John Berry, the new director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), will spend two days at the Maxwell School next week and will deliver a policy address, "A Merit System for the 21st Century?" on Monday, Nov. 2, at 4 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium. The talk is open to the public.

Berry—who is responsible for recruiting, hiring and setting benefits policies for 1.9 million federal civilian employees—has made a major commitment to reinvigorating the civil service to meet the challenges facing the federal workforce in the 21st century. More than 3,000 civilian employees in the Syracuse area work for 21 federal agencies, including the Departments of Veterans' Affairs, Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture and Treasury, as well as the Social Security and General Services Administrations.

In his talk, Berry will discuss—for the first time—what merit means in the context of a modern workforce. He will also address how to increase flexibility and fairness in human resource policies; how the federal government can motivate good performance and deal with bad performance; and how the federal government can educate, train and develop workers over the course of their careers.

While Berry is on campus Nov. 2-3, he will meet with students and faculty at the Maxwell School; he and OPM senior staff members will also conduct mock interviews with students.

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