| Comment Number: | EM-017572 |
| Received: | 3/11/2005 1:23:26 PM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
March 11, 2005 DoD NSPS Comments , DoD NSPS Comments: I would like to share with you my thoughts and recommendations regarding the proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS). I have worked for the Department of Defense for over twenty years, and am very concerned about the impact NSPS will have on the rights and morale of the DoD workforce. I have submitted the following analysis as my formal commentary at the NSPS website: SECTION: "The Case for Action", paragraph 4 "At best, the current...": A lot of emotional, unsubstantiated qualifiers are used in this justification paragraph, like "20th century", "outdated", "inflexible", etc., when describing the current personnel system. These are assertions unsupported by any reference to real-world missions that failed due to the current system's alleged shortcomings. The statement "high performers and low performers are paid alike" is just false. The GS system allows high performers to be promoted over low performers and to receive Quality Step Increases (QSI's) and monetary awards. In the next paragraph, "civilians are being asked to assume new ... responsibilities, and take more risks,... than ever before." Should add: "because of cutbacks in our military troops since 1991, civilians are being asked to do what was once the exclusive realm of soldiers." This is a DoD policy failure which should be corrected in its own right, and not be a rationale for a new personnel system. This ties in with: SECTION: "Guiding Principles and Key Performance Parameters", KPPs: "Workforce can be easily sized, shaped, and deployed..." DoD policy failure and military downsizing has created this unnecessary stressor on the civilian workforce to be sized, shaped, and deployed at a moment's notice (just like soldiers). Now the "backdoor draft" will be extended all the way down to the civilian workforce because DoD failed to predict the need for a large enough Army to police the world. "...managers will have the flexibility to manage to budget." This has many implications for bypassing rules that have protected employees from capricious management decisions in the past. Now every management decision can be "justified" by monetary concerns (like laying off higher-paid older workers in favor of lower-paid younger workers during a RIF). SECTION: "Continuing Collaboration", Para. 2: "The NSPS law also provides that ... [employee representatives be involved] in the further planning, development, and/or adjustment of the system." Feedback from AFGE at the national level indicates that this is NOT happening; instead, the Secretary and OPM are merely informing the representatives of their decisions. Apparently the NSPS is not being developed with employee input, contrary to Congress' intent. SECTION: "Pay and Pay Administration - Subpart C": There are practically no details specified for the implementation of pay banding, the setting of base and performance pay, the latitude management has in allocating monies between base and performance pay, etc., so that it is almost meaningless to comment on this section. How can I provide meaningful feedback minus the implementation details? Apparently the NSPS is far from ready to be implemented. SECTION: "Performance Management - Subpart D", "Performance and Behavior Accountability", para. 1: "DoD has determined that conduct and behavior affecting performance outcomes (actions, attitude, manner of completion, and/or conduct or professional demeanor) should be tracked and measured." In other words, supervisors will track and measure employees' personality traits and subjectively rate employees' personalities by some undefined measure that will vary from manager to manager; and will directly impact an employee's performance rating. It should be obvious to the most casual observer that this is a prescription for cronyism in the workplace, and gives managers a blank check for evaluating employees based on their subjective feelings about the employees. Para. 5: "By the same token, supervisors and managers will be held accountable for clearly and effectively communicating expectations and providing timely feedback regarding behavior and performance." HOW? Accountable, to WHOM? There are no details whatsoever in the NSPS draft that even hints at how managers will be held accountable. Will managers be rated by their employees on how well THEY are doing at managing? Employee evaluations of immediate supervisors would be a great feedback tool for senior managers over first-line supervisors. The lack of details here spells doom for the NSPS as a fair and equitable personnel system. SECTION: "Workplace Shaping - Subpart F", para. 2: Under the new RIF regulations, the minimum competitive area can be granularized down to "Geographical location(s), line(s) of business, product line(s), organizational unit(s), funding line(s)", or some combination of these. Later in the same paragraph it states, "However, the proposed regulations prohibit the use of competitive areas to target an individual for RIF based on nonmerit factors." How could that stipulation ever be enforced? No details are given. (The implication is that individuals CAN be targeted for RIF when based on MERIT factors.) Nontheless, the power to define competitive areas so narrowly, effectively gives management the ability to target individuals regardless of merit or other retention list factors -- and the justification will always be correct, since defining competitive areas is management's right. Para. 3 - 5, RIF retention lists and competitive groups: By prioritizing performance ratings ahead of tenure in generating RIF retention lists, tremendous power is placed in the hands of supervisors over employees. Again, it should be obvious to the most casual onlooker that the more power you put in the hands of supervisors, the more corrupt and unjust and unfair will be the resulting relationships with employees. Justifying this concentration of power in the name of mission efficiency is identical to the justification dictators use when fighting off democratic pressures on their regimes. With fewer checks and balances on a supervisor's power over his/her employees, the resulting corruption of the integrity of the personnel system will more than offset and detract from any speculated increase in mission performance and flexibility. A stressed and fearful workforce cannot possibly be a positive asset for DoD. A certain degree of job security -- and protection from capricious acts by supervisors -- is required in order for workers to feel free to concetrate all their energies on mission accomplishment. Also, who will dare "blow the whistle" when management acts illegally or counter to mission? Again, this should be obvious to all concerned. SUMMARY: The proposed NSPS is "justified" by unsubstantiated assertions, thus the rationale for a new personnel system simply does not exist. (What indeed is the return-on-investment?) NSPS is proposed as an implicit solution to the DoD's disastrous policy of downsizing the military, effectively extending the "backdoor draft" to civilian employees. The tremendous concentration of management's power via "management by budget", the use of performance over tenure for pay and RIF retention, the subjectivity of performance criteria, the lack of implementation details, and the complete lack of a management accountability mechanism spell doom for the NSPS as a fair, equitable, merit-based system -- and therefore as a better tool for supporting mission accomplishment. RECOMMENDATION: Have the DoD workforce VOTE for or against the proposed NSPS. If a super-supermajority -- say 70% -- vote against it, then scrap the entire proposal. At the very least, take a straw poll of the workforce to see what the acceptance level is for the NSPS. My recommendation would be to reject the entire proposal out-of-hand -- it is too counterproductive to achieve a high-performance, high-morale workforce for mission accomplishment. FINAL OBSERVATION: In order to fight terrorism by "spreading freedom" throughout the world, Americans have had to give up some freedoms in the form of the U.S. Patriot Act. Similarly, in order to ensure our national security, DoD civilians are being asked to give up some of their security -- both physically and financially -- in the form of NSPS: physically, when we are asked to deploy involuntarily to hostile regions as civilians; financially, when we are paid and retained on the whim of management, rather than through codified impartial procedures. Please do what you can to stop implementation of NSPS in its present form. Thank you! Sincerely,