One aspect of the Defense Department’s new “national
security personnel system”-recent authorized in law but
still on the Pentagon’s drawing board-drawing special
attention inside and outside the government is the
pay-for-performance feature. Managers are paying special
attention because not only will they be subject to the
system themselves, they will have a major role in
implementing it.
Here’s how the Pentagon put it in a recent document: “DoD’s
goal for NSPS is to implement a performance management
system that provides a fair and equitable method for
appraising employees’ performance and for compensating
them commensurate with that performance. The new system
will provide opportunities for and encourage communication
and performance feedback among managers, supervisors, and
employees throughout the appraisal cycle.”
Those provisions were specified by Congress during the
legislative approval process in response to concerns that the
system would lack fairness and accountability and that line
employees and managers would not buy into it.
The law did not specify how the pay-for-performance element
would be funded, although DoD has indicated that the funds
will come from money now spent on within-grade raises and
across-the-board general schedule raises. However, the law
does specify that they overall amount allocated for
compensation in the civilian pay fund must not be less
than what it would have been under the former personnel
system through fiscal year 2008.
