Executive Order 14410: Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service

What does Executive Order 14410 do?

The order operates through existing statutory authority, so concrete effects depend on the agency actions and legal limits described below. OPM subsequently published implementation guidance, notices and personnel-action templates. Covered roles remain career positions filled on merit, but use the excepted-service procedures stated in the order and governing rules. [Federal Register; OPM Schedule Policy/Career]

Reading the operative provisions of Executive Order 14410

EO 14410 creates Schedule Policy/Career for specified career positions that influence policy and transfers listed jobs from the competitive service into the excepted service. It establishes different procedures for adverse actions while requiring merit-based hiring. The Federal Register text and its appendix identify covered positions; the order does not convert every federal employee into a political appointee.

Positions in Schedule Policy/Career remain career roles, but employees have different appeal rights and protections from removal than employees in the competitive service. Agencies must still follow merit-system principles, anti-discrimination law, veterans’ preference where applicable and any statutory protections that remain. The appendix is essential: a job’s policy influence alone does not establish that it has been moved into the schedule.

OPM issued implementation guidance and personnel templates after the order. Those materials explain how agencies classify roles and document actions. Employees should check the official appendix and their agency’s notice to determine whether a position is covered. The order also amends earlier personnel directives, including EO 14217, so the current rules need to be read together with later orders and OPM regulations.