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National Nuclear Security Administration to launch pay for performance

By Brittany Ballenstedt bballenstedt@govexec.com March 28, 2008

Employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration will become the next group to test pay for performance in government, the agency announced Wednesday.

NNSA, the quasi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department, said it is starting a five-year partnership with the Office of Personnel Management to "fundamentally alter" major parts of the government's competitive service personnel laws and regulations.

Under the pilot, NNSA will collapse the traditional 15 General Schedule pay grades into broad paybands. The process would eliminate the fixed steps that give automatic raises to employees and would make annual pay adjustments performance-sensitive.

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The paybands will be based on previous recruitment and promotion patterns and existing grade distributions. Each of the agency's five career paths will include different paybands that reflect the typical career progression within those occupations.

The new system will affect nearly 2,000 of NNSA's 2,500 federal workers. The agency touts the changes as a means of giving managers more flexibility to set higher pay for employees through appointments, promotions and performance evaluations. The agency also hopes the system will help it compete for high-quality candidates and help motivate and retain high-performing employees.

"NNSA needs to continue to attract high-quality people with technical skills for our important national security programs," said NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino. "This pilot project gives us the tools necessary to do so in an ever-increasingly competitive job market."

The project is expected to last up to five years, and, if successful, will become the permanent pay system at NNSA, the agency said.

By law, OPM is authorized to conduct demonstration projects that experiment with different human resources concepts to determine whether changes in policy would result in better governmentwide management.

NNSA and OPM first announced plans to launch a pay-for-performance pilot in a Federal Register notice more than a year ago. The project follows two years of discussions, planning, design, development and communications, including the three phases of employee briefings and managerial training conducted at every major site and location throughout NNSA, the agency said.

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COMMENTS

  • I'm not sure if this Dan Ketter is a contractor looking to make a fortune in goverment contracts by ridding the government of its dedicated workforce, a federal employee just recently retired from the military where he spent his entire career working with Mary Lacey, or George W. Bush using an alias. Just not sure. Communist pay system Mr. Ketter? Or maybe you feel rebuffed in not earning the pay that you believe you deserve. At least in your own mind, if no one elses. The present system of pay that the majority of federal employees have worked under for decades works. What is broken is agency management and performance management for those less than stellar employees. Changing for the exception, should never be the rule. Mark Gibson Posted March 31, 2008 7:50 PM
  • NNSA is going under pay-banding. Fortunately, it is not NSPS. As a DOE employee who has read through the NNSA pay-band regulations I am somewhat familiar with the differences. First big difference, your supervisor actually is the authority on your rating, not some ridiculous panel who does not know you or your work. Second big difference, if you were to transfer to another agency for a promotion you would not lose out on promotion pay. NSPS has been set up to refuse to allow the 2-step promotion rule regardless of where the employee goes for a promotion. NNSA’s system does not penalize employees this way. Third big difference, unlike NSPS, NNSA’s new system and many other agencies (i.e., Commerce) pay-band systems do not automatically ban yearly cost-of-living increases. I truly have sympathy for all of you DOD employees in the NSPS system. I, for one, would never consider transferring to a DOD agency. And no Dan, I am not a slacker. I am a high performing employee with a doctorate degree who works 50-60 hour work weeks. DOE Employee Posted March 31, 2008 3:12 PM
  • And let me guess, it will be modeled on the many different botique type performance systems such as NSPS, which have proven to have there own unique set of problems. How about perfecting ONE system and THEN implementing it across the board. rooster Posted March 31, 2008 12:30 PM
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