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If the Office of Personnel Management meets its 105 goals for 2008, federal employees will know a lot more about their benefits. And to add extra transparency to the process, they'll be able to follow whether OPM is meeting those goals on the agency's deadline tracker.

"We've added an expectations section," OPM Director Linda Springer said in a Friday press briefing during which the agency rolled out an addendum to its five-year strategic plan created in 2006. "We don't leave it up to readers to determine what happens when, for example, we put counselors in military hospitals to talk about federal jobs. It's about a whole performance management environment that begins with knowing what you want to achieve."

OPM has set specific target dates in 2008 and 2009 for launching resources designed to help federal employees access their personnel files and prepare for retirement. Here's a rundown of dates and projects:

• July 1, 2008: By this date, OPM wants to have a completed proposal for making more benefits information available to employees and retirees via the Web. Springer said she envisioned a tool that would help employees plan their retirement by plugging different dates into an application, and then assist them in modeling how their retirement benefits would be paid out. OPM plans to launch the tool by Dec. 1, 2008.
• Aug. 1, 2008: OPM will collect all the resources it's created into a single online library.
• Sept. 1, 2008: By this date, the agency expects to launch a new and updated directory for its official Web site. That should make it easier for federal employees to find whatever information they need about pay and benefits, and help ensure that new tools don't get lost within the site. OPM also plans to conduct training for each agency's benefits officer by Sept. 1. Those sessions will become an annual event to make sure benefits officers have the latest information and are comfortable conveying it.
• Jan. 1, 2009: By this date, the agency hopes to have finished moving data into electronically accessible official personnel folders so that employees can access their personal files. At a time when workers are concerned about the fairness and transparency of pay-for-performance systems, it's a good idea to make that information easily accessible.
• Sept. 1, 2009: OPM plans to roll out an interactive system that will help prepare federal employees for retirement. The system will be customized to meet individual needs based on responses to the already launched Web-based retirement readiness survey.

For those of us in the peanut gallery, OPM will hold three media roundtables with Springer and subject-matter experts before Oct. 1, 2008. Stay tuned. We'll keep you posted.

COMMENTS

• What happens if you paid into Social Security for all those 40 years you worked. Because you had to work two jobs. Plus you have funds from another angency. You can not collect two Federal Retirements. Sharon Buckmaster Posted April 11, 2008 6:37 AM
• Tipsy as usual your blinded with your desire for more from the taxpaying public. CRS are getting all/everything they paid in + more. Let me type in realllllll slow for you if you only paid for 40 quarters = 10 years and you think that your payout should be the same as someone who's paid in for 40 Years??? I'm sure they offer the lotto in your area and its payout would be the same as your requesting. That's the problem with all you leftists are always looking for a free lunch dan m ketter Posted March 11, 2008 8:52 PM
• Skeeter, you changing the rules for the entire US mid stream? It IS 40 quaters… er … quarters, NOT years, that is the qualifying metric. But, as is normal, you miss the point. MOST of the CSRS personnel are not asking for what they don’t deserve, just the fruits of their labors; to get back what they put into the system. Even one of the straight-party-vote-Pacaderms, like yourself, should be able to understand they do not desire to have their own funds redistributed to someone else. Isn’t that one of your party platforms? Well, I guess it used to be… That and fiscal restraint, small government, personal freedom, etc; all now almost gone like the dodo and in such a short period of time. But Carol, Lord help me, he did kind of stumble backwards into a truism. To have worked for an organization for 20 years and not know one’s own entitlements … Well, what can I say? I can only hope that you weren’t in charge of educating subordinates on their careers. And that brings me to another point, my spouse’s co-worker, another 20+ year employee didn’t know about her minimum age requirement for retirement, had 20+ years of 3% G fund contributions, and represented more of my co-workers than I really care to think. I really worry that many FERS will retire with a smaller budget than they think. We could be looking at another near poverty line demographic; the short changed civilian. Yes, as most of us readers of GovExec know we MUST take charge of our destiny and learn to ask these hard questions. Alyssa, please know that these articles and Tammy’s make the office rounds on a regular basis. They open a lot of eyes. Tip off Posted March 11, 2008 4:18 PM