Article Title: OPM Memo | Performance Management for Federal Employees (6-17-2025)
Snippet of Memo: "...To ensure effective performance management across the Federal government, agencies
should take the following three steps going forward. First, agencies should ensure that they are
using a pass/fail pattern only in connection with seasonal employees, teachers, General Schedule
grades 1-4, and Federal Wage System (e.g., wage grade) employees. Second, agencies should seek
to ensure that a disproportionate number of employees are not rated at the highest performance
levels. This is strongly encouraged so that “performance evaluation results . . . make meaningful
distinctions based on relative performance.” Further, agencies should ensure that the
distribution of performance ratings aligns with the overall performance of the agency or relevant
agency sub-unit. Third, Senior Executives that manage 10 or more subordinate employees should
be required to provide in their annual performance narrative, for the Performance Review Board’s
consideration, the rating distribution of subordinate employees and how that rating distribution
reflects the performance of their organization. ..."
Source: www.opm.gov
