Enhance Voluntary SES Mobility Between Agencies

3. Enhance voluntary mobility within and between agencies for top senior
executive positions in government. (1)

Data show that, prior to entering the SES, incumbents have held a
variety of positions and moved functionally and geographically; yet,
once in the SES, their career paths have been relatively insular,
indicating that the SES corps has been underused.(6) In other words,
many senior executives stay in the same functional area or agency and
are not encouraged to make use of their abilities to serve in a wider
range of jobs or different agencies. The National Academy of Public
Administration has called for enhanced and broadened mobility
strategies geared not only to agency requirements, but to the corporate
objectives of the government as a whole.(7)

OPM will act as a catalyst to encourage mobility of executives both
within and between agencies. The purpose would be two-fold:  first, to
assist agencies in identifying executives who have demonstrated, through
actual performance, the ability to bring about changes or manage in
different circumstances and who can apply the values inherent in
reinvented government principles while dealing with system realities;
and second, to provide executives an opportunity to broaden their skills
and perspectives and to be placed in positions where they can make their
greatest contribution to a reinvented government.

This proposal is intended to establish an SES cadre that not only takes
a governmentwide view of its role, but is a vehicle to help individuals
move to positions where their special expertise is needed. By no means
does the proposal intend to make every senior executive mobile and a
generalist, since there are many executives whose expertise, experience,
and interests are tied to a particular agency, occupation, or position.
In fact, most executives have been chosen for their technical program
expertise and need to remain where they are most effective. This is
normally an agency issue and needs to be left in the hands of agency
management with suitable safeguards in place.

Endnotes

6. Sanders, Ron, "Reinventing the Senior Executive Service," Virginia,
June 1993, p. 8. (Draft.)

7. National Academy of Public Administration, Paths to Leadership,
Executive Succession Planning in the Federal Government: Report Summary
(Washington, D.C., December 1992), p. 4.