Thread: NSPS Information and Payscales

We went through the last spiral of change. The management core (GS-11 and up) have switched over. They got great pay increases just transferring into it. However, the union stopped the rest of the transition because it was "unfair" to the bargaining employees. The pay for performance issue caused heart burn with a lot of people. Seems they wanted to stick to the "pay-for-showing-up" instead. I have been military, private sector, and now government, crazy but it's true. Anyway, I would love to get pay increases based on my performance, even if I top out at the new pay grade, it is better to get it up front than wait twenty years to see it at all.

Originally Posted by Fivetears

Anyone looking at changing government jobs and trying to interpret the new YA-XXXX, YN-XXXX etc employment classifications may be interested in this PDF flyer.
http://www.schriever.af.mil/shared/m...060913-020.pdf

Isn't this part of "Same-o, Same-O".?
You know, "the more things change the more they stay the same."
from what I've seen, "Its F--k up, Move up!"!
(When ever I want to/need to say F--k!! I try to remember to say,
"What a life without a wife and 27 kids!" instead!"
(Opps, Hope I didn't upset anyone!) Sorry if I did!

Originally Posted by camper65

Isn't this part of "Same-o, Same-O".?
You know, "the more things change the more they stay the same."
from what I've seen, "Its F--k up, Move up!"!
(When ever I want to/need to say F--k!! I try to remember to say,
"What a life without a wife and 27 kids!" instead!"

Well, I have seen this change, and no, it isn't screw up move up. Basically, if a supervisor rates all his subs as equals in the 5 area then he in essence lowers their increase. So, to be fair to their "elite" performers, they do have to pick out a few to put up against the board. This board also reviews the packages and determines if there is inflation in the ratings. The goal setting-achieving is measurable. If someone is required to get certified and doesn't, they can't get a 5 rating. Civper is all over this for board reviews.

Originally Posted by Frixxxx

Well, I have seen this change, and no, it isn't screw up move up. Basically, if a supervisor rates all his subs as equals in the 5 area then he in essence lowers their increase. So, to be fair to their "elite" performers, they do have to pick out a few to put up against the board. This board also reviews the packages and determines if there is inflation in the ratings. The goal setting-achieving is measurable. If someone is required to get certified and doesn't, they can't get a 5 rating. Civper is all over this for board reviews.

That makes sence, except, thereis favoritizm in the sys. , call it human nature if you will. Ideally, it should work, except for human nature. (my thoughts,)

From goexec.com:


Pentagon changes policy for NSPS pay raises in 2008
By Brittany R. Ballenstedt bballenstedt@govexec.com
September 14, 2007

The 110,000 employees working under the first wave of the Defense Department's new personnel system will not receive the across-the-board pay increase they expected next year.

This week, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England made managers aware of a new policy that will change the way some department employees will receive the 2008 governmentwide pay and cost-of-living increase, which is expected to be 3.5 percent.

According to NSPS spokeswoman Joyce Frank, the 110,000 employees working under the National Security Personnel System's Spiral 1 conversion will receive half of the 2008 pay increase as an adjustment to their base salary, provided they earn an acceptable performance rating.

The other half of the pay increase will be added to performance pay pools and distributed based on performance, Frank said. Increases in local market supplements will be the same as the governmentwide increases for locality pay.

"The department leadership has decided to take the next step toward a more robust pay-for-performance system," Frank said. "These decisions reinforce the department's commitment to the NSPS pay-for-performance system, which rewards and compensates employees based on performance."

The 90,000 employees in the system's next wave of conversion -- Spiral 2 -- will get the 2008 governmentwide pay increase, since they will not have received an NSPS performance evaluation, Frank said.

According to one Spiral 1.1 employee, who spoke under condition of anonymity, the new policy could mean that many employees could receive a raise lower than those on the General Schedule. "What this in effect will mean is employees rated 'valued employee,' and assigned a three rating, will get something less than the 1.5 percent raise that went into the pay pool," the employee said, "since every four- and five-rated person will get more shares, and the amount of money in the pool is fixed."

But according to Frank, that is not necessarily true. "There are several factors," she said. "The amount of increase for an employee is determined by the value of a share."

Another change is expected in 2009, when the full governmentwide increase will be allocated to the performance pay pools and distributed based on performance, Frank said.

This year, all Spiral 1.1 employees with an acceptable performance rating received the full across-the-board pay increase of 2.2 percent. Employees with acceptable ratings also were awarded shares based on the average of their performance marks in several categories.

To calculate payouts under the new system, the department multiplies employees' base salaries by their ratings and adds the results to arrive at a "Total Salary Share Product." The pay pool is divided by the Total Salary Share Product to calculate the value of a single share. Shares are thus worth different amounts depending on how the rest of the employees in a pay pool performed.

The department plans to add an additional 90,000 nonbargaining unit employees to the personnel system in fiscal 2008. Eventually, the system is slated to encompass 700,000 civilian employees.

From Govexec.com:

Arbitrator rules against SEC pay for performance system

By Alyssa Rosenberg arosenberg@govexec.com September 7, 2007
A mediator ruled on Thursday that the pay-for-performance system adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2003 is illegal because it resulted in discrimination against African-Americans and employees who are 40 and older.

