| Comment Number: | OL-10512222 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 11:56:54 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:
Pay and Pay Administration - Subpart C: Having worked for DOD for 20 years, I can tell you one of the biggest issues with Performance-Based Pay will be getting program managers, project leads and supervisors to set realistic, definitive and achievable standards for individual employee success. Individuals in leadership positions often do not want to go through the effort to set clear strategy and priorities for a project. Without this direction, an employee can not set clear goals and work effectively like the NSPS is supposed to achieve. NSPS needs to have very specific directions for personnel in leadership roles for setting individual employee standards for a rating period. If the work effort upon which the standards are based changes, then the lead must rewrite the performance standards with the employee. Another problem I’ve observed is that certain employees are given assignments that have more visibility while other employees are given assignments that are equally valuable but not as visible. Management often rewards employees in more visible assignments while giving mediocre ratings to the employee on the less visible assignments. This is kind of like rewarding the quarterback for completing passes and running for yards without rewarding the line without whose blocking the quarterback could not have achieved his feats. In short, this kind of behavior discourages teamwork and the building of effective teams. Every employee should be judged against a clear, objective, individual standard of performance. The employee in the high-visibility position may do many great things, but only meet half their standard of performance. The person working in the trenches may work very hard and exceed their standard of performance. In this case, the high-visibility employee should be given a low rating while the low-visibility employee should be given and outstanding rating.