| Comment Number: | OL-10507499 |
| Received: | 3/14/2005 11:41:54 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 believe that NSPS needs to be improved significantly to be more worker friendly (which I don't believe means the government has to cater to every whim of a union organization which may be more politically motivated, or in some cases run by mobsters who seek to undermine the rule of law or bribed by foreign influences). As a Federal worker for the about 20 years, I'm concerned that NSPS not be adopted in its current form. Continuous downsizing has led to managers having to manage a broad number of employees and they really can't adequately judge their work and can easily play favorites. I recommend that the very subjective supervisor ratings be limited in their power (particularly when there are personality conflicts and the supervisor may be more at fault than the employee they are rating). There is a concern about a hostile and dangerous workplace when supervisors have too much control, and when an employee might work better elsewhere. Because of downsizing, many supervisors are spread very thin and may not really know or appreciate all that an employee has accomplished. I recommend doing away with the political correctness which results in managers getting brownie points for promoting certain classes of people at the expense of others. One big concern, is that if you are not that popular with the "in-crowd" you could easily get clobbered no matter how hard you have worked or whether they assigned you the mundane jobs for which they know will offer no real reward. In some cases, such a system pits fellow workers against each other and may prevent the flow of important information, which might not be shared for fear it might take away points (the greedy for money syndrome). I believe the way to reward excellent work is to dole out on the spot awards which must be supported by a variety of different people (not just the supervisor). I recommend going back to the regular pay steps to protect the workers from supervisors that are too easy or too hard. I recommend early warnings, and not permitting crazy surprises at the end of the year; mitigation of problems early can help an underperforming employee to better perform (and sometimes having more freedom to move on is beneficial when it is not fully clear that the supervisor is being fully fair). Certain worker roles are necessary though they don't bring in the big bucks, we shouldn't assume that the average engineer is a wonderful salesman to bring in big program dollars. There is a on-going complaint among the workers, that supervisors want the workers, instead of the supervisors, to do practically all the sales and marketing and to bring in the big bucks (via programs). But even hard workers with great experience can loss their budgets - and Congress is the controlling factor and not the dedicated employee. Some people by default have to remain in relatively unfunded areas, even though once fully paid, and they are asked by program managers to still perform "level-of-effort" LOE tasking (and are, sadly, unable to forecast on a yearly basis). Sadly, there is the sacrifice for the immediate at the expense of long term support and planning and maintaining essential lessons learned. It seems that DOD has been in a constant state of confusion for the last 15 years, or so, ever since the "downsizing/rightsizing" began. The continuous changes have been costly, led to more confusion regarding who is responsible for what area of work, and the loss of knowledgeable staff has made us weak/uniformed buyers who are easily preyed upon by certain unscrupulous contractors who may also be starving for cash or who are just downright greedy. I understand the need to overcome all the bureaucracy and appeasement of every little Union known to affect DOD, but I'm concerned that the workers desires and wishes are getting ignored in the current proposed plan. Why can't all the experimentation and development of the "perfect" personnel performance system be performed upon other non-DoD agencies that have the $ (and in some cases too much pork)? When people clearly see the value of their role (however small) and are encouraged by supervisors and fellow workers and sense a fairness for all within the workplace - I believe that is the best way to improve performance and there is a risk of over managing - which is itself overly cumbersome and further erodes efficiency.