The proposed NSPS removed mechanisms that have protected employees from management abuse. Reduction in the ability for local unions to protect its members is a prime example.

The need for protection is well documented by a myriad of abuse-related court cases.

I foresee grave consequences if removal of protection from abuse is adopted as a mechanism to enable DOD to "act swiftly to meet mission requirements."

What will be next?

NSPS must be revised to either retain these mechanism or to substitute mechanisms that are equally as effective.

Does the existing system allow favoritism to exist? Yes, but NSPS will only worsen the system by giving management added discressionary power without compensatory checks and balances.

A revised personnel system must address control and incentives for both workers and management. NSPS addresses only the workforce and is therefore a seriously deficient solution.

NSPS seeks to redress an inability to compete with private industry in hiring the technically best qualified.

It does not address the underlying reasons for a preference for the technically best to work outside the government.

The major reason for this shortfall is while the government bemoans the lack of a technically savvy workforce, it has shown by its actions that it has little ability to give such a workforce any technically meaningful and satisfying work.

NSPS does not demonstrate any ability to provide sufficient monetary compensation for a technically competent person to give up doing work that he/she wants to do and that can currently be done only outside the government, with some exceptions. Without doing the research I would venture to guess that the pockets of internal technical work are mostly being staffed by senior personnel, who NSPS wants to replace by the "youngest and brightest," with no guarantee that this work would remain inside the government.

For many years now, the government, and particularly DOD, has been on course to contract out all technical work, reducing the workforce to a body of managers.

This is not the place to say that this is good or that this is bad. What must be said is that NSPS will do nothing to significantly resolve the problem it claims to resolve. As such, it has no advantage over the existing system.

If the government indeed wants to attract the technically best and brightest then it needs to demonstrate to them that it is willing to give them the type of work that interests them, both in the short term and the long term. Currently, and with some exceptions, the government has only been able to demonstrate its ability to give technically meaningful work to junior employees.

NSPS is based on a dissatisfaction of the existing rating system.

The existing TAPES system, which NSPS seeks to replace, already provides a mechanism for relating achievement and underachievement / misconduct to a rating. The existing awards system provides management with a mechanism for rewarding and penalizing on the basis of ratings. If this is not working then the problem lies with a lack of adequate line-management training and higher-level management support, not with the system itself. The only real advantage that the proposed system provides is a curtailment and discouragement of employees to complain when management uses the rating system for convenience and/or personal preferences and/or bias.

The NSPS will increase the vulnerability of government employees to exploitation. 

What will be next?

NSPS seeks to replace the culture of pay-for-longevity with pay-results-driven-performance.

The existing system already has a mechanism for paying for performance. Page eleven talks about supervisors feeling restricted to change "static" standards made at the beginning of the rating period and this makes it "difficult for managers to adjust performance requirements and expectations in response to the Department’s rapidly changing work environment."

I don't know of anything that would stop supervisors from mid-year changes to standards. If there is such a law then why don't we change that one law instead of replacing the whole system?

NSPS removes any recognition for longevity. What's wrong with giving some recognition for longevity?  
Longevity translates into stability and this translates into workforce effectiveness.

I think that it would be very bad for us all if we had a workforce that felt no advantage to making a long-term career commitment to our country. In my mind, it’s likened to replacement a society that is based on a family system of marriages with that of a system of concubines and prostitutes.

Does it do the American taxpayer any good to have the technically competent segment of its workforce to be here today and gone tomorrow?

Any replacement of the current system must give some recognition to longevity or else it will destabilize a workforce that supports our security and national defense.

Every large workforce has duds, non-government included. Look at the phone companies. Look at the educational systems. Replace the duds, not the system. Don't resolve the problem by just giving managers more power and discretion. Instead, train the managers and support them within the existing system.

NSPS was to be based "on the premise that the workforce will embrace the system if it is credible, clearly connects performance to mission, and rewards high performance."

How can one expect a workforce to embrace a system that relies on credibility if they have management that has demonstrated a capability to make employment decisions that are based on personal preference and bias? Especially if the system lacks any checks and balances to insure that this will not get any worse?

How can one expect a workforce to embrace a system that clearly connects performance to mission if the system does not guarantee them that they will be given any work that will meaningfully contribute to the mission in the first place?

How can one expect a workforce to embrace a system that rewards high performance if they already have a system that is capable of doing this?