Retaining Military Spouses

Many in-roads have been made recruiting military spouses to Federal employment. The Federal Government has a non-competitive appointment authority for military spouses: 5 U.S.C. 3330d; Executive Order 13832 expanded the authority, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019 provided additional flexibilities, albeit temporarily [expiring 12 August 2023].

In his blog post announcing the final rule incorporating the NDAA changes, Rob Shriver, Associate Director of Employee Services at the Office of Personnel Management, stated: “Employers across sectors and around the world rely heavily on telework and remote work as a result of the pandemic, and the federal government is no exception. These have become the new ways of working, and OPM is helping agencies use these flexibilities as strategic management tools to better recruit and retain workers. This creates an unique opportunity for military spouses —?while military families often have to move frequently, they can access their work remotely and remain in their federal jobs.” [emphasis added]

While Mr. Shriver states the desire to?retain military spouses,?few flexibilities have been developed or publicized to do so. Remote work isn’t a possibility for all positions and has not yet been widely embraced in the public sector in spite of gains during the pandemic. An underutilized flexibility that already exists in OPM’s toolbox is Leave Without Pay (LWOP), specifically, terminal LWOP.

Within the Department of Defense, several formal policies exist within U.S. Army Europe, Navy Installations Command, and Navy Reserve Command. Outside of these, however, policies don’t exist.(*) Where federally-employed spouses might request and advocate for themselves for LWOP, getting supervisory or agency support absent a policy can be daunting, especially in the midst of a permanent change of station. — That is, if they know it is an option to begin with.

One year of LWOP for PCSing military spouses would allow those military spouses to retain their status as “current competitive service employees” when applying for jobs at new duty stations, retain accrued leave, and avoid a host of challenges for employees and HR arising from breaks in service. Employers would be able to backfill the positions, which is a common misconception and frequent cause for denial.

I sent two letters in November 2019 and August 2021 highlighting the issue and advocating for a standard terminal LWOP policy to the Secretary of Defense [Secretaries Esper and Austin] with a copy to the Secretary of the Navy [Secretaries Spencer and Del Toro]; one letter in March 2022 to Senator Sherrod Brown with a follow-up constituent services request in June 2022 that went unanswered; and, just the other week, a cold e-mail to OPM’s Office of Employee Services [which, as of “press time,” is also unanswered].

From licensing to the ability to homestead to DETO agreements, the Department of Defense is trying hard to solve the military retention challenges which arise from frequent moves; often, there is limited control they can exert. This is an issue easily resolved within the government with policy and education.

Not one to simply lament or lobby internally on career military spouse Facebook groups, I say to the Office of Personnel Management: Please help us help you retain military spouses.

(*) Post-publishing, I was reminded of an Air Force Instruction, 36-815 dated 14 November 2019, which addressed LWOP for spouses of an individual employed in the public or private sector, granting up to 24 months. Paragraph 9.a.(3)(c) states:

(Added)(AF) For career and career-conditional employees who are dependents of a Federal civilian employee, or who are dependents of an individual who is employed by a public or private sector organization, and for whom the transfer of the head of household is a voluntary promotion or voluntary new job, approval of the request is not mandatory, but is normally approved, unless granting would likely lead to mission failure or severely degrade mission operations. For military spouses whose travel and transportation are covered by their sponsor’s eligibility, leave without pay is to be granted. upon their request, for a period of 12 months, and may be extended for an additional 12 months, to allow an opportunity to secure Federal employment. The total amount of leave without pay should not exceed 24 months. [emphasis added] Also eligible under this provision are former spouses of sponsors following death, divorce, or legal separation if they accompanied the sponsor on a permanent change of station to the current duty station. Because the purpose and conditions of appointment under the Schedule A dependent hire authority and under the overseas limited authority are meant only for employment in foreign areas, leave without pay may not be granted to any employee serving under these authorities who is leaving that employment for return to the United States, unless the employee has eligibility for appointment under Executive Order 12362, Overseas Employment (as amended by Executive Order 12721), i.e., 12 months service in the overseas area (T-3).

AFI 36-815 is Air Force Policy meant to expand upon Department of Defense Issuance 1400.25, Volume 630, DoD Civilian Personnel Management System: Leave, CH-2 dated 8 May 2015. In the case of LWOP, AFI 36-815 adds whole paragraphs and subparagraphs, which makes it a bit difficult to follow.