| Comment Number: | OL-10504301 |
| Received: | 3/9/2005 7:29:52 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:
As a Federal employee actively working in the Employee Relations arena, I'm personally disgusted by the representation that Federal employees are fat and lazy and get longevity pay just for showing up and doing their job. When pressed on the issue, there is always someone willing to say to the press that they can not remove a non-performing employee, or, the process is just so cumbersome. What no one is willing to bring out to the public is that there is a process to remove employees from the Federal government, and the process works, but, the problem is with the managers that won't use the process. How many times have I heard, "It just takes so long...", "It's not worth it..." To these people I say, you were given a job, title and pay to be a Supervisor. Supervising means overseeing the work you're responsible for and motivating your employees to do the work, reward employees and for those that won't (or can't) work, take action. The key word being "action". Stop whining, call your E.R. Specialist and do something. No offense, but these are the same people that bring me file folders worth of years of 'mistakes' by an employee and tell me to "fix it" overnight. It is not a discourse in the need for Federal reforms, it is a discourse in holding Supervisors responsible for their jobs. As for Pay for Performance, Do I think it will work? No. Plain and simple. If anyone remembers, we've tried this before, something about General Managers (GM) and initiating pay for performance. The only problem there was that Agencies then put out ceilings for their GM people, that only a small percentage of employees could be Outstanding, only a certain percentage could be Exceptional and so forth. This so the "pot" that was divided up could be bigger for those in the pool. Outstanding ratings were assigned based on who got what last year. You got an outstanding one year, so it's someone else's turn the next year, unless of course you were buddies with the manager in which case you received an Outstanding and all that came with it, even if you were a terrible manager. (Yes, we've all seen it.). So, we no longer have GM's, we now are faced with years of Pay for Performance. Dealing with the good old boy, good old gal networks, of providing huge bonuses and pay increases for the friends network and the ones who do come to work and actually work will be told they are just Satisfactory. Or, am I out in left field and everyone truly believes that this new and greater system will be the saving grace of the Federal employment system?