| Does being a manager have advantages? A manager has 10 years of service and an employee working for him has 12 years. the agency has pass/fail performance rating. Both permanent and not veterans. Which will get RIFed first? |
Probably the manager. |
So far, the RIFs have all been 100% of certain offices, but it's not clear that's what will happen in the next round. For the administration, those were the 'easy' ones. The more complicated retention/ranking takes a lot more prep and that's presumably what agencies have been working on for the last few weeks. But the details are a mystery. Even relatively senior career people in our agency seem to have no idea. |
| FYI The OPM guidance memo specifies 4 performance ratings but the old OPM handbook only specifies 3 ratings. |
In a technical sense it doesn't matter-- it is based on the seniority/retention list. That said, they could establish competitive areas to separate these groups and could apply different percentages to each category. In our agency, the rumor is that a lot of SESs (including our most senior career person) have been identified for the RIF (the SES process is different and goes position by position). This is rumored to be a done deal but no announcement have been made. |
|
For people without ratings yet— the old OPM handbook discusses steps on page 48
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force-rif/workforce_reshaping.pdf |
You are the first to go. |
| In an OPM Reduction in Force (RIF), part-time employees compete separately from full-time employees for other part-time positions, and full-time employees compete for full-time positions, with no assignment rights to the other type of position |
| Does a veteran with say 3 years jump over a non vet with 15 yrs? Trying to determine how much veteran preference matters. |
Within the same competitive area (however that’s defined), yes. The agency would have to RIF all non-vets in that area before they could touch someone with veterans preference for a RIF. Not all vets have that preference for a RIF though. |
Every vet jumps over every non vet. They are highest on the priority list, ranked within certain vet categories, but all more senior than all non vets. |
Not that it matters when some of what they're doing is eliminating entire departments. All employees, managers, and the execs at the top. When the list includes every single person, nothing saves you. |
But bump and retreat rights could come into play. |
That's likely to happen for the big RIFs but they're also completely dissolving entire departments so there's no bump and retreat because all positions were abolished. |
Bump and retreat depend completely on how they design the competitive areas. People are pessimistic because so far they've been wiping out entire offices (the competitive area==the office). But many are hoping that the next (presumably much bigger) round will have competitive areas defined more broadly. |