Federal Manager's Daily Report

OPM has issued standards for measuring the impact of human capital management on mission accomplishment, developed by an interagency working group in light of revised regulations that went into effect a year ago.

“The evaluation system will help agencies make such assessments, and we anticipate the chief human capital officers and performance improvement officers will work together to ensure a sound evaluation system is in place and fully operational,” says a memo to agencies that includes guidance on developing an updated evaluation system policy and an agency-wide communications plan.

The system standards include a definition, description, and maturity model that depicts the various stages of system development as reactive, emerging, advanced or optimized. The five standards are:

* “Leadership involvement. Agency leadership fully supports and adequately resources the agency”s evaluation system to ensure organizational performance is monitored (metrics), adjustments are made when necessary, and human capital programs operate within merit system principles.
* “Communication. Internal agency leadership communication ensures cross-organizational collaboration towards achieving mission objectives, informing decision-making, eliminating redundancies, and assessing progress towards achieving organizational goals.
* “Data driven decision-making. Data connects human capital management practices to business outcomes and organizational goals to provide base line information for comparing actual program results with established performance goals. Data is used to create a link between the agency”s priority goals, Human Capital Operating Plan, independent audit program, HRStat, Human Capital Review, and other means used to assess the health of the organization and evaluation system.
* “Assessment. Assess all Human Capital Framework systems agency-wide to ensure human capital policies, programs, and practices help the agency accomplish its strategic goals, are efficient and effective, and meet merit system principles and regulatory requirements.
* “Formal and documented. The agency has a policy that describes how the evaluation system operates and will serve as a roadmap for implementation.”