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• 41278
  

  When we get all these experts at measuring job performance. I dont think any of them could do the jobs there rating. And now we have no training and there wanting more from us. We cant ask questions of our supervisors because it immediately shows up on our rating. It is like the Gestapo. And while everyone is justifying there job performance who is doing the job. How many supervisors actually have time now to see what is actually going on. This is the worst state of the government I have ever seen.

  not Posted January 10, 2008 4:21 PM
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  I sat in on pay pool deliberations and the decisions had NOTHING to do with what the rating official or employee wrote. It was all about who the paypool panel mambers knew. "Empl X is a 4". Our mil mgrs don't give a rip about NSPS so they rate all 5s saying "the PPM can lower it and hold the blame". WHAT ABOUT INTEGRITY? At least 30% of our employees were never presented with job objectives and the same % didn't get mid-year evals because mgrs didn't care. Yet those mgrs were rated 5. Even the General was too busy to attend tng so how is NSPS going to work at my base? Everyone rated as 3 will lose money but are called "Valued Performers". Whatever.

  John Doe Posted January 10, 2008 10:55 AM
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  What has not been addressed through the implementation of NSPS is the incompetent management training and evaluation process of the Federal Government. How can poor performing managers conduct a proper evaluation of personnel if they do not have the skills. The Federal Government has far more poor performing managers than private industry. Most are working for the Federal Government because they would not survive the private sector scrutiny of their performance. NSPS will ultimately fail due to this very reason. I agree with many that NSPS has the appearance of being a cost cutting scheme more-so than a performance motivator. DOD's decision to use part of the cost of living adjustment as performance pay is the very example. If there is a limit to the percentage of personnel that can receive a rating greater than 3 (and there is), then most will never receive the entire cost of living raise and the result is a huge savings.

  RM Posted October 11, 2007 9:07 AM
• 34718
  

  Several things. Yes, the bulk of the available money will go to management. Just look at what happened in FY07, have we already forgotten about the congressional investigation into huge bonuses paid to numerous SES managers. If we take away the COLA then we punish with poverty. Managers have always been able to stop the GS step increases for poor performance, but most are to lazy to document poor performance. Pay for performance is doomed because there will only be so much money left once the managers skim off the top, and then the regional manager, by orders from the top, will only be authorized to allow about 5 to 10 percent of the workforce a significant pay increase. What happens to the other 80 to 90 percent of those that met their performance standards? Trust me, there will not be enough money to go around under this system when the banker is your manager. I've been told many times that I can't submit this many people for awards, budget issues. Prepare for performance to slowly spiral downward, unless of course, the majority of non-supervisory types get huge bonuses like their managers did.

  Jim Posted October 10, 2007 6:37 PM
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  Pay for performance, oh sure it's ging to work.... Well one military supervisor, past their retirement date has told his secretary not to worry about a pay raise under NSPS because he's going to make sure they get a $7000 to $8000 bonus. Great system isn't. Maybe this is just another failed program say like DTS, DJMS, Quality Circle, PQS, and ADA programming language.

  Billy Bob Posted October 9, 2007 8:03 PM
• 34565
  

  I've just realized that no one has put the following three thoughts together in the same comment: Under NSPS, the deadwood will still get paid; talented, knowledgeable, truly superior performing over-40's will attempt to gain employment with non-NSPS agencies, retire, or slowly mutate into deadwood; and we'll see many lower-paid youngsters filling the ranks.

  Serenity Blue Posted October 5, 2007 7:14 PM
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  The federal workforce is bad enough now. The majority of the federal workforce is just "dead wood" who are just either promoted or put in the corner waiting for retirement. The process of disciplining or; god forbid, firing someone is just a disgrace. THe NSPS system will only help to further this along, because any of the new people who are not tied in with long, will look for employment outside. They're true talents will be recognized by private industry and they will be paid accordingly. I have 20 years with the govt. and can't wait to get out. I have been tired of incompetence around me, lack of discipline and now this. Good Bye.

  SlyFox Posted October 5, 2007 1:19 PM
• 34528
  

  I believe PFP will work only if the system is transparent. Everyone knows who the high performers are. If they are awarded in public, there might be some grumbling, but no real opposition. What I seen is that most of the performance awards goes to managers and little to the people. If only 10% of the workers are really top performers, should it not stand to reason that only 10% of the managers are top performers as well? If all the managers are above average, are they not "just average"?

