All the assessments and portability of skills is not going to help with recruiting and hiring if the government continues to forgo one of the most valuable tools -hybrid/teleworking work schedules. Many, many private consulting firms not only allow hybrid work, but full remote work-including for new/early career hires.

How will you get early career employees to trust us after what was done to the federal workforce? All of these people you want to recruit will come in under probationary periods. Last year, employees with outstanding performance were ALSO fired indiscriminately and without considering their actual performance. Tell me why, with no hybrid work options, threat of being fired for no cause despite good performance, and lower pay-why should I come to work for the feds? The lure of the “mission” will not pay my bills, or help cover the $4 a gallon of gas it’s going to cost me to commute into my office everyday. I’m truly asking how OPM suggests we market to these people. I can’t in good faith send these jobs over to my Alma mater anymore, which I used to get excited about-no one from federal agencies ever came to our recruiting events or told us about these opportunities. I hoped to change that. But I do not feel the same anymore.