Defense personnel system boasts supporters
Pay-for-performance at the Pentagon has many detractors, but also a fair share of defenders.
Critics of the Pentagon's pay-for-performance system are vocal, but many defenders of the National Security Personnel System spoke out during Friday's final public meeting on the issue, claiming it was too soon to scrap the controversial system.
"It worked for me," said Justin Fairley, a human resources official in the New York office of the Army Corps of Engineers during a hearing of the Defense Business Board, the task force charged with reviewing NSPS. "I understand that it doesn't work for everybody."
Fairley said he felt rewarded after years of working harder than a less productive colleague, whom he said left the office after missing out on pay raises as a result of NSPS. The system forces supervisors to critically review performance -- something they didn't necessarily do before, according to Fairley.
Others at the public forum claimed that turning back the clock on NSPS would negate years of work to change the culture of the Defense Department's civilian workforce.
"We need to stay the course," said Trent Blalock, a civilian Marine Corps employee. "We've got a lot of hard work behind us. I don't think what we're experiencing is uncommon to what any large implementation would be."
But opposition to NSPS is still strong among many federal employees, and some forum participants complained about what they viewed as a burdensome and unfair system.
"It's radioactive. I don't think you can go forward with a system if it's called 'NSPS.' I don't think you can go forward with a system if it's called 'pay for performance,' " said Patty Viers, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1148 in Columbus, Ohio.
"I don't know of any first-line supervisors, or any other employees [at my facility], who are happy with NSPS," said James Isaac, a front-line supervisor with the Navy in San Diego.
Many of the system's critics at Friday's hearing focused on the pay pools -- the panels that approve the performance ratings that ultimately determine employee raises. Critics have claimed that pay pools can favor employees who work near headquarters, since they are in proximity to the officials making the final decisions about their yearly ratings. Isaac recounted how he was forced to rewrite employee reviews to account for lower ratings mandated by the pay pool. He said some of the employees whom he had ranked a 4 on the five-point scale had their rankings changed to 3 by the panel to ensure that performance ratings were uniformly applied. He said he had to change his written assessments to match the new ratings.
"I didn't feel it was proper for them to put words in my mouth," said Isaac. "It seems a little unfair."
Scott O'Neil, executive director of the Naval Air Warfare Center weapons division in China Lake, Calif., which implemented an experimental pay-for-performance system in the early 1980s, strongly defended the concept -- but claimed NSPS was more rigid, and required more resources, than the system originally used. He said the NSPS payband system was too broad and wasn't tied into natural career progression.
"I can say, categorically, yes, I think we've seen a budget increase of a couple of million dollars," said O'Neil, when asked how much the NSPS had cost the center.
Some task force members grappled with which parts of the NSPS should be fixed and which should be eliminated.
Task force member Robert Tobias, a former president of the National Treasury Employees Union who now teaches at American University, repeatedly asked whether NSPS performance goals could be transferred to the existing General Schedule system without being tied to pay.
"How much of it is clarity about goals, and the support that you provide, as opposed to the issue of pay?" Tobias asked O'Neil, noting studies have found that GS employees will improve their performance to obtain a better rating, even if the rating isn't tied to pay.
The task force, led by former Defense undersecretary Rudy de Leon, will report to Congress and the Obama administration later this summer on whether to reform, scrap or continue NSPS in its current form.
The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed the fiscal 2010 Defense authorization bill, which contains an amendment that requires the Pentagon to demonstrate whether NSPS can be reformed or prepare to dismantle it within one year. It also prohibits new jobs from being classified under the pay-for-performance system.