  John Posted October 5, 2007 12:55 PM
• 34516
  

  I agree with the carrot so small or so high why bother idea. The results from spiral 1.1 had less than 4% (of the 11,000) getting 5 ratings. AFRC did a mock pay pool with 68 people and no one rec'd a 5 rating! In this mock pay pool, 82-83% of the people rec'd 3 ratings. Someone please explain to me how either of these examples will lead to a high performance culture? We keep being told and keep reading that "valued" a 3 rating is to be the norm. OK, I get that but do you really expect folks to try to be in the top ratings with such little chance of it actually happening? When you look at these pieces and put them together, NSPS MUST be a cost-cutting scheme...nothing else even makes sense!

  Jim Posted October 5, 2007 11:06 AM
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  I think most people in the Fed are philosophically in favor of some pay for performance. All of these plans, however, seem to be nothing but pay cuts in disguise that provide little or not motiviation beyond, really, getting what you get already for "superior performance" and getting cut if someone thinks you don't. Excellent performance goes both ways - if the carrot is so small and so high most people won't even bother. I work in an agency that is supposed to be a poster child of intra-and inter-agency cooperation. It is as cutthroat as hell already and this will make it worse. I am an acknowledged superior performer and have garnered the awards of it and don't mind sharing. If food is being taken out of my mouth every day I probably won't feel that way anymore. Remember - coffee's for closers......

  Glengarry Glen Ross Posted October 5, 2007 6:01 AM
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  I feel compelled to point out a couple of things. Cost of living pay adjustments, IF they truly reflect the annual increase in the cost of living in a worker's area of employment, are NOT pay raises. Since it's clear from this article that these increases are consistently below the true increases in the cost of living, the automatic annual increases in pay are actually decreasing federal employees wages with respect to living costs. Since the pay-for-performance schemes would eliminate these automatic pay adjustments, it is crystal clear that PFP is REALLY about saving money. It has nothing whatsoever to do with improving the quality of the federal workforce. If improving the quality of the workforce were really the goal, the automatic cost of living pay adjustments would continue unaffected under these PFP schemes and all the other PFP provisions would be added on top them.

  Desert Dweller Posted October 4, 2007 2:22 PM
• 34411
  

  I am a CSRS employee and now under NSPS. I am eligible for retirement and would like to know if I continue to work how will my high three be affected under NSPS. It appears it will be less than if I had remained in the GS system. If COLA is reduced by 1/2 under NSPS and the money placed in the pay pool it is my understanding that monetary awards do no count toward high three retirement. Therefore my high three salary without the step increase will be less that my GS counterparts who receives the step increases.

  Lillie Volckmann Posted October 4, 2007 8:54 AM
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  Pay for performance is the current day MBO or Demings/Peters methods of managing. The end of pay for performance will be like the current Lakes, every one wanting to be the star and no team effort. Rewarding one over another will result in poorer office morale and it will affect productivity, no matter how you measure it. Great NFL/NBA/college teams, what-have-you, are teams first, not stars, this path will lead to an office of primodonnas and the rest will be demoralized. I predict this too will pass, hopefully before too much damage is done. By the way, I have had more than my share of awards so, this isn't sour grapes.

  Richard Black Posted October 4, 2007 8:35 AM
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  Again that great American philosopher, Yogi Berra,said it all when it comes to the contents of this article: "Deja vu all over again." Thers's absolutely nothing said here that hasn't been said for literally decades about the woes of the performance management process, whether in a private or public sector setting. Enough already. The cottage industry of performance management gurus that has sprung up has been dining out for years on the strength of recycling these bromides. This constant breastbeating process has gotten very old. EVERYONE knows that there is a serious problem, and the reasons for it have been repeated ad nauseam; this article as written should have been spiked. What's needed is action, which never seems to be forthcoming - because it would push too many senior managers beyond their comfort zone. In any event, Dr. Deming was right in his contempt for performance appraisal processes as they exist as being essentially counterproductive measures that merely result in decreased interest in teamwork and increased workforce demoralization. Right on!

  TR Posted October 4, 2007 8:26 AM
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  So true!! I was a senior manager in an organization where other managers gave employees annual performance awards while simultaneously contemplating putting the same employee(s) on Performance Improvement Plans (PIP). Jack Welch has it right; managers must distinguish and reward according to performance for several reasons. Because ultimately if you don't, you suffer with mediocrity or worse.

  Jeff Posted October 4, 2007 8:25 AM