Report on the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM)

This report provides a detailed analysis of the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM), an independent agency of the Federal Government responsible for managing the civilian workforce. The report focuses on the Classification and Qualification section of the OPM website, which provides information about federal position classifications, job grading, and qualification requirements. It examines the white-collar jobs within the General Schedule, outlining how the OPM defines these positions and classifies them into various occupational series. The analysis covers key subsections, including Classifying General Schedule Positions, General Schedule Qualification Policies, and General Schedule Qualification Standards. The report highlights the standards for eligibility, general test requirements, and medical requirements for federal employment, emphasizing the OPM's role in ensuring qualified candidates and maintaining the integrity of the federal workforce. The report also delves into the specific requirements related to white-collar occupations, including the minimum criteria for medical, professional, educational, experience, and age-related qualifications.

Running head: PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
Personnel Management
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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Introduction
The United States Office of Personnel Management is one of the independent agencies of
the Federal Government responsible for managing the civilian workforce of the government. It
serves as the principal human resource agency, as well as the personnel manager for the Federal
Government. The chief objective of the agency is to design programs and deliver subsequent
services to enable the government in meeting the strategic goals pertaining to the civilian
workforce management. The key areas of OPM’s responsibility include directing employee
management services and human resources; managing healthcare, insurance programs and
administering retirement benefits, overseeing inclusive and merit-based hiring and recruitment
into the civil services; as well as providing an overall secure process of employment.
Following the passage of the Civil Services Reform Act of 1978, the agency was
established in January 1, 1979, by replacing the then United States Civil Services Commission.
Since then, the agency is serving the nation by providing human resource leadership and support
to all the other Federal agencies, as well as the Federal workforce in order to help them to
achieve their goals and aspirations. According to the official website of the OPM, the mission of
the agency is “recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class force to serve the American
people” (opm.gov). Among many other agencies, OPM is partially entrusted with the
responsibility of maintaining the appearance of neutrality and independence in the Federal
Administrative Law System. It is also responsible for a substantial amount of management of
security clearance for the USA government and managing the ‘Revolving Fund’. All these

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responsibilities are managed and carried out by several divisions, offices and the employees of
OPM in a strategic and systematic manner (OPM.gov).
The official website of the OPM declares all the important news and information
regarding their policies, activities and services. Under the policy section of the website, the
section of Classification and Qualification provides the relevant information about federal
position classification, qualification for positions and job grading that is used to determine the
title, grade, pay plan, series and relevant qualification requirements for the majority jobs under
the Federal Government. In this analytic paper, henceforth, a brief summary of the section and a
further analysis of its important subsections will be presented.
Classification and Qualification: Overview
The main purpose of the section of Classification and Qualification is to provide relevant
information about the classification of federal positions and the related job grading and required
qualification for those positions. This section covers most of the white collar and blue collar jobs
available under the Federal Government. If a person is interested in any of the civil services
under the Federal Government and wishes to look for the information regarding the qualification
requirement, hiring process, wages/pay or benefits associated with a specific job position, this
website would be the primary reference for gathering all those information.
Among the listing, the collection of data under this section is divided to two major
categories, namely the classification pages and the qualification pages. The Classification pages
contain information about the following:
i. General information about the classification of Federal positions
ii. Occupational information

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iii. Grading criteria for the General Schedule and Federal Wage Classification Systems
iv. Draft classification and job grading standards (OPM.gov)
The qualification pages, on the other hand, contains information about the following:
i. General policies and information on eligibility and qualifications for Federal
occupations
ii. Government-wide qualification requirements for specific occupations
iii. Draft qualifications standards
iv. A list of occupations that have medical requirements
v. Recent issuances of new or revised qualification standards
vi. Federal Wage System Qualifications (OPM.gov)
All these information in the Classification and Qualification section is organized under
several subsections, namely Classifying General Schedule Positions, Classifying Federal Wage
System Positions, General Schedule Qualification Policies, General Schedule Qualification
Standards, Federal Wage System Qualifications, Appeal Decisions and Reference Material for
all the necessary policies and guidelines. These subsections can be further categorized into two
groups based on their intended occupation groups. The occupational listing covers the white
collar jobs and the occupation related to trade, crafts and labor respectively. Both occupation are
defined by the relevant documents created by the Office of the Personnel Management.
Subsequently, the job listing, related title, grade, pay system and required qualification criteria
are listed in the subsections. (OPM.gov)
Among the prescribed occupation, the present analysis will hereby focus on the white
collar job and the related information as described in the OPM website. First, it will define the

