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Return to Article: Personnel chief sets timeline for pay reform efforts

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  Is it appropriate to ask to see the KSA questions for Administrative Law Judge applications? If the past is any guide, when the job opens, so many people will apply that unless one has her/his documents ready, the maximum number of applications will be received by OPM and the job will close before people new to the process can draft responses to the KSA questions. Where can the KSA questions be obtained that were used the last time ALJ jobs were opened? The posting is up. It expires July 2010 but appl'ns are not being accepted.

  Dave Posted November 1, 2009 2:00 AM
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  I have not heard or seen much to explain the problem the needs to be solved. Before we get involved in solutionizing, what's the goal. I think there are various management controls in the current GS system that are just not used by many of the weak managers that have been given these jobs because they couldn't be promoted any further for their technical skills so they only upgrade was to management, and they are not good at that. Perhaps its a classification problem? Perhaps its a management problem? Perhaps its a problem definition problem...

  Denise Posted August 21, 2009 10:05 AM
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  Did no one pay attention to Berry's statement and I quote" During a conference in Washington celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Coalition for Effective Change, an umbrella group of good-government organizations, the OPM chief said he planned to have a legislative proposal ready for President Obama to include in the fiscal 2011 budget this February. He added that he would like to see Congress pass a bill before the 2010 midterm elections." He wants to set a bill before the midterm elections, a incomplete bill that is not even going to show how things are going to be implemented? How long has this guy been a manager? By the way the GS system is not broken it's just not been used effectively. NSPS on the other hand has always been broken.

  Lee Posted June 26, 2009 10:52 AM
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  outperforms the private sector??? Other than the military the federal is last in every measure

  dan m ketter Posted June 24, 2009 6:22 PM
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  As a Supervisor in DOD subject to NSPS,my timeline for retirement is the same time line for inplementation of an across the board NSPS type system. This will surely precipitate the long awaited exodus.

  Concerned Posted June 24, 2009 4:22 PM
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  While using KSAs can be a lot to have to do, especially when they are the essay type, I personally prefer those because I can give details as to my experience. My resume has bullet points that may not showcase my experience. Now when I get into the interview, I can provide the same details, but I think the essay type KSAs can help narrow the list of potential best candidates.

  Kevin Posted June 24, 2009 3:28 PM
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  Who needs the Defense Business Board's review of NSPS, when Mr. Berry already proclaimed that NSPS is not the solution. Fair and impartial...What a joke!

  HR Spec Posted June 24, 2009 3:09 PM
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  I'd much rather stay with KSAs to define job requirements and select people for positions than adopt the "culture" where people hire their friends, make huge salaries and bonuses and where performance is not managed. Let's remember: We are here to serve the public, not to look after our friends and line our pockets.

  Jeanne Posted June 24, 2009 2:24 PM
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  Tom G is both right and wrong. DOA certainy uses a computer based blunt tool to fill vacancies for its US taxpayer funded positions. But the problem with DOA or DOD for that matter is not with DOA's or DOD's computer-based recruitment tools per se. The REAL problem is that DOA and DOD are nearly hopelessly inbred with only and merely current or prior DOA and DOD staffers.

  Even when these charltons have the audacity to opt to recruit these positions outside of DOA and DOD via federal-wide and/or All Souces recruitments in the 0300 and 0500 series from GS 12-15 (or equiv),the FACT is that the vast majority (nearly 100%) of these surmised 'external' recruitments maintain hiring outcomes whereby only and merely current or prior DOA/DOD staffers are ever hired, e.g., DOD/DOA GS staff, or recently retired DOD/DOA military members who are desirous of obtaining co-called (but non-existent under current federal and Office of Personnel Management regulations, laws and public policy) so-called 'conversions' to civil service positions post retirement (typically into the very same DOD/DOA organization AND very same office AND very same literal desk AND very same literal physical chair that they occupied as active duty members just prior to their well earned retirement), or DOD/DOA contactor staff.

  That self-serving and disgusting legacy practice of 'taking care of their own (at the US taxpayer's expense)' nonsense is the REAL problem.

  Michael J. Smith, MPA Posted June 24, 2009 1:13 PM
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  It would be very nice if this solved the GS 15 bumping up against the Exec IV pay limit issue in high cost of living areas.

  o2b xfed Posted June 24, 2009 11:04 AM
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  I would hope that prior to any "sweeping" reform to the hiring process the powers that be talk to the folks who actually do the hiring. There are way too many processes being used to hire. Engineers are hired using Expedited Hiring Authority, Nurses are hired using Direct Hire, some use KSAs, some do not, the list goes on! Far too many times these touted reforms only hinder the process with more red tape and bureaucracy managing only to make things more difficult. Here's an idea, let' model our hiring practices after Lockheed or Northrop. We need to quit throwing money at the current hiring process and think that will fix things. It's like placing a band-aid on a severed limb and expecting it to heal. I say we scrap the entire process and start over! Now that's change you can believe in.

  Nancy Posted June 24, 2009 11:02 AM
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  KSA's don't make alot of sense and I believe are used to hire a specific by name person. Frankly, I doubt that anybody really reads them. They should have been done away with years ago. I also believe that there should be a central "method" to apply for a position. Currently almost every agency and DoD component has a different method to apply for a 0132 position.....

  Garry Posted June 24, 2009 10:59 AM
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  Performance appraisals are part of the problem. A "pass/fail" system does not really recognize stellar or considerable less than stellar performances, not to mention the gradiations in between. Rampant lack of standardization, cronyism the use of generic, rather than the specific key terms relevant to the position, lack of accountability, appointments of personnel for reasons that have nothing to do with the requrements of the position are other problems. The way I see it is that the Federal Government will have a well-qualified, motivated workforce when it defines what that workforce should look like, it recruits that workforce from the sites where professional look for job announcements and it determines what motivators the workforce needs to sustain itself. Arcane, archaic practices, mindsets an policies have to go.

