GovernmentExecutive.com

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has launched a new directive that will establish a common performance management system across the 16 intelligence agencies, the office's top personnel official said Tuesday.

Intelligence agencies have until Oct. 1, 2008, to implement the system, which will rate all civilian employees at the General Schedule Grade 15 and below on a certain set of criteria, said Ronald Sanders, chief human capital officer for ODNI. The ratings will be used first in the fiscal 2009 appraisal cycle.

The common elements will assess nonsupervisory employees on their collaboration, critical thinking, communication skills, technical expertise, integrity and accountability. The directive also establishes specific objectives for supervisors and managers to gauge their leadership and management competencies.

"It takes courage to speak truth to power," Sanders said. "We can't just say, 'Do it.' We have to make sure our human capital systems are linked and reinforce those kinds of values and behaviors."

Under the new system, employees will receive midyear and annual performance reviews and ratings based on a five-tiered scale. Dissatisfied workers may first request an informal resolution with management officials. If those do not resolve the issue, then employees may file a formal request in accordance with department grievance policies, according to the directive.

Sanders said implementation is "foundational," because it is the first step to launching a communitywide pay-for-performance system. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is a model for this system, he said.

"We're in the final stages now of completing our design," Sanders said. "We're going to be ready to begin rolling [pay for performance] out and communicating that to our workforce early in 2008."

Sanders added that the performance management plan also is essential to realizing the new civilian joint-duty program, which will require all employees to complete at least one assignment outside their home agency to be eligible for promotion to the senior ranks.

"Think about how difficult our civilian joint-duty program would be if we didn't have some commonalities in performance management," Sanders said. "Some uniform set of procedures is essential to that."

Still, Sanders stressed that the program does not establish a common appraisal system for all intelligence employees, but rather provides a foundation of objectives that can be tailored to fit an agency's own workforce needs. "It's not unlike what OPM does for the entire federal government," he said. "This is, in effect, a mini version of that."

The new program also entails robust training for managers and employees, which agencies can augment, Sanders said. The CIA, for example, has posters up in its hallways that display the common elements of performance management, he said.

Another program for senior executives will be implemented in the coming weeks, with the same performance objectives in mind.

Most important, however, will be ensuring that the ODNI has effective measures in place for the performance management system to be successful, Sanders said. The most recent employee climate survey indicated that the community was not doing enough to link pay to performance or to recognize high performers, and Sanders said, he believes such responses point to potential success in implementing performance management.

Another employee survey that measures how easy it is to share information and collaborate with other parts of the intelligence community will be available in early 2008.

COMMENTS

• To CAM and All: CAM stated "No offense to supervisors-who has time to truly sit down and work with each employee to develop goals, tie them to the annual plan and then follow-up on a regular basis !! " CAM, there are plenty of managers (especially amongst the federal contractors)that take the time to sit down and work out goals, tie them to the strategic plan, and follow up. In fact, many large Federal contractors (such as Lockhead Martin, BAE Systems, etc) are using the Capability Maturity Models, Project Maturity Models, and Malcom Baldridge initiatives in order to continously improve their processes and tie what people do to the organizational mission and strategic plan. Now, if they can do - the Federal government should, too. There is really no excuse. I say this...if Federal employees don't wake up to achieving real RESULTS - then expect not only to lose out on automatic raises but to lose one's job to outsourcing. Former Intel Employee Posted December 19, 2007 2:25 PM
• My agency has been on pay for performance for a few years now and its wonderful. The previous comments denouncing it are probably because those agencies/orgs are failing to carry it out properly. You can make a great system all day, but if you don't hold your managers accountable to actually implement it, then you will fail. My agency is implementing it pretty well. Could we do better - yes. But I know of a few well-known slackers (those who blatantly refuse to work and sometimes just sleep at their desk - yes, they exist in all government agencies) who did not get a raise at all. Glorious!! Under the old system they would have gotten an automatic step increase for just showing up, while the guy next to them who works hard would have gotten the same step increase. Talk about bad for morale!! To me, as a previous poster stated, that's immoral. Pay for performance is the only way to go. To me, those who don't want to get paid commensurate with their performance would seem to be the ones who know they don't perform well. They can make out better by slacking and getting the same step increase as the folks who work hard. How sad.... ken_p Posted December 18, 2007 5:06 PM
• All I can say about this system is that it has a negative effect on morale. I was part of one of the very first DoD agencies to undergo spiral 1.1 of the NSPS, we have just recently completed our first annual appraisal with our payout due January 2008. The catch is that there is going to be a 60/40 payout, 60 percent bonus and a 40 percent annual increase. I can’t see how this would benefit anyone but the government. The bonus gets taxed to the point that you might get a full tank of gas out of the deal and the remainder only worth about four hundred dollars. Our midterm payout was broken down by shares like stock making each persons share worth just over a thousand dollars. The poor performers made just as much money as the rest of the division, they were rounded up on there appraisal and the better performers were rounded down so everyone got a three for there score so it did not address the pay for performance issue. EverReadyUSMC Posted December 17, 2007 10:10 PM