Federal Insider: 'Institutionalizing Hiring Excellence' is next new plan to improve federal employment

It’s easy to be skeptical when the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) releases yet another plan to improve the federal hiring process.

Former OPM director John Berry hadn’t been in office three months during the first year of the Obama administration when he deployed “SWAT teams” and “wolf packs” to help agencies “identify and analyze barriers to efficient hiring.”

A few years later, Berry’s successor, Katherine Archuleta, had a new action term, REDI, for her Recruitment, Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion Roadmap initiative “to help managers untie hiring knots and eliminate barriers to recruitment and hiring.”

Now comes a new move, launched without a catchy name or even a news release. This latest effort, aimed at “institutionalizing hiring excellence,” was outlined in a memo to agencies from Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan and acting OPM director Beth Cobert.

“My first reaction — same old stuff!!!!” said an email from Gail Lovelace, a former chief human capital officer for the General Services Administration. But after getting into the detailed, 18-page memo, she applauded OMB and OPM for realizing that hiring is not “just an HR issue,” but one that should involve all managers.

“This memo forces continuous improvement actions,” she said. “And that’s good.”

Other outside experts agree — this plan can make a difference.

It brings attention to the need for greater workforce diversity, particularly at the senior executive service level. Charts in the report show that women are just over one-third of senior executives and that Latinos are only 4.4 percent, each significantly below their populations in general. At 11.4 percent, African Americans are much closer to being equitably represented in the top civil service slots.

Gilbert Sandate, chair of the Coalition for Fairness for Hispanics in Government, had strong praise for the memo before adding: “What is missing, or has not been adequately addressed, are strong accountability measures to ensure that the improved hiring practices result in a diverse workforce that reflects America. This has been an important goal for President Obama, yet it has proven to be as elusive for his administration as for so many others.”

Wanda V. Killingsworth, president of Federally Employed Women, noted “obstacles … that hinder equal employment opportunities for women” but also pointed to a hiring system “that is exceptionally long and cumbersome, which leaves the agency short-staffed, the employees under stress and the work terribly backlogged.”