Return to Article: House committee backs 3.5 percent military pay raise
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23637
I'm not in management but if I were to put myself in their shoes, I could see where NSPS would give me more flexibility with a pay-for-work type mentality. In theory, this system should work but in reality it's the people involved in it that make it fail.
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23599
I believe good intentions were behind the push to a new civilian personnel system, but I've also seen how this system being abused by supervisors with their own agenda. It does provide more flexibility, but people are working positions without the compensation they deserve.
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23576
The National Security Personnel System (NSPS) was designed primairly as a tool to hire youinger employees because older workers may retire. However, the effect I have seen is to subjectively give the jobs/tasks to younger employees and to promote the forced attrition amongst the older employees. How will older employees receive the NSPS job performance shares if they are reassigning the work to younger employees? Additionally, under NSPS, all supervisors are supposed to receive a higher salary because they are, in fact, a supervisor with greter responsibilities. This is NOT the case. Our agency is NOT giving a higher salary to supervisors. So how do you mentor an employee to become a supervisor if the pay will not be higher as originally stated under NSPS objectives?
The good news is that, under NSPS, the DD form 2906 is a valuable tool to increase the efficiency of the civilian performance appraisal process.
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23377
NSPS is a huge mistake. Even the name, National Security Personnel System, implies Federal employees threaten our national security. SECDEF Rumsfeld pushed for this and in a surprising lapse of judgement Congress approved it. SECDEF Rumsfeld has fallen out of favor but NSPS lingers as his legacy, as well conceived as our Iraq strategy. I hope Congress repeals it.
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23310
NSPS is good in theory, but will lack leadership integrity during implemenation.
After 25 years, I've worked both sides of the fence. I've been the fair haired child at some jobs; as well as minimized by feminist and racial agendas in other positions. In each case, my work ethic never waned. I, therefore, believe leadership cannot implement objectively - and will abuse system in self interest. In addition, I don't understand the logic of eliminating annual COLA supplements. It would appear ALL employees commence NSPS in a reduced pay status.
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23268
I think that pay for performance is good but how do you pay when the government is always at a loss for money. So you have all these great employees trying to share the money that is for performance because there are a lot of great employees in the federal government, and in doing this you have given the impression that everyone good or bad performers are treated the same. I think NSPS has cheated it's employees by making this system money based so before you were given a true promotion now you get a portion of the money that a true promtion would have given the employee.
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23118
There is less wrong with the current pay system than there is with management. Without good management, any pay system will be abused. In 25 years of government service, one thing I have learned is that management's ability to abuse the system is unlimited. Any new pay system will fare no better than the current system. Government needs to improve the quality of it's management, not it's pay system. The NSPS is just another way for management to screw the hard-working employee and reward the losers. It's an cycle that cannot be broken. Ninety percent of all management is unfit to manage.
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23100
Pay for performance will only work if the budget allows and the supervisors are fair. As we all know budgets are tight and supervisors can play favorites. Please dont' kick me in the teeth again by splitting my pay raise between and bonus and a salary increase! This split will afffect us when we retire because it wll lower our "3 high"
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23088
I have been a DoD Civilian for a little over five years, and have a different perspective that is often unpopular with my fellow civilians. Before civil service, I was a government contractor for nine years. After watching 'automatic promotions' and the 'good ol' boy network' from an ousider's view during those years, I was very cautious accepting the opportunity when it came my way, but had decided I wanted the opportunity to do my part for DoD in a more direct role. To compound my previous observations, I watched many civilians get promoted when it was time for a step increase just because it was time, while others who worked long hours and conscientiously were passed by for out of cycle step increases. As someone who spent a lot of years out in the non-federal world, I had learned that if you put your nose to the grindstone, keep working to improve yourself and learn more, you could get ahead in almost every instance. Whereas in civil service, it looked as if one could 'kind of' do their job yet get promotions and raises if one wait long enough. I personally appreciate the increased opportunity under NSPS to be rewarded for working above and beyond in execution of my duties and self-improvement. It seems to me this will help us ensure the 'best and the brightest' remain committed to providing their talents to the federal government. One caveat: oversight of implementation of NSPS MUST be a priority, or as another commentor stated, it can be abused even more than the previous system. (Note: We transitioned to NSPS last year and fortunately, our command took great effort in providing adequate training for both employees, supervisors, and pay pool overisght. They even ran a 'mock pay pool' in preparation for the first real one, and have integrated lessons learned!)
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23082
It is laughable that some have the audacity to equate NSPS to pay systems that exist in private industry. Supervisors in private industry are not capped at what they can offer their loyal, committed internal employee--while they can offer an outsider substantially more to do the same job. Those of us who were converted--never had the opportunity to negotiate for our pay. We do not know our incentive plan, like the employee in private industry. We are not told, these are your goals and depending on what percent to goal you are at the end of each quarter, you will be rewarded with this pre-established amount of money.
