Intelligence agencies to launch common performance appraisal system

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.