| Comment Number: | OL-10502475 |
| Received: | 3/2/2005 9:38:48 AM |
| 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:
My comments are based upon the information that I have been provided. First with the reference to performance appraisals. No system will ever be perfect. However, the current system allows us to view the employee's indicators for increased responsiblity. We could add additional standards to the current system thus creating an equitable solution for managment and employee. With the system that has been briefed it will allow for favoritism and is subjective. Without the current system of checks and balances the employer not the employee's rights are protected. We have always prided ourselves in this country of giving a fair and equitable hearing concerning matters of employment, this new system basically does not allow that option. With regards to pay banding the new system allows pools of money, it doesn't state who controls those pools. If a Wing Commander is given X amount of dollars and then passes it out to the groups who in turn give to the squadrons by the time it gets to the flight chiefs there may not be any dollars to manage. Also if the supervisor has employee's who are all outstanding but is so far removed from the money pool the only way to reward those employee's is to take money from another employee salary. This becomes an extremely difficult situation when you review how well a group of employee's do their jobs. In the Family Support Center you typically have self motivated individuals who take great pride in taking care of their clients; under pay banding the Director may not be able to reward those employee's for their outstanding efforts because of the distance away from the money pool. Also, an individual could consistently perform in an oustanding manner and reach the top of the pay band in a relatively short period of time, when this happens the motivation to perform falls short since the individual can not go any higher. A good case in point is the pay banding that is accomplished by the Army Air Force Exchange Service. With regards to deployments, the system has stated civilians can be deployed my question is who provides the medical care. Some of our personnel do not carry medical insurance. Also, do we issue weapons to the civilians deployed in a hazardous duty arena? We keep cutting and outsourceing area's that it continues to cost us more dollars. Case in point we decided that lawn mowing on Air Force Bases would be cheaper if we contracted it out instead of having lawn mowers in the organizations. We not only spend more funds doing this service but we also still expect our employee's to clean up the areas where the contractors did not accomplish their mission in a timely manner. We talk about taking pride and ownership in our mission however, we continue to take tools away from the employee's, i.e., Self Help Stores and painting our offices. Personnally the NSPS has a lot of flaws and has been poorly briefed. My first briefing was in Leesburg VA at a World Wide Director's Conf and the briefer was a Ms. Paige Hinkle a very smart and intelligent lady. Problem with the briefing was when ask questions the response was "we don't know yet". There are too many we don't know yet answers in this equation. If you want to change the system then test it in small doses or even on the Homeland Security area since it is relatively new. Instead we take the approach of throwing the baby out with the bath water.