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Return to Article: Senate bill paves way for pay-for-performance

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  Well, I'm sure he has good intentions. And we all know where good intentions make great paving material.

  Seriously, aren't most of the things this legislation is supposed to do already in place? Managers can already stop step increases for unsatisfactory performance -- it just requires some actual work on their part. But we can't have managers forced to actually do their jobs. That would never do.

  Sar Chasm Posted June 15, 2006 2:40 PM
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  I have to agree this is a good idea and it would be even better if the Senator would amend it to include all branches of the government. That way representatives and senators could earn their pay increases the old fashion way by working for them rather than the political way by shaking down corrupt businesses for donations to their favorite PAC, charity, boondoggle or junket. What's good one is good for all.

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 14, 2006 10:16 AM
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  I wonder how much money has been spent on this whole circus act. I sure could use a bonus equivalent to 1/1,000th of this waste of taxpayers' money!

  Engineer Posted June 14, 2006 8:53 AM
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  Why in the world would you ever tie pay raises to performance? That would require that managers know what performance is and they would have to quantify it to provide pay incentives to employees. Now we get bonuses. The bulk of the bonus money goes to the pets of the high level appointees and the rest goes to the average Joe. There is no quantitative measure for the distribution of current bonuses. The interesting thing is that managers have not learned that people do what you pay them to do and bonuses are pay. If the bonuses are not specifically tied to some performance measure, they are meaningless in terms of supporting good work. The same is true of pay for performance. The senator's bill only ties raises to satisfactory performance -- everyone in the government (99 percent) have satisfactory performance because unsatisfactory performance involves more work for the manger doing the review -- not the big wig who determines the final evaluation even though they do not even know the employee or what they did for the United States!

  Taxpayer Posted June 14, 2006 8:41 AM
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  I very much respect the senator from Ohio, but all the laws in the world are not going to change the sad fact that performance management is the very last human resources subject that program managers across the federal government want to address. Countless managers have asked me if it is OK to drop the appraisal on their employees' chairs without actually talking to them about performance. I've given many PIPs where the employee has said, "Oh, that is my job? Nobody has ever told me exactly what my job was before today."

  Performance management requires both a culture change and the resources to do it right. Neither exists in the federal sector. And legislation is not going to fix this problem. Mandatory supervisory training, increased resources for performance management and actually disciplining or removing or demoting supervisors for not managing might be a good start.

  HR Specialist

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 14, 2006 6:33 AM
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  Enough of this nonsense - the House and Senate should be under pay for performance. Their performance over the last six years is so bad they should all have to pay their entire earnings back to the taxpayers!

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 14, 2006 5:39 AM
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  Sounds like the wolf in sheep's clothing. When you can change human nature this might be a viable idea. Know of any way to guarantee that no management can play favorites or trade special favors then I'd think about joining the band wagon. All the schooling in the world can't do that. I am lucky to have what seem to me to be good managers and I'm told I do my job well. But there are other shops where I would take a promotion or transfer that I would not take if I had to count on that manager to promote and give raises fairly.

  All this sounds like to me is, we couldn't get it in the way we stated it so let's repackage it to look like a lesser evil and sneak it in. I just don't see all managers being fair and objective. Human nature says the odds on that aren't very high.

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 14, 2006 2:14 AM
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  Is it only me, but are there others out there who get annoyed by the too often (but patently and completely false) parroted claims and assertions to purportedly defend the "need" for new pay or labor relations systems that General Schedule staff are unjustly rewarded (with pay increases) solely on non-merit longevity factors. The truth of the matter is that within grade step increases can be and are many times held back under current pay and labor relations regulations if and when an employee is not performing at least at the "C" or satisfactory level of performance. It is both distressing and annoying to constantly read quotes from OPM officials, members of Congress and others who ought to know better repeating the big lie that GS staff members receive pay increases just for showing up for work. That assertion is untrue and it's nonsense. Performance is and always has been the factor when managers opt to approve or disapprove longevity step increases. Let's call this false claim false each time it is repeated! Maybe then, they'll become too embarrassed to repeat it in the future. But maybe not??

  Michael J. Smith Posted June 13, 2006 6:22 PM