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white collar occupation in accordance with the OPM literature, and thereafter discuss the
pertinent description and requirement of the proposed occupation following the relevant
subsections, i.e. Classifying General Schedule Positions, General Schedule Qualification Policies
and General Schedule Qualification Policies.
Analysis of Subsections
Classifying General Schedule Positions
As a part of the classification pages, this subsection classifies the general white collar
position jobs under the federal government. The purpose of the classification is to declare the
available white collar job positions under the various agencies of the Federal Government. The
white collar position occupation, however, is defined by the help of Position Classification
Standards and the functional guides. According to the definition provided by the Introduction to
the Position Classification Standards (TS134, July 1995, Revised 2009) an occupation is
regarded white collar if the primary responsibility of the job demands knowledge, skills and
experience of administrative, clerical, artistic, scientific or technical nature, regardless of the
involvement of manual or physical labor. And in all probability, such knowledge and experience
must not be related to trade, craft or manual labor based work (OPM.gov).
According to Hyman and Price’s (2016) definition of white collar workers, the
term refers to the employees who generally performs tasks which are less ‘physically laborious’
and work in an office environment. These workers are paid relatively higher than the blue collar
workers who, in contrast to the white collar workers, are actively engaged in laborious jobs.
Clearly, the OPM’s undertaking of the term ‘white collar occupation’ clearly corroborates with
the traditional definition of the term. Moreover, the title, occupational series, grade and pay

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system for executing white collar jobs are established by the information from the federal
documents of Handbook of Occupational Groups & Families, Introduction to the Position
Classification Standards and The Classifier's Handbook. Apart from the definition, the
guidelines presented in those documents also determine the job title, official positions and the
various levels of work related to the jobs.
Subsequently, the subsection proceeds to classify the white collar jobs under the various
agencies of the Federal Government as listed in the position classification standards. The job
listing in the category presents the available occupation under specific series. These standards
provide information by which the occupational series and the related titles for positions
pertaining to white collar jobs are determined. This standard also provides the grading criteria for
the listed positions under the General Schedule (GS) Classification System. The series is
categorized under certain specific groups, ranging from codes 0000 to 2200. The series consists
of jobs under the specialization as following:
0000 – Miscellaneous Occupations Group
0100 – Social Science, Psychology, and Welfare Group
0200 – Human Resources Management Group
0300 – General Administrative, Clerical, and Office Services Group
0400 – Natural Resources Management and Biological Sciences Group
0500 – Accounting and Budget Group
0600 – Medical, Hospital, Dental, and Public Health Group
0700 – Veterinary Medical Science Group

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0800 – Engineering and Architecture Group
0900 – Legal and Kindred Group
1000 – Information and Arts Group
1100 – Business and Industry Group
1200 – Copyright, Patent, and Trademark Group
1300 – Physical Sciences Group
1400 – Library and Archives Group
1500 – Mathematics and Statistics Group
1600 – Equipment, Facilities, and Services Group
1700 – Education Group
1800 – Inspection, Investigation, Enforcement, and Compliance Group
1900 – Quality Assurance, Inspection, and Grading Group
2000 – Supply Group
2100 – Transportation Group
2200 – Information Technology Group (OPM.gov)
Each group again consists of specific series of occupation pertaining to these
specializations. Furthermore, the Functional guidelines are used to determine the grade of the
specific white collar jobs classified under the broad categories of Federal agency jobs. The
federal documents of Introduction to the Position Classification Standards and The Classifier's

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Handbook serve as the principle references for the definitions and use of the functional
guidelines.
General Schedule Qualification Policies
This listing is classified under the Qualification pages and contains the OPM established
policy for General Schedule or equivalent white collar jobs under the Federal Government. The
purpose of the listing is to provide necessary information to the Federal agencies for scrutinizing
whether the applicants meet the specified eligibility criteria for the intended position. These
qualification criteria help the relevant agencies to identify potential candidates who are likely to
perform and fulfill the objectives of the specified role, and subsequently screen the applicants
unlikely to perform. However, the standards are not meant for ranking the candidates or identify
the best suitable candidate.
Under the category of the General Policy, the purpose and scope of the subsection is
clearly articulated. It states that the primary objective of this section is to provide the appropriate
policies, standards and instructions to identify the minimum eligibility criteria for the
qualifications of the applicants for Federal employment. These qualification requirement are
majorly aimed for the job posts listed under the General Schedule], ranging from grade GS 1 to
grade GS 15. The standards also stipulate that all applicants must fulfill the prescribed
requirements in order to appear in the General Schedule positions in the competitive services.
These standards are to be used homogenously in both in-service placement procedures and initial
placements, unless specified otherwise. Moreover, these criteria may be used for the applicants
of Veteran’s Recruitment Appointment as well.
The subsection further lays down the general test requirements and medical requirements
for the relevant white collar positions under the Federal agencies. Majority of the Federal jobs

