OPM to release performance appraisal tool for SES personnel systems

The Office of Personnel Management plans to release a tool for assessing Senior Executive Service performance-appraisal systems by the end of this year. The SES tool will build on the OPM Performance Appraisal Assessment Tool (PAAT) that agencies currently use to assess General Schedule personnel evaluation systems, OPM said. “Many agencies have requested a similar tool that can be used to assess whether SES appraisal systems are meeting full certification criteria,” said Kevin Mahoney, associate director of human capital leadership and merit system accountability at OPM, in a recent letter to federal human resources directors. The SES tool will become part of agencies' accountability systems and is intended to be used as the GS PAAT is used, he wrote. OPM plans to work closely with agency personnel officers and other stakeholders to refine the SES tool and define its utility in the SES certification process, Mahoney's letter stated. “It is our vision that agencies will use the PAAT system to report in the annual [workforce accountability] submissions and thus support their certification requests,” Mahoney added. Agencies submitted their first workforce accountability reports — an initiative to improve personnel program performance under the President’s Management Agenda — last December. OPM is still reviewing those reports, Mahoney wrote.