Trends

An agency’s evaluation system contributes to organizational performance as a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating outcomes of its human capital management strategies, policies, programs, and activities. In the second quarter of FY22, OPM assessed the 24 CFO Act agencies’ evaluation systems against the standards developed to reflect requirements of 5 CFR 250 Subpart B. Written feedback was provided, including action items to help agencies mature their evaluation systems. In response to OPM feedback, 22 of the 24 CFO Act agencies submitted maturity advancement plans for improving their evaluation systems and are in the early stages of implementation.

During HCR discussions, OPM found a solid understanding across agency leadership that a robust evaluation system contributes to organizational performance as a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of human capital strategies, policies, programs, and activities.  OPM identified a significant increase in reported agency interest in and use of data analytics to track progress and inform decision making (e.g., dashboard visualization) compared to a previous HCRs and evaluation system assessments.  Additionally, across agencies OPM tracked a slight overall increase in Independent Audit Program (IAP) activity (e.g., evaluations conducted, reports issued) as well as IAP findings and recommendations being shared (e.g., to inform human capital stakeholders and agency polices, strategies, and plans such as a Human Capital Operating Plan).  Finally, agencies indicated greater awareness of how strategic and evaluation system elements defined in 5 CFR 250 Subpart B (i.e., HCOP, HRStat, and IAP) with accompanying OPM policy and guidance work in concert to help agencies better manage human capital, a positive trend.

Challenges

Limited resources are the single greatest challenge agencies face as they work to mature their evaluation system.  Turnover – both in agency executive leadership and staff at the operational level – delay some agencies’ progress in advancing their system.  Turnover negatively impacts agencies’ ability to build capacity within their staff to conduct assessments of all HCF systems, and in a few cases, there is a lack of commitment from agency leadership.

Agency Requests for OPM

Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) Data Warehouse is a powerful and rich government wide personnel action data source which, as discussed by OPM during HCRs, provides agencies with useful points of perspective and comparisons using external agency personnel data.  EHRI data can be used to inform an array of evaluation system activities (e.g., from IAP evaluation analyses to strategic goal setting and recurring data-driven decision-making needs of leadership).  Agencies requested assistance in making it easier to use EHRI data sets by improving agency-facing data source awareness and the data customer experience (e.g., outreach, training, accessibility, useability). 

Agencies appreciated OPM’s recent actions to articulate a clear vision for the use of human capital data and to spotlight how human capital data can be activated into useful data products.  One example discussed was the OPM Data Strategy, focusing on data in federal human capital management with associated strategies (e.g., establishment of a CHCO Council Human Capital Data Working Group, Federal Human Capital Data Analytics Community of Practice, etc.).  Another example discussed was OPM’s development of public-facing dashboards focused on FEVS, DEIA, Cyber Workforce, and Hiring Satisfaction. 

Agencies expressed interest in additional information sharing opportunities with other agencies (e.g., evaluation system maturation interagency workshop opportunities similar to those hosted by OPM in FY22; simple peer-to-peer contacts; new communities of practice) on a wide array of topics – including learning from agencies where OPM’s FY22 evaluation system assessment identified higher evaluation system maturity levels.