Fireside Chat, Interview
The Person Who Runs HR For 2 Million Federal Workers
- Strategic Objective: The administration aims to "make government cool again" by prioritizing rapid technology adoption and tackling "some of the world's hardest problems" to serve over 300 million citizens, viewing this as a critical component of winning the AI race and maintaining national leadership.
- Workforce Reduction: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) started the year with roughly 2.4 million civilian employees and projects a reduction to approximately 2.1 million by year-end, removing about 300,000 staff primarily through voluntary deferred resignation programs initiated by the "Dogecoin" (DOGE) team.
- Performance Culture Shift: Current federal performance reviews exhibit severe grade inflation, with 99.7% of employees rated "meeting expectations" or higher; OPM is introducing a forced distribution metric for Senior Executive Service (SES) ranks, limiting the top two tiers (ratings 4 and 5) to only 30% of senior staff to differentiate true high performers.
- Hiring Reform: The administration has exited a 43-year-old consent decree preventing functional skill testing and is now mandating technical assessments (e.g., coding tests for engineers) for all applicants to replace the previous self-assessment model where HR staff without technical expertise could not verify candidate skills.
- Talent Acquisition Strategy: OPM targets a significant "early talent" gap, noting that only 7% of federal employees are under age 30 (versus ~25% in the private sector) and nearly 45% are over age 50; initiatives include recruiting early-career professionals for 2–4 year "tour of duty" secondments and bringing in private sector executives as interim technical managers.
- AI Integration & Culture: OPM has enabled ChatGPT usage on government desktops under a $1/year GSA deal and is shifting culture from process-compliance to outcome-based efficiency, encouraging micro-level AI adoption (e.g., regulatory analysis, rule drafting) without mandating extensive training memos that previously stifled adoption.
- Operational Efficiency Mandate: A primary metric for success is shifting executive incentives from budget/personnel growth to "operational efficiency," redefining success as delivering high-quality services at lower costs rather than maximizing departmental resources.
- Data Silo Removal: The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is leading a "One Government" effort to break down data silos across agencies, aiming to create a centralized, consent-based citizen portal where individuals can access benefits, tax, and passport status in a single interface.
- Risk Management Overhaul: Both leaders argue the federal culture suffers from an over-obsession with risk as a binary "pass/fail" concept driven by political retaliation and excessive oversight (e.g., GAO reports), advocating instead for "measured risk" where the upside of innovation is weighed against probability of failure.
- Contracting Reform: A key bottleneck in IT spending is non-technical management of contractors; the administration aims to deploy technical secondments to ensure contract approvers possess the expertise to validate costs and scope, preventing "indefinite term" contracts and "beltway bandit" sprawls.
- Forward-Looking Statements:
- Scott Cooper: "We don't have the right talent here... The U.S. will win the future if we blank. Win the AI race. Remain undistracted."
- Greg Barbacia: "In the private sector, lawyers are focused on how do we enable the business... In the government, it is very hard to lose your job... One of the only ways that happens is when you get sued."
- Myths to Retire: Leaders identify the belief that "the government cannot and should not be a leading innovator" as a primary myth to discard, citing improved hardware and the necessity of public sector adoption of modern tools.
- Recommended Resource: The recommended book for new public sector builders is Only the Paranoid Survive (for strategic thinking) and The Phoenix Project (for applying manufacturing efficiency to technology).