GovernmentExecutive.com

Acknowledging missteps in the government's attempts to restructure personnel systems in federal agencies, two senators are trying in their own ways to move ahead with reforms, but employee unions continue to push back.

The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee overseeing the federal workforce -- George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii -- held a hearing Thursday on bills introduced to enhance training for federal managers, among other things.

After this week's appellate court ruling striking down the Homeland Security Department's new collective bargaining scheme, Voinovich said he regrets not requiring management to enter into binding arbitration with labor unions to create the system.

"The quote [unquote] negotiations where at the end management did what they wanted to didn't work so well," Voinovich said. "I'd like to get on with some of the other stuff we've been working on."

That other stuff includes S. 3492, a bill Voinovich introduced earlier this month that would deny annual raises and within-grade increases to employees who don't meet satisfactory performance levels, as well as require training for supervisors to better manage their employees.

Akaka introduced his own federal employee performance bill this week (S. 3584), to require that supervisors receive training during their first year on the job, retraining every three years and mandatory mentoring. Current managers would have three years to obtain their initial training.

"I know there are those who believe that the government should throw out the [General Schedule] because -- in their view - agency and employee performance has not improved," Akaka said. "I, on the other hand, believe that the lack of manager training is a primary reason the GS has not lived up to expectations."

The Government Managers Coalition -- a relatively new group made up of the Senior Executives Association, the Federal Managers Association, the Professional Managers Association and others -- identified mandatory training, and the budget to back it up, as one of four platforms.

FMA president Darryl Perkinson, who spoke on behalf of the GMC at Thursday's hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia, said his group supports Akaka's bill because of its requirement for training funds. Perkinson also praised Voinovich's bill, though not to the same extent.

But union representatives stiffened at Voinovich's proposal, saying they had been burned by efforts so much in the past it was hard for them to trust any change.

Voinovich's bill, which seeks to withhold annual and within-grade pay raises from employees who don't receive satisfactory performance evaluations, is too punitive and threatening, said Jacqueline Simon, the American Federation of Government Employees' public policy director.

The legislation "assumes that fear of punishment is the best motivator," Simon said. "S. 3492 takes an emphatic position on the proverbial 'which works better, the carrot or the stick?' This is all stick and no carrot."

COMMENTS

• I only have worked for military managers. I have 14 years and been stuck at the top level of grade 13 all that time. I will not move geographically or functionally. I came here to give back. My managers always rate me high on performance evaluations and I have been given jobs that required working with the highest levels within DoD and other agencies. However, I cannot get promoted because they are trying to hold grades down but they never get rid of the GS-14's doing nothing of value. I was happy in that situation because I was doing what I liked and thought was of value to the United States. However, in the past six months the following has taken place: 1. A GS-14 was moved into a job that I performed as a GS-13 when we actually had approval authority that they no longer have. He has to ask me what to do and how to do it, so why did he get the job? 2. Another GS-14 was given a job in another of my functions that I did for five years and he has no idea what he is doing. The manager that moved the function to him now is sorry but will do nothing because he has been moved elsewhere. Now I am supposed to help the guy that has the job because he does not know what he is doing. Tell me there is no good old boy system in DoD and I will tell you that you are crazy! NSPS is a disaster waiting to happen and when it does, you will be sorry for the consequences. However, once it happens it will be too late to fix the problems it generates and the taxpayer will pay through the nose for these bad decisions involving personnel and pay. This is not a matter of training -- it is culture that has to be broken. Many military managers spend their time finding excuses for delaying as long as possible (they change jobs every two years and often more frequently). One year I had six different supervisors and most of them had no idea what their job involved. They do not know enough to know who to listen to and they frequently listen to the wrong people. Taxpayer Posted July 6, 2006 8:37 AM
• Lack of manager training? What do you have to work with? In one Navy DoD agency I worked for, I experienced: 1) GM-13 and GM-14 managers drove by me, laughed, and showed me their middle finger. Later one of the managers boasted to me that it was them. 2) When everyone else in my workgroup got double super secret accretion of duties promotions that were above their career ladder and I got slighted, I was told that if I dared to call an audit, "they" would see to it that I would get demoted. 3) I had a manager that would call me on the phone at my desk and start screaming at me at 120 decibels, "Don't you ever follow up on anything!!!!!" 4) During my last PARS review with this same manager, we spent three hours insulting each other. Then, he gets up and says, "That was very productive. I enjoyed that." This was the tip of the iceberg in my 16-year career there. Now do you think these people could improve with more training???? I'm glad I got out before NSPS was adopted and they would have a say in my raises. Dis-gruntled. GovExec.com reader Posted June 29, 2006 4:37 PM
• Very nice. Oh by the way, we would also like to see congress meet satisfactory performance levels when they vote themselves a pay raise. Stop it with the punitive reforms. The federal workers who were slackers have largely retired and are enjoying CSRS; good riddance to them (we’ll be eating dog food under FERS, by the way). The better seasoned workers are still working hard and being productive. The newer employees are workers, not slackers. If anything leads to an unproductive employee, it’s the result of low morale which, in turn, results from management not recognizing the employee’s work or, more commonly done, “rewarding” the employee by giving him/her more work. The kiss-ups are the ones who do the least since they are not admonished. Unions, keep up the good work protecting us. Come November “Nix Voinovich” Posted June 29, 2006 5:12 PM