Fear and longing

For the past month, the Senate has been locked in debate over workers' rights in the proposed Department of Homeland Security. Most of the debate has focused on collective bargaining issues, but senators have also spent time discussing changes to the pay and personnel system for federal workers.

Legislation creating the new department is now at a standstill. Action seems unlikely until after the November elections. There are even questions about whether the new department will be created at all. Despite those developments, federal pay and personnel reform, in some shape or form, seems increasingly inevitable. Such reform would, of course, most affect federal managers and employees.

Three weeks ago, Pay and Benefits Watch ran excerpts from a letter that questioned the efficacy of likely reforms, such as pay-banding. Last week, Pay and Benefits Watch ran a letter that endorsed reform.

This week, it's your turn. About 150 federal managers and employees provided comments on the proposed reforms. Here are representative comments from those who are for and against pay and personnel reform.

FOR

• "A simplified classification system, even one preserving the factor concepts and occupational families placed into broad pay bands could allow line managers (maybe mid level?) to set pay against a budget and performance objectives. The Department of the Navy's 1980s program called "Manage to Payroll" has many of the ideas on the salary administration side. Various existing federal pay banding designs show the way to the pay side. If the grading component of the classification system were banded like pay, what would remain to do is designing a system tying skills demands (classification) to business outcome objectives of quantity, quality and cost (or more complexly, balanced measures which adds customer and employee satisfaction)." -Federal human resources specialist
• "I read Mr. Risher's letter with great interest. He, of course, is right on target that the classification standards are out of date. I don't totally agree that the standards should be abandoned since I feel that some type of 'base standards' would be helpful to help determine in which pay band the position falls into. However, the vast majority of human resource classifiers have not been taught the basic technique of determining what series and grade a position falls into. If you place a position in the wrong series, the position will never be correct as to title and grade, thus pay level. The other impact of this current problem of pay is the issue of turnover. Agencies expend a very high level of resources (time and expense) in training their people and it was almost impossible for me as a personnelist to make managers understand that turnover should be reduced by attempting to retain employees by whatever means available." -Veterans Affairs employee
• "Agree there need to be changes made. For example, in my agency, there is no distinction--grade-wise--between a loan specialist with a high school education and a licensed architect or engineer." -Agriculture Department employee
• "As a mid-level manager in a large federal engineering organization, I fully agree with many of the proposed policy changes noted in your article. Pay-banding would give me the flexibility to hire more qualified engineers and scientists and would also help me retain qualified staff. However, one area where I have not seen any progress relates to the ability to remove nonproductive personnel who are not value-added to the organization. If federal agencies are to be leaner and more efficient, supervisors need more flexibility and control in removing nonfunctional staff. It is disheartening to see staff morale suffer when one or two employees can't be removed even though they are clearly in the wrong position. After all the mandatory counseling, training and mentoring doesn't work, the road to removal is long and arduous...nearly impossible at times. I am hoping to read in the upcoming months that this issue is finally going to be addressed as part of Civil Service reforms. In general, civil servants are hard working, competent people who want to do the best job they can. It's just those few..." -Army employee
• "I am a new federal employee and I was shocked when I learned how the GS system works. I have never before been in an organization where pay was completely disassociated from performance. In order to match my private sector salary, I was hired as a GS-11, Step 7. I did not realize at the time that this means that I will not receive a raise (other than cost of living increases) for several years, no matter how well I perform. As a relatively young (34) engineer, I am in my prime years for income growth. As matters stand, I cannot afford to remain a federal employee much longer, unless I find an open position at a higher level. I am totally at a loss to understand why the General Schedule is called a merit system, it has nothing to do with merit and everything to do with rigid bureaucracy and its fear of change." -Marine Corps employee
• "My experiences both as an employee and a supervisor is that pay-banding and pay-for-performance provide better incentives for improved employees performance; better management of HR programs by line office supervisors (e.g. greater focus on performance, salary setting, hiring and retention issues); and are not budget busters. As you note, the current classification system is over 50 years old. Attempts to 'fix' it over the years has resulted in a 'bandage/quick fix' approach. It is time for the overhaul we all know is long overdue. As a past member of the Classification and Compensation Society, I watched the organization do it to themselves. Rather than become serious proponents for new and innovative position classification and pay systems, they chose to basically preserve the position classification occupation as the over-analyzed, bureaucratic and mysterious system it has become. The responsibility and accountability for the classification of positions rests properly with management. HR can and does provide valuable advice, but should not bear the overall responsibility for position classification and pay setting. Ironic that some of the smartest people that I have met within the federal service are (or rather were) Position Classification Specialists who have gotten caught up in their own self- preservation. It's time to move on!!" -NOAA employee
• "It is definitely time for pay reform! Government workers have generally carried the stigma of less-than-competent because of the notion that government workers are average, mediocre, not-to-be-taken-too-seriously workers! After all, look at their pay! The types of jobs and levels of experience brought to the job by federal employees is most often not reflected in the pay. When certain federal jobs are compared to its nongovernment counterpart, we find that government workers are often under compensated and required to have a higher level of education and credible experience. I am for reform." -Air Force employee

