OPM Launches Federal Workforce Competency Initiative to Update Competency Models

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is launching the Federal Workforce Competency Initiative (FWCI), an initiative to better understand the skills and competencies of the federal workforce including which areas are working well and which ones have room for growth. OPM will survey employees and supervisors across 350 occupations. The survey will ask employees about their background in the job, skills required for success at the job, and their job-related responsibilities. OPM anticipates sending the survey to 350,000 federal employees.

In an April 9, 2021 memo, Acting OPM Director Kathleen McGettigan said, “The FWCI is an opportunity for OPM and your agency to work together to identify the competencies most important for success and provides critical data needed to continue building the foundation for effective human capital management across the federal government.”

The results of this survey will be used to update competency models, develop training practices, and better measure performance at federal agencies. OPM explained, “With these competency models serving as the foundation for many human capital initiatives it is critical that the competencies are supported with data from employees and supervisors with first-hand knowledge of the day to day work being done.”

Since the 1990s, OPM has used the Multipurpose Occupational Systems Analysis Inventory — Closed-ended (MOSAIC) methodology to study the workforce. OPM is pursuing an updated and more advanced method. This new competency initiative will build on data collected over the years and update governmentwide competency models.

Federal workforce expert Mika Cross told FEDmanager, “While OPM is taking a good first step at once again attempting to update the nation's largest inventory of competency requirement for the federal workforce, the approach still needs a more modern and accelerated strategy, with the end-user in mind.”

She continued, “You can argue that up-to-date competency requirements are just about THE most important structure of how applicants are selected with the right capabilities to move the organization forward and to enable employees to perform their jobs and develop in their careers. Without a better system for collecting and distilling updates on a much more consistent and user-friendly basis that translates the data into a format that makes it easy for employees at all levels of the organization to use, we are falling short once again.”