OPM Urges Agencies to Close Skill Gap

OPM Director, Beth Cobert is determined to close the skill gap across all government jobs. The agency has enlisted the assistance of Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) in this regard. They are to create reports on how to close the skill gap in the short term as well as the long term. The agency is aiming to close all the skill gaps within a decade.

The Instructions of OPM

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OPM has instructed the CHCOs to find out why any occupation becomes at risk in their own agency and in other agencies as well. The focus needs to be on mission critical jobs too. Then they need to develop strategies that can help solve this problem. The strategies they develop are supposed to be government-wide so that all the federal government agencies can benefit from them.

The CHCOs are also bound to submit quarterly and annual reports with regard to this problem. All these instructions were given through a letter written by OPM acting Director Beth Cobert. She wrote the letter on April 15th to the federal HR community.

The Mission-Critical Jobs

OPM has created a list of mission critical jobs. The list is given below.

1. Auditor
2. Economist
3. Contract Specialist
4. Cyber Security
5. Human Resource Specialist
6. STEM which denotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations

The Strategies

The agency is directing the CHCOs to create a short-term strategy for four years and a long-term strategy for ten years that would assist in closing the key skill gaps in mission-critical jobs. Again, the strategies must be created with regard to not only in their own agencies but in all the agencies related to the government.

Taking Assistance

The CHCOs can take the assistance of the quarterly reviews offered by a data program called HRStat. The HRStat is a program that identifies the mission-critical occupations in which the agencies have a bit of trouble in recruiting as well as retaining skilled employees. The program was developed a few years back and provides useful data even now.

The Guidance

The CHCOs would get all the guidance with regard to creating the strategies. OPM will be sending guidance with regard to not only developing the said strategies but also the reporting procedure to reduce any scope of error. The guidance would be shared with all the federal government agencies soon, according to Cobert.