The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued joint guidance to Federal agencies today that aims to improve the Federal hiring experience for job applicants, managers, and human resources (HR) professionals.
The memo – addressed to agency and department heads – builds upon previous steps the Biden administration has taken to improve the Federal hiring experience, including talented-related efforts under the President’s Management Agenda.
“We aim to continuously improve the Federal government’s ability to recruit, hire, and retain a diverse and skilled workforce to strengthen the way agencies deliver on their missions for the American people,” OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver said in a statement. “This memorandum builds on that success and is a culmination of years of data-driven and innovative thinking about the Federal hiring experience.”
Specifically, the memo identifies steps to strengthen strategic workforce planning, recruitment, hiring, and data analytics at the enterprise level; design and build an improved applicant experience; improve the hiring manager experience by ensuring applicants who are referred are qualified; and empower HR professionals by simplifying processes and advancing effective hiring policies.
The memo is broken up into three key sections: the Federal job applicant experience, the hiring manager experience, and the HR professional experience. Each section contains recommendations for agencies to improve the experience of each stakeholder.
For example, for job applicants, the guidance recommends agencies provide clear communication to applicants and develop user-friendly, equitable, efficient, and improved application processes.
For hiring managers, it recommends agencies encourage hiring managers to work with HR professionals to identify experts who can improve and support agency qualification processes, such as resume reviews.
For HR professionals, it recommends agencies create and sustain empowered agency “Talent Teams” to enable strategic recruitment and innovative hiring actions.
While the memo contains a range of recommendations, it says an agency’s deputy secretary or equivalent will be responsible for broad communication and distribution of the memo. They will also be responsible for ensuring agency teams are engaging in “robust, data-driven strategic workforce planning.”
OPM and OMB will ask Federal agencies to track and share their progress in improving the hiring experience and present results on the implementation of the memo to the President’s Management Council. Additionally, OPM said it will be monitoring progress through key Hiring Experience metrics.
For the applicants, some of these metrics include applicant satisfaction survey scores and the net number of external hires to government. For hiring managers, these metrics include hiring manager satisfaction survey scores and the “percent of vacancies using assessments to replace or augment the self-report assessment questionnaires.”
Finally, for HR professionals, these metrics include the number of pooled hiring actions and selection to action ratio.
To support Federal agencies in their implementation of the memo, OPM issued the following fact sheets: Regulations, Policy, and Guidance Resources; Automation and Analytics Resources; and Training and Support Services.
“This memo is a strong step forward in improving the Federal hiring experience,” said Tech Talent Project Co-Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Anastasoff. “Many tech, data, and AI professionals – and beyond – are eager to serve their country. It’s exciting to see the Federal government looking to best-in-class recruitment and retention strategies to attract and keep folks who are critical to delivering services, enforcing laws, and protecting our country. This initiative will allow agencies to build the diverse talent pool necessary to meet today’s challenges.”
“Improving government hiring is essential to bringing onboard the next generation of leaders who reflect our mission and possess the skills needed to meet mission and serve the public,” added Volcker Alliance President Sara Mogulescu. “I am glad to see OPM and OMB collaborating to ensure that agencies thoroughly integrate this important suite of hiring reforms into their operations and culture.”
