Comment Number: OL-10507302
Received: 3/14/2005 10:05:20 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:

I am a government employee in the Pentagon. I have reviewed the document provided on the NSPS. This is the first time I have been asked to participate and I don't know anyone else who has had anything to do with the development of this initiative. So, where were the actual workers when this was being developed? That being said, I am not opposed to the new system, but then, I am at the end of my career. I am however concerned about the breadth and depth of actual personnel management, career management and supervision that will be required at least for the first several years as these business practice changes are implemented. We don't know how to do that and neither do our supervisors. Anyone under Civil Service with time to manage their career doesn't have enough actual work to do. Our supervisors are subject matter experts and are action officers just as we are. In order to implement NSPS properly, current supervisory personnel are going to need a great deal of training and their jobs are going to have to be restructured to facilitate personnel management, counselling, performance goal setting and management, and all of the other elements of this program. I think that the current system also is a performance based system but there is not a lot of emphasis put on it until it is rating time. In almost 22 years of Federal service, I have never had a mid-year counselling session. Only once has an SES taken the time to talk with me and with my co-workers at rating time, and that was last year. Basically we toddle along and find out if we have been bad or good when we get rated in June. I think a positive thing about the NSPS is that it appears that there will be more counselling and mentoring then in the current system. But again, supervisory personnel have to receive the necessary training to do that well and they have to be relieved of some of their action officer responsibilities so that they have the time to actually supervise. If I were a younger or mid-career employee I would be concerned about ass-kissers and other toadys sucking up to management for a bigger share of the pie. And maybe that is the scariest part of NSPS--putting people in direct competition with each other for salary, bonuses, pie-share. Many if not most civil servants like the non-competitive aspect of government service. This is a bit too commercial for my taste. I don't want to compete, I just want to do my job and I have been doing it extremely well since I was a GS-3 temporary clerk typist. As a GS 14, with only 2-3 years left, I don't want to start scrounging and fighting for my share of the money pie. I guess what I would like to see is more about how existing, end-of-career folks are going to be treated, and perhaps the best thing to do would be to offer all of us early outs. Anyway, the new system has some promise and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.