Here’s a crazy idea: base promotions on performance, not how long someone’s been in the job.
The director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Scott Kupor, thinks that makes sense, and on Monday, he announced the agency will shift its promotion priorities and focus on a thing called “merit,” a factor that Democrats frown upon. During the Biden administration, they put race, gender, time in office, sexual identity, blah blah blah at the top of the list of considerations.
Nope, said Kupor:
"Federal employees should be rewarded for what they can do, not for how long they’ve been on the job." Today, we @USOPM eliminated the historically anti-merit principle of gating promotions for top performing employees based upon their time in seat. No longer - merit prevails…
— Scott Kupor (@skupor) October 19, 2026
Federal employees should be rewarded for what they can do, not for how long they’ve been on the job." Today, we @USOPM eliminated the historically anti-merit principle of gating promotions for top performing employees based upon their time in seat. No longer - merit prevails over tenure!
He also published a Substack article in which he explains why longstanding rules are simply not fair and are detrimental to government efficiency:
Imagine you’re smart and just starting your career at a federal agency. In six months, you master the work. You breeze through tasks your coworkers avoid, delivering results your supervisor calls the best she’s seen in years. She wants to promote you. But even though you’re outperforming a regulation written in the 1950s stops cold your promotion opportunity. Why? Because you haven’t sat in your chair long enough.
That was the time-in-grade rule. For roughly 80 years, it required most federal employees to wait 52 weeks at each grade before they could even be considered for the next one. Not 52 weeks of results. Just 52 weeks on the calendar. Whether you mastered the job in six weeks, six months, or six years, the clock was the clock.
That’s all changing.
Talent over time
— U.S. Office of Personnel Management (@USOPM) October 19, 2026
OPM has finalized a rule removing the 52-week time-in-grade requirement for covered promotions to GS-6 and above. Qualified employees can be considered sooner, while agencies continue to apply job-related standards and merit procedures.
Read more here:… pic.twitter.com/Sh4DzFyQcS
Here’s the nitty-gritty, courtesy of the Federal Register, which bills itself as “The Daily Journal of the United States Government”:
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is adopting, substantially as proposed, its proposed rule eliminating the Time-in-Grade (TIG) restriction on advancement to competitive service positions in the General Schedule (GS). Under the prior regulations, a candidate generally could not be advanced to a covered position at GS-6 or above without completing 52 weeks in a position no more than one grade lower—or two grades lower for certain positions in two-grade-interval lines of work. This final rule removes that requirement. Employees remain subject to all applicable occupational qualification standards and any additional job-related qualification requirements established by their employing agency.
Rewarding achievement and merit in the federal government — who would have thunk?
Here's a deeper dive with Kupor:
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