Return to Article: Pentagon rolls out performance-based pay
-
48871
I am amazed at the feedback I have just finished reading! How could such a travesty have gotten so far? As a dual-healthcare professional couple, my wife and I are at a place where we are looking at deferred retirement and other options. This transition, in addition to all of the obviously correct comments made by several of the writers I read, is fundamentally degrading. We experienced a loss of pay when we accepted our new NSPS positions - by way of assignments overseas - but we did not do our homework on the long-term impact of such a move, and now understand that the loss in pay will continue as long as we are under NSPS. Does leadership care at all about how this is going to impact healthcare retention and recruitment? And I thought 'Mary Shelley' produced her work 'Frankenstein' in the 1800's!
-
40238
I was really looking forward to moving to NSPS because I would get the "opportunity" to excel and be rewarded....My paycheck tells another story...Not only have I lost money for my "promotion" in NSPS (I was a GS-11, took a job rated at GS-12 before conversion) I only got 5% raise and a management reassignment not a promotion. Now, I also get the opportunity to supervise but, again no pay for that either (YA-2)...Oh and one more thing...I converted to NSPS later in the year (Sep) so I do NOT get an NSPS eval OR a GS eval this year so of course no bonus/awards from either system......so I can look forward to one pay band, for probably my entire career, I never get promoted and rewards are like slim to none. Where is the motivation to do a good job?
-
38411
I was a GS-09 performing budget functions at an AF group-level. I was recently offered what USED to be a GS-11 managing an AF wing-level budget. While this WOULD have been an $8K promotion under the GS system, I received a mere $2K annual raise for taking on SIGNIFICANTLY more responsibilty. NSPS neither benefiting or encouraging the retention of dedicated, hard-working employees.
-
34086
We have been training and working in nsps for some time and are entering our first performance pay pool. From what I have learned about nsps, it is the worst thing that has ever been done to the civilian work force. My opinion is that it was instituted to rip the employee off. The workload on a supervisor is many times geater than it was under the old system and it is set up to fail since as soon as people learn how to manage it to their advantage it will be no better than the last system. There are times when I believe that there should not be a rating system, supervisors should just be allowed to correct poor performing employees and to demote them or in the worst case fire them. This will not happen under NSPS even though that is what it is advertised to do. This system makes it even more difficult to demote, etc. Documentation requirements are horrible and if a supervisor is able to document every time an employee does not perform to standard or performs exceptionally well, the supervisor will not have any time left to help other employees, attend the numerous meetings or read any of the data that is put out on NSPS. Therefore, a supervisor will be "behind" all the time.
-
32376
While I agree that some changes were needed so the Govt can retain good employees and more easily get rid of poor ones, I am alarmed as I learn more about the NSPS system, and feel sorry for my fellow employees, who I will leave behind since I am eligible for retirement. I think the DOD will find that the voluntary exodus of very competent employees who are eligible for retirement will snowball with implementation of NSPS. The DOD is calling this "performance-based pay" but it really will be budget-based pay to the extreme, with the opportunity only to reward the very select few, while providing no incentive for the majority of workers. My dream for my fellow workers is that this system will either be stopped or revised drastically so it is more fair to all. Thank God I am going to escape before it affects me.
-
23106
If the creators of NSPS thought this would act as a retention tool--they will find that they are sorely mistaken. What is happening in the field, in real life, are that supervisors can (and do) bring in strangers off the street--who have not yet committed blood, sweat and tears to Government service--at higher starting salaries then they are now able to offer the NSPS employee--to do the same job. Same goes for those who are still under the GS system, if a GS employee is promoted to what was formerly known as a GS-12--they will be offered GS-12 pay, whereas the NSPS employee is only offered an increase of up to 5%. How is this fair and supposed to motivate employees or lead to retention? Your pay system, which is allegedly designed to award performance, has actually penalized you. In fact, in some cases, if an employee wants to take a job of increased responsibility and work (formerly a promotion) in an area with a lower locality pay--they might actually make less money. Again, talk about motivation and retention?
If DoD wanted to implement this fairly, everyone sin DoD, or at least in a particular Department, should have converted to NSPS at the same time. What you now have is two tiered system--leading to different rules for different folks--and overt inequities in setting pay for performance and promotions. Well, a promotion for a GS employee--and what is now called a "reassignment' for an NSPS employee. An NSPS employee has very few opportunities, the way the system is now designed, to ever be promoted again. At best, they can only expect up to a 5% increase anytime they are promoted...I mean, "reassigned." That is some motivation and reward to assume increased responsibility and a greater workload.
