National Guidelines in the United States - Office of Personnel Management

Women in the Federal Government: A Guide to Recruiting and Retaining

The Federal Office of Personnel Management produced this guide for Federal executives and managers to improve the representation and the career development of women throughout Government. It describes staffing, compensation, and award flexibilities available to help agencies attract and retain women at all levels. Topics covered include:

1. The key to successful recruitment.

2. Recruitment strategies such as recruitment and relocation bonuses, special salary rates and different hiring and compensation options.

3. Retention strategies are covered. These highlight some of the flexibilities available to agencies to help them retain women employees, such as retention allowances, special compensation options (to retain employees in occupations or geographic areas experiencing a staffing problem), reimbursement for training and education and accelerated promotion and lump-sum cash payments to reward performance.

4. Family-friendly workplace policies covered include:
   • Family and Medical Leave.
   • Paid leave for family care and related purposes
   • Leave sharing programs
   • Part-time employment and job sharing
   • Telecommuting
   • Hours of work and scheduling flexibilities (full-time, part-time, intermittent, and seasonal work schedules; hours of work for employees, including traditional day shifts, night and weekend duty, rotating shifts, "first-40" schedules, paid and unpaid breaks and overtime; alternative work schedules to replace traditional schedules such as compressed, biweekly work and flexible work schedules).
   • Dependent care assistance (including child care).

5. Employee Assistance Programs.

6. Career development issues such as providing women employees with significant, high impact assignments, mentoring, formal career development programmes and offering formal education and training assistance.