  Ellen Guillemette Posted June 24, 2009 10:39 AM
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  I agree with Mike that the performance appraisal system is the problem. We have managers who don't know how to do a decent appraisal, and who don't know how to deal with people who are not performing as expected. There are systems in place for getting rid of poor performers, but few managers use them - too much work! Pay for performance was developed to "fix" problems that were not fully examined. Once the poor performers (including inadequate managers) are let go, it will be easier to have the funds to reward top performers.

  Of course, we will also have to get serious about addressing discrimination, favoritism, etc. At present, HR does not track or intervene in these situations. Mr. Berry needs to address this.

  KR, if you look at USAJOBS, you will see that most job announcements require KSAs.

  Charlie Posted June 24, 2009 9:59 AM
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  As a DAC, I apply for vacancy announcements on Civilian Personnel On Line (CPOL). It uses a résumé based system, Resumix. This system is broken. First it is reviewed by computer for key words, then possibly reviewed by HR folks that do little more than the computer did. So if you don't use the correct words in your résumé you don't get refered. If you make it that far, there are screen out elements to pare down the candidates. The reliance on key works and HR folks instead of SME to determine the best qualified turns the system into a guessing game. It's a wonder a selecting official can even get a good list and doesn't need to cancel and resubmit. How often has the obvious candidate not made the referral list the first time through. As a past selecting official, I would rather get all the candidates maybe pared down by a panel of SMEs doing a job similar in nature. Should not the selecting official be the best judge. The difficult part is avoiding preselection and other unfair labor practices. The problem is not whether résumés or SKAs are used its the broken selection process.

  Tom G. Posted June 24, 2009 9:25 AM
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  Where has he been we haven't been using KSA in a veeeerrryyyyy LONG time? Just how OUT of touch is this so called prodigal son?

  K.R. Posted June 24, 2009 8:22 AM
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  Federal Administrative Law Judges are appointed based on merit and have decisonal independence protections under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, including prohibitons against performance evaluations and the awarding of bonuses or other incentive compensation. The administrative law judiciary has resisted OPM's prior inistence on some type of unspecified pay for performance analog as a quid pro quo for OPM/Administration support of ALJ pay compression legislation. Most ALJ pay has been capped for the last 4 years and ALJs have received only a fraction of the national pay raise authorized for the General Schedule. We trust that Director Berry's desire for some type of performance based compensation to supersed the General Schedule is not also intended to apply to ALJs and that OPM will recognize the need to eliminate ALJ pay compression in a manner that facilitates recruitment of senior attorneys from the General Schedule ALJ pay compression. In the latter respect, ALJ compensation must be a sufficient level to permit senior attorneys the option to consider an ALJ career as well as an SES career.

  Judge Bruce Birchman Posted June 24, 2009 8:01 AM
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  I'm thinking back to the run-up to the Civil Service Reform Act, which wisely left the General Schedule alone, and am fearful that this timeline cannot allow sufficient time to carefully undertake the kind of major reform contemplated. Act in haste and repent at leisure. The General Schedule is not the problem. That pay architecture is a sound and effective tool to provide pay equity and structure for reasonable career development. So sound that it was the basis for NSPS pay bands and was in effect re-imposed over NSPS to create so called control points within bands to help control pay inflation even for the favored few. The problem is performance management and then linking personnel decisions including pay to the fruits of the performance management system. I can agree that withholding WIGIs and QSIs along incentive awards is not the most flexible of tool sets and that the CSRA part 432 provisions for performance based actions are difficult to use. But under NSPS,432 procedures are not even available for technical reasons. I understand not a single NSPS based action has been reviewed by MSPB and heard none have been taken, maybe because of fears that under 752 they'd be subject to mitigation, Douglas factors, the preponderance of evidence standard, etc. So much for that myth of greater flexibility to take needed action. Even unburdened by Shrub and Rummy's hidden agendas of union busting, budget reduction for pay and retirement, no outside review, etc. this is going to be tough to do in the time alloted without invoking the laws of unintended consequences much as CSRA did with performance management. That performance appraisal process and the chain of command that has to implement it remains the devil in the details. How have they done so far? Clearly those Privacy Act violating Pay Pool Panel star chambers must go if transparency is a goal and direct competition between supervisors and subordinates for their respective pieces of the PFP pie must be eliminated to achieve any sense of fairness. And please, take your time, but end NSPS now.

  Mike Posted June 24, 2009 4:42 AM
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  Mr. Berry seemingly wishes to square the circle, endorsing some form of pay for performance that does not involve ... pay for performance. The Federal unions have made very clear their opposition to any meaningful reform taht would truly better link pay decisions to individual employee performance. These "most exciting, visionary people [whom] I've encountered" are most definitely and firmly mired in the past, and kind words from Obama appointees aren't going to change that paradigm. The unions got suckered by Clinton in the '90s when he refused to order agencies to honor the most controversial partnership aspect of EO 12871, which required agencies to negotiate on the "permissive" topics in 5 USC 7106(b) and was defied by his own agency appointees on this point, in which FLRA also refused to become involved, saying it was up to the president to enforce his own executive orders. If the unions are hoping for a reprise on that issue, I suspect they will be disappointed. Finally, it's somewhat hypocrtical of Mr. Berry to chastize agencies for use of KSAs in vacancy announcements, as OPM's own regulations require just that (see 5 CFR 330.707(b)(5)). Therefore, until OPM revises this particular regulation, it will be difficult to "direct" agencies to cease citation of KSAs in their public notice announcements.

  Jeremiah Posted June 23, 2009 6:01 PM