The Army has sent out guidance regarding a new responsibility
mandated in agencies by last year’s revision to Office of
Management and Budget Circular A-76–the “human resources
advisor” for competitive sourcing.
While the guidance applies specifically to the Army, other
agencies also need to designate individuals with similar
responsibilities, and the Army is one of the government’s
leading agencies in conducting contracting-out studies.
According to the Army guidance, the HRA must: be an
inherently governmental agency official and a HR expert; be
independent of the contracting officer, source selection
authority, performance work statement team, and source
selection evaluation board ; and participate on the most
efficient organization (MEO) team.
Employee relations responsibilities of the position include:
interface with directly affected employees (and their
representatives) from the date of public announcement until
full implementation of the performance decision; identify
adversely affected employees; accomplish employee
placement entitlements; provide post-employment restrictions
to employees; determine agency priority lists; and provide
the contracting officer with a list of the agency’s
adversely affected employees regarding the right of first
refusal for a private sector performance decision.
MEO team responsibilities will include:
scheduling
sufficient time in
competition milestones to accomplish potential human
resource actions;
advising on position classification restrictions;
classifying position
descriptions, including exemptions based on the Fair
Labor Standards Act;
performing labor market analysis to determine the
availability of sufficient
labor to staff the MEO and implement the phase-in plan;
assisting in the development of the agency cost estimate
by providing annual salaries, wages, night differentials,
and premium pay;
assisting in the development of the
timing for the phase-in plan based on MEO requirements;
and developing an employee transition plan for the
incumbent agency organization early in the standard
competition process.
