Pentagon officials collect employee input on personnel overhaul

Defense Department officials Thursday concluded an employee survey that identifies performance factors that could be used to determine pay for workers under its new personnel system.

The National Security Personnel System is the Pentagon's planned personnel overhaul, and is set to include a performance-based pay system.

In a memo to its civilian employees, Navy Secretary Gordon England, who is heading up the NSPS effort, encouraged them to participate in the performance-factor survey while it was open.

"A cornerstone of NSPS is a new performance management system that will foster a performance-oriented environment that more fully rewards and recognizes performance and contributions," he wrote.

England added that the Pentagon has identified from focus "several performance factors for possible inclusion in the new system." This survey was meant to "ensure that these performance factors are relevant and reflect work that you personally perform on your job."

The factors under consideration are technical competence, cooperation and teamwork, critical thinking, communication, customer focus, achieving results, resource management, leadership and supervision, NSPS spokeswoman Joyce Frank said.

NSPS officials made the survey available to the entire group of eligible General Schedule and demonstration project employees, rather than a statistical sample. Frank said almost 70,000 of the 517,000 eligible employees completed the survey.

According to the Pentagon, its next step is to evaluate the information gleaned from the survey about the relevance of these performance factors. The results will aid NSPS officials in determining how to rate employee performance, and will be released publicly after their completion.

The survey was announced June 30 and was accessible to employees beginning July 6.

The survey was voluntary and individual information is confidential.

Melinda Darby, assistant deputy chief of staff for Army civilian personnel, notified employees that survey results would be used to decide which "work behaviors are sufficiently important to be included as rating elements in the performance management system."

The Government Accountability Office recently published a report that found Pentagon officials did not gather enough employee input in initially developing NSPS. The auditors said that omission could hinder employees' acceptance of the system once it is implemented.

"A successful transformation must provide for meaningful involvement by employees and their representatives to gain their input into and understanding of the changes that will occur," the report stated.

NSPS was originally slated for rollout on July 1, but Pentagon officials delayed that move following meet-and-confer talks with union officials earlier this year.

The personnel reform proposal should be finalized by the fall, according to Frank. She also said that federal wage system and other groups not included will be asked to participate in a similar effort later on.