The new director of the executive branch’s human resources department is aiming to make the agency the most efficient in the government, he told reporters Monday.
“The culture is what drives our behavior, and what my perception is, and what I like to do in government is, I’d like for people to think about us as stewards of other people’s money, basically,” said Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, who was sworn into office July 14, “so, taxpayers dollars, and for us to have an incentive structure that rewards delivery of great services.”
As a result, the OPM has drastically reduced its staff, seeing roughly one-third of its personnel depart since President Donald Trump took office six months ago.
At the beginning of the year, OPM had 3,000 employees and 1,200 contractors. After reductions in force, the agency thinks it will end up at 2,000 employees and half the contractors, with most of the cuts coming from voluntarily retirements, according to Kupor.
Core mission areas like retirement, health care, and insurance were not affected by the reductions.
Due to the staff reductions, the OPM is considering ways to consolidate space and potentially share a building with another agency, Kupor told The Daily Signal.
“I don’t think anybody wants to work in a place where every other desk is empty,” he said.
Kupor said he strives to create a “high performance culture.” Part of that effort will include preparing to deploy artificial intelligence in talent recruitment, information processing, and customer service.
“My hope is that that would kind of both allow us to attract and retain the various people in the government,” Kupor said, “and also to make sure that we continue to reinforce those messages around operational efficiency.”
A formerly obscure agency, the OPM’s return to in-person work order for federal government employees on Jan. 20 gave it a spotlight in national news. Last week, the agency added an exemption for religious holidays.
Kupor told The Daily Signal one other, similar exemption is in the works.
“There is new guidance, given recent Supreme Court cases, around religious expression in the workplace, and so, we want to give some guidance to the organizations about what that might look like.”
In Groff v. DeJoy, the court clarified that employers must reasonably accommodate employees’ religious practices.
Before joining the OPM, Kupor was the investing partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He said his experience has prepared him to exact peak efficiency, but he’s aware the task of tackling the $36 trillion national debt is a hard one.
“I don’t care if I get run out of town because people don’t like what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m OK with that. I’m here because I really think it’s important. I’ve got three daughters between the ages of 18 and 25, and I really do believe that we’re on an unsustainable fiscal path. I think we have the political support of a president who cares about this stuff, and I want to give it a shot, and maybe I will walk out of here like everyone else … and maybe we won’t have success, but I think it’s worth a try.”