Air Force contracts out training for new personnel system
Training will focus on teaching supervisors creative ways to evaluate and negotiate with employees.
The Air Force this month awarded Centre Consulting of Vienna, Va., a $24.8 million contract to train supervisors charged with implementing the Defense Department's wide-reaching personnel reforms.
The National Security Personnel System transforms nearly every aspect of civilian human resources at the Pentagon. Supervisors will be required to conduct ongoing, rigorous performance evaluations. Ratings assigned during those evaluations will figure heavily in determining employees' pay raises.
"The National Security Personnel System requirements present extraordinary management and human resources challenges to the Department of Defense," said Barbara Kinosky, president of Centre Consulting. "The Air Force is to be commended for anticipating the critical role that timely and effective training will play in meeting those challenges."
Under the five-year contract, Centre will provide about 2,500 eight-hour seminars, each for about 35 attendees, Kinosky said. Seminars already have begun, and Kinsoky estimates 50 to 60 will run each month at Air Force bases across the country.
The Air Force developed the curriculum, Centre will provide the instructors and subcontractor Axiom Resource Management of Falls Church, Va., will handle logistical support. Centre Consulting focuses on federal contracting.
Instructor Malcolm Munro said that rather than teaching the nuts and bolts of NSPS regulations, the training will tackle broader performance management concepts--specifically "interest-based negotiations."
That technique helps supervisors find creative solutions to avoid flat-out rejections of employee requests. This could include extra recognition, in place of a requested pay raise. Many of the techniques are drawn from the best seller Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury (Penguin Books, 1991).
"It's actually getting to what it is the employee wants," Kinosky said. "It may not just come down to money; it may come down to pride. [Supervisors will be] ferreting out what those motives are, what those underlying currents are, and trying to find some kind of win."
Instructors will use several role-playing exercises to hone supervisors' skills. For example, there could be a scenario where an aircraft maintenance employee is doing high-quality work and is a good team player but is slow in completing assignments, Munro said. Possible solutions could include pairing the employee with a more efficient worker or designating the employee as a quality inspector. The role-playing focuses on how to discuss weaknesses and solutions with subordinates.
Kinosky said her company is working with the Air Force to develop additional teaching materials on the details of NSPS regulations.
Centre Consulting's instructors have a variety of backgrounds, Kinsoky said. They include former military members, attorneys specializing in alternative dispute resolution, mediators and professional trainers.
The training sessions will also provide supervisors with a binder of materials on performance management under the NSPS.
The Army is conducting all of its NSPS training in-house, according to NSPS spokeswoman Joyce Frank. Navy NSPS program manager Kathleen Ott said much of the training on "soft skills"--such as those being taught under the Air Force contract--will be done in-house, but some instruction could be contracted out by smaller units.