Trump to limit top ratings for all feds and consolidate scoring in forthcoming rule

Federal supervisors would be limited in how many employees they can rate as above average in their annual performance reviews, under a draft regulatory proposal circulated by the Office of Personnel Management.

The draft rule, not yet released but obtained by Government Executive, would implement the first major overhaul of the federal employee performance management system in decades. The Trump administration is aiming to correct for what it views as inflated ratings within the federal workforce. 

The most prominent change in the draft rule would involve removing the prohibition on the “forced distribution” of performance ratings, meaning agencies would be permitted to set quotas for how many employees could receive each rating. The administration previously implemented such a change for the Senior Executive Service—the top career officials in government—but the new rule would have a much wider impact as it would affect nearly everyone else in the civil service of more than 2 million individuals. 

When updating the appraisal system structure in 1995, OPM concluded "that forced distributions were incompatible with effective performance management." Now, however, OPM said deploying the practice can help eliminate leniency bias and enhance organizational performance. The agency said it would only implement caps on top ratings, namely fours and fives, but not for those below that threshold. 

“OPM expects that forced distribution would incentivize improved performance of non-SES employees as they no longer would expect to receive the highest ratings without demonstrating superior performance relative to the other non-SES employees in their agency,” the agency said. “This would ultimately improve the performance of the Government in providing services to the American public.”

OPM’s regulations would exempt political appointees hired under Schedules C and the newly created G in the excepted service from the forced distribution proposal. The idea sprang out of the agency’s development of the SES-focused iteration of the policy, when some members of the public worried that political executives would be overly represented among the highest performers, effectively shutting career civil servants out of contention for performance awards.

“To alleviate those concerns, OPM determined that it would exclude noncareer SES employees from forced distribution requirements,” the regulations state. “Likewise, we are proactively taking a similar approach with respect to non-SES employees appointed under Schedules C or G, as members of the excepted service, may be excluded from any forced distribution requirements, as determined by OPM.”

The rule would also constrict the number of ratings from the current five-level structure down to four, by eliminating the current level two or “minimally satisfactory” rating. The change would simplify rating scales, OPM said, and make a clearer distinction between satisfactory and unsatisfactory performance. The rating was so infrequently used that removing it would not cause any significant disruption to the appraisal process, OPM added. 

Agencies would have to receive approval of their appraisal systems from OPM every other year. Any agency not meeting to-be-released criteria in its performance management systems would be subject to an OPM recommendation to the Office of Management and Budget that it limit spending on that agency’s performance awards. 

The draft rule would allow supervisors to give out a level one rating—meaning employees are demonstrating “unacceptable” performance—without the higher-level review that is currently required. Such a step is unnecessary and delays corrective action, OPM said. 

Going forward, supervisors would see their compliance with new performance rating rules become part of their own appraisals. One current federal human resources official noted this would create an environment in which supervisors rate their supervisees lower “out of fear for their own ratings.” 

Too many high ratings?

OPM first established the performance management system required by the 1978 CIvil Service Reform Act in 1983, which is largely still reflected in the current structure. OPM never justified why the five-level system was appropriate, the agency is slated to say in its proposed rule, and the system is “failing to keep pace” with the modern federal workforce. 

“Some of the current regulatory requirements present unnecessary administrative burdens, while others present barriers to implementing needed performance appraisal reform,” OPM wrote in the draft rule, adding the current system “fails to materially differentiate between excellent, average, and poor performers.”

A 2016 Government Accountability Office report that found in 2013, 99% of employees received at least a “fully successful” rating. More than 60% received an "exceeds fully successful” or “outstanding” rating, a four or five on the five-point scale. OPM noted just 47% of respondents in the 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey said "differences in performance are recognized in a meaningful way” in their work units. That marked the lowest positive response rate of any of the 90 questions on the survey. 

A human resources official currently in government noted, however, that employees responding negatively to that question does not necessarily signify that they thought ratings were inflated. Instead, they could be voicing that they thought they were themselves not rewarded adequately.

From fiscal 2022 to 2024, OPM said it found two-thirds of non-SES employees received a four or five rating while just 0.6% received a rating below a three. 

“These results indicate that non-SES employee performance ratings may be inflated, and poor performing employees are not being held accountable through a rigorous appraisal process,” OPM said. 

One former chief human capital officer described OPM’s rationale that implementing a forced distribution of ratings will improve agencies’ “objective” measurement of employee performance as “unequivocal bulls---” that could actually reduce the incentives for workers to excel.

“If you’re looking to say, ‘We need a bell curve of ratings,’ and you don’t want more than 30% rated as ‘Outstanding,’ and then the frontline managers who are rating and assessing employees’ performance have 35% at that level, someone higher up is going to have to cut it arbitrarily by 5 percentage points to meet a number that was made up,” they said. “And then those frontline managers are not going to be able to explain why their employees’ ratings were lowered to meet the curve.”

Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy, said that while many agree that federal performance management needs an overhaul, OPM’s proposal is at best a “partial solution.”

“There are few things on which almost everyone agrees, but one thing is this: the current performance appraisal system is broken,” Kettl said. “It simply can’t be the case that almost all employees are above average. However, there are some functions where anything less than superior performance is unacceptable. I wouldn’t want to be in a plane trying to land in bad weather with a substandard air traffic controller, or serve baby food certified by an employee with a poor record. Moreover, all the evidence shows that the most effective form of supervision is continuous engagement with leadership toward improvement. That’s missing from the rule.”

In June, OPM issued guidance instructing agencies to “ensure that a disproportionate number of employees are not rated at the highest performance levels,” and said the proportion of employees receiving the top marks should reflect the overall performance of the unit. OPM said that guidance was not successful in compelling agencies to change their habits. 

Trump in his first term similarly sought to encourage agencies to more meaningfully distinguish between levels of performance, though those efforts focused more on limiting bonuses and did not lead to any rulemaking on forced distribution. The White House proposed creating a $1 billion interagency fund to award performance bonuses to select employees instead of providing across-the-board cost-of-living adjustments, but Congress never took up the idea. 

Early examples

The draft proposed rule drew concerns from those within the federal HR community, with one employee calling it “demoralizing.” 

“Overall this is just a continuation of the administration's Project 2025 playbook of vilifying and traumatizing the civil service by stating we are underperforming, lazy liars,” the HR official said. They added the administration failed to empirically demonstrate that the high rate of top ratings was inaccurately capturing employee performance.  

Following OPM’s guidance earlier this year, some agencies are already implementing a forced distribution-type system. The National Park Service has communicated its demands to supervisors, according to several officials familiar with the matter. 

According to two employees briefed on the directive from NPS, the agency has provided prescriptive parameters for employees who receive at least a satisfactory rating of three or above. Roughly 75-80% should be at level three, the rating equating to “meets expectations.” No more than 5% of the at-least-satisfactory employees were permitted to achieve the highest level-five rating. It did not propose any allotment for employees receiving a one or a two.

NPS moved forward with its new system despite OPM in its draft proposed rule specifically noting that forced distribution is currently “categorically prohibited.” The new NPS policy was first reported by The Washington Post. 

OPM is set to request specific feedback from commenters in its proposed rule, including whether forced distribution drives excellence, motivates employees to work harder or allows supervisors to better hold employees accountable for poor performance. It also will also ask for research on the impact forced distribution has on employee or organizational performance and how well it has worked in the private sector. OPM will seek information on the impact of its rule on hiring and retention and whether the current system accurately distinguishes between excellent and average performance. 

Agencies received a copy of the proposed rule and have until Dec. 22 to provide feedback to OPM. The schedule for the posting of the rule is not yet clear.