The memo says SES candidate development has “failed to deliver results for the American people in alignment with administration priorities.” Image: Cagkan Sayin/Shutterstock.com
OPM has refocused SES candidate development and hiring programs toward carrying out Trump administration policies, including revising the standards used to evaluate candidates to stress producing results that align with “stated goals from superiors.”
A memo on chcoc.gov is critical of “broken, insular, and outdated” hiring practices and says that “SES officials must be recruited, selected, and trained so that they are equipped to respond to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and implement the agenda that the American people elected the President to deliver.”
It says that programs for developing candidates for the executive cadre—the highest level to which career federal employees normally can reach—have “failed to deliver results for the American people in alignment with administration priorities.” Effective September 1, those programs will be replaced with an 80-hour program that is “grounded in the Constitution, laws, and Founding ideals of our government, and will provide training on President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
The memo also requires involving political appointees “throughout the full hiring process” and replacing narrative essays with an interview-focused assessment method. It further changes the “executive core qualifications” for evaluating candidates. The new standards for example seek ability to “cut wasteful spending” and “when necessary, the ability to lead people through change and to hold individuals accountable.”
The memo expands on executive orders and OPM guidance to agencies to give the SES cadre of about 8,800, which is about 90 percent career, a more political orientation in the name of making them “knowledgeable regarding Administration priorities and prepared to execute them efficiently and effectively.”
OPM earlier told agencies to terminate their existing boards for hiring and evaluating SES members and assign noncareer officials to them and to include in performance evaluations whether they “faithfully administered the law and advanced the President’s policy priorities.”
OPM further earlier told agencies to review the numbers of their SES positions that have been reserved for career employees with an eye to giving themselves “maximum flexibility in opting for non-career officials to carry out presidential priorities.” A separate memo specifically told them to consider opening CIO positions currently held by career SESers to political appointees.
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