OPM
or the office of personnel management is an organization that manages the records of of federal employees including but not restricted to all the retirement applications and processes.
OPM Urges Agencies to Close Skill Gap
OPM Director, Beth Cobert is determined to close the skill gap across all government jobs. The agency has enlisted the assistance of Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) in this regard. They are to create reports on how to close the skill gap in the short term as well as the long term. The agency is aiming to close all the skill gaps within a decade.
The Instructions of OPM
OPM has instructed the CHCOs to find out why any occupation becomes at risk in their own agency and in other agencies as well. The focus needs to be on mission critical jobs too. Then they need to develop strategies that can help solve this problem. The strategies they develop are supposed to be government-wide so that all the federal government agencies can benefit from them.
The CHCOs are also bound to submit quarterly and annual reports with regard to this problem. All these instructions were given through a letter written by OPM acting Director Beth Cobert. She wrote the letter on April 15th to the federal HR community.
The Mission-Critical Jobs
OPM has created a list of mission critical jobs. The list is given below.
- Auditor
- Economist
- Contract Specialist
- Cyber Security
- Human Resource Specialist
- STEM which denotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations
The Strategies
The agency is directing the CHCOs to create a short-term strategy for four years and a long-term strategy for ten years that would assist in closing the key skill gaps in mission-critical jobs. Again, the strategies must be created with regard to not only in their own agencies but in all the agencies related to the government.
Taking Assistance
The CHCOs can take the assistance of the quarterly reviews offered by a data program called HRStat. The HRStat is a program that identifies the mission-critical occupations in which the agencies have a bit of trouble in recruiting as well as retaining skilled employees. The program was developed a few years back and provides useful data even now.
The Guidance
The CHCOs would get all the guidance with regard to creating the strategies. OPM will be sending guidance with regard to not only developing the said strategies but also the reporting procedure to reduce any scope of error. The guidance would be shared with all the federal government agencies soon, according to Cobert.
OPM Gearing Up to Track Social Media Postings
The Office of Personnel Management or OPM is planning to expand the scope of background checks by including social media and other web based information. The agency is currently searching for a tech-friendly company to help with the process and wishes for the feature to be automated as soon as possible.
OPM’s Market Research
OPM is currently doing market research to hire companies that can help the agency by automatically browsing the publicly available information of people on electronics. The agency wants to track the information available on the widely popular social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, information posted on blogs, updates made to photo and video sharing websites, online court orders and information stored with e-commerce websites like EBay and Amazon.
The request for a company was posted on April 8, 2016 and the agency is expecting all the interested companies to have submitted their responses by April 15, 2016.
The Requirements
The agency wants to hire only those companies that can provide full automated support and don’t have scope for human intervention at all. The companies are also expected to have the ability to search information in those web places that don’t appear in search engine results. The companies are expected to possess an identity matching algorithm that has the capacity to not return irrelevant results and get deceived by similar names.
The Collaboration
The project would be undertaken by OPM and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This was stated by an OPM spokesperson recently. It must be noted here that OPM is responsible for managing almost every employee background check, so the automation would be a big help for it.
The Aim
The aim of the project is to test whether it’s feasible to acquire social media tracking from commercial vendors or not. The initiation dates of the project are yet to be announced. The testing of the new technology would be done on 400 investigations at first.
The Expectations
This project can be called as another effort by the government agencies to use social media data in investigating the background. A number of such projects have been undertaken to date and many of them have had issues such as unclear policies and missed deadlines. It is expected that the OPM would run this project successfully without suffering any leaks or data breach like the one it suffered last year.
OPM has had a break from the massive influx of applications
The Office of Personnel Management or OPM has been dealing with a huge, never-ending wave of incoming applications in the past few months, bu during the month of March, that changed considerably.
OPM RECEIVES A BREAK FROM MASSIVE APPLICATIONS INFLUX:
During the first two months of the year, the organization reported record figures of applicants pushing their application forms on the OPM desks. When you consider the figure of 5,741 (Applications in March), you might think that it is a lot, however, it’s considerably smaller when you take into account the numbers from the past 2 months. Before March, the figures were very high for both January and February.
