Time-in-Grade Promotion Requirement Elimination
Current understanding
OPM has proposed eliminating the 52-week Time-in-Grade (TIG) waiting period that currently restricts how quickly competitive service General Schedule employees can be promoted, while retaining occupational qualification standards tied to the target position. For workers, this could accelerate promotion timelines and remove a uniform tenure floor; for agencies, it expands managerial discretion to advance high performers but shifts more weight onto qualification and merit determinations. Status: proposed rule.
Evidence log
- 2026-08-03 — Reduction in Force: cross-connection with reduction-in-force-retention-rules: Both rules move federal personnel decisions away from tenure-based criteria toward merit/performance-based criteria. (novelty: 3)
- 2026-05-28 — Elimination of Time-in-Grade: cross-connection with federal-strategic-human-capital-management: Eliminating Time-in-Grade is a concrete rulemaking implementation of broader federal human capital management goals around merit-based advancement and workforce agility. (novelty: 2)