PART 335—PROMOTION AND INTERNAL PLACEMENT Authority: 5 U.S.C. 2301, 2302, 3301, 3302, 3304(f), 3330, 9602; sec. 511, Pub. L. 106-117, 113 Stat. 1575; E.O. 10577, 3 CFR, 1954-1958 Comp., p. 218; E.O. 11478, 3 CFR, 1966-1970 Comp., p. 803, unless otherwise noted; E.O. 13087, 3 CFR, 1998 Comp., p. 191; E.O. 13152, 3 CFR, 2000 Comp., p. 264; and 5 CFR 2.2 and 7.1. Subpart A—General Provisions § 335.101 Effect of position change on status and tenure. (a) Status. (b) Tenure. (c) Exceptions. (2) A career employee who is promoted, demoted, or reassigned from a position paid under chapter 45 of title 39, United States Code, or required by law to be filled on a permanent basis to a position under the career-conditional employment system becomes a career-conditional employee unless he has completed the service requirement for career tenure. [33 FR 12428, Sept. 4, 1968] § 335.102 Agency authority to promote, demote, or reassign. Subject to § 335.103 and, when applicable, to part 319 of this chapter, an agency may: (a) Promote, demote, or reassign a career or career-conditional employee; (b) Reassign an employee serving under a temporary appointment pending establishment of a register to a position to which his original assignment could have been made by the same appointing officer from the same recruiting list under the same order of consideration; (c) Promote, demote, or reassign an employee serving under an overseas limited appointment of indefinite duration or an overseas limited term appointment to another position to which an initial appointment under § 301.201, § 301.202, or § 301.203 of this chapter is authorized; (d) Promote, demote, or reassign (1) a status quo employee and (2) an employee serving under an indefinite appointment in a competitive position, except that this authority may not be used to move an employee: (i) From a position in which an initial overseas limited appointment is authorized to another position; or (ii) To a position in which an initial overseas limited appointment is authorized from another position; and (e) Promote, demote, or reassign a term employee serving on a given project to another position within the project which the agency has been authorized to fill by term appointment; (f) Make time-limited promotions to fill temporary positions, accomplish project work, fill positions temporarily pending reorganization or downsizing, or meet other temporary needs for a specified period of not more than 5 years, unless OPM authorizes the agency to make and/or extend time-limited promotions for a longer period. (1) The agency must give the employee advance written notice of the conditions of the time-limited promotion, including the time limit of the promotion; the reason for a time limit; the requirement for competition for promotion beyond 120 days, where applicable; and that the employee may be returned at any time to the position from which temporarily promoted, or to a different position of equivalent grade and pay, and the return is not subject to the procedures in parts 351, 432, 752, or 771 of this chapter. When an agency effects a promotion under a nondiscretionary provision and is unable to give advance notice to the employee, it must provide the notice as soon as possible after the promotion is made. (2) This paragraph applies to a career, career-conditional, status quo, indefinite, or term employee and to an employee serving under an overseas limited appointment of indefinite duration, or an overseas limited term appointment. [33 FR 12428, Sept. 4, 1968, as amended at 35 FR 13075, Aug. 18, 1970; 45 FR 24855, Apr. 11, 1980; 57 FR 10124, Mar. 24, 1992; 58 FR 59347, Nov. 9, 1993] § 335.103 Agency promotion programs. (a) Merit promotion plans. (b) Merit promotion requirements Requirement 1. (2) Requirement 2. (3) Requirement 3. (4) Requirement 4. (5) Requirement 5. (c) Covered personnel actions Competitive actions. (i) Time-limited promotions under § 335.102(f) of this part for more than 120 days to higher graded positions (prior service during the preceding 12 months under noncompetitive time-limited promotions and noncompetitive details to higher graded positions counts toward the 120-day total). A temporary promotion may be made permanent without further competition provided the temporary promotion was originally made under competitive procedures and the fact that might lead to a permanent promotion was made known to all potential candidates; (ii) Details for more than 120 days to a higher grade position or to a position with higher promotion potential (prior service during the preceding 12 months under noncompetitive details to higher graded positions and noncompetitive time-limited promotions counts toward the 120-day total); (iii) Selection for training which is part of an authorized training agreement, part of a promotion program, or required before an employee may be considered for a promotion as specified in § 410.302 of this chapter; (iv) Reassignment or demotion to a position with more promotion potential than a position previously held on a permanent basis in the competitive service (except as permitted by reduction-in-force regulations); (v) Transfer to a position at a higher grade or with more promotion potential than a position previously held on a permanent basis in the competitive service; and (vi) Reinstatement to a permanent or temporary position at a higher grade or with more promotion potential than a position previously held on a permanent basis in the competitive service if the individual did not wait 1 year or more after separating from Federal employment before applying for reinstatement, or did not receive a rating of record for his or her most recent career or