President Obama on Wednesday signed into law the fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization Act, a bill that includes several federal workforce provisions. One provision fully repeals the Defense's Department's controversial National Security Personnel System, meaning the thousands of employees who are currently hired, evaluated and paid based on the system will move back to the decades-old General Schedule by 2012.
In my time at Government Executive, NSPS was one of my favorite topics, and it was probably the most-read topic among my readers. NSPS was designed to provide Defense managers more flexibility in hiring, promoting and paying employees -- a concept that, on the surface, seems necessary to compete with the private sector and retain top-notch employees. But Defense civilian personnel had mixed perceptions of the system, and federal unions contended that the system was a failure. There's little doubt that reform of the General Schedule is still necessary, however, and I'm not convinced that a repeal of NSPS means that personnel reform is over for Defense or the government as a whole. I'm interested to hear from you all -- especially IT workers at Defense -- on how the government should pick up the lessons learned from NSPS and move forward on personnel reform. Recruiting, hiring and retaining information technology professionals is one of the most critical areas for government to focus on both now and in the future - can the General Schedule accomplish this goal?
COMMENTS
For those who think that the people who complained about NSPS are people who did nothing and just coast thru to retirement, you are crazy. I'm a career federal employee and have been for about 20+ years. I have worked by butt off and under the GS system have been rewarded well. I've received exceptional evaluations for the last 10+ years. I take pride in the service I do. And just like most ,I've worked with bosses who didn't have a clue. Most have been former career military and have no idea of how to evaluate a civilian employee accurately. Bosses who have returned from a military hostile environment, retired and now are hired to to supervise civilian employees. No one get's formal training on how to adjustment from a military to a civilian way of life. Then instantly these supervisors were given the power over your pay. Your livelyhood. It was a disaster waiting to happen. When I first heard about NSPS the first thing I said, its not going to work. The worst part was having a pay pool of directors who new nothing personally about your dedication, service, commitment, sit around a table and discuss why or why not your deserve a raise. Of the over 100 employees in my organization, over 80% or more hated NSPS.
One more thing, you could pretty much can forget it if your supervisor wasn't the best writer.
Thank goodness its gone.
s b 11/09/09 03:52 pm ET
Its sad that DoD could not do the right thing without intervention by Congress, the Senate and the President
I'm disappointed that DOD's leadership had to be told to kill the NSPS program. To me this sends a clear message to all civilians that DoD can't be trusted to do the right things; even when they are faced with a mountain of facts about the NSPS monster that they created. But there was good that came out of NSPS; it also showed unequivicably that the unions really are the mounthpiece and honest broker for Government civilians. I hope that once all employees are returned to their fair, honest and open GS positons that the unions will persue several courses of action: First, the unions should press that GS employees of all grades have the option to join the union; because the unions fought on behalf of Sr government employees in government service to right the wrongs that DOD did to them. Senior civilians are currently not allowed to support the only organization that represented them in this time of unfair NSPS bufoonery. Second, I hope the unions demand investigations of promotions and hirings that have occured over the past eight years during the time NSPS was running wild. Third, I hope that the unions press for laws that protect employees from arbitrary and poorly thought out future personnel system changes that are the result of poorly educated and lopsided party initiatives.
Bob Dangredo 11/02/09 11:39 am ET
A few things:
1. NSPS largely achieved its promise. That's exactly why some don't like it. It calls those who are resting on their laurels or in a career "comfort zone" out into the daylight. You are perfectly free to coast and get your 3.0 rating -- and you'll keep getting reasonable raises and bonuses. The system pushes most toward 3.0 or 3+ ratings -- and that's consistent with a bell curve kind of thinking about human performance. Bruised egos? Yeah- so what? They don't call it a "job" for nothing -- so folks need to man-up, quit complaining about not being called a superstar if you're not performing and delivering like one. In my experience as a senior manager, very few people warrant 4.0s, 4+s or 5s. When they get them, and they are supported by their Pay Pool, it means they REALLY reached, came to work every day fired up, continuously improved themselves, others around them, and the organization they work for. A VERY high standard indeed. NSPS is excellent in that it provides a framework to reward such people, rare as they are.
