Administrative Work in the Human Resources Management Group, GS-0200 December 2000
U. S. Office of Personnel Management 9
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, GS-0201 (continued)
Occupational Information (continued)
Strategic and performance plans established under the Government Performance and Results Act must include
descriptions of how the agency’s approaches to human resources management and development will contribute
to reaching strategic goals and objectives. Designing and implementing those strategic approaches require the
collaboration of management and the HR office. With the growing delegation and decentralization of HR
policies, many HR managers and specialists now routinely consult with management about options best suited
to particular missions, labor markets, and work technologies.
Agencies Differ on HR Roles and Structures. Some agencies impose no policy restrictions beyond what law
and governmentwide regulation set out, which leaves HR specialists in a key role to work within their
organization to invent and adapt HR processes and programs. Management relies on those HR specialists to
stay current and provide advice about the latest developments and practices that may enhance achieving
mission results and maintaining a strong performance culture for the workforce. Commonly, the most
promising approaches integrate methods and options from different HR functions. As a result, many HR
specialists increasingly operate as generalist HRM practitioners able to work across multiple HR functions to
fashion tailored solutions to human resources management challenges.
In some other settings, however, agency regulations and guidance and other constraints may continue to limit
discretion to invent and adapt HR processes. In these situations, HR specialists may retain their more
traditional, functional roles. In yet other situations, structural arrangements that some agencies adopt to
provide HR services more efficiently may sometimes leave HR specialists carrying out more specialized duties
and responsibilities. However, even where policies and structures result in HR specialists retaining narrower
roles, the shift in emphasis from rules and process to results is increasingly apparent, both for the HR systems
and offices and for the line organizations. That is, HR systems, policies, products, and services that HR offices
craft and provide are evaluated more for their contribution to the organization’s mission achievement and
performance culture and less as ends in themselves.
In particular, automation has greatly affected the way HR products and services are delivered. Such HR
information systems development has had a significant impact on management and employee expectations
about timely, quality service. In addition, many agencies are using the Internet or their own Intranets to
educate managers and employees about HR programs and options. HR managers and specialists are constantly
challenged both to find more efficient ways to deliver products and services and to learn and function
effectively in their emerging roles as advisors and consultants.
Evidence of Changes in Workforce Structure. Some of these various shifts and alternatives were apparent in
the restructuring that occurred in the HR workforce during the years preceding the issuance of this standard.
That restructuring has been described in a comprehensive study of the Federal human resources community that
OPM’s Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness conducted at that time (see “An Occupation in
Transition” at
www.opm.gov/studies). To summarize briefly, the HR field had undergone a significant
downsizing of 20 percent, disproportionate to the general reductions in the Federal workforce in the 1990s.
Many HR offices were faced with severe losses of experienced specialized staff and with no prospect of
replacing their numbers or expertise. At the same time, ongoing policy decentralization and delegation of
authority suggested that rebuilding the same narrowly specialized workforce, even in smaller numbers, would
not be conducive to the more results-oriented, cross-functional solutions that management was demanding. As
a consequence, many HR offices redesigned and reclassified their positions from specialized occupations to the
more general Personnel Management, GS-0201 occupational series, and the combined population of the
specialty series declined by almost 30 percent. This approach meant that existing staff could be deployed more
flexibly and new staff could be recruited for broader HR competencies that had less to do with specialized
procedures than with general HR knowledge, concepts, and principles.