Page 8 - FCW, April 2017

Trending
GSA seeks
to streamline
cyber buying
The General Services Administration has added a special item number to the Schedule 70 vehicle so that agen- cies can access preapproved network monitoring products and services as part of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program.
The move comes as the August 2018 expiration
of CDM’s blanket
purchase agree-
ment looms. Jim Piché,
169,000 IT products and services are available through the
CDM program
OPM issues how-to guide for layoffs
homeland sector
director at GSA’s
Federal Systems
Integration and
Management Cen-
ter, said the new SIN will play a key role as GSA and the Department of Homeland Security gear up for Phase 3 of the CDM program. The SIN will help them retain the work that has been done to approve and catalog 169,000 products and services on the BPA.
GSA released a request for informa- tion for Phase 3 last fall and plans to hold an industry day in April to dis- cuss how it is proceeding. Officials expect to issue a request for quotes that will be due this summer, with the first awards made this fall and con- tinuing into next year.
Piché said the SIN will give agen- cies more flexibility in the kinds of contracts they can use and more read- ily allow them to add new technolo- gies and accommodate changes. Fur- thermore, vendors that are already are on Schedule 70 can simply submit a modification.
“You’re not going to have to go through a re-proposal process,” he said.
After the Trump administration released a budget proposal that seeks sweeping cuts at civilian agencies, the Office of Personnel Management issued a hand- book to help agency leaders handle workforce reductions.
The handbook offers guidance for tackling what OPM calls the “reshap- ing process” in the face of the looming budget cuts and the hiring freeze that is set to expire this month.
Agency budgets require congres- sional approval, but if funding levels change dramatically, agencies will have to determine if they need to make workforce reductions, and they must work with their human resources departments to implement any staffing changes.
Ronald Sanders, former associate director for human resource policy at OPM, told FCW that the guidance is well-timed, but he emphasized that reductions in force should be a last- resort strategy that is pursued only after reassignment and retraining avenues are exhausted.
OPM’s guidance suggests detail- ing employees to other agencies on a reimbursable basis, furloughing employ- ees, reassigning individuals to other positions at the same grade, retraining workers so they can move to other posi- tions, instituting a freeze on hiring or
promotions, and allowing the workforce to shrink through attrition.
Sanders cautioned that “attrition is not the most effective way to achieve workforce reductions. It is random, and even worse, the people with the most marketable skills tend to be the ones to leave.”
OPM also suggested that employees be given the option to downgrade their jobs to a lower pay scale, reduce their hours, retire early or negotiate a buy- out. For civilian agencies, that buyout is $25,000 — an amount that Sanders, who set that value in the early 1990s, said needs to be revised.
He also emphasized the importance of including employee unions in per- sonnel discussions, saying they can be indispensable in preparing safety nets for released employees and educating agencies on how best to handle person- nel decisions.
Sanders also said employees might be more inclined to pursue voluntary reductions in compensation or work if agency managers are “prepared to live up to the promise to do whatever [they] can to avoid reductions.”
OPM said agencies should set up a team of full-time employees to handle personnel actions related to a reduc- tion in force.
— Chase Gunter
Jim Piché
Jennifer Kerber
@jenkerber
At @GTPublicSector’s #fed100 table w/ 6 former winners - who has more? #highbar
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