Apart from the influx decrease, OPM also managed to decrease their backlog substantially as around 9,200 applications were processed in March. The remaining applications now stand at 19,211 after seeing a 15 percent reduction from 22,962. It’s appreciable and of course worth mentioning that the number of processed applications also increased compared to that of the past 2 months.
When we take into account the numbers from the past few years, we observe a trend that’s quite similar; the backlog’s ebb and flow depicts a consistent pattern. That being said, the backlog after March 2015 was slightly heavier at 20,954.
This increase in the processing power is largely a result of the increased vigor that has been instilled into the employees of the organization; especially after the past few hiccups faced by the data breach and its repercussions. The influx of applications is expected to rise soon and we might see similar trends to last year. Here it’s hoped that the backlog keeps getting decreased quickly so that the applications of the waiting employees get processed before their expected time frames. We are certainly counting on OPM to do that.
OPM Data Leak May Damage Census Response Rate
Commerce Chief Information Security Officer, Mr. Rod Turk recently stated that the OPM data breach of last year may severely affect the 2020 census. He also added that people may not participate in the census at all. The need for a census procedure is probably the highest at the moment.
The Question Posed by OPM Attack
The OPM attack that occurred in June 2015 and compromised the data of nearly 22 million former and current employees is predicted to harm public’s trust in the government. It can also make the people think that if the government cannot keep the data secure why should they add more through the census?
The Past
In 2010, about 6 percent citizens showed reluctance to participating in the census. 2 percent of them even followed through the threat. Though 2 percent is not a high number, it is certainly noteworthy. If this number increases a bit, it could seriously hamper the conclusions of the census.
The Consequences
If the conclusions of the census are not ideal, it would affect federal spending on programs, private sector decisions on investment, representation in presidential elections and congress, compliance with civil rights laws and many other vital processes.
Public Trust in Government is Deteriorating
Pew Research has earlier reported that only 19 percent of people trust the government to do the right thing most of the time or just about always. Mr. Turk admits that public trust is vital for any census. The trust being near the all time low is not a good thing.
The low faith in government may have been boosted by the OPM cyber security hacks, but it was not too positive before then either. The Census Board has decided to change or remove the offensive questions before that too. The questions that were termed offensive in 2010 census were removed or changed.
Learning the Lesson
Mr. Turk admitted that The Census Board is putting many efforts into ensuring that the census data remains safe. The organization is focused on ensuring that the cyber risks are constantly diagnosed or mitigated, phishing campaigns are effectively blocked, and the Personal Identity Verification cards system is strengthened so that only the employees can gain access to the most sensitive assets.
It seems that the cyber security culture of the Census Board might be successful in not repeating the same vulnerabilities as the OPM showed last year.
Federal Employees with Same-Sex Marriages to Benefit from FMLA
OPM has recently announced that federal employees with same-sex marriages will now be given the FMLA leaves like employees who have opposite sex marriages. The agency started to amend this rule since 2014 but it has now been implemented across all states.
Supreme Court Ruling that led to Federal Employees Benefit
The change was initiated by OPM only after a Supreme Court ruling of June 2013. In this ruling, the court struck down the Section 3 of Defense of Marriage Act and changed the definition of spouse. It said that the new definition allows federal employees who have same-sex marriages to use FMLA leave like the employees who don’t have same-sex marriages. This final rule was laid out in an April 8 Federal Register posting by the OPM.
The Slow Change
OPM had begun the amendment process in 2014 and it was only then it opened the process to comment. This new ruling of the agency would help in letting go of the sexual orientation discrimination loophole.
Details of the FLMA
The FLMA allows the federal employees to enjoy job-protected and unpaid leaves for pre-defined medical and family reasons. It also offers health insurance coverage during the period of leave to the eligible candidates. The maximum limit of this type of leave is 12 weeks.
The situations in which these leaves are applicable are listed here:
- The placement of a foster child
- The placement of an adopted child
- The birth of a child
- To take care of a spouse or dependent who has a serious health condition
- To take rest when a serious health condition is making the employee unable to do the job
- To take care of the household or its members if the family responsibilities have increased due to a family member’s active service in the military
The federal employees are also allowed to take a leave of up to 26 weeks to take care of a covered service member who is dealing with a serious injury.
