Agencies have new instructions now for assigning standard codes to their cybersecurity positions.
The Office of Personnel Management revised standard data codes for information technology and cyber-related positions. New guidance recognizes nine categories and 31 specialty areas of cyber functions.
Using these codes will help agencies better understand their work requirements and skills and compare them to the private sector and academia, OPM wrote in a Jan. 4 memo to agencies.
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“The coding allows us to consistently describe the tasks, functions and work roles of federal cybersecurity positions and leverage the affiliated [knowledge, skills and abilities] KSAs in
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First, chief information officer, human resources and classification staff should identify encumbered and vacant positions with information technology, cybersecurity and cyber-related functions. Each position will receive one of OPM’s revised, three-digit Cybersecurity Data Standard Codes.
The previous codes were two digits.
“CIO staff will have perspectives on where cybersecurity work is being accomplished across the agency, how to interpret the work roles described in the Cybersecurity Data Standard Codes and what expectations the agency has regarding information technology, cybersecurity and cyber-related functions, skills, requirements, etc.,” the guidance said. “Managers will play a key role in knowing what positions are performing functions that will be coded.”
Next, agencies should embed standard codes into their position descriptions. They should send that information for their encumbered positions to OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration data warehouse, the guidance said.
At some point in the next two years, agencies will be required to send coding details for their vacant positions once OPM begins to track vacant cyber positions across all of