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Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%?

Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%

EMPS
FEMA
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:08 AM

Post Reply

Ralph appears to be confusing COLAs with pay raises. They are not the same. Performance appraisals are required for pay raises for virtually all Federal employees. COLAs are connected to the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living and are not meant to be related to performance. The minimum wage works in a similar way.

Re: Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or

HR Spec
civilian agency
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:54 AM
Federal employees get a raise each year based on a variety of factors--primarily what the private sector pays for comparable jobs. Retirees get a COLA based solely on inflation.

Re: Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%

Retired Supervisor
Department of the Army
Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:27 PM
Anyone who thinks "pay for performance" gives pay for performance is sadly mistaken. After the noble words and double-talk are scraped from the surface what one finds is “pay for complaining”. EEO is the name of the game. The Union comes in second place. Somewhere far behind that is competence, ability, and performance.

Until America comes to grips with the fact that performance should be rewarded instead of accommodating complainers through a misguided belief that charity is equality, federal employees should be thankful for their quasi-guaranteed incremental increases. Federal employees are at the epicenter of political correctness and the competent ones are the ones who would suffer the most in “pay for performance”.

Re: Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or

HR Spec
Dod Agency
Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:28 AM
With all of the griping about the pay raise under NSPS, and all of the complaints that the 7.6% is an average, one item no one has mentioned, probably because it dilutes the value of the gripe. The 3.5% is an average for the GS workforce, just as the 7.6% is an average for those under NSPS. Some localities get more than 3.5%; some get less. I noticed at least one other article on this site where those under the GS system were furiously griping because some did not get the 3.5% and wondering why they were short-changed and complaining about the paucity of their raise.

Perhaps our workforce just likes to gripe and complain--despite having an average pay that is twice what the average American taxpayer brings home.

Re: Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%

Border Patrol Agent
U.S. Border Patrol
Fri Feb 1, 2008 6:04 PM
Spoken like a true HR specialist. All of you federal employees are just lucky to have a job at all, you are overpaid and underworked, unlike all of us up here at HR! What a bunch of clowns.

Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%

Specialist
Banking Reg
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:09 AM

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Once again, ad nauseum, the problem is not Pay For Performance. It is Pay For Comparison disguised as Pay for Performance. If management would grade the person based on how well they did their job, that would be fine. But management wants to compare one employee against another employee when the comparisons are almost always between multiple employees who are at different grade levels doing different jobs, none of which are related to one another. If your fortunate enough to be in a position which management deems MORE mission critical, you stand to win in the PFP lottery. If you occupy a job which is in a less stellar position, regardless of how well you perform, you will never be able to obtain the golden ticket. If management can ever get past comparing apples to oranges and then deciding the pineapple gets the biggest raise, then, just possibly, it will be feasible to implement PFP. Until then, you jst get fruit salad with ALL the bananas going bad.

Re: Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%

IT Specialist
USDA
Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:19 PM
Absolutely correct! I've had 2 reecent supervisors tell me that they were told they had to rate "down" (which is supposedly not allowed), since too many were getting superior ratings! Not, of course, taking into account we are working with half the staff and have more than twice as much work.

Re: Your 2008 Pay Raise: Would You Prefer 3.5% or 7.6%

Engineer
US Army Corps of Engineers
Tue May 27, 2008 10:04 AM
This is spot-on, and it seems that the higher-ups keep trying to hide the fact that each persons raise does depend not only on their performance but on the performance of their co-workers and their job description.

Pay...

M & PA
FAA
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:10 AM

Post Reply

Well I am still on ther GS system and I will be getting a 7.67% pay raise as well... if you count the 4.49% plus a step increase of 3.18%. Why is NSPS better?

Re: Pay...

EE
Spawar
Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:45 AM
It's NOT! We are under NSPS for the first time. Our pay raise was 2.9% with locality. They took the 1% of the 2.5% across-the-board increase and made it pe4rformance-based. Most of us got that, but it came as a one-time bonus and they called it "equivalent". We also haven't been getting any automatic step increases since 1991 as we were under a Demo program. Personally, I didn't mind that. I was maxing out on my GS grade anyway. But the upshot is that EVERYONE is unhappy about it and it is very demoralizing. This can only be detrimental to worker's morale and productivity if they continue to do this.

I think they are trying to force all of the old generation who are highly paid to retire so they can replace us with lower paid workers.

Shines like gold right now

Accountant
DoD
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:12 AM

Post Reply

Well talk to us after this initial honeymoon and courting period. Of course it will look attractive at first. But we all know that once this gets into full swing, we will see something entirely different in terms of amounts of dollars given. Also, most resistance to this plan is because it does not protect workers from unscrupulous managers. At least with the present system, some due process is afforded to workers that will not be present under NSPS.

Pay Raise

Secretary
DOL
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:16 AM

Post Reply

The raise determine by congress that you refer to in this article is a cost-of-living raise, not a performance raise.

NSPS 7.6% Increase

CET
U.S. Army
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:19 AM

Post Reply

You have compared apples and oranges. The NSPS 7.6% cannot be compared to the cost of living adjustment one on one because the 7.6% also includes all the within grade increases and bonuses that the employees cannot have under the system. I suspect that the bottom line after a 3 year period of time which is the maximum for one step to the next in the GS system will show that we will be making less per year than in the old system. I work at a high level regardless of which system I am in and get an award every year. However, it galls me that anyone would suggest that it is a better system. I am totally convinced that I will be making less in the long run.

Pay Raise article

Supervisor
HHS
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:21 AM

Post Reply

Interesting article, but not quite accurate I believe. The numbers you cite for the non-performance system employees (most of us) do not include whatever "step increases" those employees may have received. The new system employees no longer receive the step increases. So the total "raises" received by the old employees would probably equal or pass the "higher" raises that you wite about for the non-step eligible DoD employees. You need to compare apples to apples, not apple to oranges.

That iswhy the jury is still out on the new system.

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