AGAINST

• "I work in an agency at a port where there are over 400 people. There is much favoritism going on over every conceivable issue, no matter how small. Even issues like what your work schedule is or whether or not you are allowed to take leave is determined by who likes you and who doesn't. Working in the federal government is like being on the show Survivor. You must constantly make alliances and play the game. If pay were also part of the mix any more than it is now, it would make life even tougher for those of us who don't want to play games. This is a really scary prospect to allow subjectivity to have control over a person's pay. The way the system is set up now is not the best, but at least a person is not at the mercy of a supervisor who can only give 10 GS-12 salaries and therefore chooses to give it to the 10 people whom she likes the most." -Agriculture Department employee
• "After 25 years of federal service I have experienced much corruption of senior executives in the hiring and promotion of personnel. ... Pay-banding only adds to the freedoms of the political appointees and senior executives to do whatever they feel like doing to the employees. Until morals and values are reestablished into EEO laws and regulations, no more liberalization of the laws and regulations should be considered." -Energy Department employee
• "Changing the pay system will not help the career employee. Changing the pay system will help support the spoils system by making it easier to pay more to those who supported the party in power at the expense of those who did not. Also, by changing the classification and pay system, we will have less and less people who will know enough to determine whether the contractor is performing well and know what specifically is deficient. When there are not enough people who know what the contractor is doing, contracts can truly be awarded based on the spoils and kickback system." -Defense Department employee
• "Pay-for-performance systems look good in theory when applied to an idealistic society. But the real world doesn't work in such an environment. Human nature is human nature and that means anything goes when it comes to obtaining pay raises and promotions. Under real world circumstances, there is no doubt whatsoever that the proposed new pay system will end up motivating favoritism (it's already there to a large extent for many promotions) instead of good performance through the use of skilled manipulation of organizational politics. But, that may be what certain groups in Washington want!" -Veterans Affairs Department employee
• "Do we need a new pay system? No, no, and no!!!! I recently attended a class for Navy comptrollers, and the subject of pay came up several times. Several attendees were under the pay-banding system and during the discussions it was very evident that "politics" is the biggest determining factor of where your pay will be set. If you make the "boss" happy--it does not matter how--you will receive higher pay then your peers; a good job is not the deciding factor. If the "boss" does not like you, your pay will be at the bottom of the band; conversely if you are liked then you receive higher pay. Even though the personnel in the pay band organizations spouted party lines as to how great the system was, if you listened and read between the lines you became aware that pay banding is a feudal system of rewards." -Navy employee
• "We need to look at our current managers and know they will still be our managers whether through Customs or through Homeland Security. Most of these managers are highly unqualified. I expand: they are highly inept. Most have gotten their positions because they got in trouble and their higher ups didn't want to deal with them. So, today's managers with power and control over my livelihood were yesterday's screw-ups.

  "I, for one, see this 'managerial flex' as a nightmare. IF there is a manager who has such power, then they better be trained, educated, and have about thirty years military background and another ten in private industry. Before anyone at any level thinks a manager has the right or privilege to fire (or hire) at will, that manager better meet rigid standards." -Customs Service employee

• "There are dangers to proceeding ahead with greater managerial authority to set pay without greater accountability for their decisions. Most federal managers do not also possess the responsibility for their total operating budget, so they have no incentive to truly manage costs. And we also need managers who are willing to make the hard decisions - who really and truly deserves a larger raise? If managers avoid these hard decisions by rewarding everyone with the same high ratings, the pay for performance concept is defeated but costs will continue to rise anyway." -Commerce Department employee

• "You asked if it was time to reform the Civil Service pay system or if the Bush administration should slow down. I believe the correct answer is that both answers are true. The arguments that the GS system is obsolete and based primarily on ensuring proper classification of clerical-type jobs and regular salary increases for good performers in those jobs are, for the most part, accurate arguments. Managerial flexibility is curtailed by the rigid structure of the GS system, but flexibility is also curtailed by many other processes, as well, such as the merit system and EEO. Reform of the GS pay system will in all likelihood be an abysmal failure if concomitant reforms of the other protection systems is not simultaneous, and therein lies the danger of pay system reforms. The other protection systems were created to address specific problems in time and, though they sometimes interfere with each other, should not be subject to wholesale rewrite to accommodate greater managerial flexibility." -Navy employee
• "I spent several years in the private sector prior to beginning my federal government career in 1975 as a position classification specialist. I was immediately impressed with how orderly the federal classification and pay system was. I feel as you do--that to scrap this system would, indeed, be to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I've always contended that everything is in place to make the federal system manageable. However, too many managers do not want to earn their extra dollars they are paid as supervisors and managers but wish to take the easy way out when it comes to firing or evening disciplining a federal worker. I've also discovered in my 27+ years as a federal employee that even the most crucial basic skill of a supervisor or manager--good communication skills--is often missing. So, let's not scrap a good system but reinvent it!!" -Air Force employee
• "In response to your article on pay-banding, I'd like to comment on another very important component of pay and benefits that deserves attention, namely, annual leave. A 40-something friend of mine with LOTS of real world experience took a job with the feds in the area of civil rights. She had been at a university in the administrative ranks, where she started with five weeks of annual leave when she walked in the door. When she came to government, she got "0," zip, and had to start accruing four hours of leave every pay period. She was a GS-14 supervisor.

  "She left after two years. It wasn't the pay; it was the leave. Time is important to people, especially if you want to attract highly skilled mid-career types. It's a real problem. New employees need to start with at least two weeks of annual leave and probably sick as well, given childrearing and senior care. Perhaps it could be an automatic advance. It's not just the money." -Education Department employee