OPM Wants Agencies to Show Their Work on Management Agenda Tech and Data Goals

The President’s Management Agenda included a heavy focus on technology and reskilling the federal workforce for the modern era. Now, the Office Personnel Management is asking agencies to show their work.

Acting OPM Director Margaret Weichert—who was instrumental in developing the management agenda in her role as deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget—issued a memo last week directing agencies to prepare for the upcoming Human Capital Review, a new annual, data-based audit of agencies’ progress on major personnel initiatives.

The memo instructs agencies to identify a point of contact to work with OPM to assess a number of ongoing issues and “identify and share successful practices, identify root causes of issues, develop solutions, and highlight crosscutting organizational challenges within your agency.”

“We are particularly interested in learning about the strides your agency is making towards achieving a modern workforce for the 21st century,” Weichert wrote. “This includes strategically hiring employees with the proper skills to align with evolving mission needs, engaging the workforce and reskilling employees as necessary.”

Like the management agenda, the reviews will focus on implementation of technologies to achieve certain human resources goals, including improving customer experience for citizens interacting with government, expanding interagency shared services programs and eliminating low-value work through digitization and automation.

“The HCR also includes a discussion of agency progress in meeting governmentwide priorities in the Federal Workforce Priority Report, such as closing skill gaps and effectively using data to drive decisions and improve processes,” Weichert added.

Agencies have until Feb. 28 to identify a member of the executive staff—i.e., a C-suite employee—as the designated representative to work with OPM.