Federal agencies made substantially greater use of recruitment, relocation and incentive payments for hard-to-fill and hard-to-keep positions in 2006, OPM has reported.
In 2006, 47 agencies paid 22,764 recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives to employees that were worth more than $140 million, OPM said in the latest of a series of assessments of what are commonly called the “Three Rs.” That averaged out to more than $6,000 per incentive.
That broke down as 3,952 recruitment incentives totaling over $32.9 million (average paid: $8,325), 1,009 relocation incentives totaling over $11.6 million (average payment of $11,530), and 17,803 retention incentives totaling over $95.9 million (average payment of $5,388).
Agencies typically paid recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives to employees in occupations critical to agency missions, such as health care, engineering, security, and information technology. Fifty-three percent of recruitment incentives were used to recruit new employees into entry and developmental-level positions (e.g., at GS-07, GS-09, and GS-11) and 80 percent of relocation incentives were paid to employees in intermediate and upper level positions (e.g., at GS-11, GS-12, GS-13, and GS-14). The use of retention incentives was spread over a wide range of grade or work levels (the greatest use of retention incentives, in descending order, were for employees in nine different grade levels: GS-06, GS-12, GS-11, GS-13, GS-05, GS-14, GS-15, GS-09, and GS-07), “an indication that agencies are focused on making sure critical employees are retained at all work levels,” OPM said.
By agency, the heaviest users are Defense, VA, DHS, State and HHS.
“Agencies consistently reported using the incentives to accomplish strategic human capital goals, and often realized these goals at relatively low average incentive costs,” OPM said.
“Agencies provided very positive responses regarding the effect these incentives had on recruitment and retention efforts. Most agencies reported no barriers to using these incentives. Some reported the availability of funding represented a barrier to incentive use,” it said.
