Tag: United States Office of Personnel Management

Worrisome signs in latest employee survey

Worrisome signs in latest employee survey

Employee morale slips further

Nov. 17, 2013 – 06:00AM   |  By SEAN REILLY   |
Sean Archuleta MWM 20130716
Katherine Archuleta, OPM’s newly installed director, pressed HR executives for ideas on how to ‘do more with less.’ (Mike Morones / Staff)

Sequester-related budget cuts. Hiring restrictions. A continuing freeze on pay rates.

For the federal workforce, those forces combined to produce sharp drops in key job satisfaction indicators, according to the latest soundings by the Office of Personnel Management.

Most worrisome to managers, perhaps, was a decline in the area of mission accomplishment: Of almost 377,000 respondents, well under half said they have the people, funding and other resources needed to do their jobs. That was down sharply from both last year and 2010.

“That’s a big one,” Justin Johnson, OPM’s deputy chief of staff, told dozens of senior human capital executives at a meeting last week. “We’ve got to figure out how to use our limited sources as efficiently as possible to mitigate that.”

Continue reading “Worrisome signs in latest employee survey”

Paying the Price: Feds Increasingly Unhappy With Salaries

Paying the Price: Feds Increasingly Unhappy With Salaries

 

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Despite an unprecedented three-year pay freeze, a majority of federal employees are still at least somewhat satisfied with their pay. That percentage of employees who feel that way, however, is plummeting.

In 2010 — the last year feds received an across-the-board raise — 66 percent of federal workers provided a positive response when asked, “Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your pay?” according to the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. In the 2013 report, which the Office of Personnel Management released last week, just 54 percent of respondents said the same.

Continue reading “Paying the Price: Feds Increasingly Unhappy With Salaries”

Back Pay Is On the Way

Back Pay Is On the Way

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The government shutdown is over and payroll is back up and running. By the end of this week, most of the federal workforce will have received retroactive pay for the 16-day shutdown.

In fact, thousands of federal employees already have received back pay to make whole the partial paycheck they got during the shutdown, which lasted from Oct. 1 through Oct. 16. The Interior Business Center, run by the Interior Department, handles payroll for 42 government agencies and 240,000 federal employees. IBC deposited back pay on Tuesday to employees directly affected by the shutdown — a week before their regularly scheduled paycheck on Oct. 29, according to a Federal Times report. Perhaps this makes up for IBC’s data entry error last month that delayed the paychecks of 40,000 employees. IBC is the payroll provider for agencies including Interior, NASA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Continue reading “Back Pay Is On the Way”

Furloughed Feds Will Get Credit for Lost Leave

Furloughed Feds Will Get Credit for Lost Leave

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Furloughed employees will receive full credit for any annual and sick leave they accrued during the government shutdown, according to guidance from the Office of Personnel Management.

All agencies must adjust the accounts of furloughed employees “for proper recredit of any lost accrual of annual and sick leave due to being in a nonpay status,” stated the guidance. Congress last week approved retroactive pay for federal workers furloughed during the 16-day government shutdown. Continue reading “Furloughed Feds Will Get Credit for Lost Leave”

Shutdown Could Halt Feds’ Leave Accrual

Shutdown Could Halt Feds’ Leave Accrual

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As the government shutdown approaches its third week, federal employees stand to lose their ability to accrue time off while on furlough status.

Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and the Defense Department dictates that federal employees will not accrue annual or sick leave in the pay period in which they cross the threshold of 80 hours in non-pay status in a given year. Many Defense civilians have already reached that limit due to the six sequestration-related furlough days over the summer and the four shutdown furlough days taken before Secretary Chuck Hagel called them back to work.

Most of the rest of the furloughed federal workforce would reach the 80-hour threshold next week, should Congress fail to strike a deal to reopen government. Some non-Defense agencies also took to furloughing workers for several days due to sequestration, meaning some employees who were furloughed both over the summer and during the shutdown also have already reached 80 hours of non-pay status. Leave accrual would remain suspended for each 10-workday period in which employees remain furloughed. Continue reading “Shutdown Could Halt Feds’ Leave Accrual”

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