| Comment Number: | OL-10501918 |
| Received: | 2/28/2005 1:25:26 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:
Gentlemen; After reviewing the overall document I believe the OPM and DOD are on the right track for a long overdue overhaul of the GS personnel system currently embedded within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Let me first tell you my background. I have been a civilian professional employee of the USACE for 11 years in the engineering field. The previous 20 years I worked in the private sector for a number of different companies, large and small, so I feel qualified to make comparisons between the Corps and the private sector. Rather than comment on specific sections of the proposal, I would prefer to comment on the overall plan. The most daunting task for change in the Corps is, simply put, MANAGEMENT. The current management structure is totally unqualified to undertake and implement a major revision of the system they themselves are responsible for creating. We must remember that the people here at the Corps who are in supervisory positions have the most to loose if the current system is altered. As it stands now, no supervisor, beginning from the bottom up, has the least bit of accountability to the level above. Today's management owes their allegiance to an antiquated, semi-secretive, and closed fraternity born in the fifties and continuing to this day. For the most part, the Corps has been their only employment since college; they neither required a resume for hiring or competed for their first position. These facts are clear to anyone from the private sector observing the Corps on a daily basis. Basically, due to their lack of business savvy and management training, they simply do not have the tools to effect the changes proposed. The new plan proposes TRAINING, and more TRAINING for supervisors, but I would suggest the key element is MOTIVATION. Who will inspire and MOTIVATE the supervisor and the supervisor's supervisor? It is hard for me to visualize this system having any positive results in the next five years, and without serious MOTIVATION from current supervisors, it probably will never happen.