Other Changes
Apart from the changes made into the same-sex marriage rules of the federal employees, OPM is also making many other rule changes. These are with regard to the safety requirements for onshore gas pipelines and the regulations for electric power and natural gas contracts. All these regulations would take effect within a time span of 30 days.
90% of Federal Agencies susceptible to data theft
New research has revealed that around 90 percent of the federal agencies that are considered leaders in the field of IT security claim that they feel vulnerable to threats to their data.
FEDERAL AGENCIES CLAIM BEING VULNERABLE TO CYBER THREATS:
Apart from this, the research has brought forward some other thought-provoking facts too. A staggering 61 percent of the federal agencies have undergone a data breach in the past. 1 out of every 5 says that they had a breach within the period of the last 12 months. The 2016 Vormetric Data Threat Report’s edition of the US Federal Government revealed these threats. The company that supervised the preparation of this report is Vormetric and 451 Research.
There are many barriers to getting the perfect security infrastructure. Skill shortage is one and 44 percent of the agencies believe that it’s the lack of skills that halt their defense capabilities. Budgets come in at 43 percent and there are other factors too.
These threats produce alarming signs for the government and of course for the federal employees. All of these agencies contain sensitive data about different Federal Employees from all over the country and they should not be feeling vulnerable. If they are themselves claiming that they are insecure then it entices potential hackers to come in and enjoy the party. The recent OPM breach was a disaster and we certainly hope that there isn’t another episode of that in the recent future.
While there are many reasons the company can feel unsecure, they shouldn’t just sit around and do nothing about it. We do believe that the federal agencies will be contemplating actions or an action strategy and it’s then need of the hour that they come up with it sooner rather than later. Let’s hope that the next Vormetric report shows better results.
OPM Sets New Standards for FEHB Carriers
The FEHB carriers would now have to give a better proof of their performance. OPM is planning to add in several new evaluation measures. This was announced by Beth Cobert, who is the acting OPM Director. The agency also wants to ensure that the FEHB is available to all employees, its costs are kept minimal and the FEHB carriers ensure adequate cyber security.
Why is OPM increasing the Evaluation Measures?
OPM is will start using 19 new measures to evaluate the performance of carriers that are related to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. The agency is boosting up the evaluation metrics as a vital part of its Performance Assessment Plan for FEHBP carriers. It is worthy to mention that this new plan will be implemented for the first time. The Announcement was made by Cobert when she was addressing the annual FEHB Carrier Conference in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday.
The Interrelated Success
Cobert also pointed out that the performance of the carrier would be judged by how they perform on the measures and their margins would also be directly affected by it. The agency also aims to judge its own performance on the basis of the success achieved by the carriers. The report regarding these new steps would be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget and the results of the report would be made available on Performance.gov.
The Key Metrics
The key metrics that measures the performance of a carrier are the optimum utilization of resources by a carrier, quality of the clinics and the customer service. OPM focuses on three other measures, blood pressure control, prenatal care and reduction in hospital re-admissions.
The Targets
The key targets that need to be focused upon by the OPM are to ensure that FEHB is made inclusive, the carriers have enough cyber security and the carriers keep the costs low. The first target is vital for the agency as it helps in attracting more people to federal jobs and retaining them. A 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey has revealed that nearly 78 percent of employees think that the FEHB availability impacts their decision to keep their federal job.
The second target will help OPM to get away from the bad publicity earned by two cyber breaches that occurred last year and made that data of millions of people vulnerable. The third target would assist the OPM to attain short term and long term savings for the FEHB Program.
OPM Fails to Keep Up with the Retirement Benefit Claims
OPM has once again failed to keep up with the retirement claims made by the former employees. Though the number of pending claims has not been as low as it was last year at the same time, the situation is still very serious. The people worst impacted by this change are the retirees, especially the ones who have no other source of income and have to depend on others for their financial needs.
Data Speaks of OPM Inconsistencies
The current backlog of claims is more than 22, 500 as of now. This increase is due to the fact that the organization received more than 11,000 fresh requests last month. The surge in applications in the months of January and February was expected and yet the organization failed to keep up with it and hardly seemed prepared to tackle it. The percentage of the surge is nearly 15%.
