| Comment Number: | OL-10500705 |
| Received: | 2/18/2005 3:46:50 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:
In regards to Performance Management: The primary concern with NSPS’s vision of performance management is how to ensure that all supervisors are held accountable for not only communicating performance expectations, conceptually, but also for clearly demonstrating the ways these expectations can be reached by the average employee. Coaching, training, and consistent feedback must be provided throughout the rating period and periodic written performance reviews must be given as well. Assessing how well each employee meets those expectations must be accomplished through measurable criteria. Otherwise, subjectivity can become confused with popularity; the most well liked become the highest rewarded. Personality and bonding with the supervisor become the most important factor in a race for the highest rewards. Where does that leave performance? A few steps behind gaining the favor of the one who controls that most important facet of quality living; one’s pay! With the supervisor assuming more power over each employee’s fate the burden rests upon Management to effectively assess each supervisor’s ability to function in a capacity which leads employees by example and one, in which, guides them towards their potential with relevant tools and meaningful dialogue. The standard bar, both in terms of behavior and performance, must be higher for supervisors and Management must have the mechanisms in place to hold them each accountable not only for operational effectiveness but also for EACH employee’s performance or lack thereof. There must be safeguards instilled which enable employees to initiate, through an independent party, an internal review of the supervisor, the operation, or the processes which negatively impact upon his ability to perform in a proficient manner. Ability and capability are not the same! Possessing the capability to successfully perform within a particular job description does not necessarily translate to being able to perform that particular job in a manner which meets or exceeds set expectations. One is hired based upon capability, educational credentials, and expertise, but one’s rating will be based upon the ability to satisfy and appease the supervisor’s needs, wants, and desires. There is a far greater danger of abusive power-wielding supervisors crushing employees deemed sub-standard and emotionally crippled rather than such employees using the system to impinge upon Management’s ability to effectively discipline them. Many of the changes under NSPS are geared towards slashing the safeguards currently in place; those which protect our pay, our progress, and our performance. Focusing on the employees becomes a futile, fruitless effort if the supervisory chain is left unburdened by accountability and ethical controls.