| Comment Number: | OL-10511282 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 2:52:14 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:
The Department of Defense has not shown the necessity for this drastic change in the civilian personnel system. Procedures are already in place to terminate unproductive employees and provide bonuses for those who perform well. My experience from 28 years in uniform and two in civil service is that too often managers do not do well in counseling. Imagine transferring that to pay as well. The uniformed service knows better than to institute this pay system within its ranks. See what happens to morale when a company commander can decide how much each of his lieutenants will receive in pay for the next year. Or better yet, just look at recent examples when political appointees determine SES pay. Favorites are played. It is beyond anything close to performance. I do not trust most managers to tie pay to performance. I am afraid that they will use other factors such as my retired pay and short me in favor of a single mom. Better yet, how about having to work 60 hour weeks for the same 40-hour pay in order to qualify for higher performance. Instead of teamwork, we will have incentive to be a star player at the expense of our coworkers. This is the worst thing someone could do to improve productivity. When I was on active duty serving as a lieutenant colonel in a MACOM, my boss held back the bonus money I could use that year to reward my civilian employees. It just so happened that he got a substantial bonus from the money saved from his boss. The award was much higher than anything I could provide my employees. In this system, each layer will skim off enough that those at the bottom will end up hoping to just get the cost of living index for the year. Even that is a bonus gift from ones supervisor. It will have nothing to do with performance. If this is really a better system, do it for the uniformed service as well. Common sense will prevail. Don’t break the civil service. In fact, look at reducing the pay for those pushing this system. Tie their pay to performance. NSPS will damage productivity and unit cohesion. Until you have checks in place to protect employees from “human nature,” don’t destroy the civil service system with NSPS!