Reintroduce the 2018 order on removal and performance procedures
What the document says“Unfortunately, the order was overturned by the Biden Administration, so it will need to be reintroduced in 2025.”
The chapter lists the requirements of Executive Order 13839: shortening the time allowed for an employee to improve before corrective action, initiating discipline more expeditiously, shortening the time to respond to allegations of poor performance, reminding supervisors of expiring probationary periods, barring settlement agreements that alter a personnel record, and re-examining discipline of supervisors who retaliate against whistleblowers. It says the order will need to be reintroduced in 2025.
What the document actually says“Unfortunately, the order was overturned by the Biden Administration, so it will need to be reintroduced in 2025.”
Sadly, the Biden team canceled this order. So it will have to be made again in 2025.
A 2018 order made it faster to fire workers who do poor work. It cut the time they get to fix their work. It also stopped deals that wipe bad marks off a worker's record. President Biden undid that order. The book says the next president needs to bring it back.
Strengthening Probationary Periods in the Federal Service
2025-04-24 · 90 FR 17729
Shares the chapter's subject of removing poor performers, and the chapter's list of Executive Order 13839's requirements includes reminding supervisors of expiring probationary periods. This order goes further than that item by making tenure conditional on affirmative agency certification, which the chapter did not propose.
The order takes up the same aim: moving out weak performers. The chapter wanted bosses reminded when a new hire's trial period ends. This order goes further. A worker stays only if the agency signs off, which the chapter did not ask for.
2 agency rules
- Strengthening Probationary Periods in the Federal ServicePersonnel Management Office · June 24, 2025
- Streamlining Probationary and Trial Period AppealsPersonnel Management Office · August 3, 2026
Each of these names the order above in its own summary, preamble or filing. That is a fact about the document, not a finding that it carries out this proposal: it is one step further away than the order is, and what it does about the proposal is a reading nobody has made here.