ProFeds Founder, Chris Kowalik, assesses the inherent risk current facing the federal workforce and how agencies' RIF policies could leave many federal employees looking for work in the near future.
Key takeaways:
- Timelines expected for RIF actions
- RIF procedures and ranking system
- What downsizing tools agencies are likely to use
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Additional Resources:
- Link to full RIF training series: FedImpact.com/RIF-training-series
- Link to RIF order: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force-rif/#url=Summary
- Local workshop locations and dates: FedImpact.com/attend
- To be introduced to a local financial professional: FedImpact.com/request-to-meet
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Prefer to read instead? A Transcript of this Podcast is Below:
Originally released on 3/7/2025
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We have millions of federal employees worried about the workforce reduction that's happening in round two. By March 13th, the agencies are required to have their RIF plans to the White House for review and then begin executing on those plans shortly thereafter.
There's a lot in play, but who's at risk? Who decides who's on the chopping block? How long do they have to make a decision? And what happens? These are all really great questions that we're going to talk about today.
Hi, I'm Chris Kowalik of ProFeds, and welcome to the FedImpact Podcast where we offer candid insights on your federal retirement. You guys know this show is all about helping you to get super clear on what your benefits are so that you can take action to make it happen. If you are new to this podcast, I hope that you'll subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Reduction in Force – Am I at Risk of Being RIF’ed?
Let's talk about who's at risk for a reduction in force. There's a lot that goes into all of this, and I'm certainly not going to read the government regulations for you, but I want to give kind of a general overview of how this works.
There's a couple of different pieces here. The first are competitive areas. So normally when there's a reduction in force at an agency level, they're trying to cull a particular part of the country geographically or a particular type of job. And that may still be happening.
But given the widespread nature of these reductions in force, the RIF, I have a feeling we're going to see a much wider swath of a competitive area of like who's at risk for being downsized. So thinking of geographically and org chart wise, if we think of that, of the different positions that are within these agencies.
Retention Factors
Let's talk about these retention factors. There are four different factors that we're going to talk briefly about today. The first is tenure. Now this is actually the type of appointment that you are in. Are you a career, a career conditional, that type of thing. Each of you look on your SF-50s, it'll be right there on the document so that you'll know what kind of position you are in.
Next is veterans' preference. Very important that for any of our veterans out there that your veteran's preference is on your SF-50. So if you have not done that, if you have not double checked that your veteran's preference has been identified in your most recent SF-50, I encourage you to do so, because this will all be part of the ranking that your agency is going to do. And if they don't have it on file, they're not going to know to give you points for your veteran's preference status.
Next is creditable service. This is how long you've been with the government. So thinking of that timeline of how long you've served, and there's a number of different factors that go into what service counts in that, but all of your normal serves and first time would count in that calculation.
And then lastly is your performance rating. And I think many of you think that this should go up top as a more prominent piece, but with respect to the performance rating, very, very important that you understand that you are being ranked against your peers.
Therefore having this number performance and of all the other retention factors out of context. So not knowing how your peers rank is not a very helpful number. It will be important for you to see where you fall, and it's not until that your agency goes through this entire process for the competitive area that they're looking to downsize, that you are going to know where do you fall in line with your coworkers.
Who Decides on a RIF? – Who Get's That Offer?
Who decides on a RIF and who's going to get that offer? Well, the agency's going to go through that competitive area and the competitive level. There are a couple of different versions of this that they're going to go through to be able to rank all of their employees. Once a decision is made, there's typically a window of 30 or 60 days that an agency is giving for employees to be gone, to accept the offer and be gone.
I think agencies are full speed ahead right now based on the gas pedal of the White House. And so I think we need to be prepared for a shorter window. Normally it's 60 days. OPM's guidance says agencies could request 30 days in extreme circumstances, whether that goes government wide, I'm not sure, but the standard is 60. I don't believe anybody's dragging out this process.
What Really Happens in the RIF?
It is clear that things are moving quickly and we need to be prepared for that to happen. What really happens in the RIF and what are the tools that begin to be utilized in that process? All the things I'm going to talk about have nothing to do with the deferred resignation process that we've already been through.
That door has closed, that offer is no longer on the table. These are normal RIF tools that the government has in their arsenal when they're looking to downsize the federal workforce. In an ideal world, the agencies are seeking for people to volunteer to go ahead and retire through the early out process.
We saw a little bit of that with the deferred resignation, with the VERA being added to that. But this idea that we're going to try to allow the people who really want to go to leave first before we step into the involuntary realm.
Involuntary Separation
When we think of involuntary separations, it could be a straight firing where there's no benefits available right away or ever. We also have a situation where we have what's called a discontinued service retirement, which is the exact same thing as an early out as far as the requirements age 50 with 20 or any age with 25 years.
The difference is that the discontinued service retirement is involuntary in nature. And there are a lots of rules that go along with DSRs, and one of them being that if your agency's able to accommodate you in a different role, perhaps that wouldn't have been chopped, that you can't decline that.
But again, in the widespread RIF that's likely to happen, positions are going away, so there's likely not a lot to be able to move to. We might also experience some severance packages. This would be for employees who are not eligible for an immediate pension, and so we'll talk a little bit more about that in a separate video.
But severance packages are certainly part of this whole process. And then of course, pension and benefits and how all that's going to be affected, we're going to dive into that in a separate video with respect to if you're going out on a discontinued service retirement, what happens to your pension and benefits? What do you get to keep? And is there anything that you lose?
The question will become what percentage of your agency's workforce are they trying to get rid of? Right? And this is all flowing down from the White House as far as the percentage that needs to be cut, but that's not the same for every agency. We see some agencies completely left alone and then others that are completely going away. So it's somewhere between zero and a hundred percent. We just don't know where. And more of that guidance will be coming out I'm sure in the coming weeks.
Am I at Risk of Being RIF'ed?
Speed, speed, speed. That is what is happening yet again in this process. And by April 14th, agencies are expected to have kind of their final round of RIF plans in place to move into the next phase.
Are you at risk of being RIFed? I would say, absolutely. Only because we have seen far and wide in government agencies, people who are very tenured, they're in the right kind of positions, they have been there for a long time, they're veterans, they have great performance ratings. All of those things are fired.
Get Connected & Next Steps
And so we have to be prepared. And listen if we're ultra prepared and it doesn't happen, then at least we knew we were prepared and in the driver's seat of this decision. If you've been listening to us for a while, you know that we're all about knowing your numbers because when you know your numbers, your financial decisions become obvious.
The training that we do for federal employees makes it so obvious to us how much help federal employees need to be able to break down these complex government benefits that I would argue are complex for no reason, but they're still challenging to be able to plan with.
I encourage you get to one of our retirement trainings. We have them all over the country. I can't promise we have one in your city, but we're probably pretty darn close and we'd love to have you come out. And like I always share with folks at the end of that workshop, you have an opportunity for some one-on-one help if you want that, and be able to start to dig into your numbers.
If you want some of those resources sent right to you, pull out your phone and text the word podcast to 2244446144, and we'll get connected right away. All right, thank you so much. If this episode was helpful, I hope you'll subscribe so that you're sure not to miss an episode.
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