2. Unions in government service are a scourge. There are enough counter-incentives to world-class performance already weaved into government culture - including a hiring culture and process that makes it nearly impossible to select the best people for technical jobs. This impacts the IT, space, acquisition and telecommunications fields in a particularly onerous way. The unions just make it that much harder for government to ever achieve the best value for the taxpayer. Of course the unions and that idiot John Gage who leads AFGE in particular don't like NSPS. NSPS is designed, among other things, to discover who is coasting or gaming the federal employment system for the best personal gain (without the pain) they can garner. NSPS does a pretty good job of that! If the taxpayers had any collective sense of how damaging union presence/involvement in federal government really is, they would revolt.
3. NSPS is not without flaws. The reliance of the system on the singularly variable, unpredictable writing skills of Reporting Officials (ROs) is a weak leg. The Higher Level Reviewer (HLR) is supposed to be a check-and-balance on this, but rarely do HLRs either understand their role this way or execute it aggressively -- sometimes due to time constraints in meeting NSPS reporting deadlines leading up to Pay Pool. This mostly adversely effects those superstar performers who are not lucky enough to be working for a superstar supervisor who knows how to write. So an improved merit-based system should endeavor to deal with this rather glaring weakness in the process.
4. NSPS requires considerable effort to manage and run -- it's a system that is kind of "always on" -- so there is organizational overhead that must be committed to it. I happen to think the trade-off is worth it. Also, the burden is decreased with every year of execution since employees, supervisors, HLRs and Pay Pool members get better at it. The disruption of this second-guessing and potential reverting back to old systems must be factored in by DoD. Congress is such a meddler in such matters and they seem to care not a whit for the disruption to the government's business. So now we all get to embark on another painful path of designing a new system, deploing it, training it and growing into it. Only to find that some union leader is going to decide again that there is too much scrutiny being put on the sick, lame and lazy.
Not that I have any strong opinions about any of this!
NSPS Proponent 10/30/09 03:35 pm ET
I was under the GS as about as long as I will have been under NSPS but I would much rather go back to the GS pay scale. I converted in spiral 2 of NSPS and since that day all we seem to worry about is our end of year appraisal, what can go in what can't, who thinks using 2000 words is fluff and who doesn't. Having people judge my performance in just so many words is like going to court and not knowing why your there. I would rather have the structure of GS then the guessing of NSPS.
Jeff P. 10/29/09 12:36 pm ET
Sad to see it go, i did well ( pay pool) under this system....
J. Harmon 10/29/09 10:16 am ET
I'm wondering how the conversion back to GS will work for people like me, who were hired within the system (GS) from the lower part of the pay band to an upper level position (I was a GS9 and fill a GS12 billet). Will the job revert back to the previously classified level (GS12), or will I get hosed by being left at the GS9 level, but working at the GS12 level? Will I get bumped up to the level of the position, or will the position be downgraded to my pay level??? I'm sure there are thousands like me who will be effected and who have the same concern.
SKAL 10/29/09 10:12 am ET
It's amazing how hard the union worked to ensure that their members could go back to not doing a darned thing. Back we go to the same old system of being rewarded for not kicking the bucket; seniority over success.
Slowman 10/29/09 09:29 am ET
HR Insider wrote "Sure there were some bruised egos along the way, but even level 3 "valued performers" typically received larger increases than their GS peers."
If you were under NSPS you know this is not true. If you received a level 3 rating you only got 60 percent of what your GS peers received - which I think was the major problem with NSPS. As long as there was a GS scale to compare your pay to, you knew you were getting the short end of the stick. Also, the other 40 percent GS employees received impacted the GS peers salary for life. The NSPS employees got a one time bonus which didn't increase their salary. This affected retirement, TSP contributions etc.