career-conditional position of at least Fully Successful (or equivalent). (2) Noncompetitive actions. (i) A promotion resulting from the upgrading of a position without significant change in the duties and responsibilities due to issuance of a new classification standard or the correction of an initial classification error; (ii) A position change permitted by reduction-in-force procedures in part 351 of this chapter; and (iii) A retroactive temporary promotion to a higher-graded position pursuant to a determination by an appropriate authority as defined in 5 CFR 550.803. (3) Discretionary actions. (i) A promotion without current competition of an employee who was appointed in the competitive from a civil service register, by direct hire, by noncompetitive appointment or noncompetitive conversion, or under competitive promotion procedures for an assignment intended to prepare the employee for the position being filled (the intent must be made a matter of record and career ladders must be documented in the promotion plan); (ii) A promotion resulting from an employee's position being classified at a higher grade because of additional duties and responsibilies; (iii) A temporary promotion, or detail to a higher grade position or a position with known promotion potential, of 120 days or less; (iv) Promotion to a grade previously held on a permanent basis in the competitive service (or in another merit system with which OPM has an interchange agreement approved under § 6.7 of this chapter) from which an employee was separated or demoted for other than performance or conduct reasons; (v) Promotion, reassignment, demotion, transfer, reinstatement, or detail to a position having promotion potential no greater than the potential of a position an employee currently holds or previously held on a permanent basis in the competitive service (or in another merit system with which OPM has an interchange agreement approved under § 6.7 of this chapter) and did not lose because of performance or conduct reasons; and (vi) Consideration of a candidate not given proper consideration in a competitive promotion action. (vii) Appointments of career SES appointees with competitive service reinstatement eligibility to any position for which they qualify in the competitive service at any grade or salary level, including Senior-Level positions established under 5 CFR Part 319—Employment in Senior-Level and Scientific and Professional positions. (viii) Reinstatement in accordance with 5 CFR part 315 to any position in the competitive service for which the individual is qualified at a higher grade level or with more promotion potential than a career or career-conditional position previously held by the individual; provided: The individual has been separated for at least one year before applying for reinstatement, and the individual must have received a rating of record for his or her most recent career or career-conditional position of at least Fully Successful (or equivalent). (d) Grievances. [59 FR 67121, Dec. 29, 1994, as amended at 63 FR 34258, June 24, 1998; 70 FR 72067, Dec. 1, 2005; 79 FR 43922, July 29, 2014; 86 FR 30379, June 8, 2021; 89 FR 60298, July 25, 2024] § 335.104 Eligibility for career ladder promotion. No employee shall receive a career ladder promotion unless his or her current rating of record under part 430 of this chapter is “Fully Successful” (level 3) or higher. In addition, no employee may receive a career ladder promotion who has a rating below “Fully Successful” on a critical element that is also critical to performance at the next higher grade of the career ladder. [51 FR 8411, Mar. 11, 1986] § 335.105 Notice of job announcements to OPM. Under 5 U.S.C. 3330, agencies are required to report job announcements to OPM for vacancies for which an agency will accept applications from outside the agency's work force. This requirement is implemented through part 330, subpart A of this chapter. [66 FR 63906, Dec. 11, 2001, as amended at 75 FR 67605, Nov. 3, 2010] § 335.106 Special selection procedures for certain veterans under merit promotion. Preference eligibles or veterans who have been separated under honorable conditions from the armed forces after completing (as determined by the agency) 3 or more years of continuous active military service may compete for vacancies under merit promotion when an agency accepts applications from individuals outside its own workforce. Those veterans selected will be given career or career conditional appointments under § 315.611 of this chapter. [65 FR 14432, Mar. 17, 2000] § 335.107 Special selection procedures for land management eligibles under merit promotion. A current or former land management employee of a land management agency, who is a land management eligible, as defined in § 315.613(b)(3) of this chapter, may compete, if otherwise qualified for: (a) A permanent position at any agency (including, but not limited to, a land management agency), in accordance with the provisions of § 315.613 of this chapter, when that agency is accepting applications from individuals outside its own workforce under merit promotion procedures. A land management eligible so selected will be given a career or career-conditional appointment under § 315.613; or (b) A permanent position at the land management agency with which the individual was most recently an employee, in accordance with the provisions of § 315.613 of this chapter, when the agency is accepting applications from individuals within the agency's workforce under its merit promotion procedures. A land management eligible so selected will be given a career or career-conditional appointment under § 315.613. [88 FR 84690, Dec. 6, 2023] Subpart B [Reserved]