HR5810-119

What This Bill Does

The Federal Supervisor Education Act rewrites 5 U.S.C. 4121 to require every agency head, in consultation with the Office of Personnel Management, to establish a comprehensive management succession program and a supervisor-development program. Supervisors and management officials must have individual development plans covering performance goals, progress discussions, appraisals, mentoring, employee engagement, unacceptable performance, probationary periods, hostile-work-environment reports, retaliation, harassment, OPM or agency competencies, and collaboration with human resources staff on recruiting, selection, appraisal, and rewards. The training also must cover prohibited personnel practices, employee rights, and enforcement procedures.

The bill requires experienced supervisor mentors to be identified, evaluated, and approved to advise new or underperforming supervisors. Training must use adult-learning principles and an industry-standard instructional-design model, and agencies should use instructor-based training where practicable. New supervisors must complete required components within one year of appointment unless OPM extension procedures apply, and supervisors must refresh the core training at least every three years. Agencies must give credit for similar prior training, measure training effectiveness, and make development opportunities and supervisor-development policies available. OPM must issue implementing regulations within one year and monitor agency compliance.

The bill also creates a new management-competencies section in chapter 43. OPM must issue guidance on competencies supervisors are expected to meet to manage employee performance and agency mission goals, and agencies must assess supervisor performance and overall supervisor capacity using that guidance plus any agency-specific competencies.

Who Benefits and How

Federal employees, probationary employees, employees reporting harassment or retaliation, agency human resources offices, new supervisors, underperforming supervisors, training providers, human-resources consultants, OPM workforce-policy staff, and agency leadership teams benefit because supervisor expectations become explicit, recurring, and tied to employee rights, performance management, mentoring, and competency assessment.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Federal supervisors, management officials, agency heads, agency training offices, human resources employees, OPM regulatory staff, experienced supervisor mentors, agency performance-management teams, and federal agencies using existing budgets bear compliance burdens because they must build training programs, development plans, mentoring systems, refresher schedules, effectiveness measurements, competency assessments, regulations, and compliance-monitoring processes.

Key Provisions

• Requires agency management succession programs and individual development plans for supervisors.
• Requires supervisor training on performance goals, appraisals, mentoring, engagement, unacceptable performance, probationary periods, harassment, retaliation, employee rights, and prohibited personnel practices.
• Requires experienced supervisor mentors for new or underperforming supervisors.
• Requires adult-learning design, instructor-based training where practicable, one-year completion for new supervisors, and three-year refresher training.
• Requires agencies to measure training effectiveness and publish development opportunities and policies for supervisors.
• Requires OPM regulations within one year and monitoring of agency compliance.
• Requires OPM competency guidance and agency assessments of supervisor performance and capacity.