Updated
Management
Trump nixes 2025 awards for federal employees
The presidential rank awards recognize exceptional members of the senior executive service.
Workforce
12 senior executives at the Federal Acquisition Service head for the exits
The agency had 34 senior executive service members in September 2024.
Management
Government’s top career execs face new political oversight as Trump vows to get ‘rid of all the cancer’
New memo could boost transfer of senior executives, as the president did on a limited basis in his first term.
Management
Senior executive standards get first update in more than 15 years
OPM said technological advances necessitated the changes, but some stakeholders argued the modifications still don’t reflect current governmental needs.
Pay & Benefits
The forgotten keys to agency performance: Senior Executives
COMMENTARY | To help agencies better address their performance management, it could be time to take a fresh look at senior executives, and how they are compensated.
Workforce
Want to reform the federal government? Start with career execs
COMMENTARY | Career senior executives are a national asset, not tools of agency heads. It’s time to manage them as the valuable resource they are, argues one expert.
Oversight
Two senior executives receive unpaid suspensions for unlawful hiring practices
While one of the executives currently works for a different agency with a new position, they will still be disciplined, OSC officials said.
Pay & Benefits
OPM wants agencies to tally their senior executive needs
The federal government’s HR agency has requested biennial projections for the number of SES and scientific professionals that agencies will likely need through 2027.
Workforce
New regulation would allow some former feds to skirt conflict-of-interest contact requirement
A rule proposed in the Federal Register would allow for former senior employees of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to have contact with HHS officials within the conflict-of-interest restriction period of one year.
Management
Lawmakers look to ban foreign payments to senior feds
Top federal executives would not be able to "betray the public's trust" under Democratic bill.
Management
OPM offers data guidance to help inform new federal executives website
The recent guidance details how agencies are to collect and report data to the HR agency’s new public-facing website detailing the names, roles and pay levels of thousands of federal executives.
Management
The 3 duties of public servants
COMMENTARY | With all that’s going on in Washington these days, public officials have three fundamental duties that they cannot shirk.
Pay & Benefits
Bill to alleviate federal pay compression introduced by House Dems
The Pay Compression Relief Act would effectively allow General Schedule employees to receive annual increases to both basic and locality pay, even if they have already hit the federal pay cap.
Management
How can senior government leaders best leverage the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey?
COMMENTARY | A lower-than-average employee engagement score may tempt leadership to implement new activities intended to make employees feel happier at work. They should resist this temptation, says one federal executive coach.
Workforce
The Senior Executive Service is becoming less white and male, but still lags behind the rest of the federal workforce
Lack of diversity in the government's top ranks has been an issue for decades.
Pay & Benefits
Pay Caps: Fed Exec Lobby Group Says Reform Is Past Due
“We are stuck with a personnel system mostly put together too many decades ago,” says a policy chief for the Senior Executives Association.
Workforce
OPM Launches a Toolkit to Attract More Women to the SES
The effort to recruit more women into the cadre of career government executives builds upon a 2014 program and comes amid news that, unlike the rest of the federal government, there is no gender pay gap in the Senior Executive Service.
Workforce
FEC Recommends Top Leaders Be Eligible for Senior Executive Service
The Senior Executive Association’s initial review says the proposal “makes sense on its face.”
Management