Some Thoughts on the NSPS Report
Obviously, the big news yesterday was the release of the final report by the Defense Business Board panel tasked with reviewing the National Security Personnel System. While it was a significant milestone, the end of a significant effort, and provoked a significant reaction, there are a couple of things I think it's important to think in mind.
1. This is not the end of the road for NSPS. It's just a road sign along the way. Ultimately, the decision about the future of the National Security Personnel System lies in other hands. The report isn't binding, and it never was. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry will be meeting and conferring about the system's future. Congress may move amendments to the Defense Authorization Act that could end NSPS. What's important is less the report itself and more how the report interacts with decision-making processes that are already under way.
2. No one really know what "reconstruction" means. It could mean reform to the pay pool system. It could mean a brand spanking new training regimen for managers. It could mean that the entire NSPS system is scrapped and the name remains. But at this point, no one has any idea what kind of action might result from an effort to strip down and retool NSPS. As a result, I think it's difficult to pass judgment on the most dramatic of the panel's recommendations, and the one that's provoked the most ire from federal employee unions.
3. I don't think the most important recommendation is the one to "reconstruct" NSPS. I think the most important recommendation is the one to take a look at the General Schedule system within the Defense Department. The report has become another voice in a chorus saying that the General Schedule may not have the flexibility to attract and keep good employees motivated. As a conference on federal pay and employment practices approaches, this is a significant statement to make. NSPS is, however large, just one pay system, for just one group of employees. Giving momentum to a larger reform could prove to be much more consequential, especially if a larger reform ultimately supersedes NSPS.
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I think the most important thing that the decision makers should consider is, that if they want NSPS to continue then it should be their pay system. From Congress on down. Most of the people who are under NSPS today, wait with bated breath to hear that this system is going away. DoD could use the money that it would take to over haul this whole system and spend it converting all of us back to the GS pay system. Maybe someone should just do a survey to everyone that is under NSPS, using the .army.mil email addresses so that it could be tracked and not one could vote more then once. America is still democracy.
Sarah Wallo Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 7:35 AMHAS ANYONE TAKING A GOOD LOOK ON HOW MUCH THIS NONE WORKING NSPS HAS COST THE GOV. AND THE PUBLIC.
JOSE GONCALVES Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 7:42 AMLOOK IF THE OLD SYSTEM DINT WORK WHAT MAKE THE OPM OR ANYONE ELSE THINK THIS NSPS IS GOING TO WORK. WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED IS THE THINKING OF THE MANG.
I'm disappointed. They missed a real opportunity to address the issue of total costs of running this system. Add in the time for all the work in self assessments, reviews, and training and this is an IT stystem designed by IT wonks and is about as user unfriendly as can be. Until this is addressed, it's all window dressing.
Bruce Krasker Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 7:46 AMKill it, kill it, kill it dead. As long as one person is infected with NSPS it is a threat to all.
Lacy and Bunn, rummy's little hatchet people, should be fired for their super bad performance.
Wise Old Owl Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 7:50 AMSAVE MONEY, Scrap the NSPS! After all the wasted time and money spent on the NSPS and it still is not right, get rid of it! Admit failure and stop wasting the TAXPAYERS money.
Concerned Citizen Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 8:23 AMIt appears that most have missed the most important point. Moving from a long term, stable and inflexable pay system to a pay for performance process takes more than a committee and some new direction. This will require a "transformation" of the way that DoD does business by developing vision, mission, goals,measures and feedback by enforcing the propagation of a strategy for action down to the working level.
John W. Davis Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 8:55 AMNSPS and other pay for performance systems will never win an employee popularity contest. MSPB surveys reveal that 69% of all employees consider themselves to be above average performers compared to their peers and an additional 30% consider themselves to be average. These are "fun house" numbers for anyone, like me, who has actually supervised and managed a work group. While I know that perception is reality, management needs effective tools, including pay differentiation, to reward better employees and send a message to those who are not perfoming. Please don't tell me that the existing tools are adequate to do so. I was a director of labor and employee relations and performance actions are incredibly time consuming. More importantly, many marginal employees are not deficient enough to be removed, but pay raise distinctions are approrpiate to reflect relative differences in contributions. I know that there may be some occasions when poor supervision exists. But that should not throw the baby out with the bath water. Those are the situations that grievance and EEO processes are intended to provide approrpiate redress.