-
23094
It's all about eliminating entitlements boys and girls and all of your elected officials are complicit. Think this is bad, wait till FAST contracting really takes hold. Oh, the pendulum will swing the other way, but at what cost?
-
23060
I have wondered how to put what Vicky has just said, into the right words. Now I can just second her comments. Unfortunately I am now into my later years and I cannot do the smart thing. My office has now been gut'ed by a new and glorious program, out business office is having in excess of 25% turnover rate, and I am being told to work harder to make up for the loss. Yeap, right, I'll get right on that!
-
23053
Wow, I thought I was the only one taking a hard look at this system. I just took a position that was "originally" advertised as a GS13. However, when I finally got the position it was under NSPS...guess what folks? I just lost $7K in pay. Yep, I was told it didn't matter what was advertised, (salary $77K), I was only eligible to receive 5% more than what I was currently receiving. You think they couldn't fill positions before? Watch what happens now. I worked my tail off to the detriment of my health and had to share awards with people who's work, (work ethic, quantity, diversity, and quality didn't begin to compare. It will never happen again. I'm going back to school to prepare for a new career. I'm too far in to get out, however, I will get as soon as possible. I refuse to work into my golden years for a government that doesn't care but gets paid exponetially more than those that do the actual work.
-
23036
A pretty little gal will always get a better score than a fat ugly gal. And a suck up will always score better than a non-suck up. A supervisors relative will always do better than a worker not related. What is the real point but to screw over the every day working stiff.
I enjoyed my job and always put in a full days work. But I had to fight management to get my earned pay raises. Most of my experience with management was that they lacked ethics and ability to lead.
Give me a break with you mumbo jumble pay management system. It doesn't even rate as a good control factor.
-
22963
Supervisors will always find a way to "game" any system. Not properly grading low performers is the problem with the old system and will be here also. Senior leadership will absolutely provide pressure to reduce high scores as they are graded themself on budget containment, supervisors lack the moral courage, so of course the results look like a bell curve, in fact, many will grade on a curve rather than provide an honest appraisal of each individual's worth to the organization.
-
22934
What you must keep in mind first and foremost is that NSPS is a budget tool used by DOD to reduce overall to control costs, specifically personnel costs in the long-term. NSPS is not to the employees benefit and is detrimental to the employee's long-term financial future. Talk to your financial planner or do a simple spreadsheet with project pay increases over the next 5, 10, 20 or 30-years of your careers.
-
22932
Its about time what other activity has locality bonuses utter nonsense. military retirement is based on base pay rather than total pay its about time DOD goes after the waste and lousy performers, 3%? Try 30%
-
22921
One of my co-workers said during his annual performance debrief his supervisor when challenged on two of the rating being given he didn't have a reason for the lower mark. In fact my co-worker produced the quarterly marks previously given by his supervisor. He asked the supervisor has anything changed in my performance?---no---then why are you marking me lower in these areas. The supervisor called his boss and said "I know but I thought we could only give about 14% the higher marks". The new system is garbage, and, I'm a high performer or so my boss tells me. So why complain? The old system would have worked had management not been afraid to mark the under performers as not fully successful.
-
22917
NSPS is making gov morale high. Just read the stories. How about the 308 analysts who did not get a raise in 2006 because they already make more than the local market. If you think this is a good move, you obviously have not worked for the gov long enough to know that if they say it's good for you....it really needs to be studied hard before you make a decision to play.....FERS. Luckily I didn't fall for that one either. As luck would have it, I'm retirement eligible 32/55 right before it rolls out. Guess what I'm going to do?
-
22912
So, if the unions hadn't blocked NSPS, I would have already gotten a raise. Thanks to the unions, I'm loosing money. Maybe I should sue the union for lost wages.
-
22911
Maybe everyone who thinks NSPS is the end of civilization as we know it should look to employment in the commercial sector, where we all know the appraisals are always fair and the most money always goes to the best/most valued worker.
-
22908
People wake up! You are not gaining ground here with the NSPS. It's just like when FERS was brought in to replace CSRS. CSRS was (and still is) the best retirement system ever. The Government scraped that system for a less lucrative FERS system. Now, they want to take away the GS system for the NSPS pay system. They are saying that you will get more out of the new system. Don't buy the hype... Just ask a CSRS employee if they would give it up for FERS...I DON'T THINK SO! When was the last time this government did anything for the ordinary citizen?
-
22892
What the majority of the bloggers comments are saying are very true...they all forgot to add that one of the more important conditions is that the person being evaluated must be a minority also.
-
22861
Do you really think that this system will keep the best and brightest? Forget it. Good-ol-boys taking care of Good-ol-boys. That is what this system is designed for. I thought we wanted to get away from that? How ignorant of me to think that. Thanks Rummy.
