{"id":132,"date":"2026-06-01T21:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=132"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:48:20","slug":"opm-moves-to-allow-agencies-to-promote-workers-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=132","title":{"rendered":"OPM moves to allow agencies to promote workers faster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Office of Personnel Management this week announced plans to remove a nearly 80-year-old rule requiring federal workers to serve for at least one year in their jobs before they may be considered for promotion.<\/p>\n

Read more Cyber Force? Senator pushes to create service branch under the Army<\/a><\/p>\n

Time-in-grade requirements, which have been in place since 1950, institute a 52-week waiting period when feds must work in their current positions before they can be promoted. The law that required such a waiting period expired in 1978.<\/p>\n

In proposed regulations published in the Federal Register <\/em>Thursday, OPM said time-in-grade requirements were an \u201coutdated\u201d effort to avoid rapid position inflation at federal agencies, as occurred during World War II, during the Korean War.<\/p>\n

Officials wrote that the measure is no longer needed, in part thanks to the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and subsequent promulgation of the merit systems principles undergirding federal employment. Previous efforts to remove time-in-grade requirements occurred during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations but were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Whitten Amendment [mandating the one-year waiting period] was first enacted, no effective means existed to prevent employees from advancing quickly through GS grade levels,\u201d OPM wrote. \u201cToday, governmentwide qualification standards, established by OPM, are in place for competitive service GS positions . . . Consistent with the federal shift toward skills-based hiring, OPM is providing agencies with greater control for determining whether an employee has the skillsets needed for promotion to the next higher grade level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Federal oversight faces \u2018structural conflict\u2019 as political appointees enter IG offices<\/a><\/p>\n

And OPM argued that it was unfair to continue to mandate time-in-grade requirements for some federal workers but not others. While the waiting period currently applies to General Schedule employees at GS-5 level and above, it does not apply to blue-collar feds hired under the Federal Wage System or to excepted service workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliminating TIG enables any federal competitive service GS employee (regardless of current occupation or grade), who meets the qualification standards for a particular position, to become eligible for promotion to a competitive service GS position,\u201d the agency wrote. \u201cThus, promotions will have a more skills-based focus without TIG.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement Thursday, OPM Director Scott Kupor said eliminating time-in-grade requirements will enable agencies to better reward top employees and compete with private sector employers for talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal employees should be rewarded for what they can do, not how long they have waited,\u201d Kupor said. \u201cThis proposed rule strengthens merit, gives managers more flexibility to recognize high performers, and helps agencies move talented people into mission critical roles faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more GSA joins White House\u2019s fraud prevention task force<\/a><\/p>\n

Comments on OPM\u2019s proposal are open until July 27.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials said the nearly 80-year-old requirement that federal employees serve in their current positions for at least one year before they may be promoted is \u201coutdated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workforce"],"yoast_head":"\nOPM moves to allow agencies to promote workers faster - Market Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=132\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"OPM moves to allow agencies to promote workers faster - 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