The Good News?
Some analysts are of the opinion that things are not at their worst now because the backlog better when compared year on year (YOY). Last February, the backlog numbers were over 24,000. But is it really an improvement?
The Endless Race
The organization is certainly making some efforts in getting rid of this crisis. It can be proven by the fact that the organization has slowly reduced the backlog over the last year by processing the applications a bit more quickly. If it was better prepared to deal with the expected surge of applicants, it would not have been facing so much criticism. It seems the organization was too focused on reducing the backlog that it failed to take note of the crucial task of planning for the near future.
The Worst Impacted
The people who will be bearing the brunt of this backlog are none other than the retirees. They would have to wait for longer periods of time to get the money they deserve. They will likely be more dependent on their children or spouses to fulfill their financial requirements.
The Solution?
Acting OPM director Beth Cobert recently gave a solution to this problem via her official blog. She recommended that OPM should have access to more money to hire more resources that could play a key role in getting rid of the backlogs. This seems to be a viable solution but its implementation is not easy given the plight of the world economy.
OPM Names New Acting CIO
Acting OPM Director Beth Cobert has just announced that the acting CIO of the organization would be David Vargas. He will be replacing former CIO Donna Seymour who faced the flak of millions when the organization failed to protect records from IT hackers last year. This appointment seems to be temporary as the organization is still seeking a talented person to take over the post permanently.
When OPM made the Announcement?
OPM made the announcement for this change it was testifying before the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government regarding the budget request for the next fiscal year, i.e., 2017.
Who is Vargas?
Vargas is the OPM’s associate CIO who has been serving the Department of Housing and Urban Development since over 20 years. He joined OPM in 2013 and was named as the Associate CIO in the year 2014. He has played an active role in the organizations’ IT modernization plan that has increased the organizations’ budget from $21 million to $37 million.
What Next?
Cobert also explained that the organization needs to fill Seymour’s position by someone who can get the things done. The new leader needs to have an in-depth understanding of the modernizing IT systems and cyber security. It is worthy to add here that the former CIO faced a lot of criticism in this regard as the cyber security breach that occurred at OPM revealed the data of over 22 million people last year and raised serious questions about whether the organization has a strong IT security system in place or not.
No Room for Mistakes?
Cobert also announced that the organization is now working in collaboration with Department of Homeland Security to ensure that it has the best cyber security and the breach situation never occurs again. The organization is also working with the Defense Department to set up the National Background Investigations Bureau that’s supposed to replace the Federal Investigative Services in the near future.
The New Plan
OPM also needs a deft CIO to help the new SES team members to carry on with the latest modernization efforts. Cobert said that the SES team is doing great but adding in some expert advice would only be beneficial for the organization as a whole. It seems that the organization is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that it has an error-free cyber security system as well as a modernized IT system in place.
Federal Employees with Autistic Children to Benefit from New Policy
The OPM has directed the carriers to include Autism Spectrum Disorder in the healthcare and insurance plans for federal employees. It will allow the service men and women to take better care of an autistic child. This new policy also includes retirees and their dependents. This policy is expected to be implemented from 2017.
The Relief for the Federal Employees
This new change comes as a relief for the federal employees who have autistic children and had to spend hundreds of dollars in the therapy till now. In the near future, they won’t have to spend any money as the suppliers of applied behavior analysis therapy (ABA) have increased and the OPM has directed them to help the service men and women via the insurance and healthcare plans.
The Therapy
It is pertinent to add that ABA therapy helps the children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to improve their socially significant behaviors such as communication, social skills, living skills, reading, and academics. The therapy has garnered positive results in most cases.
The Hope
This change is said to be implemented from 2017 and the OPM expects all the carriers to provide medical and clinical assistance to the children of federal employees who are diagnosed with ASD. This step was taken by OPM after they thoroughly monitored research supporting the positive outcomes ABA may lead to for a period of 3 years. They also studied the data on the availability of ABA therapy providers who are qualified and skilled to make the therapy work.
