) U.S. Digital Service (USDS), and Tech to Gov partners hosted a five-part training series for HR, hiring managers, and technical leaders to better recruit and hire technical talent from the private sector. 

Additionally, the President issued Executive Order 14110 on Oct. 30, 2023, for the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that aims to seize the promise and manage the risks of AI, including providing the building blocks for the coming AI federal sector workforce. 

Finally, on the policy front, OPM issued final regulations to prohibit federal agencies from requesting criminal history during hiring, linked below, thereby expanding opportunities for people who have been incarcerated. These regulations also establish a framework for a complaint process that job applicants may use if they believe agencies have inappropriately requested criminal history too early in the hiring process.

August 2023

The Workforce Priority has continued to deliver on its commitments to strengthening and empowering the federal workforce. In May 2023, OPM released an Employee Wellness Program Guide for agency leaders. The discovery phase for a Job Exploration Tool was also completed, which will enable users to match their ideal careers and ways of working to federal job series. Additionally, OPM’s free hybrid work environment training has reached over 22,000 federal employees, with OPM planning to provide additional training sessions across the country and to expand via a “train the trainer” model for further adoption. In July, OPM proposed a regulation on Recruitment and Selection Through Competitive Examination, and Employment in the Excepted Service (known as the “Rule of Many”) that will provide expanded flexibility to agencies during candidate selection. OPM also issued guidance on new skills and competencies needed for positions related to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Looking ahead, the Workforce Priority team will double down on efforts that improve hiring, internships, employee experience, access to data, and many more initiatives which can be explored further in the strategy pages.

May 2023

The Workforce Priority has begun delivering several products to support agencies’ abilities to strengthen and empower their workforce. Some examples include: a training for managers on “Thriving in a Hybrid Environment,” new OMB guidance on improving Organizational Health and Organizational Performance across agencies, new OPM memo on Advancing Future of the Workforce Policies and Practices to Support Mission Delivery, new functionality on USAJOBS—called Talent Pools—to facilitate the sharing of hiring certificates across agencies, issuance of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Advancing Pay Equity, and public data products to better understand workforce insights. 

Inter-agency teams continue to work collaboratively to support outcomes related to hiring, retention, employee engagement and well-being, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), leadership and skill development, and data-driven decision making. In the coming period, the Workforce Priority team will focus its efforts on empowering agencies to take action in support of the PMA’s objectives and continue its focus on enabling data-driven workforce decision making. For example, OPM will develop a method to track pooled hiring actions and candidates hired through pooled hiring actions in future quarters.

March 2023

The Workforce Priority has an ambitious set of goals and objectives to make progress for Federal employees and will be actively looking for ways to further engage agencies in supporting this work. PMA cross-agency Workforce Priority teams have begun implementing projects designed to further progress on the goals across each of the four strategies. Teams have launched government-wide working groups and communities of practice (CoPs), including the inter-agency Mental Health & Well-Being and Recruitment & Outreach CoPs. OPM has also released priority policy guidance to address central challenges identified by agencies to agencies, such as internship guidance designed to strengthen and diversify agencies’ pipelines for early career talent. To help promote a data-driven approach and create accountability across Government, agency guidance was delivered and agencies are making progress toward the four PMA Workforce Priority metrics, supported by guidance from the Priority Area Leaders; the metrics can be viewed on the new data page.

November 2022

In order to meet the opportunities outlined above, cross-agency teams representing almost 20 CFO Act agencies have identified a suite of activities to address some of the biggest opportunities and challenges facing the Government workforce. Across each of the strategies described below, these teams continue to keep diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) goals front and center as they consider and test solutions. Teams are now working to identify potential pilots for testing and evaluation, and to implement near-term actions. These actions could include, for example, new guidance for agencies or the development of shared tools or data. Below is a sampling of initial milestones that are guiding cross-agency groups as implementation gets underway. The PMA team has continued to engage stakeholders. Priority Area Leaders have developed guidance for agencies to support the adoption of Priority-level metrics.

July 2022

Cross-agency teams are advancing the PMA Workforce Priority across the identified Strategies and Goals, with cross-functional representatives from many agencies participating. These teams have been scoping the activities to support their goal statements, working to understand challenges, and exploring a broad range of solutions. Milestones included in this update represent initial foundational work to implement this Workforce Priority.