The Trump administration has taken steps to make adherence to the president’s policies the “most critical element” of performance reviews for federal senior executives.
The Office of Personnel Management published guidance Tuesday, detailing the administration’s updated performance standards for members of the Senior Executive Service. OPM developed the new performance metrics in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump on his first day in office, aiming to “restore accountability” to the SES.
In addition to placing more emphasis on executing the president’s policies, the new system also limits how many SES members can receive an above average performance rating. OPM is also directing agencies to begin conducting performance reviews of senior executives quarterly, rather than annually.
OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell called the current performance rating system for senior executives “broken.”
“The current SES performance appraisal system does not meaningfully differentiate excellent from poor or mediocre performance across the SES,” Ezell wrote in the memo.
The Trump administration’s update to the performance system changes the measurements that agencies will use to evaluate their SES members, while also adjusting the prioritization of each of the measurements. Notably, OPM is now requiring at least 25% of the SES performance evaluation to be a review of how well the executive is aligning with “faithful administration of the law and the president’s policies.”
“This is the most critical element for reviewing the job performance of someone who serves under the elected president,” the OPM memo states. “Senior executives must demonstrate specific results that align with and advance the president’s specific policy agenda.”
The other four measurements on OPM’s updated performance rating system are government efficiency; merit and competency; holding others accountable and treating them fairly; and achieving organizational goals. Each of those four elements should be weighted at 15% at a minimum, OPM said.
The current performance rating system for the SES workforce reviews federal senior executives on a number of leadership measurements, such as leading change, leading people and driving agency results.
Typically, during an SES member’s annual performance review, each category of the evaluation gets assigned a score between one and five, which is then multiplied by the “weight” of that category. All the category results are then added together to create a total number. That number corresponds to a rating “level” for each SES member, which falls between one and five, with five being “outstanding” and one being “unsatisfactory.”
Agencies, however, will now face limits on how many senior executives they can rate at a level four or level five on their performance. OPM directed agencies to cap SES members at the higher performance levels to 30% — unless the president chooses to waive the 30% cap for certain senior executives.
“Establishing governmentwide limits on rating levels will promote a high-performance culture,” Ezell wrote. “Only truly exceptional performers will receive the highest ratings.”
Only senior executives who are rated at level four or five can receive performance awards totaling more than 5% of their base pay rate.
On the low end of the performance scale, agencies will be required to demote SES members who receive a level one rating. Those who receive below a level three performance rating at least twice should also be removed from the Senior Executive Service, OPM said.
Agencies have until March 27 to submit their plans to OPM showing their alignment with the new SES performance system. They have to fully transition to the new standards by Oct. 1.
The updates to the SES performance standards come shortly after the Trump administration directed agencies to begin converting many career SES positions to open them to potential political appointments. A memo Monday from OPM called for a major reduction in the number of “career conditional” Senior Executive Service positions in the federal government.
The Senior Executives Association, an organization advocating for improvements and reforms to the SES, criticized the Trump administration’s recent actions altering the SES.
“OPM’s suggestion that career executives are mere technicians is inconsistent with reality and the law,” SEA President Marcus Hill said in a statement. “These executive level leaders have achieved their positions based on demonstrated competence, character and capability in their fields of expertise. They bring and demonstrate those attributes, making significant contributions to political appointees’ efforts to shape and implement policy.”
“What they’re putting in place here is a ‘sink or swim’ system for executive leadership, which is entirely contrary to Congress’ design with creating this unique personnel service,” Jason Briefel, SEA’s director of policy and outreach, said in an interview.
Briefel viewed the cap on high ratings for senior executives as an effort with underlying intentions for the senior executive workforce.
“By limiting the pool of executives who can receive top ratings, they’re implicitly telling you that they intend to rate a lot more people at the one and two levels,” Briefel said. “You can see the writing on the wall that the performance management system is going to be politicized and used as a tool to potentially fire more senior executives.”
SEA has said reforms to the SES performance management system are needed, but the organization’s recommendations come in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s latest updates to the rating system. In collaboration with the Partnership for Public Service and the Volcker Alliance, SEA has previously issued a document describing its goals for the SES, including a goal of strengthening performance management.
“The current performance management system is implemented inconsistently across agencies, is process rather than outcome focused, and is poorly aligned to agency priorities and goals,” the organizations stated in a 2023 joint policy agenda. “OPM should strengthen SES performance management by encouraging agencies to link performance plans to mission, by assessing candidates against leadership-oriented skills in addition to technical competencies, and by requiring that performance appraisals be transparent, timely and linked to the executive’s development plan.”
Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, described the Trump administration’s emphasis on adherence to the president’s policies as “another step to further politicize the SES.” She added that the new performance plan is a “complete movement away” from the current SES performance standards, called executive core qualifications (ECQs).
“The ECQs are in need of modernization, as is the overall SES framework,” Mattingley said. “But this new focus solely on organizational results discounts all of the other elements of what modern leaders should be accountable for, including engaging their people, ensuring a strong commitment to constituent experience and being a steward of the public trust.”
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