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Federal personnel officials must make performance ratings for senior executives more meaningful, the General Accounting Office reported this week.

The report - which is based on a survey of executives at NASA and the Education and Health and Human Services departments - found that a significant majority of federal senior executives at the three organizations received the highest possible performance rating in 2003.

"High-performing organizations have recognized that effective performance management systems can help them drive internal change and achieve external results," GAO officials said in a letter to Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee's Federal Workforce Subcommittee, and Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., the chairwoman of the Government Reform Committee's Civil Service Subcommittee. "Such organizations understand that they need senior leaders who are held accountable for results [and] drive continuous improvement."

The Bush administration is attempting to install a new performance pay system across the Senior Executive Service. The Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget aim to have the system in place in time for fiscal 2004 performance ratings and pay adjustments. OPM is pushing agencies to link senior executive performance ratings to agency achievements.

Davis' subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on the implementation of performance pay systems in September, according to her spokesman, Chad Bungard. The subcommittee will focus on performance pay regulations, the GAO report and "what comes next," he said.

According to the GAO report, almost all Education senior executives received the top rating and 63 percent were given bonuses in the 2003 assessment cycle. About 75 percent of NASA's senior executives received a top rating in 2003, and slightly more than half collected performance bonuses. At HHS, 86 percent of senior executives were awarded the top rating. HHS has already placed restrictions on performance bonuses, and since 2001 no more than one-third of senior executives at the department are allowed to receive such bonuses.

According to GAO, executive performance evaluation systems are not widely respected in the surveyed agencies. Less than half of the senior executives said they believed that their agency's SES performance management system was used well to achieve agency goals.

Also, fewer than half of the executives said they believe their performance system "is fully used to provide candid and constructive feedback."

COMMENTS

• It is really amazing that we are still not able to create a good, solid performance management system for approx. 7,000 senior executives in the federal government, but not surprising. The SES was supposed to be a cadre of senior managers whose primary purpose was to manage the people who manage agency programs. It turned into the pay reward for super technical and program managers whose last interest is to manage their workforce and human capital. There is practically no rotation among the SES and an SESer would be very lost moving between agencies because their entire career is tied into a technical place rather than their reliance on their own managerial skills, which would permit them to work in any agency in the federal government. I laugh when the President keeps talking about pay for performance. If this administration can't figure out a valid pay for performance system for 7,000 SESers how are they going to create one for over 2 million federal employees? A task becomes overwhelming when you don't have proper tools in place to begin a project. As I told a friend at DHS- you have 200,000 employees and when the pay for performance system goes live you will have 200,000 grievances. HR Specialist GovExec.com reader Posted July 7, 2004 7:35 AM
• I guess things have changed since I left the Government. In the DoD, at least back in the 70's and 80's, the vast majority of our SES's had gone thru a process of "selection of the fittest" and were in fact the best of the best. Most had started as GS 5's or 7's and worked there way up the DoD thru advanced education, multiple geographic relocations for self directed career broading assignments, (there were no employee development programs, that would have been called pre-selection) working the extra hours after the "civil servants" had gone home, taking on the toughest jobs, and going through the toughest candidate selection process I have ever been associated with. They fit in a similar category as the General Officers, only a very small percentage made it to the top, and in fact they were the best. I can't speak for the Civilian agencies, and of course the Political appointees that figure out a way to change their political appointments into permanent jobs are the exception to what I just stated. Additionally, I don't know what the bonus picture looks like now, but back then, it was not that great a deal. I understand that the bonus now is capped at $20K....not a fortune for rewarding the best of the best. Mike Page, retired GS-15, former Deputy Director, Air Force Contract Management Division Mike Page Posted July 1, 2004 3:38 PM
• Five of the members of the Senior Executive Service involved in the scam discussed in "Losing Their Religion", Gov't Exec, 30 June 04, by Brian Friel were past Presidential Rank Award winners! What does that tell you about the current executive performance rating system ??? Peter L. Duffy - NAVSEA Posted July 1, 2004 11:42 AM