"This decision should serve as yet another warning against rushing to implement pay-for-performance systems in the federal workplace," National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley said. "The SEC system failed because it lacks fairness, credibility and transparency, which are critical elements in any merit-based pay system."

"We are reviewing the decision and considering appropriate action," SEC spokesman John Heine said. He declined to comment on what those actions might be. Both SEC and NTEU have 60 days to propose remedies to the arbitrator from the National Arbitration Center.

NTEU has filed separate grievances against the agency on behalf of the 2,200 SEC employees the union represents for every year the system has been in place. It remains to be seen whether those grievances will be addressed separately.

SEC implemented the pay-for-performance system after the Federal Service Impasses Panel found in a November 2002 ruling that the agency's proposal "reflects a pay structure that was well-researched, based on best practices from other agencies, meets the agency's needs, and is comparable to those of other financial regulatory agencies." That ruling was in response to an impasse in negotiations over 2002 pay increases for SEC employees.

The system split SEC employees into 15 pay levels with up to 31 steps in each level. Outstanding employees could receive raises of up to three steps within a level each year, or about 4.5 percent of their salaries.
But, NTEU argued, the agency based the raises on vague performance requirements that were not specific to the jobs the union's members performed.

"The agency success factors were clearly not 'tailored' for each office and division in the agency," NTEU's brief for the case stated. "The failure to use tailored factors was deeply prejudicial to employees, who had little way to know what their supervisors or the compensation committee were looking for in making merit award decisions."

In particular, NTEU said the subjective nature of the performance metrics adversely affected African-American employees, especially those at higher pay grades. A statistical analysis performed for the union showed that only 16 percent of African-American SEC employees received raises of three steps, while 30 percent of white employees received those maximum raises. Ten percent of African-American employees received no merit-based pay increase, compared to only 6 percent of white employees.

That analysis also revealed that while half of SEC employees were 40 or older, 67 percent of the employees who received no merit-based pay increase fell into that age range, and those older employees received only 45 percent of the three step increases.

"The lesson to be learned is the foundation of a viable pay-for-performance system is built upon the foundation of a solid performance management system," said John Palguta, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. "If that foundation is not solid, attempts at pay for performance can and probably will go awry."
But both Palguta and Kelley said the ruling should not discredit pay-for-performance systems, but rather, provide an incentive to get them to work properly.

"There is no question that a system intended to reward high-performing employees should be crafted in conjunction with employees and their representatives," Kelley said, adding NTEU already is working with SEC on its performance management and pay systems.

"The value of a performance-sensitive approach to pay is that it forces managers to take the performance management system seriously since they will have to be able to explain their decisions," Palguta said. "Done correctly, a good performance system helps insulate a manager against claims of bias or favoritism."

Kelley said the ruling was further proof that reliance on the Federal Service Impasses Panel can produce bad policy for agencies reluctant to negotiate with their unions.

"The best agreements are those reached and agreed to at the bargaining table by both parties," she said. "The second-best option is bringing in a neutral mediator, when necessary, to aid that process. Too often in this environment, agencies are going to the FSIP to get their proposals imposed. This is an example where such a strategy has backfired on the agency."

I see the potential for a significant decline in DoD service over the long run under the NSPS system primarily due to the pay banding system. The pay bands are so broad that an employee really has no way of moving up through the regular course of career progression voluntarly within a departmetn/division. However, they can be moved across the system with little pay increases. For example - a GS-8 employee gets moved into a GS-9 or -10 job through a command directed action but gets no pay raise to go along with it. Eventually what will happen is everyone's salary will be a function of how long they have been in (because the pay raises will even out over time) starting from the bottom of the band. The other side of that coin, is that the only way to negotiate a raise is to change jobs. That will keep everyone hopping from one job to the next and the new hires will go to the guy willing to take the least amount, further applying downward pressure on the pay scale. The incentive to work harder goes up and the pay goes down - ultimately the DoD will loose it's best people to other agencies. Everyone who's been around DoD for any length of time, knows that the civilians provide the stability that keeps work progressing despite the constant turn-over of military personnel - now NSPS will take away that stable base. I have come to the conclusion that DoD will cut it's own throat just to prove it knows how to wield a knife.

Griffin, you hit the nail on the head!!
All I can say is 2 years 3 months 14 days!!! Then they can stick it!yesmonkey1.gif

Originally Posted by James48843

The 110,000 employees working under the first wave of the Defense Department's new personnel system will not receive the across-the-board pay increase they expected next year.

employees working under the National Security Personnel System's Spiral 1 conversion will receive half of the 2008 pay increase as an adjustment to their base salary, provided they earn an acceptable performance rating.

The other half of the pay increase will be added to performance pay pools and distributed based on performance.

Bait and switch. I remember asking about this possibility during our entry brief and they beat around the bush. I kind of figured that they couldn't afford to give the average employee a 3.5% yearly increase AND 2 shares of the pay pool. Especially when managers have the option to give the pay shares as raises versus bonuses. Yup, they had to keep their hands off the COLA long enough to get the system entrenched and now they will start uncovering the ugliness.