U.S. Office of Personnel Management www.opm.gov - Recruiting, Retaining and Honoring a World-Class Workforce to Serve the American People

The current focus of the Government on good management, driven by both the President and Congress, is unprecedented. Greater attention is being paid to efficient and economic delivery of services to the American public.

Both the President and Congress recognize the Federal workforce is central to the delivery of services to the American public. People are the key to mission accomplishment. Consistent with the leadership of the President and Congress, the American people continue to expect more from Government, and the Government is responding.

The Federal Workforce Flexibility Act of 2004 added even more strategies to support this change. Over time, the principles and performance expectations behind these new systems, still firmly grounded in merit system principles, will expand to the rest of the Civil Service. The underlying expectation for all these changes is strategic human capital management will ensure agency mission requirements drive all human resource activity and all agency staff contribute directly to achieving agency results and are rewarded accordingly.

The need for strategic human capital management, with its emphasis on achieving results, is part of a continuing evolution of traditional human resources management (HRM) practices in Government.