The Opinion
Most of the advocates of Autism therapy have welcomed this effective step recently. This is a welcome move that helps the autistic children to make their own place in society and get help in solving their issues. This is not the first step taken in favor of autistic children. Autism speaks reports say that 43 states have already passed legislations that make it mandatory for at least some insurance plans to cover ABA therapy.
The Scope
The new policy, if implemented correctly would benefit more than 8 million people who fall under the category of FEHB plans. It is also being assumed that the step taken by nation’s largest employer may prompt private employers to ensure that their employees also receive the APA therapy for children with ASD disorder as part of the health insurance like the federal employees are soon to get.
The Hated Federal Performance Appraisal-About to Change?
If you are a federal employee, most likely you have been through or given a dreaded Federal performance appraisal. They are similar to performance reviews or assessments given in the private sector, however, they are becoming less-used in the private sector. With them required by law for federal employees do not expect them to go away any time soon. Yet are they hated enough for OPM to consider changing the entire system?
Federal Performance Appraisals
These appraisals are used in assessing federal employees in their current position and have a bearing on promotions, discipline, awards and even in firing. If you are looking for a promotion or transfer these can have a big impact on whether you get it or not. Yet, many feel that they are not effective and simply create work and stress disproportionately to what their worth is.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has as recently as January 2016 told federal agencies to include employees in these appraisals more. The OPM is not willing to abandon the system yet, especially since they are legally obligated to conduct and administer the program. But they are calling on managers to add a plus to the system. They want employee engagement on these appraisals to be more involved. With recent surveys of the system, both by the OPM and private surveys calling into question their validity and concerns of favoritism, this change should be welcomed by employees.
Recent Surveys
A recent FedSmith survey showed that an overwhelming majority of respondents do not get feedback on performance throughout the year at 63%. Only half felt their most recent appraisal was accurate and 50% felt that the criteria for the review were subjective. Even more worrisome is that 62% felt that management was grading on a curve and that there was some sort of quota system. This specifically is against OPM rules for these appraisals even if you are on a performance for pay type employment.
This survey, although not a scientific study shows that although employment contracts are changing, remuneration is changing even within government contracts, but the appraisal system is either not trusted, not effective or grading on a curve, which is strictly prohibitive. Although these are respondents ‘opinions’ there are enough of them to be concerning and warrant further investigation.
Federal Performance Appraisals Changing?
The OPM has decided engagement with employees is needed, and this is definitely a step in the right direction. In a recent revelation before a Senate sub-committee, the OBM’s (Office of Management and Budget) Chief Performance Officer testified that they were looking at a new performance management system.
Will this system be implemented through all agencies? Probably not anytime soon, but it is obvious that performance appraisals have both fallen behind the times and fallen off its own mandated objective criteria for evaluation. If you are a current federal employee, be sure to ask for performance feedback, before and after an appraisal. These still have a bearing on the future of your career even if they are lacking of late.
OPM has urged agencies to restrain from borrowing
The Obama Government is all set to commence within a year and the Office of Personnel management aka OPM has urged all the agencies of the current policies to stop political appointees from borrowing their way in to positions. This was made evident by the Acting Director Beth Cobert.
OPM urges agencies to not borrow:
OPM will, under the contemporary procedure make sure that it considers applications submitted by all the people who have held political positions in the last five years and intend to continue operating as a career appointee. These policies are as old as the Carter administration and OPM revised its policy in 2010 when it opted to conduct some reviews before hiring on a continued basis rather than before a presidential transition only.
Cobert also mentioned to the agencies that the department will also continue to review the applications for all the appointees of a non-career nature who intend to become a part of the SES (Senior Executive service) before the applicant decides to formally appear before the Review Board.
The guidance also emphasized the importance and vitality of holding regular meetings with officers and employees. The purpose of these meetings should not only be restricted to making sure that the employees are well-bonded and happy with their workspaces but they should also ensure that the employee’s performance gets evaluated periodically. This will in the longer run mean that the evaluation results don’t come as a surprise to the employee once the real time comes.
While OPM has been dealing with all sorts of predicaments in the recent times, it’s good to see that their stance in this regard is solid and not shaky.
OPM December retirement claims receives a small break
OPM received a slight remission in the number of retirement applications it received towards the end of the last year with the company continually slogging away at the claim backlog for the month of December.
