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The Future of Pay-for-Performance in the Federal Government

NSPS

Government Civilian
DOD
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:29 AM

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After two years I see nothing positive from my experience with NSPS. I recognize other orginizations may be doing things differently or correctly and care about there people but my impression in my orginization is of a quota system and taking care of senior management. As we were told everybody is a 3 with 4's and 5's for a few people. If your supervisor is worthless or doesn't care as happened to me, he or she does not fight for you during the pay pool board and you get a three, just like "Joey bag of donuts" next to you got no mater how well you did your job. Your objectives, self appraisal and supervisors apprasial mean nothing, its a numbers game plain and simple.

Performance Appraisals

Program Technician
FSA
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:34 AM

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I believe if you are a good employee, you will do the best work possible whether you get recognition or not. I have been working for USDA for 25 years and from what I have seen is that if one employee gets an award and the rest of the employees in that office do not get one, the morale for all goes down. The employee that gets the award seems to feel like they are better than the other employees and the rest of the employees feel like they should have received the award also. Therefore, everyone has problems. Usually we all work together to get the work done, but when one employee gets an award, the rest of us feel like what is the use in helping her with her work-she is the one that gets the recognition and we have all helped. I just feel like if you change to pay-by-performance plans, it would lower the morale and overall performance that employees have been doing by working together.

P4P

Log Daddy
DON
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:36 AM

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The fact that the DON SES have exempted themselves from NSPS and excluded union members from participation (too hard) tells you all you need to know. If senior supervisors had executed their performance appraisal duties under the former system to anything close to an acceptable level, there would have been no reason to implement NSPS. Why would anyone believe that they will make the significant effort required to make NSPS work?

Re: P4P

Retired HR SES
USAF
Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:37 AM
RE the comment that DON SES members exempted themselves from NSPS, all SES members including those in DON have been under a pay for performance system that predates NSPS implementation.

FUTURE OF PFP

HUMAN RESOURCES SPECIALIST
USAF
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:44 AM

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Mr. Gunreuther should hold a Cabinet position.

PFP

Supv HR Specialist
DoD
Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:44 AM

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Being the the HR field we have seen a large impact PFP has caused employees to jump ship to agencies not under PFP. Employees want to feel they are being treated equally for the work they do. PFP seems to pick only a select few for outstanding work and leave the rest behind, saying their work isn't as important as the select few. This has caused a downward spiral in morale.

Re: PFP

Labor Employee Relations Manager
VA
Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:58 PM
Amen! I left Army because of NSPS. When you are told that the ONLY way to get a rating above a 3 (fully sucessful) was

1. A rating of "4" required work on a project from CHRA
2. A rating of "5" required work on an Army HQ project.

We HR folks in the field scratched our heads and asked "Huh?" It was then most of us start jumping ship.

Silent Majority

DOD Employee
DOD
Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:01 AM

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I’ve been in NSPS for three years and AcqDemo before that. Pay for performance systems can and do work.

The vast majority of folks fair noticeably better under NSPS with average pay increases in the 5-7% range vs. 2-4% for GS. In addition most positions are in pay bands that provide increased growth opportunity without having to change positions.

I hear a lot of whining from people that want to hang onto the legacy systems where everyone received the highest rating and the same pay increase/bonus every year. That is a system that promotes mediocrity.

I anticipate that if the folks complaining about NSPS would spend less time whining and invest more energy into exceeding their jobs and documenting their accomplishments they too would benefit from the system.

Re: Silent Majority

Labor Employee Relations Manager
VA
Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:02 PM
I would disagree! I was in instructor for NSPS. I trained the pay pool panel. One of the issues I had to teach was the distruction of records by the pay pool.

If I as your supervisor rated you as a "4" and then it was over turned by the Pay Pool and Pay Pool manager, then the ONLY thing the employee sees is the rating of a "3." All records pertaining to the rating of a "4" were to be distroyed so that the unions or others could not obtain those records under a FOIA request.

Re: Silent Majority

A for the moment Golden HR Specialist
AF
Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:27 PM
Hey, I don't know why we're complaining. I actually made out like a bandit $$$
~~~BUT~~~
It's not good for the organization, agency or DoD to pay me at the $$ I make while doing work 2 grades below; just because I happened to be a golden child one year? Don't get me wrong, I won't give the $ back, but at least GS grades kept salaries in check with level of work...

Re: Silent Majority

Union Rep
DOD
Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:04 PM
DOD employee in an Acq Dem project: Your AcqDem project was funded differently than NSPS. I am probably the only union rep who has actually witnessed a pay pool panel deliberations process. It was extremely troubling to watch the whole process and know the flaws were based on human nature, not on any deliberate biases. You tend to know people who are just like you, you're likely to have friends and acquaintances with similar interests, ergo an inherent bias against folks not like you. Let's look around the table at our senior leadership in DOD, pale, male, and stale, to borrow a phrase from a US Today article.

Re: Silent Majority

Chemist
DOD
Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:14 PM
The problem is not with the annual raises so much, but when one is attempting to gain a promotion. When going from what was a GS-7 to 9 to 11 to 12 is where the problem lies. You can only get a 3% raise. A 5% raise has to go through our commander! Under NSPS a 3% raise for me to go from a fromer "GS-11 to a GS-12" promotion is about $1,755 per year! Under the old system it would be about $7,000 annually. WOULD ANYONE LIKE THAT???? THIS IS A MAJOR DOWNFALL WITH NSPS. YOU CAN'T GET A DECENT RAISE WHEN BEING PROMOTED!!!! ANYONE ELSE FEEL THIS WAY!

NSPS

Recruiter
DOD
Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:13 AM

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The NSPS pay bands/scales and the opportunity for merit pay increases has dramatically improved our recruitment ability within the DOD medical community. In many cases fill rates for hard-to-fill occupations have improved by over 100% since implementing NSPS. In most cases, we weren’t remotely competitive under the GS system. Going back to the ridged GS system would be a disaster for us.

Re: NSPS

Labor Employee Relations Manager
VA
Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:07 PM
Maybe so in the medical community as you compete with us in the VA. You really need to get Title 38 appointing authority as we have.

One problem with recruiting. Say I have a vacancy, if I hire internal, I can only give the new employee a 5% raise over his last position, actually they call it a "reassignment, not a promotion.

If I bring someone off the street, with the proper approval I can give that employee up to 25% within the payband.

Not quite fair is it.

Re: NSPS

HR
DOD
Tue Mar 3, 2009 11:43 AM
What is your retention rate for these same (NSPS) employees a year, 2 years after completion of their probationary period compared to GS.
Total Comments: 89
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