The Federal Employee Survival Blog
Cut through the jargon and get the clarity you need to stay a step ahead of agency politics. Each article unpacks new policy shifts, court rulings, and workplace trends, then turns them into actionable tactics—so you can head off discipline, invoke EEO or whistleblower protections with confidence, and keep your documentation airtight. We also archive our most popular social-media explainer threads here, giving you the same insights followed by more than 150,000 people online even if you never scroll on those sites. Read, prepare, and keep your federal career firmly in your control.
Much of the current advice to federal employees about OPM’s proposed reduction-in-force changes begins and ends with one point: download your performance appraisals. That is important, but it is incom...
The State Department appears to be testing a model other agencies may soon copy. In July 2025, it carried out roughly 1,350 layoffs, including about 246 Foreign Service officers on domestic assignment...
Federal employees across multiple agencies are hearing a new message about performance ratings: only a small percentage of employees can receive the highest ratings. At first glance, this may sound li...
Federal employees often experience policy changes one rule at a time. But sometimes the legal significance becomes clear only when multiple proposals are viewed together. Three recent rulemaking propo...
Federal employees have long understood one principle about reductions in force (RIFs): years of service matter. Seniority has historically been a key factor protecting experienced employees when agenc...
Many federal employees assume performance ratings only matter if they fall to the very bottom of the scale. In reality, the bigger risk in a forced distribution system often happens in the middle.
Un...
Federal employees at the IRS and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service recently received alarming news: Treasury announced that the agencies’ collective bargaining agreement with the National Treasury Empl...
Federal employees are getting an early warning about a major shift in how performance may be evaluated in the FY 2026 appraisal cycle. According to statements from OPM Director Scott Kupor, OPM is mov...
Federal employees across agencies are hearing a troubling message at the end of the appraisal year: even strong performance won’t matter because only a small percentage of people can receive top ratin...
For many federal employees, a performance year ends with a quiet shock: strong feedback all year, solid results, and then a rating capped at a “3” because the office “can’t give too many 5s.” That fee...
OPM’s recent announcement that it wants to “normalize” agency performance ratings should get every GS-9 and above employee’s attention. Behind the technical language is a major shift: capping how many...
Federal employees have long relied on a RIF system grounded in objective factors—tenure, veterans’ preference, and credible measures of service time. The new OPM proposal rewrites that foundation. Und...
THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEE BRIEFING
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