Presidential Hiring Reform Initiative

ROA participated in a conference call with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) about the president’s hiring reform initiative this past week. The plan is to overhaul the way civilians recruit. Some goals include making managers more involved in the hiring process, increasing timeliness and quality, creating a new website with veteran links such as social media, eventually setting up a career discovery tool, providing public notice of hiring events, and developing a plan to promote diversity. OPM will continually collect data from agencies and submit an annual report to the president. OPM Director John Berry and President Obama issued memorandums May 11 about the new hiring reforms (see OPM’s press release). Federal agencies were directed to overhaul their hiring procedures within 180 days.