OPM Report to Congress Details Plans to Improve Agency

In a report sent to Congress in September, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) unveiled sweeping plans to improve the struggling agency. The report came in response to a March 2021 study from the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), which detailed an extensive list of the agency’s problem areas and recommendations for how to fix them.

For nearly all of NAPA’s recommendations, OPM either accepted them outright, or accepted them conditioned on support from Congress via funding or statutory changes. The agency indicated that many of the recommendations it accepted are being incorporated into its strategic plan, though as of press time, OPM had not released or published the plan.

In step with NAPA’s recommendations, OPM intends to refocus its efforts on human capital management by improving data collection and research on the federal workforce; this will allow the agency to forecast human capital needs, identify issues, and inform and improve policy, oversight and services. To concentrate on these biggerpicture goals, OPM will delegate more human capital management responsibilities to agencies to reduce its administrative burden and enable it to conduct cyclical reviews to ensure compliance with laws and regulations. Furthermore, the agency will analyze skills gaps across government and develop resources to address them.

OPM plans to implement an internal “formal knowledge management approach” to reduce the loss of expertise and knowledge when employees leave the agency. Notably, OPM recognized the need for better customer service, both for agencies and employees, and noted that it wants to change the “widely held perception” that OPM’s mantra is “just say no.”

OPM also concurred with NAPA’s recommendation

NARFE is calling on members of the House of Representatives to cosponsor the Public Servants Protection and Fairness Act, H.R. 2337, legislation to reform the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). This long-standing, misguided provision reduces the Social Security benefits of nearly 2 million people nationwide. Use NARFE’s Legislative Action Center, located at www.narfe.org, to personalize a message to your Representative requesting his or her cosponsorship of the bill.