October 1997

OPM Places Performance at the Center of Human Resources Management

One of the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) reinvention leadership goals is to make performance the core of all Federal human resources management. Every employee must understand and be prepared to make his or her contribution to agency performance and results. Agencies must recognize and reward productive employees and managers who achieve organizational excellence through their individual and group performance and, at the same time, agencies must resolve performance problems.

• OPM Plans
• Reorganization

OPM Plans. To achieve this goal, OPM plans to:

• Refocus human resources systems toward promoting results-oriented performance in support of reinvention, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and performance-based organizations;
• Provide leadership in investigating and designing new ways to compensate Federal employees as we enter the 21st century and as our Federal Government goes through a basic restructuring; and
• Strengthen the Government's commitment to invest in people by focusing on the tools (i.e., the human resources systems) that help support their performance.

Reorganization. To refocus human resources systems on performance, the Office of Personnel Management has established the Workforce Compensation and Performance Service. Leading the new organization as Associate Director is Henry Romero, who served as the Director of Personnel for the Department of Justice for 3½ years. The new structure encourages innovative thinking and long-range planning about the forms, delivery, and cost management of both direct and indirect compensation for Federal employees in the 21st century and promotes results-oriented human resources management. As a part of this new organization, the Performance Management and Incentive Awards Division actively encourages results focused performance management.