| Comment Number: | OL-10511873 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 5:59:54 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:
I am a senior research physicist at the Air Force Research Laboratory. My current personnel system is the Laboratory Demonstration (LAB DEMO) project. As such, I will not be covered by the NSPS for some time. However, as an Air Force LAB DEMO employee, I have some qualms about a personnel system that relies on an unaccountable and generally untrained management to determine "pay for performance." Overall, I have come out well under LAB DEMO, but I could just as easily have done poorly. It is my observation that most of the managers and supervisors I have worked with in 25 years of Air Force service are generally people who have not been trained or educated as managers or supervisors. We take competent scientists and engineers (S and Es) and, since there is not a viable promotion path open to them as S and Es, these S and Es must go to management to be promoted. However, the skill sets that make good S and Es are very different from the skill sets needed by good managers or supervisors. I have worked with many good people, but I cannot say I have worked with many good managers or supervisors in my Federal service. I would request two things to be implemented under the new NSPS: 1) I would request managers and supervisors receive adequate and continuous training to ensure they are good managers and supervisors. The training and education I have seen for managers and supervisors is spotty, at best, and non-existent (or OJT), at worst. Such training and education for managers and supervisors tends to be "drink from the firehose" facts and figures, but does little to create the skill sets needed by managers and supervisors. 2) I would require some of managers and supervisors "pay for performance" be affected by ratings of those they supervise; not just ratings from their supervisors. We should reward management and supervision skills, especially since these skills are a linch pin for success of the NSPS. If we must have supervisors and managers, we should develop them (as we develop acquisition personnel under the Acquisition Personnel Development Program, APDP). To promote someone to management or supervision simply because this is the only promotion option does a disservice to the person promoted and to the Federal Government.