-
22859
What a bunch of moronic whiners! The DoD has FINALLY taken a step to distinguish between those who are TRULY superior and those who are mediocre, at best.
All too often DoD employees who would be lucky to have a job in the corporate marketplace are convinced that they are "5" super-performers. In reality, the overinflated system that they have lived in have convinced them that they DESERVE the largest payraise possible. BULL!
In the past system there was no way to truly distinguish between the high level performer and the person who does the bare minimum. Most of the people who WHINE about NSPS are typically "3" level performers, if that.
Granted, many so-called "supervisors" are simply super-technicians, rather than leaders. It's true that some are ill-equipped to lead, and be responsible to rate, subordinates. Fortunately, there are checks and balances in NSPS to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of bonus money. Also, fortunately, supervisors must be rated on their leadership and accountability to the NSPS system.
NSPS is the best thing to happen to DoD in a very long time. Finally, there is a way to distinguish from the super-performers and the non-performers!
-
22823
I have always felt that NSPS assumed the DoD management was extrordinary, but hampered by a less than productive work force. OPM had rules in place to reward good employees and encourage or fire bad employees. Management didn't take advantage of those rules, so why should things change now? It won't, but the good ole boy system that OPM tried to discourage will run rampant in DoD. As to getting less in retirement: that's Rummy: out to get the federal employees.
-
22808
Its really simple: 1)Just write all of your congressional reps as well as the local news papers and let them all know what you think of the plan, and 2) remember next election.
-
22770
And they say that this system will give supervisors more flexibility in hiring and retaining quality folks; conversely it will allow them to remove those truly poor performers from federal employ. What? Those safeguards are already in place and are rarely used now. What is going to change that will cause the Good Ole Boys(GOBs)to enforce the new rules fairly when they've shown an historical disregard for the ones already in place??
-
22730
What a clever way to give the Congressional general pay increase to employees who had they not been under NSPS, would have gotten the raise anyway if they were a valued performer.
But using part of that raise as a bonus and not a raise (all of a GPI comes as a raise) so that employee retirement contributions are less overall.
All the while forcing employees to document their successful performance in 2000 or less characters on a web based program.
-
22717
I hope people can see that by granting bonuses instead of pay raises employee's salaries are going to start flattening out. We will all have to live on our High "3" in retirement. If our High "3" is less because a bonus does not increase our salary, we will all suffer in retirement because of this wonderful NSPS.
-
22716
I am in a GS14/15 Senior Manager (SM) pay band. It had 10 steps, each step a 4.83% increase; rates adjusted annually by the amount of the General Schedule (GS) pay raise; full locality adjustments; and, it included a formula for annual performance awards. Step increases were every two years, based on performance evaluations. Major changes were no QSI; and, evaluation ratings were controlled through bonus point budgets. Ratings of "Exceeded" were, for the most part, fully budgeted. Consequently, ratings of "Outstanding" had to be offset by ratings of "Met." The SM Pay Band rolled out in March 2001. The first pay setting event occurred in January 2002, and biennially through January 2006. The first agency renege occurred in 2004 or 2005. Under the original plan, bonus points were each worth $400; and, bonus awards were mandatory. Now, the plan provides for discretionary bonus payouts for ratings below "Outstanding." Following the 2006 pay setting event, the big breach of faith occurred. Effective January 2007, the pay setting event was changed to annual; and, all steps were deleted from the plan in favor of a "pay range". Executives still dictate how many "Exceeded" and "Outstanding" ratings may be given, but now the head of the agency determines the amount of pay increase and performance bonus a given performance evaluation rating will receive. For 2007, I received a base pay increase of 3.6%, which with locality pay for San Francisco came to 4.9%; and, a performance bonus that was 86% of the previous year's. Note: I've received "Exceeded" ratings every year since 2000. I expect that I will receive a similar performance rating this year, with a similar base pay increase in January 2008. With actual and expected increases for the biennial pay setting period 2007-2008, I expect a total increase of 9.8%. Under the previous plan, I would have expected a total base pay increase of approx. 11.43% (i.e., [2x3.3%]+4.83%=11.43%)(the 3.3% factor is the amount of the annual pay raise, including the San Francisco locality pay adjustment for 2007, extended to 2008). DoD NSPS plan, Spiral 1.1, is aptly named. Unfortunately, I believe the "spiral" is going to be downward, at least insofar as employee morale, motivation, and retention is concerned.
-
22714
Here at Tinker AFB the percentage of 4 and 5 raitings overwelming went to previously GS-13 and above managers.
