Insights from OPM on Navigating Federal HR Challenges

Federal agencies and private-sector employers face many of the same HR issues, including how best to attract talent, how to implement AI in the workplace, and how to deal with well-being and mental health among employees.   

Digging deeper into these topics, Jim Link, SHRM-SCP, CHRO at SHRM, led an engaging conversation with Rob Shriver, acting director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), on June 23 at the SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2024 (SHRM24) in Chicago.

The OPM manages 2.3 million civilian federal government employees, the largest workforce in the U.S. The agency sets federal HR policy and manages the largest health insurance and retirement benefits programs in the U.S. but leaves the day-to-day HR practices to the HR departments of the individual agencies.

Shriver presented his thoughts on several areas critical to both public-sector and private-sector HR practitioners.

Attracting Talent

Shriver said that depending on the role, the government can have a hard time competing against the private sector in recruiting. One big reason why is that pay for federal jobs is set under a statutory system.

“It is not a market-based pay system, and people in professional, technical, and senior executive positions are severely underpaid when compared to their private-sector counterparts,” Shriver said. Instead, the federal government relies on appealing to mission and impact.

“With a government job, you are coming in to make a difference,” he said. “There are flexibilities and strong leave and benefits programs, but we find that people care about the mission. People need to make enough money to make a living, but they are not coming to the federal government to get rich.”

Shriver pointed out that private-sector companies have adopted some best practices for talent attraction from the public sector, including expanding paid internships, eliminating salary history questions from the hiring process, and moving toward gender pay equity.

“The government has a very high degree of gender pay equity. I’m very proud of that,” he said. “We’ve also been doing hiring barrier analyses and are figuring out how to remove unnecessary barriers to getting a job.”

Shriver said that the federal government also has strengthened its outreach to more diverse populations by recruiting from trade and technical schools, community colleges, and apprenticeship programs. “These are universally popular ideas that have a positive impact on diversity and inclusion,” he said.     

One of the most alarming statistics about the federal workforce is that just 7% of workers are under the age of 30, a measure which doesn’t bode well for the future.

“This is one area where the federal government has had a challenge,” Shriver said. He said the OPM is revamping early-career talent hiring programs, doing more to convert interns to permanent roles, and offering incentives for people to return to federal work after they have left for other opportunities.

Skills-Based Hiring

Shriver said that President Joe Biden is all in on skills-based hiring. “But it’s not easy,” he said. “You see the announcements from public and private employers. But those degree requirements as a proxy for skills creep back in to HR processes over time. The problem is: How will you fairly evaluate the thousands of applications you receive?”

He said that the OPM will start identifying the skills that are essential for certain occupations, develop alternative tools to evaluate applicants, and work with academia to build feeder programs that train people on in-demand skills.       

“Another thing we are doing is changing the way we assess applicants,” he said, describing a move away from the traditional self-ranking assessments to behavioral, competency, and technical assessments. He added that the OPM will also enlist subject matter experts to assess candidates. “For example, when you hire an accountant, have an accountant look at the qualifications and help HR evaluate the candidate,” he said.

Artificial Intelligence

How to implement AI has been a question for both public-sector and private-sector employers. 

“President Biden issued a comprehensive executive order on AI for the federal government,” Shriver said. “There are huge opportunities to work with AI, but we need to proceed in a safe and secure way.”

He also mentioned the dire need to hire more people with AI skills, but the labor supply isn’t there yet. “There’re just not enough people out there with the skills,” he said. “We will need to figure out how to build the competencies in the existing workforce, so everyone can be trained to be more proficient.”

Shriver also mentioned just one of the many beneficial use cases for AI in the federal workforce specifically: “We will streamline what are now paper-based, manual processes to improve customer service overall. Work has already begun on this, and some agencies are full speed ahead on AI.”   

Well-Being and Mental Health

The OPM recently rebranded its employee assistance programs (EAPs), which had historically been used as a support for people with alcohol use and substance use disorders, as employee wellness programs. People had been referred to the EAPs when they were having performance problems, and “we now encourage support to include mental health counseling and coaching services,” Shriver said.

The OPM also recently introduced the Mindful FED program, an interagency community of practice that complements wellness goals by integrating mindfulness strategies and practices into workplace culture.

Another issue Shriver mentioned was the move to remote work, adding to what has been described as a loneliness epidemic.

“I fear that there is still a stigma about talking about mental health issues,” he said. One way the OPM addressed this was by changing the rules around screening questions in background investigations that previously made people feel like they couldn’t talk about their mental health issues, he said.

“We talk about the federal government as a model employer,” Shriver said. “To me, that means a place where people can show up and be their authentic self, bringing their skills to the table and be valued for that. We want people to be transparent, and I think as more leaders are transparent about their own mental health issues, we can help deal with any stigma.”