The Office of Personnel Management should be re-empowered as the leader in human capital management across the entire federal government, not relegated to offices within the White House and the General Services Administration, according to the recommendations from a long-awaited study on the future of the agency.
On Wednesday, the National Academy of Public Administration published its study, Elevating Human Capital: Reframing the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Leadership Imperative, which Congress commissioned when it formally put on hold the Trump administration’s controversial plan to abolish OPM and send the agency’s components to GSA and the Executive Office of the President. Although the study focused primarily on ways OPM can achieve its mission as stated in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, its authors concluded that the plan would not fix the federal government’s human capital challenges.
“The academy panel did not find that the problems or challenges identified in the proposal would be resolved by transferring OPM functions to [the Office of Management and Budget] and GSA,” the report stated. “[The] panel concluded that meeting the needs of a 21st century workforce will require a reinvigorated focus on strategic human capital management and performance. The need for an independent, enterprise-wide human capital agency and steward of the merit system principles is clear, as is the critical need to rebuild staff capacity, encourage innovation, and adopt a more data-driven, accountable and forward-looking human capital approach.”
A five-member panel of NAPA fellows recommended that the executive branch and Congress strengthen OPM’s standing as the leader on human capital issues across the entirety of the federal government—not just agencies covered by Title 5—and transform OPM’s approach to management fr ..
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