-
22710
What I keep wondering is when the NSPS people are going to talk to the Flexible Spending Accounts people. Employees have to know by early December how much they want to put into child care or health care flexible spending accounts. Yet, NSPS payouts aren't given out until January fo the following year! So NSPS people get cheated. Our agency has been told that with NSPS you can even and up with a pay cut. Not even maintaining your pay is something to hold on to. So if you under-estimate your FSA amounts, you are getting cheated from the benefits that the FSA people intended to give employees. If you over-estimate yourself, and think you'll get at least a "3" and you end up with worst case scenario, a pay cut (!) (and I can easily see this happen when the pay pool is out of money), then you're also in a serious predicament.
-
22700
It would be interesting if a survey of employees in spiral 1.1, taken by a non-DoD company. I believe you would find 80% or more hate NSPS. Many in the HR community are leaving DoD to get out of NSPS and by doing so we are loosing our most talented people. Why stay in DoD if I can go to work for another federal agency as a GS and make more money and have that count toward retirement?
-
22696
Ya'll are getting lost in details... the real answer is that the DoD just cut it's retirement liabilty by more than half for this group of employees for this years earnings.
It's a slow starve folks, wake up already!
If you're young and not in too deep, get the hell out and start over. If you're old and near retirement get out at the first opportunity to limit you losses... to you poor devils stuck in the middle, god help you 'cause our government (Bush, Cheney, Guiliani, Hillary, Edwards, et al) won't.
-
22695
How do the numbers of bonuses/amounts awarded under the spiral 1.1 conversions compare to what was given under the old system? Any significant differences? I doubt it. Marking of "3" is the least line of resistance, least amount of work for supervisors so regardless of where the performance really lies, that's what the majority are going to be rated at.
-
22687
Already I see similarities between the new system and past rating methods. Lower management doesn't know how and/or doesn't want to rate their employees fairly. They are already being forced to rate them over some artificial distribution curve.
First line workers aren't happy because they don't really stand to gain much. The amount of bonus money they will get in the end for good perfomance ratings will probably be insignificant. A few "favorites" will get something significant. But, is it because they work hard or do they just kiss up? Of course, upper management say's everything is just peachy.
Therefore, the rich get richer and the poor get nothing. That's politics folks.
-
22682
Oh course the first round paid out. And it did totally for show. You can't tarnish the new project to show failure. This is polishing the apple to get everyone to bite. Once bitten and swallowed then the worms will certainly soon start to appear.
While hefty payouts were made, funding to properly do so was not. Tinker AFB is now 6 million in the red exactly because of this. These performance raises were sucked out of O&M funding and now everyone has to suffer as the hiring freeze, along with a 50% reduction in TDY, training, and basic office/shop resource supplies are now indefinitely on hold to makeup for these payouts.
Bottom-line is there are literally hundreds of vacant positions that cannot be filled because the current O&M budget won't allow it. And the work goes on with less than the authorized manpower to meet mission requirements. Now who is really paying for PFP and not receiving the due benefits for the required labor to make up the difference?
Answer: Everyone not under pay for performance is paying for these raises while management officials make out like bandits. The total raise for Tinker, non-PFP employees including locality, was 1.9% compared to those under PFP which got two payouts. They received both the NSPS PFP raise and the mandated congressional raise for a likely minimum raise increase of 5% or more. .
-
22681
Well of course the bosses said it was a positive experience. Whom do you think got the 5 level ratings?
Did you know that the model rating (average of employee ratings prior to a RIF) has for years been an exceptional rating (equivilent to a level 5 NSPS rating). Now over half of the employees under NSPS are now valued performers or the old level 3 rating of "fully successful".
Somewhere the performance level either dropped or performance apprisals weren't performed correctly before. I doubt an employee has changed their work ethic.
So if the majority of employees pre-NSPS were exceptional, and now 60% are valued performers, what happens once all employees are under NSPS? Will the average or forced rating be a level 2 or 1?
And of course, there are those pesky little retirement calculations and contributions when your performance payout is a bonus and not a raise.
Let's just call this a right to work tax. Your paying for it.
PROMO RIGHT: EVENTS
UPCOMING WEBINARS
NOVEMBER 18
Speed bumps for Teleworking: What are they and how to avoid them?
DECEMBER 3
Achieve Program Success: Unlock the Management Information in Your Data
DECEMBER 10
Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results
PROMO RIGHT: DIRECTORIES
Post a Comment
To post a comment, you must provide a name and a valid e-mail address. Messages must be limited to 400 words. By using this Service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable. Although Government Executive does not monitor comments posted to this site (and has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems to be in violation of this rule.