Rationale and analysis for agency selected, part 1

Rationale and analysis for agency selected, part 1

Introduction

At the start of the 20^th-century majority of the federal jobs were under the civil service boosting the expertise in handling positions filled by the civil service. The enactment of the civil service reform act of 1978 brought out the foundation of the Office of Personnel management. The OPM serves as the human resource department to the federal government. OPM’s mission is to encourage and assist the federal workforce. They achieve this by recruiting the right workforce, providing for the workforce to avoid high turnover rates and honoring the workforce so that they can effectively serve the American Citizens. OPM.GOV (2020) outlines that federal workers are those people who restore the world after the war; they take care of the sick, combat crime while ensuring the progress of our principles. OPM seek to ease the search and application of federal jobs. It sets up platforms to advertise for vacancies and performs the recruitment and selection processes. The role of the federal workforce is to tend to the citizen’s needs therefore; OPM must retain a workforce whose work is distinct and versatile as the American people. The agency needs to ensure accurate and convenient reactions to customer needs. According to Figueroa (2016), the cyber breach experienced by the agency was damaging to the agency since a lot of employees private information and their fingerprints were exposed which may have led to identity theft or other serious consequences. The proved the federal government’s inability to respond to cyber-attacks with agility. Therefore, it created room for improvement. It also encouraged the agency to formulate policies that protect personal information to avoid such incidences. The cyber hack was a significant milestone in crafting OPM into a formidable agency.

Agency functions

The primary function of the agency is the identification of vacancies and providing platforms for individuals to apply for the federal jobs. It is also in charge of placing these employees in the right positions as per their qualifications to boost productivity. Another of the agencies function is that it arrives to decisions about the regular and disabled federal employee’s retirement cases. It makes decisions on which employees are legible for retirement benefits, what amount they are subject to and at what point should they retire. Its task is providing the federal employees with the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) and the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI). OPM understands that to maintain high productivity among employees they need to provide for the federal employee’s needs. They achieve this by providing the insurance covers. The agency is responsible for the investigation of persons to grant them secret tasks and top secret clearances so they can perform the tasks. The OPM is also in charge of managing majority these security clearances on behalf of the government. The agency encourages direct communication between managers, supervisors and the employees to build trust and encourage innovation (PERFOMANCE.GOV, 2020).

Agency News

The whole world is battling the corona virus pandemic. The pandemic has brought with it a wave of uncertainty as a lot of resources are required to help mitigate its effects. The American OPM is recruiting personnel to work with other federal agencies to help respond to the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example the agency authorized the United States (US) Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to seek retired individuals and reemploy them. The VA’s got deployed to help in combating the pandemic. Personnel management (PM) focuses on the development of the workforce so that they can add value to the sectors they work in. The current need for a larger workforce puts a strain on the functions of PM. The strain is due to by the large pool of applicants that the agencies have to choose from, a lot of resources and manpower is required to select only those who are fit to fill the vacancies while these resources could be of use in other areas. Training of these new recruits is also necessary this is because although those selected are experienced in their fields COVID_19 is a new threat. Lack of sufficient training may lead to more infections.   Another event that will have an impact on the personnel management is census. In February OPM.GOV (2020) the agency released a press release to remind agency employees that they have permission to seek for employment from the Census Bureau. The personnel management has to come up with policies that guide the employees holding two job positions and how they can receive payment from both positions. The agency understands that it is cheaper to use current employees instead of sourcing others since the cost of training is high. Although the Census Bureau has suspended all field operations due to the COVID_19 crisis those applicants that were already accepted get to retain their positions (United States Census 2020).

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Rationale for selecting Agency

The OPM is in charge of protecting federal employees. No government or organization can function without the human resources therefore; their employers need to adhere to the rights governing them by law. The agency has to hold federal employers accountable if they do not act according to the law in regards to their employees. An agency that controls majority of the government’s civil servants is a subject of interest as one would desire to understand how it coordinates its personnel and how it provides for the recruitment, training and retirement needs.it gives an insight on how the government works.

References

Figuerou, Z.(2016). Time to rethink cybersecurity reform: The OPM data breach and the case for centralized cybersecurity infrastructure. Catholic university journal of law and technology, 24(2): 437-466. https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=jlt.

OPM.GOV.(2020). Office of Personnel Management. https://www.opm.gov/about-us/our-mission-role-history/.

PERFORMANCE.GOV.(2020). Office of personnel management (OPM). https://obamaadministration.archives.performance.gov/agency/office-personnel-management.html.

United States census 2020.(2020). 2020 Census jobs. https://2020census.gov/en/jobs.html.