If the average Office of Personnel Management director’s successes are achieved over a span of years, Beth Cobert has set benchmarks in dog years.
That is to say, the acting OPM director has achieved a lot in a short span of time.
A year-and-a-half after she took the helm of OPM, Cobert signaled that Jan. 20 will be her last day in government.
In a Nov. 29 speech at the Human Capital Management for Government Conference, Cobert outlined some of OPM’s successes during her tenure, reflecting on them in the manner of a performer taking an encore.
Cobert confirmed her impending departure from OPM during a recent interview with Federal Times.
“As I prepare to leave government in January, I want you to know that I am very grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve this president, this nation and all the dedicated, talented and committed people who come to work every day to serve the American public,” she said.
“As we turn the keys over to a new team on Inauguration Day, I am confident that OPM is committed to continuing to serve all its customers – from federal employees, retirees and their families, to agencies across government to our partners in the private sector.”
Cobert’s ascension to OPM was an instance of necessity requiring invention, as the agency was reeling from a cyber breach that exposed the personal information of 21.5 million federal employees.
Serving at the time as chief performance officer in the Office of Management and Budget, Cobert was tasked with mitigating not only the damage done to OPM, but also extending coverage to safeguard the identities and information of those affected.
OPM coordinated renewed cybersecurity efforts with the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, while simultaneously contracting identity and credit monitoring coverage to millions of employees and annuitants.
In the wake of the breach, Cobert also shepherded a new entity to manage the federal government’s security clearance investigations, the National Background Investigations Bureau. The NBIB was officially stood up in October and is working to reduce a backlog of investigations left in the wake of the breach.
obert’s self-described “data geek” persona foreshadowed a shift toward metrics as a human capital tool. Building on the proposed Recruitment, Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion plan that relied on data to find new federal talent, the OPM director unveiled initiatives like Hiring Excellence and UnlockTalent.gov to utilize big data for better insights and new solutions.
With her tenure winding down, Cobert pointed to OPM’s plans for greater inclusion and diversity in finding the next wave of public servants for the federal government.
Speaking on Nov. 29, she noted the agency had eclipsed President Obama’s goal to hire 100,000 people with disabilities in five years, that greater efforts to hire veterans in federal agencies had netted more than 500,000 new employees and that the pay gap between men and women in the Senior Executive Service was “essentially erased.”
Cobert closed her speech by saying the human capital leaders can build on the foundation made by OPM’s metrics initiatives to find a new generation of talent and keep it engaged.
“Work with your program leads to figure out what talent they need and to be creative and innovative in ways of attracting, assessing, managing and developing this talent,” she said.
“Use and urge your leaders to use the data on Unlocktalent.gov to drill down into employee engagement. Make the work of attracting, developing and retaining the talent you need a partnership with the new leadership coming in.”
