RE: National Security Personnel System.

I must first say I expected far more "hard info" from the regulations released on 14 Feb 05. DoD has had plenty time from when the intent for the NSPS was published in the Federal Register in 2003 to Feb 05 to decide on some concrete ways to implement the NSPS; unfortunately, the information published on 14 Feb 05 is more vague than the proposal from 2003. It is hard to prepare an informed comment to the proposed regulation without have a document which sufficiently describes what the regulation is. The lack of details has caused a great deal of stress in the workforce.

As far as the labor relations aspects of the NSPS and the procedures for dealing with poorly performing employees, I support them.

My concerns are focused on two areas: Performance evaluations and premium pay.

1. A "pay for performance" system would ideally reward employees who outperform/exceed stated expectations. The increase in pay would be provided as an incentive for increased performance. 

On the face of it, this is a "good thing". However, this concept has been borrowed from the business world. The business world's only concern is making money, either in profit or increased shareholder value. All employee activities in a business are judged in light of how they affect the bottom line. Functions that do not contribute to the bottom line, and the employees that perform them, are eliminated.

Almost all businesses use objective, measurable metrics to judge employee (and hence business) performance. An assembly line worker may be judged on how fast he bolts on a particular part, or the number of assembly errors he makes. A salesman may be judged on the amount of product he sells, the value or number of sales contracts, etc.

The problem in universally applying this particular business practice to the government is that many aspects of government service have no objective, measurable metrics that an employee can influence.

I am a criminal investigator (GS-1811) for a military criminal investigation organization. 

There are NO objective, measurable metrics with which a supervisor can fairly evaluate my performance.

I cannot be fairly evaluated based on how many cases I open or closed, as I do not decide if a case is opened or closed, my supervisor does that.

I cannot be fairly evaluated based on how many cases I solve, as I do not decide if a case is solved, my supervisor does that.

I cannot be fairly evaluated based on how many cases are accepted for prosecution, the US Attorney or other prosecutive authority does that.

I cannot be fairly evaluated based on how many cases are successfully prosecuted, that's up to the prosecutor, judge and jury.

I cannot be fairly evaluated based on how much money is recovered from convicted subjects; the jury and judge decide that.

There is nothing else that I do that involves a documented, quantative measure.

My supervisor decides what cases I work on, what I need to do on a case, and when I am done with it.

The degree to which a criminal investigation is successful is not proportional to the amount of work performed by or the skill of the investigator. Some cases are "slam dunks” that just fall in your lap; others are "whodunits" that Sherlock Holmes could not solve. One investigator could work himself to death 20 hours a day for months and never make headway on a case, while a colleague could have a multi-million, multiple subject case basically just handed to him by a source. Also, an investigation is just as successful if it is determined no crime occurred or the Government was at fault as it would be if a 
crime was identified and subjects titled in a report; however, those statistics are not as "sexy" as the others, and hence are given less weight in the subjective determination of "success".

Without objective criteria to judge performance, a supervisor is forced to utilize subjective criteria. This will lead to favoritism. It already exists in the current system, but its impact is minimized by the inability of supervisors to affect the pay of their subordinates. I have seen a supervisor rate employees based on how "sharp" they dressed; if they liked and talked about their favorite sport; if they laughed at their jokes. Without objective criteria, a supervisor can rate an employee by any standard he wishes and not be called to task for it, as it simply relies on his "judgment". For example, I could be evaluated on the subjective criteria of "contribution to the team". I could give my all to the team; my colleagues could think I'm the best team player in history. But the supervisor, either because he does not believe I do work well in a team or (even worse) does not like me in some unrelated way, can rate me as a poor contributor to the team, and no objective  data would exist to refute his judgment. Inversely, the supervisor could rate an undeserving employee with a high rating in some subjective criteria, and would not need any objective data to support the rating. 

The implementation of "pay for performance" will not have its intended effect in my career field, as well as many others, as I cannot "improve" on performance I have no control over. I believe it will not reward true outstanding performance, but the “perception" of outstanding performance, or performance unrelated to the employee’s competence. In my field, you will be rewarding brown-nosers, yes-men and the lucky, for lack of better terms.

I also have serious doubts as to the ability of DoD to provide sufficient funds to this system to make increased performance worthwhile for employees. I strongly suspect the difference between a peak performer and a mediocre performer in my organization will be less than $1000.00 in bonuses; that is not enough incentive for anyone to attempt to play this hit or miss system for the maximum award, especially if the employee knows the supervisor personally dislikes the employee, anyway.

2. Premium pay: As a criminal investigator, I currently receive Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP), which in effect means I get paid for two extra hours of work a day (a bonus of 25% to my base pay). This is a deal for DoD, since I usually work 3-4 extra hours a day as averaged out over the year. While it is possible to receive normal overtime, the nature of our work almost always precludes the scheduling of overtime (crime does not follow our schedule); hence the need for LEAP.

Under NSPS, DoD will establish rules for premium pays, including LEAP. My advice is to leave it as it is. Anything less will cause a mass exodus of criminal investigators from DoD. Our skills are highly transportable and in demand, and federal criminal investigators often move from agency to agency for promotions, better pay, working conditions or desired living areas. We talk with our colleagues in other agencies, and know who is good to work for, and who is not. If one of the goals of NSPS is to attract the best employees, offering less money than other agencies to perform the same (if not more) duties is not the way to go about it. I know special agents of the Defense Criminal Investigation Service are already looking for jobs outside DoD, due to the concerns expressed above.