In pay freeze era, focus could shift to measuring performance
The next stage in the wage wars might involve a renewed effort to strengthen the link between pay and job performance.
Federal employees for months have been at the center of an intense debate over the meaning of fair pay. While think tanks and government observers have presented data suggesting government workers are overpaid, compared with their private sector counterparts, union leaders and agency officials maintain feds actually earn less. The controversy, in part, brought the issue of freezing federal salaries to the national stage, and raises questions of whether pay affects recruiting, retention and morale.
Despite calls for change, the Obama administration seems to have stalled on questions of pay reform.
Early in his tenure, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry pledged to reform the federal pay system to include a fair and credible performance appraisal and accountability framework; training that would prepare employees for promotion and support them throughout their careers; and genuine parity between federal and private sector salaries for comparable occupations. A governmentwide pay-for-performance system would be challenging to design and implement, but it could reward top talent with raises beyond standard salary adjustments, he said.
But recent pay-for-performance failures have left agencies wary of testing the waters. The Defense Department is in the midst of shifting employees out of the National Security Personnel System, the controversial pay program repealed under the fiscal 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, and back to the General Schedule. Three-quarters of the NSPS population has made the transition, and most of the remaining 53,000 employees will be placed in alternative pay systems this spring, with completion scheduled for Jan. 1, 2012. Now Defense is exploring the next steps for future pay systems.
Observers say plenty of work remains before government can attempt to overhaul its entire salary structure. In the January 2011 issue of Government Executive, Emily Long looks at where pay for performance is headed from here.