Understand the structure and purpose of the General Schedule Leader Grade Evaluation Guide, which outlines classification criteria for federal leader positions. The guide distinguishes between work leaders and team leaders, providing specific grading guidance for those supervising one-grade interval work.
Key Insights
- The General Schedule Leader Grade Evaluation Guide includes two parts: Part One focuses on work leaders managing one-grade interval occupations at GS-8 and below, while Part Two addresses team leaders overseeing two-grade interval work.
- To qualify under Part One, a work leader must lead at least three employees performing the same type of one-grade interval work and carry out coordination duties such as workload distribution and progress monitoring.
- The grade of a Part One work leader is set one grade above the highest level of non-supervisory work performed by the team being led.
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All right, we're going to look at the General Schedule Leader Grade Evaluation Guide. And so, you can go to OPM's website, and the Leader Guide and the Supervisory Guide are both located in the Classifying General Schedule Positions Overview page. This is the third tab that says Functional Guides.
You want to go down to the General Schedule Leader Grade Evaluation Guide. And so, let's talk about them. Leaders are responsible for ensuring the work of their assigned team is completed.
Leaders do this by performing a range of coordination and support duties and responsibilities. The classification system recognizes two types of leaders, work leaders and team leaders. To understand the difference, let's look at some history.
In 1976, OPM issued the first Leader Guide, the General Schedule Work Leader Guide. This guide was used to classify employees who led clerical or one-grade interval GS occupations in accomplishing work and included no reference to leading two-grade interval work. In 1993, with the advent of the National Performance Review, the structure of federal agencies changed.
And to support de-layering, streamlining, and right-sizing initiatives, another type of GS leader was needed, one responsible for leading two-grade interval work. So, in 1998, OPM issued a revised General Schedule Leader Grade Evaluation Guide. We call it the GS Leader Guide.
It contains two parts. Part one, for the traditional work leader, who is responsible for clerical or one-grade interval occupations. And part two, for leader positions responsible for coordinating, coaching, and facilitating two-grade interval work.
And so, let's look at the criteria for part one GS work leader positions. Under part one, in this GS Leader Guide, the part one leader leads the work of clerical or one-grade interval occupations at the GS 8 and below. The incumbent performs work that is usually the same kind and level as that done by the team that it leads.
They must lead three or more positions that actually perform the work. And so, again, they must lead one-grade interval work. They must lead three or more positions that do the same type of work, which meet the representative duties of their team.
And so, for example, if you have a human resources assistant grade six, and you want to promote that person to a work leader, they have to lead three or more individuals doing the same human resources assistant work, that work that is actually being performed by the team. When you grade that person, that person, when you classify that person, that person's position will ensure that they are responsible to the supervisor for assuring that work assignments of employees are completed. They carry out distributing the workload, tracking work status, estimating and reporting on work completion, instructing employees, checking work in progress, adjusting work conditions, approving brief periods of leave, resolving informal complaints, and recommending personnel actions to the supervisor.
When you're applying part one, when you're applying part one of the grade of the work that is being led, it is referred to as the base level of the work. The base level is the grade at the highest level of non-supervisory work for that group. Excluding the leader.
And so in part one, the leader positions will be classified one grade above the highest level of non-supervisory work led by the team. Part one provides very specific instructions on determining the appropriate base level. And so an example would be if we use those human resources assistant grade six, the work leader would be one grade higher than the work, the representative work, which is at the grade six level, then the work leader would be grade seven.
So the grade of the position is one grade higher than the highest level of the work being led. And then the approved title for work leaders, it just includes you prefixing the word lead to the position which the employee is qualified for, and reflects the work of the non-supervisory work being led. And so what does that mean? That means that in this human resources assistant, if the title were lead human resources assistant, lead human resources assistant.
All right. So remember for part one, we're going to lead one grade interval work with a minimum of three or more employees being led on that team. They must do the same type of duties as the work being led, and they're going to be one grade higher than the highest level of work on the team.
