In its quest to modernize the government workforce, the Trump administration intends to focus on fewer actions that have broader impacts.

That's according to Federal News Network, reporting on deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget and acting Office of Personnel Management director Margaret Weichert's plans for the agency. According to Weichert, top priorities for the administration include shortening the hiring process, reskilling existing federal employees and improving employee engagement and performance management. But agencies have to approach those goals in a different way.

“I have a strongly held belief that the reason we haven't made progress on many of the challenges facing government is because we've looked at them either on a siloed functional basis or we haven't drawn enough conclusions about what are the blockers that are systemic above the level of any given agency,” Weichert told Federal News Network.

So in 2019, different agencies will be tasked with “connecting the dots” instead of working independently to implement those goals. One of the big targets is the reskilling initiative, which will redeploy “existing talent in the federal workforce.” Identifying new skills that will be on the hot list in the future will be part of that plan, as well as finding ways to use existing employees in other ways when their jobs are affected by automation.

Changes to the hiring process are already underway, with OPM being urged to practically remove itself from obtaining direct hire authority for some IT positions. In addition, agencies were provided with more direct-hire authority overall, and a new process was set up to create a new special occupational pay and classification system. Other changes include making it easier for agencies to get top-level performance out of senior executives and a move to make it easier to “open up” direct hire for STEM jobs.

Instant Insights /

Fewer actions, broader impact are goals of workforce modernization

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