GovernmentExecutive.com

There seems to be a developing consensus among federal human resources executives that scrapping the decades-old General Schedule pay system is a necessity.

"I fear that if we don't move forward with [a pay-for-performance system] at a brisk pace, the folks we've brought into the federal service and invested heavily in as our future will leave us," said Ron Sanders, chief human capital officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, last week at an event sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service.

And more than half of respondents to a survey given 55 human resources officials across government said they believed pay for performance should be a long-term goal, the Partnership noted in a recent report. But the officials cautioned that such a system will require small, measured steps and that credible performance management systems and appraisals must come first.

The idea of pay as a management tool, rather than an administrative function, is hardly new. In 1978, a major civil service reform law laid the foundation for many of the pay reforms that federal employees see today. And while many government officials have touted performance-based pay as critical to agencies' ability to compete with the private sector, there seems to be a new category of competition emerging -- other government agencies with new pay systems already in place.

"Professionals are leaving for higher-paying agencies, and then they don't want to come back," said Michele Pilipovich, chief human capital officer for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, at last week's event. "Our [pay] system doesn't allow them to come back."

Human resources leaders seem to be heeding the voice of the younger generation of employees, which demands more mobility and less rigidity in pay.

According to David Marin, Republican staff director for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a move away from the General Schedule and to pay for performance is inevitable over time, especially with much evidence that shows a large number of federal employees favor a culture of achievement over a system that primarily rewards seniority.

"That's not a partisan position," he said. "It's basic human nature."

Many veteran federal employees, of course, are content with the General Schedule. Combine that with federal labor unions disputing the lack of employee rights under new pay systems, and lawmakers stripping funding for the implementation of such systems at key agencies, and the process of transformation may take awhile.

Marin said that the current controversies associated with pay for performance at the Defense and Homeland Security departments will have to abate before any system can be fully successful.

"Whatever system is created to implement pay for performance must have employee input and buy-in," Marin said. "Clearly recent wounds will have to heal before we take another shot at this."

Marta Perez, chief human capital officer at Homeland Security, said last week that pay and rewarding employees for good performance is the easier half of the equation. "Pay for performance is not rocket science," Perez said. But she added that the difficult part is ensuring an agency has well-trained managers, proper resources and commitments from top leadership to the concept.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said the government already has tools to consider performance in pay decisions. She argued there really is no reason to scrap the General Schedule, largely because the system already is supposed to be market- and merit-based. Managers are not obligated under the GS system to give automatic raises to employees who have not performed well, she said.

"If they cannot [deny raises] under a structured system, the idea that they would use that authority under something that is unstructured is unacceptable," Kelley said. "This administration has done everything it could to dismantle the GS system and replace it with something else, and there's no evidence that these kinds of systems work."

COMMENTS

• I just wanna know why TSA employees are working in the goverment system they get federal holiday pay and they get everything a goverment employee gets but they don't get paid on a GS scale they get paid on a VS sacale does anybody have any answers????? Erick B. Posted January 28, 2008 1:27 AM
• As an instructor of Benefits and Entitlements to new employees our team has the students take NSPS 101 as a required task. A little over 1100 new employees have taken the training and over 96% say they do not see how this is better, and they see sexual harrassment, the good ol boy system running rampet and out of control. We have recieved emails from at least a dozen employees who have already quit because of NSPS. The GAO published a report stating 49% of all supervisors cannot, will not counsel, give writen job or training plans to new employee's. NSPS is 100% based on how well a supervisor can write and communicate. In a class of 24 per week we wee less than 5 get their initial counseling within 90 days, the reulations says face to face with in 30 days. Curt Myers Posted September 12, 2007 7:31 AM
• NSPS is just another way to get out of honoring service and retirement. I have had over 34 years in CSRS and 20 plus as a supervisor. I now had the people taken away in the last 90 days down to one person and guess what I cannot be a supervisor with one under NSPS. I had been promised more help but with the war we were to do more with less. I now find out that I fall into a lower pay band and my Dept Director has become my boss and also the person I supervised. Now guess what he now has two personnel to supervise where he had none before. This puts him in a higher pay band. Tell me how does this tye of shell game help the future of Civil Sevrvice. Like some of the others I feel that instead of improvement it will put young people out of college next to 20 plus veteran Federal employees and they will be paid the same or more. How long will it take the young people to see thru this and go to a company with long term commitment in their people and as for the older employees they will retire or just get run off. My last comment CSRS has ratings which do the same as they are stating NSPS does. With out adaquate training and oversite NSPS will just be a good old boy network of politicaly correct mannequins. Bill Posted August 2, 2007 11:21 AM