The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing rules that would make it less complicated for managers to fire Federal employees, in accordance with President Trump’s executive order on the Federal workforce.
According to a September 17 post on the Federal Register, the proposed rules from OPM aim to implement portions of the President’s May 2018 executive order on streamlining firing within the Federal government. Multiple provisions of the EO are currently under litigation brought by Federal employee unions.
The new rules currently up for consideration would give supervisors notifications of probationary periods and the need to make a decision on employee performance, reducing the period agencies need to aid employees in fixing “unacceptable performance.” They also would toughen rules against punishing whistleblowers, among others changes.
“The Federal personnel system needs to keep pace with changing workplace needs and return to its root principles,” OPM states.
The proposed rules also would prevent agencies from establishing “clean record” settlement agreements that would see employees leave the government in exchange for removing the records of adverse actions against them.
“This new requirement is intended to promote the high standards of integrity and accountability within the Federal workforce by requiring agencies to maintain personnel records that reflect complete information, and not to alter the information contained in those records in connection with a formal or informal complaint or adverse action,” OPM states.
The proposed rules are open for comment until October 17.