Practice Exchange

Ilene Gast, Associate Editor

This column highlights innovative assessment programs of interest to assessment professionals. If you are conducting a project that would interest the ACN readers, or if you know someone who is, please let me hear from you. I can be reached by phone at (202) 305-0590, by fax at (202) 305-3664, or e-mail at IFGAST@AOL.COM.

OPM Develops Career Development Plans for Federal Employees

by Amiel Sharon

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has created career development plans for over 20,000 employees of the Government's Defense Finance and Accounting Service. A career development plan tells employees what they need to know to do their job and how to acquire the needed competencies. It provides employees a standard roadmap for enhancing their personal and professional growth and in assisting the Government in developing a highly skilled and professional workforce. More specifically, the plans (1) provide employees with a comprehensive list of competencies needed for performing major tasks in their occupation for use in planning their careers; (2) provide employees and their supervisors with a single-source reference to assist in determining appropriate training and to prepare employees for more responsible positions; (3) assist supervisors in making effective use of scarce training resources by identifying critical competencies and training courses so that employees can attend the appropriate courses at the appropriate time; and (4) enable employees to plan and sequence appropriate career training and development; and (5) develop and strengthen employee professional qualifications and leadership abilities.

A typical development plan describes two major types of competencies -- those that are required for success in many occupations, the core competencies, and those that are specific to one or a few occupations, the technical competencies. The learning objectives for each competency are detailed for each of five career levels: entry, intermediate, journey, senior/manager, and executive. Developmental activities that describe training courses and work experiences are specified for each learning objective and are prioritized. The plans also describe key positions that serve as career goals and typical career paths that show the way for upward and lateral mobility.

Career Development Plans have been developed for financial, information, and human resource management occupations as well as jobs providing administrative and professional support. For further information contact Amiel Sharon at (202) 606-1192.

Office of Personnel Management Updates Human Resource Manager

by Donna Rodriguez

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has released its Windows version of the Human Resource Manager. The Human Resource Manager is a computer-based system that provides managers and human resource professionals with occupational data and competency-based products to support human resource management functions. This version of the system includes data from the recently completed occupational analysis of 105 Federal professional and administrative occupational series, as well as data for 67 clerical occupations and three managerial positions (i.e., supervisors, managers, executives). Normative data are presented for tasks and competencies on multiple rating scales, such as importance. In addition, competency-based model human resource products that are included in the system can be used for job design, performance evaluation, recruitment, selection, and career development and planning.

The surveys used in the occupational analyses were based on a comprehensive analysis of public and private sector occupational information. Therefore, the tasks and competencies included for each of the three occupational groups (i.e., professional/administrative, clerical, and managerial) were designed to generalize beyond the Federal government to other public and private sector organizations. For example, the State of California purchased the Human Resource Manager and used the occupational survey for their clerical positions without making changes, determining that the survey covered all tasks and competencies for their 90 clerical classes.

The Human Resource Manager provides a comprehensive occupational database, containing the results of more than 114,000 job analysis survey respondents. It was designed, with input from different Federal and State agencies, to serve as a foundation for multiple human resource management initiatives. Public agencies are beginning to implement the system. Divisions of OPM, for example, have used it to assist in the outplacement of employees, design a competency-based performance management system, and develop crediting plans for use in selection. The State of New Jersey has used the system to help streamline their classification and selection system. The District of Columbia government is using the system in their personnel reform effort, redefining their classification and training systems.

This system is available for purchase for public agencies, including Federal, state, and local agencies, through the Personnel Resources and Development Center (PRDC) of OPM. Currently, PRDC is seeking consortium members who will help share costs to perform an occupational study of wage grade occupations. Once this study is completed, results would be placed in the Human Resource Manager. For more information contact Donna Rodriguez at (202) 606-1393