OPM: An employee’s performance expectations, “at least one critical element should clearly align to an organizational goal or Trump Administration priority.” Image: Douglas Rissing/iStock
By: FEDweek StaffAgencies are to assure that “high performers—and only high performers—are rewarded appropriately” through monetary and other awards, OPM has said, while stressing that recently revised performance rating standards (that are in part to reflect compliance with Trump Administration policies) should result in fewer employees being rated in that way.
“Agencies must ensure awards, both monetary and non-monetary, support a culture in which only those individuals who have demonstrated genuinely exceptional individual performance and contributions to the agency receive the largest performance awards and pay adjustments. Thus, awards must be commensurate with the employee’s annual summary rating or rating of record (as applicable)—meaning that employees who have received ratings above “Fully Successful” should receive the largest bonuses,” says a memo on chcoc.gov.
“Too often, inflated and subjective performance ratings have resulted in dollars available for performance awards being distributed broadly across the majority of employees, thereby diminishing the provision of meaningful bonuses and awards to reward the most deserving employees,” it says.
The guidance applies to awards policies the general changes in performance ratings policies for most federal employees set by a June memo. That memo did not set a desired distribution pattern for ratings—unlike a parallel earlier policy for the SES that explicitly advocates for “forced distributions” to limit the number rated at the highest levels. However, it said that agencies “should seek to ensure that a disproportionate number of employees are not rated at the highest performance levels”
It further said that in an employee’s performance expectations, “at least one critical element should clearly align to an organizational goal or Trump Administration priority.”
The new guidance says that under those changes, “beginning with the closeout of the FY 2025 performance cycle, agencies should see an increased normalization of ratings, resulting in fewer Level 4 and Level 5 ratings . . . the award amounts for Level 4 and Level 5 ratings should increase significantly as the largest bonuses will now be appropriately distributed to only the highest performers.”
What will be a larger share of employees rated at Level 3 “are essential members of the federal workforce and agencies should consider rewarding a ‘fully successful’ rating, but in a way that makes meaningful distinctions among the rewards of all rating levels and reserves the largest bonuses for the highest performers.”
“Agencies are also reminded that tolerating low performance results in a lack of trust between employees and supervisors, and supervisors are expected and obligated to identify unacceptable performance via the appropriate performance rating. This increased rigor in the assessment of individual and organizational performance will provide for a larger pool of funds from which the high performers—and only high performers—are rewarded appropriately,” it says.
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