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are assigned a particular risk and sensitivity level based on the duties and responsibilities of the
job position. The perceived impact of the particular job position on the national security
comprises the underlying rationale for the apparent risk and sensitivity level. The risk also
include the probability of damaging the citizen’s trust in the respective federal agencies and the
government as a whole (Riccucci 2017). Apart from the risk and sensitivity factors, the tests also
help determine the competence and suitability of the applicants. The periodic changes and
updates pertaining to the tests are also declared through this section.
The general test requirements provide the framework for both written and performance
test as applicable to the declared positions. However, these requirements are restricted to the
section of competitive appointments, if not specified otherwise. The medical requirements, on
the other hand, specifies the criteria for establishing the physical requirements and medical
standards for specific job positions. The listing, in accordance with 5 CFR 339, stipulates that the
respective agencies have the authority to establish the standards for medical requirements as per
the job positions under their jurisdiction, i.e. have more than 50% employees in the occupational
series. However, they have to comply with the relevant provisions such as reasonable
accommodations, job-relatedness etc. Also, the section provides an exhaustive list of
occupational series that require medical qualifications.
Apart from these, the subsection also include a manual pertaining to technical notes and
memos to highlight the special staffing provisions and requirements. (OPM.gov)
General Schedule Qualification Standards
This section covers the qualification standards pertaining to group coverage, individual
and associated individual occupational requirements (IOR) encompassing the white collar
occupations under the Federal competitive service. The standards stipulate the minimum criteria

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for medical, professional, educational, experience as well as age related requirements for each of
the occupational series. The standards, however, are constructed for general application across
all the federal strata and is not meant for providing specific requirements of a particular positions
at a particular agency. Such specialized descriptions of experience requirements are to be found
with the respective vacancy declaration by the particular agency. (OPM.gov)
Conclusion
Examining the OPM website, it may be concluded that the detailed discussion and
exhaustive listing serve to promote the transparency and credibility of the Federal Government,
as the agency is intended to manage all the sharable information on policy and requirements
pertaining to job positions under the Federal agencies. It also serve towards neutrality and
fairness in the process of screening and recruitment. In this sense, the agency indeed serves as
the primary human resource supplier and personnel manager, while maintaining neutrality and
justice.

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References
Hyman, R. and Price, R. eds., 2016. The New Working Class?: White-Collar Workers and their
Organizations-A Reader. Springer.
OPM.gov (n.d.). Classification & Qualifications. [online] U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Available at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/ [Accessed
10 Feb. 2020].
OPM.gov (n.d.). Classifying General Schedule Positions. [online] U.S. Office of Personnel
Management. Available at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-
qualifications/classifying-general-schedule-positions/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
OPM.gov (n.d.). General Schedule Qualification Standards. [online] U.S. Office of Personnel
Management. Available at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-
qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
Opm.gov (n.d.). HANDBOOK OF OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS AND FAMILIES. [online]
Opm.gov. Available at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-
qualifications/classifying-general-schedule-positions/occupationalhandbook.pdf [Accessed 10
Feb. 2020].
OPM.gov (n.d.). Introduction to the Position Classification Standards. [online] Opm.gov.
Available at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/
classifying-general-schedule-positions/occupationalhandbook.pdf [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].

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OPM.gov. General Schedule Qualification Policies. [online] U.S. Office of Personnel
Management. Available at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-
qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-policies/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
Opm.gov. (n.d.). THE CLASSIFIER'S HANDBOOK. [online] Available at:
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/classifying-general-
schedule-positions/classifierhandbook.pdf [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
OPM.gov. About Us. [online] U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Available at:
https://www.opm.gov/about-us/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
Riccucci, N.M. ed., 2017. Public personnel management: Current concerns, future challenges.
Routledge.