Pentagon shifts focus to results in pay-for-performance system
After a self-imposed delay, department marginalizes initial “benchmarks” concept.
Employees in the Defense Department will have to demonstrate results to receive pay raises, according to a summary of recent changes to the human resources portion of the department's new personnel system.
"The modified design emphasizes employee results that contribute to the accomplishment of the department's national security mission," a statement posted on the National Security Personnel System Web site Monday said.
According to the statement, job objectives for each employee will be more focused on results that contribute to organizational goals than the original design called for. Results-based objectives "will serve as the primary basis for employee performance ratings," the update said.
Employees' ratings will determine their share of the annual pay raise pool.
The department made the decision to place a great emphasis on results during a self-imposed delay on training employees on NSPS because officials said the rating system was too confusing. The old rating system rested on whether employees reached benchmarks such as "valued performance" on factors such as "technical proficiency."
Benchmarks and performance factors still "may influence the final rating" in this new system, Monday's announcement stated.
Details of the new job objectives will be released by the end of February, the update said, and are still subject to input from unions. NSPS training is now scheduled to pick back up in March, and the first group to enter the system, downsized to 11,000 employees, will enter April 30.
NSPS is the department's congressionally authorized personnel reform, designed to modernize management by scrapping automatic raises in favor of pay for performance and replacing the General Schedule pay ladder with broad paybands.
The system has come under heavy fire from unions, who fear the performance-based raises will encourage cronyism and that pay pools will become targets for budget cuts. A group of unions sued the department over the system's rules on collective bargaining rights. A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is scheduled to render his decision in that case by March 1.