The memo also highlights other flexibilities including student loan repayments, higher initial pay, special rate pay, critical position pay, offsite work, alternative work schedules, and higher rates of annual leave. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOPM has reminded agencies of the compensation-related and other flexibilities they may offer to recruit and retain employees involved with artificial intelligence work, as instructed by an executive order issued late last year.
A memo on chcoc.gov does not establish new authorities but rather calls attention to flexibilities such as recruitment and relocation incentives, saying an agency may justify paying them as needed for hard-to-fill positions if OPM has approved the use of a direct-hire authority applicable to the position, with no further evidence required.
It also notes that to justify paying a retention incentive on grounds that an employee is likely to leave otherwise, there is no requirement that the employee have another job offer in hand. Payment can be based on “considerations such as employment trends and labor market factors, the salaries typically paid outside the federal government for the employee’s skills, and the success of recent recruitment and retention efforts for similar employees and positions,” it says.
The memo also highlights other flexibilities including student loan repayments, higher initial pay based on superior qualifications or special needs, special rate pay, critical position pay, offsite work, alternative work schedules, and higher rates of annual leave accrual under certain circumstances.
Many of the flexibilities “can be used simultaneously and with other human resources tools to enhance an agency’s AI and AI-enabling employee recruitment and retention efforts,” says the memo.
“For example, an agency may use an OPM-approved direct hire authority to hire a new AI employee, pay the new employee a recruitment incentive, set the new employee’s pay above step 1 of their grade using the superior qualifications and special needs pay setting authority, provide service credit towards a higher annual leave accrual rate based non-federal AI work experience, and provide alternative work schedule and telework options,” it says.
It recommends that managers work with their agency’s chief artificial intelligence officer, chief human capital officer, chief financial officer and similar officials “to design pay flexibility, incentive pay, and leave and workforce flexibility programs that will best meet their needs within available budget and with consideration of the full range of available human resources tools.”
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