Trump overhauls probationary employee tenure process after federal workforce layoffs – Washington Examiner
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order aimed at reforming the tenure process for probationary federal employees.Under the new guidelines,these employees will have a more challenging path to achieving permanent status,as they will only gain such status if their performance is approved by their managers. If they do not receive agency certification by the end of their probationary period, they will be automatically terminated. Trump stated that this change is necessary to ensure a high-quality, efficient federal workforce and that agencies have not been effectively utilizing probationary periods to manage underperforming employees. This move follows previous efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce, which has reportedly resulted in notable layoffs and resignations among federal employees. Experts highlight that this executive order enhances the authority of agency managers in workforce management.
Trump overhauls probationary employee tenure process after federal workforce layoffs
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Thursday that will enable the government to fire probationary employees more easily.
Instead of automatically gaining full status in one or two years, workers can only do so if their managers sign off on their performance.
“The American people deserve a Federal workforce that is high-quality, efficient, dedicated to the public interest, and no larger than necessary,” Trump wrote in the order. “The Government Accountability Office has documented, however, that agencies have not been using probationary and trial periods as effectively as they could to remove appointees whose continued employment is not in the public interest.”
He added that conditions of “good administration require that agency approval should be required before probationary employees become tenured Federal employees.”
Employees who do not receive “agency certification” will be automatically terminated at the end of their probationary period, per the order.
“This is a very big step,” Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, told the New York Times. “The administration has been looking for ways to cut probationary employees, and this puts more power in the hands of agency managers.”
The Office of Special Counsel, which governs federal workers’ rights, dropped its inquiry into more than 2,000 complaints from fired probationary workers earlier this week. It said it could not pursue the claims because they were not fired for cause but as part of a “governmentwide effort to reduce the federal service.”
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court halted a judge’s order barring the Trump administration from firing thousands of federal workers.
Probationary workers were among the first federal workers targeted by the Trump administration in its attempts to reduce the federal workforce and, in turn, save money. The Department of Government Efficiency has taken a controversial role in these efforts, which has resulted in the closures of entire agencies and the firing of thousands of workers.
Many workers also took deferred resignation offers from the Trump administration.
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The New York Times estimates that at least 134,000 federal employees have been laid off or taken deferred resignation offers during the second Trump administration so far.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, Voice of America, AmeriCorps, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have taken the steepest personnel cuts, according to the outlet.
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