Rather, we have no ability to influence profit and we our told, "well, if you meet your goals--you might get a 2% raise." "And, while I'm discussing this, if you exceed your goals and truly excel--you still might get that same percent; however, nobody quite knows until the pay pool panel meets--who may or may not know you at all--to decide how many shares of the total pot you will receive. And, nobody knows what that pot will look like. And, if you don't like it--there's really nothing you can do about it anyway."
Those of us who do not have that many years invested in the Government are likely to leave the Department of Defense in the future--probably at the same time you will likely see the baby boomers retiring. Many reasons will contribute to this decision, but a big one will be that you want us to do their jobs for substantially less money--b/c you can only offer us reassignment raises of 5%. This does not even equal a past step and cost of living increase.
The GS system has measures in place to take care of poor performers. Managers may not have implemented the system the way it was set up - and this led to poor performers continuing to get raisers and/or to keep their jobs. In other words, it was not the system that was flawed...it was those implementing it. To switch to another system, without fixing those who failed to implement it correctly in the first place - is just going to lead to a lot of money spent to poorly implement a system that is flawed - because it allows for increased nepotism, favoritism, cronyism, and pay inequities.
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23080
NSPS has been poorly implemented. Those of us who have converted--in many ways--are treated like the proverbial "red headed stepchild," for lack of a better analogy. For instance, I am in the process of transferring to another position that includes PCS costs. It is quite disappointing and embarrassing for the Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) that their PCS questionnaires have not yet been updated to enable those of us under NSPS to complete their forms. For example, the REQUEST FOR PCS ORDERS form contains drop down menus for you to select your pay plan and grade. There is no option available to select the NSPS pay plan structure.
What is much worse is that Regulations governing Civilian PCS are still ONLY written in GS language. For instance, a benefit such as the Defense National Relocation Program (DNRP) and GHS is only available to those at the GS-12 pay grade and above. NSPS led to great difficulty in getting approved for this program--even though this position was initially advertised--only two months before--as a GS-12 (it opened and closed with no selection because the Agency converted to NSPS and had to readvertise the position as a YA).
The personnel center was focused on knowing my grade. Ironically, not what my grade currently is, a YA-02, but what I was before the conversation--in order to help them determine my eligibility for the program. If we are being instructed to forget the GS system once under NSPS--and to no longer base pay decisions, and what not, as you would under the GS system (which also is leading to all sorts of problems--which I will touch on below), why is the AFPC so concerned with my pre-NSPS grade is? Why are they even asking? Do you not see the irony?
The regulations governing civilian personnel should have been updated to include the new NSPS grade structure BEFORE employees began converting. Additionally, it probably would have been wise to start the conversion with those sitting at the Pentagon and AFPC. They have the power and ability to make the changes--we in the field do not--and if they were made to tangibly feel the pain and confusion first, perhaps those of us in the field would not feel so helpless and frustrated.
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23075
I have been in th DOD close to 28 years and the one thing that I have never seen at least in my line of work is someone that has not earned there keep. In this new system the name of the game is who can toot their horn the loadest. People that travel alot and work on classified programs are punished and the pay panel doesn't know you from Adam. So the ones that are sacrificing their time and family to get Uncles work done are going to take it in the short , as usual. No surprise there. Lets bring in more contractors so we can train them and they leave like they do all the time. That seems more productive.
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23067
I have worked for the federal government for 28 years. I am not really sure why DOD wanted to change the performance and pay system, and make it a matter of national security. Currently there are pay and performance systems in place that give management all that they need to motivate, reward or fire none performing employees, but most of them do not want to do the work involved. No matter what system is in place, if managers do not use it, it will never work. The additional things that NSPS gave management is total control over an employees pay raises, and greater power to fire employees without appeal, and no Union bargaining over working conditions. If DOD's NSPS plan were to go into place employees would be afraid to do their jobs without fear of reprisal, favoritism would be rampant, and free thought and new ideas would be non-existant, and no one could defend them against any of these things. In my personal opinion a true example of the dictatorship that the Bush Administration would like to see this whole country surrender to, all in the name of National Security.
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23056
Ya think? Why in the world would you want input from the employees? That makes too much sense, especially since they are the ones on the ground doing the work. We're not all bad employees and believe it or not we're not all stupid!
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23047
I am a 37 year employee under the old Federal system CSRS. As of Oct. 2006 we were put under the NSPS pay plan. I feel that the NSPS Pay for performance is very, very unfair to the employee's. I was informed that effective Jan. 2008 under the NSPS we would not get a cost of living and there is a rise in the cost of living. How do they expect a person to survive? I have medical bills over $200.00 a month for medicine. The they have this committee to decide on wheather you get paid for work you have performed and they don't even know you or what you do. Then there has always been "favoritism that will continue.I do not believe that the Supervisor and employees were not trained properly on the "new" NSPS evaluation process. I think the employees should be scaled back to the "old" GS system, and I hope we will be inculded in the COLA for FY-2008
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