OPM December claims received a break:
OPM received the lowest number of claims in December 2015 since December of 2014 i.e. 4753. The number was 4077 when reports were compiled a year before last month.
Around 6000 claims were processed during December 2015 though, and it left the backlog of unprocessed retirement cases at around 11 thousand which is a good enough figure to start off the New Year. OPM has been increasing their processing number throughout the year and in May it processed around 11 thousand claims which was also a record. Another interesting fact is that the organization processed around 78 percent of all the claims within 60 days or less in the last year. This rate was around 85 percent for 2014.
All in all, 2015 was a very big year for OPM with the data breach incident taking the spotlight away from all the other developments. It’s expected that the vigour with which the employees worked after the data breach is going to get extended with the start of the New Year. They have started encouraging people to drop in their retirement applications as their motivation to deliver has increased many folds. It’s hoped that they are not going to be faced with another predicament in the near future and that they will be able to help the federal officers get their retirements processed smoothly as well.
VA Employees finally Receiving Pay from 2010
The Amarillo VA Healthcare system has waited almost 6 years since a 2010 law was passed in order to provide back pay, pay rate changes and other pay incentives to be applied, due to software issues. This only happened after the Federal government advised them on how to make changes to the system to allow for the changes.
The Original Act
The Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, signed into law by POTUS Obama heavily favored and supported veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan service. Its main focus was on the caregivers of these veterans, mental health services, women veterans, vets in rural areas, veterans that are homeless and for veteran research and education. It also implemented pay raises for a number of VA employees, but the VA was not advised on how to implement these with a switch over of computer software that was also taking place in the VA at the time.
The Local Amarillo VA
Spokesperson Barbara Moore for the Amarillo VA stated “we just got the guidance on how to fix that locally” and they further received instructions on how to make the manual calculations to offer the retroactive portion of the raises.
Employees of the VA and in Amarillo specifically have had a number of complaints that relate back to this 2010 legislation. Not only did they not receive pay raises from the legislation, but raises with promotions, incentive bonuses and differentials for night and weekend work was not being paid for existing employees. New employees were seeing these raises creating even more tension in the workplace.
A Software Issue
Essentially the issue at the heart of the matter was one of technical implementation of the new VA Time and Attendance System that is slowly being implemented across the VA system of healthcare nationwide. Unfortunately this software did not account for changes in policies from legislation. The software was not broken says Moore, but simply that “these formulas and calculations [were not] built in when we got it.”
The federal Office of Personnel Management released an update to the software and there were complaints immediately that some nurses in the system that were new-hires were getting paid more than their more senior counterparts. The OPM acknowledges that as soon as that was the case they started working to resolve the issue.
Recent Changes Equal Large Issue
The American Federation of Government Employees filed a grievance on 14 December 2015 that was recently settled. It was this action that prompted complaints, because there were a number of nurses that were supposed to get a promotional bump in pay and never received it as a result of this software issue.
Now that the issue is known, changes to the software have been instituted as well as manual directions on how to over-ride the system. Back pay retroactive to any agreements or legislation will be paid as administration catch up on these issues. Since the system is complex and multifaceted, Moore says, these issues could crop up in other VA locales across the country. If you are being affected by this issue, contact your supervisor immediately about your fair share.
The Spending Bell Expands ID Theft Protection for Feds
There have been some seriously dangerous cases of identity theft in the recent past relating to federal employees and the government has been faced with stark criticism in this regard too. The OPM data breach was the biggest illustrative of this catastrophe and there have been other small incidents in this regard too. The recent spending legislative bill passed by the congress though has expanded the ID theft protection for all the employees that were affected by the data breach.
ID theft protection expanded:
The Congress did give this as a small Christmas present to its employees. The section 632 of the Title VI of the Financial Services (Davison E) Act of 2016 lists what the employees were after attaining after the recent breach. An additional ten years of ID theft protection without any additional costs and 5 million dollars’ worth of ID theft insurance is also provided in this regard.
It was high time that this step was taken by the government as the employees were getting restless and were fearing another breach if the infrastructure was not to be improved by the government. Here’s hoping that we don’t have to deal with any such predicament in the near future or ever again.