Bottomline - as long as the GS system is alive other systems won't work because government employees will compare their "new" salaries to what they would have been making under GS.
NSPS - GS employee 10/29/09 08:35 am ET
All conversions into NSPS were non-bargaining unit positions. Seems that for some reason the unions didn't want bargaining unit employees to benefeit in the ways that NSPS employees have benefitted.
It seems that you don't really understand the Special Salary Tables. The SSRs are developed by comparing the adjusted salary (base pay and locality pay) to the prevailing salaries within the defined locality areas. The SSRs are then established to offset teh difference (hmm...sound like what we call "market-based pay" in NSPS). The reason 2210s on 999B saw only the 2.9% increase last year is that the 30% bump you get on the SSR (to match teh prevailing salaries in your area) is greater than the what you would get from adding locality pay to the base rate. Which is why GS-12s aren't on teh SSR--their base plus locality matches or exceeds the prevailing rate so the 30% bump is not needed.
as-if 10/28/09 06:52 pm ET
The repeal of NSPS demonstrates just how hard meaningful change to the general schedule will be. Despite its shortcomings, NSPS largely delivered as promised.
The pay bands made it easier to recruit new employees and provided most existing employees expanded career growth. Recruitment for many hard-to-fill occupations increased exponentially under NSPS. Yes there were a few kinks with in-band promotions but work-arounds existed if system flexibilities were leveraged.
The automation tools were cumbersome; however, they made the appraisal process far more transparent that any previous system. Online tools provided employees and raters visibility over every step in the process. Unauthorized alterations of documents was prevented, business rules were consistently enforced and virtually every employee receiving a rating. All of these items were issues with legacy performance systems.
Typically performance systems provided the vast majority of employees the highest possible rating. This is the easiest thing for a supervisor to do and it keeps employees happy. That said, there are differences in employee performance. Everyone knows this, but few are willing to settle for anything less than the highest rating, even when it provides greater compensation than the old system.
Many faulted the NSPS pay pool process. With a covered population of over 200K, I’m sure there were some abuses. There are in any system. However, in most cases NSPS provided a relatively unbiased assessment of an employee’s performance. Pay pools typically consisted of members outside the employee’s immediate supervisory structure that had no reason to over or under inflate a rating. As long as the employee did their part documenting how they supported their objectives, the process worked pretty well. Sure there were some bruised egos along the way, but even level 3 "valued performers" typically received larger increases than their GS peers.
I for one will be sad to see NSPS go. While it required more effort that the legacy system, most worthwhile things do. I hope that many of NSPS' underlying principles will be incorporated into whatever new personnel system replaces it.
HR Insider 10/28/09 04:41 pm ET
I am at a base that implemented NSPS but only for "non-bargaining unit" employees. None of the IT folks here were ever swapped over to NSPS.
In order for the GS Schedule to meet the goal of retaininig IT Professionals, first they need to understand how to compensate them. Without ranting too much, here is the situation. Many IT professionals, 2210s for instance, are paid in accordance with Special Salary Rate tables; specifically 999B for 2210s. The problem is that the specialty rate is in lieu of, NOT in addition to locality pay. Every year that we get a pay raise, it is split between base pay and locality pay. Unfortunately, Specialty Rates have not been adjusted in what seems like forever. As a result, the IT workers are actually losing money compared to their peers that are paid according to the standard General Schedule.
Does a loaf of bread cost any less if you are an IT person? Stupid question, right? Locality Pay has absolutely nothing to do with Specialty Pay. All personnel assigned to a geographic location should get the exact same locality pay. Then, if specialty pay is deemed necessary, it should be paid on top of the base pay and locality pay.
I assume people a lot smarter than me (bean counters) have figured out that this is a good thing, but I don't see it.
B Smith 10/28/09 04:09 pm ET