OPM's Plan for IT Falls a Bit Short

The Office of Personnel Management on Friday released the final draft of its 2010-2015 strategic plan, and it includes a few investments in information technology to help reform and improve the federal civil service.

The plan commits to overhauling the federal hiring process, in part by promoting innovative approaches to recruiting and hiring students, mid-career professionals and retirees to meet agency needs -- and by improving the USAJobs Web site and other components of the online hiring system. The five-year outline also lays out plans to improve training programs for federal employees and improve health, wellness and work-life flexibilities, in part by revising and improving agency telework and other flexible work schedule policies.

The plan also establishes some long-term performance goals for agencies and notes ways to gauge agency progress through fiscal 2011. By next year, for example, 80 percent of agencies should improve the experience of federal job applicants and reduce the time it takes to hire, the plan states. Agencies also should increase by 50 percent the number of federal employees who telework over the fiscal 2009 baseline of 102,900.

"I am convinced we can make bold changes," OPM Director John Berry wrote in a letter accompanying the plan. "Achieving the strategic goals outlined in this plan may not be easy, but doing so is absolutely necessary to make the Federal government the model employer in the United States, and OPM its model agency."

OPM in July opened the draft version of its five-year strategic plan to public comment. While the plan includes some notable investments in IT, I was somewhat surprised that it did not emphasize more investments in technology and social media, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining the workforce of the future. Do you think technology will be central to accomplishing many of OPM's long-term goals?