I What the document is
Under 5 CFR part 511, a position is the work — the duties and responsibilities — assigned by competent authority for performance by an employee. The position description is the record of that assignment.
Agencies describe the PD as the primary authorization document for the expenditure of appropriated federal funds. It is what justifies paying you at a grade, and it links to your performance elements and your training.
That framing explains everything else on this page. It is a control document, not a summary of your week.
It carries the pay plan, title, series and grade, the major duties with percentages of time totalling 100 percent, the organisational relationships, and the classification standards used.
II Somebody signed it
The OF-8 coversheet carries a supervisory certification, and it is worth reading once properly.
What your supervisor attested to
Agency handbooks reinforce it: supervisors are reminded of their personal responsibility and liability relating to the contents of the position description and the certification.
That matters practically. A conversation that begins “this does not describe what I do” is not a complaint about paperwork. It is a statement that a certified document has become inaccurate — and the person who certified it has an interest in fixing that.
III The two fights
This is the distinction that decides where you file, and getting it wrong wastes months.
| Dispute | Route |
|---|---|
| Accuracy — does it describe what I do? | Supervisor, then grievance |
| Classification — title, series, grade | Classification appeal, not grievable |
The regulation directs the first step plainly: where the accuracy of the official PD is questioned, the employee is directed to review the matter with their supervisor, and where that fails informally, accuracy is reviewed through administrative or negotiated grievance procedures.
Collective bargaining agreements often make the split explicit — allowing an employee to grieve the accuracy of the duty description while expressly excluding the classification of the position. For grade, see desk audits and classification appeals.
People assume an inaccurate description sinks any grade claim. It does not. Where accuracy cannot be resolved, OPM decides the appeal on the basis of the actual duties and responsibilities assigned by management and performed by the employee.
The document does not override reality. It just makes the argument harder to run without it.
Some things are outside appeal entirely: an assignment or detail out of the scope of normally performed duties, the accuracy or use of agency supplemental classification guides, and the title unless a specific title is authorised in a published OPM standard.
IV The 25 percent threshold
OPM policy provides that the grade of a position may be determined by higher-graded duties constituting at least 25 percent of work time.
Measure your own week first
The same threshold governs supervisory positions: broadly, supervisory duties must occupy at least 25 percent of the time for a position to be supervisory at all.
Before raising anything, log a few representative weeks against that number. An argument built on a measured share of time is a different conversation from one built on how the job feels.
V When it has drifted
Descriptions go stale quietly — a reorganisation, a departure absorbed into your workload, a system you inherited. A new position or a change in major duties since the last classification decision is the ordinary trigger for a fresh look, and agencies also recertify on a cycle of several years.
| Defect | Why it is useful to you |
|---|---|
| No percentages, or not totalling 100 | Concrete and easily demonstrated |
| Major duties you no longer perform | Accuracy, squarely grievable |
| Work you do that appears nowhere | The foundation of any grade argument |
Put the request in writing, with a short list of the specific points. That document becomes the basis of any later grievance, and a supervisor who answers it in writing has created your record for you.
VI Duties added without a promotion
The general rule is that employees are assigned only duties appropriate to the grade of their position — unless higher-graded duties are assigned for developmental purposes, which is legitimate and should be time-bound and explicit.
Where substantive higher-graded responsibilities have genuinely been absorbed, a noncompetitive promotion may be available under 5 CFR 335.103. So may reclassification correcting an initial classification error.
But agencies treat these as rare, requiring the circumstances to be explicitly met and documented — otherwise competitive procedures apply. Expect to make the case, not to be offered it.
If the answer is that you must compete for the work you are already doing, that is a normal answer rather than a wrong one — and an accurate PD is what makes you a credible candidate for it.
Which fight are you in
The routes do not overlap.
Reading your own PD
- Get the current signed copy, not the one from your onboarding pack.
- Check the percentages exist and total 100.
- Mark duties you no longer perform and work that appears nowhere.
- Log a few weeks and measure higher-graded work against 25 percent.
- Decide which fight you are in: accuracy, or grade.
- Raise accuracy with your supervisor in writing first.
- Ask whether developmental assignment is intended, and for how long.
- Remember an appeal turns on actual duties, not on the document.
Questions
They are two different disputes with two different routes, and confusing them is why people file in the wrong forum. Accuracy is whether the description states what you actually do, and that can be raised with your supervisor and then through an administrative or negotiated grievance procedure. Classification is the title, pay plan, series and grade, and that is not grievable at all: it is a classification appeal to the agency or OPM. A collective bargaining agreement can allow you to grieve the accuracy of the duty description while expressly excluding the classification of the position.
Your supervisor, personally, and they signed to say so. The supervisory certification on the OF-8 coversheet reads that the signer certifies this is an accurate statement of the major duties and responsibilities of the position and its organizational relationships, made with the knowledge that the information is used for statutory purposes relating to appointment and payment of public funds and that false or misleading statements may constitute violations. Agency handbooks remind supervisors of their personal responsibility and liability for the contents and the certification.
Raise it with your supervisor first, because that is what the regulation directs. Where the accuracy of the official position description is questioned by the employee, the employee is directed to review the matter with their supervisor, and where management and the employee cannot resolve their differences informally the accuracy should be reviewed through administrative or negotiated grievance procedures. Put the request in writing with a summary of the specific points, because that is what a later grievance will be built on.
No, and this is the reassurance people need. Where the accuracy cannot be resolved, OPM decides the appeal on the basis of the actual duties and responsibilities assigned by management and performed by the employee. The document does not override reality. An accurate position description makes an appeal much easier to run, but a wrong one does not defeat a claim that the work being performed is higher-graded.
OPM policy provides that the grade of a position may be determined by the performance of higher-graded duties that constitute at least twenty-five percent of an employee's work time. Below that threshold the higher-graded work generally does not drive the grade. The same threshold appears on the supervisory side: a position is generally not a supervisory position unless supervisory duties occupy at least twenty-five percent of the time. It is the number to measure your own week against before doing anything else.
Yes. Agency policy commonly requires that the percentages of time assigned to all major duty areas total one hundred percent, alongside the supervisor's signature certifying or recertifying accuracy. If your description has no percentages, or they do not total one hundred, that is a concrete and easily demonstrated defect to raise, and it is often the cleanest opening in a conversation about a description that has drifted from reality.
Higher-graded duties are sometimes assigned for developmental purposes, and otherwise employees are supposed to be assigned only duties appropriate to the grade of their position. Where substantive higher-graded responsibilities have genuinely been added, a noncompetitive promotion based on accretion of duties may be possible under 5 CFR 335.103, but agencies treat these as rare and require the circumstances to be explicitly met and documented, with competitive procedures otherwise. Reclassification correcting an initial classification error can also be handled this way.
That is set by agency policy rather than by government-wide rule, and periodic recertification cycles of several years are common. A new position being established, or major duties changing since the last official classification decision, are the ordinary triggers for a fresh look regardless of the cycle. If your work changed substantially two reorganisations ago and nobody revisited the description, the document is almost certainly stale.