| Comment Number: | OL-10507752 |
| Received: | 3/14/2005 2:44:03 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:
While I am an advocate of change I must say I find cause for grave concern that the proposed program will only add to the problems and not resolve anything. The biggest fault I have with the present personnel system is that managers are poorly or not at all trained in their responsibilities to the employees working under them and are not held accountable for addressing their personnel management responsibilities. What I see happening under the proposed system is a great deal of power being given to a small number of people with their decision making process being totally subjective. Basically if the boss likes you then you'll get the perks and if not then, you're just out of luck. The other thing that bothers me is that while our hiring practices are cumbersome they do have some quality controls and at least under OPMs current classification system a great deal of credit is given for knowledge and experience. More and more often I seen us hiring people because they have degrees and not because they have any skills. Instead of promoting from within we keep our workers with their shoulders to the wheel and hire bright young faces straight out of college to put in charge. They have no concept of what it actually takes to get the job done and usually need a keeper just to keep them from hurting themselves and eveyone else besides. Management positions should demand specific training and a specific apprenticeship before allowing them to manage people. And, due credit needs to be given to experience. I'm all for trimming the deadwood but the trimming should be done by those with the knowledge and experience to do it properly and who know the mechanics of what it really takes to get the job done. We've been pushing the team concept for a long time now and sometimes it's the smallest cog in the wheel that holds the whole thing together. I'm unclear on why you're proposing pay banding. Is it to punish poor performers or, just to save money by eliminating automatic step increases? Because, by leaving it in the hands of an individual you're opening the door for vast corruption and abuse. It's not the kind of thing that should be left to one individual with their individual prejudices and subjective judgements. The end result will be gross discrepancies in pay between regions and not based on performance, responsibilities or functions. I'm sure it will also negatively affect recruitment since our pay scales are still significantly below those of private industry; with no guarantee of any increase, many will be hesitant to apply for government jobs. Not a good plan. I'm very much afraid this new program will have serious, negative results for older workers. It reads very much like that's what it's designed to do.