Avue Applauds OMB Initiative on Improvements to Federal Hiring
Notes that Current Avue Clients Already Meet Objectives Using Avue
June 18, 2009
Washington, DC – Avue Technologies today applauded OMB Director Peter Orszag’s initiative to require agencies to improve their hiring practices. In a June 11, 2009 memorandum to the heads of all Departments and Agencies, Orszag included an entire section on new OMB requirements intended to enforce the Administration’s Hiring Reform initiatives. Specifically, agencies will have until December 15 of this year to accomplish four specific tasks aimed at improving the hiring process:
- Mapping the current hiring process from need identification to selectee on board.
- Producing job announcements in easy-to-understand writing for the agency’s top 10 positions and limiting those announcements to five pages.
- Notifying applicants about their status at four points in the hiring process – receipt of application; qualifications assessment; referral (or not) to a hiring manager; and selection or non-selection.
- Engaging hiring managers in all critical points of the process.
“If the Executive Branch is to meet its ‘insourcing’ objective to restore open and effective government services delivered by dedicated Federal employees, attracting and hiring the very best individuals for Federal service has never been more important,” said Avue Co-CEO Linda Rix. “We believe that Director Orszag has correctly identified four critical areas for improvement in hiring processes in many Federal agencies, and has done a very good job by setting a near term deadline in which to accomplish specific concrete goals.”
Avue, the premier private sector human resources shared service center (SSC) for the Federal Government, said that in particular, superior technology is at the heart of meeting OMB’s objectives. “Fortunately for our clients,” Rix continued, “the Avue platform already has them meeting all four of Director Orszag’s objectives, through end to end process workflow, simple ‘plain English’ job announcements for all job openings, notification emails and 24/7 self service lookup for applicants, and a “manager-centric” hiring process in which managers are central to the process and HR plays a supporting role.”
“We strongly support the Director’s general approach in setting concrete objectives for agencies and letting the agencies themselves decide the means by which the objectives will be accomplished. With one exception, the Director’s approach strikes the proper balance between OMB/OPM policy and agency execution. The exception, a requirement that agency notices to applicants be made through USAJobs, would be a serious mistake. Over 80 percent of applicants for Avue client agency jobs have no contact with USAJobs because they come through the major search engines such as Google vs. only 10% through USAJobs. A requirement that agency notifications to such applicants be made through USAJobs would lead to massive applicant confusion as well as substantial Privacy Act issues. We urge Director Orszag to allow agencies the freedom to use whatever channel to communicate with applicants is appropriate for them,” Rix concluded.
About Avue Technologies Corporation
Avue – where revolutionary ideas meet up with deep Federal expertise to support the best leadership, results, and management practices in human capital. That’s why Avue is the Operating System of the Insourcing Revolution – the movement to restore open and effective government services delivered by dedicated Federal employees. Our “Native Federal” fully-hosted management platform enables collaboration that results in faster, more effective, and better informed decisions by Federal managers and employees, and connects millions of job candidates directly with each other and the Federal community.