sharpstone Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 9:38 AMDBB'S BIZARRE RESULTS IMPACT THE LIVES AND THE CAREERS OF CIVILIANS. I disagree that the results of the DBB aren't important. The results proove that the DBB was biased from the time they were formed. There is no other logical way that the panel could have reached their asinine conclusion. How can all of their findings indicate NSPS is a failure and they elect to keep it? I'll also tell you what reconstruction means...it means that 200,000 government employees continue to lose money in their retirement and in their annual salary in comparison to civilians in the same career field in other parts of government. It also means that 200,000 employees who continue to go to work everyday are subjected to a system that is statistically proven to be discriminatory, that rates unfairly, and that many of the components were declared in a court of law to be illegal. EMPLOYEES CONTINUE TO BE SUBJECTS, LIKE LAB RATS, IN A BROKEN PERSONNEL SYSTEM THAT HAS NO BUY-IN AT ANY LEVEL. The decision to reconstruct or rebuild a new system should have logically meant that all civilians were returned to the GS system that remains fully functioning and accepted within the government; but DoD is reluctant to return civilians to that system because currently DoD can do anything that it desires with civilans who have been spiraled into the NSPS nightmare. People need to file a class action law suit, write their Congress representatives and their Senators about our leader's inability to act responsibly on the behalf of its employees. Leadership is absolutely naked, vulnerable, and lacks any grain of moral fairness on NSPS.
Mark Anderson Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 9:44 AMLet's "Cut to the Chase." On a $50K Salary, over 20 Years w/ a steady, assumed 3% Cost of Living Allowance (GS) versus the 60% COLA "Rip-Off" (i.e. NSPS Valued Employees)Equivalent, the NSPS Folks earn $171,420.92 LESS! Run the Numbers, People: 1.03 yearly Compounding versus 1.018. It's even worse w/ 4% COLA (1.04 v 1.024) @ an extremely sizeable "disparate treatment" of $253,658.92 in cumulative salary shaving, during those 20 years. FED is playing a mean game of "Confounding Compounding" for which They Win and You Lose. It's not too noticable at first, but it really "adds up" over the course of a whole career. Restore the Full COLA for Everybody irrespective of the eventual fate of the Crooked NSPS. We (Federal Employees) can not afford to wait on any other resolution. This nasty "Theft by Deception" must end!
Dandy Lion Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 2:28 PMBuild yourself a little spreadsheet and see if you don't agree. Again, if we go into a hyper-inflation spin it only gets so bad that it is Not Funny! The way Fed is spending and printing money, well . . . enough said.
They do not want to scrap NSPS because this will save the govenment money in the long run-hold down promotions and eliminate steps (a built-in increase in salary). New employees may think bonuses are a good thing-until they realize that it is a one-time, taxable increase that is not sustained over the years!!
CAM Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 3:16 PMThey need to de-link performance evaluations from this system-get the performance evaluations working well first then add the pay component. Trying to do too much too soon and messing it all up!! If managers could not manage until GS system, they will not manage under NSPS-it will become a paperwork exercise to validate preconceived bias-they can always write objectives and evaluations to support their favorites!!!
It seems that alot of focus is put on individual performance. Indivual performance is limited by regulations and combersome infrastructure. Gov't would be farther ahead the break up into performance units giving managers more independant control over the four walls of thier unit. The new system would have transparent unit ratings and well defined reward distribution. Unit managers would then be motivated to break down systemic performance obsticals. This would also force upper management to firgure out how to make all the units fuction for performance. In other words measure organizational performance and the individuals will pull together!
Tom Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 4:06 PMWhoever wrote “pay raise distinctions are appropriate to reflect relative differences in contributions," and states that the GS system is not flexible enough to accomplish that doesn't know the system very well? The yearly raise is not automatic and preventing a poor performer from getting his yearly is no more time consuming that all the "BS" required with NSPS. Just prevent a poor performer from receiving his yearly pay raise and see how fast he sits up and takes notice. As far as top performers go, that's the purpose of yearly performance awards.
Kenneth Wagner Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009 5:22 PMWhere I work, many of the managers were/are corrupt. And that's OK under the GS system. They have limited power to up their Bubbas & down everyone else. But under NSPS, corrupt management becomes a real problem to the majority of folks who are not in the organizational mafia. That's my problem. Now it's personal.
fpmorales Posted Friday, August 28, 2009 12:05 AMAs a former superviser dealing with a staff under both NSPS and GS system, I saw great potential with NSPS. I actively involved staff to develop their own reasonable, measurable,targeted performance objectives. It provided greater opportunity for staff/supervisor interaction & assessment. Unfortunately, it was hampered by "old school" management thinking that watered down the goals and forced readjustment of scores (to much disagreement) to match "bell curve" and available funding. Additionally, staff did not have as much choice regarding merit vs. salary award distribution as given to believe. All told, NSPS is not "bad". However, implementation and management of the system is the sour pill, particularly the idea of GS-11/12/13 suddenly being "equal" (to much chagrin of many GS-13's). Advertised flexibility, fairness and correction of past "mistakes" was not seen in the trenches, thus the employee negativity. (Even I, as a supervisor, felt "burned" by the NSPS system after several rating periods) Was it more work as a Supervisor? Of course! But the process helped me as a supervisor in developing and evaluating employees, but it also more directly made the employees more active in the process and ultimately more responsible for the outcome. I agree with report -- greater training and fixing pay pools, so NSPS doesn't look like just another version of the old system in sheep's clothing.
Vince Foster Posted Friday, August 28, 2009 9:01 AMIn February 08, I was a GS-11 and converted to a YD-02 NSPS position. The former GS-12, but now a YD-02 also, moved to another state and that position was announced. I applied for the position (which involved much more responsibility), was selected and accepted it. Under the GS system, I would have been promoted to a GS-12-Step 1 ($67,613), but under NSPS I was given a raise of only $1,700—only 3%! It was less than a GS-11 step increase! My salary now is only $59,979 and I fall between a GS-11 Step 2 and Step 3--no where close to a GS-12. And even though my supervisor could have given me 5%, our installation requires the Commander’s approval before 5% can be given! I was told by personnel that no one is going to the commander for the additional 2% and that most “promotions” (now called reassignments) are only 3% and that they don’t have to give even 1%--it’s at the supervisor’s discretion. Apparently, this installation has added even MORE restrictions under the NSPS guidelines.
This is an incredible de-motivator and pretty much a “slap in the face” as far as I’m concerned. I have received numerous compliments about the wonderful changes that have taken place since entering this position. I take great pride in my job and strive to make things as perfect as possible.
In addition, there are people here at this SAME installation, and at other installations as well, who are still under the GS system, and when those people are promoted from a GS-11 Step 1 to a GS-12 Step 1, they get the entire raise to a GS-12-Step 1 position-- $67,613, while NSPS employees do not. This is extremely UNFAIR. As I have the same promotion, but make almost $8,000 less than my counterparts at the same installation! That’s over $40,000 in a 5-year period and over $80,000 in a 10-year period! How can this possibly be a REWARDS system? Pay for performance? Definitely not in my case. Manipulation is the word. Robbery!
I know some people are benefitting from NSPS: those who were maxed out in their steps under the GS system are very happy because they’re getting more money under NSPS.
I received a 3 rating on my performance evaluation (before we were even converted to NSPS, we were told in advance that most people would receive 3’s). I heard there were only a few 4’s and no 5’s at this installation. I also heard that the pay pool managers were returning employees’ ratings and making supervisors change them from 4’s to 3’s! My supervisor at that time told me he tried to rate me higher than a 3 but the pay pool wouldn’t let him! A supervisor can’t even give his employees the rating he thinks they deserve!
My annual pay increase was about 5.5%, which I was pleased with. The problem comes when an employee is trying to get what used to be a promotion. That’s where DOD employees are really getting SCREWED! Pardon the crude term.
NSPS is like a cruel trap, and once you get in it, you can’t plan on ever getting promoted again. For me to change pay bands (what is now a promotion under NSPS), I’d have to be a GS-15 Deputy Commander or equivalent! The way promotions under NSPS are handled is insane.
I sincerely hope "they" convert us back to the GS system. I’m losing so much money under NSPS that it literally makes me sick to my stomach. I’m trying desperately to find a way back to a GS position or to move out of DOD altogether. I like my job and want to stay, but NSPS is the No Security Personnel System, in my opinion.
AlabamaGirl1104 Posted Tuesday, September 1, 2009 1:05 PM