Although the pay banding and pay for performance elements
of the new Defense Department personnel system are yet to
be defined, the Navy–which will be in the first wave of
implementation later this year–already is starting to sell
the system to managers. The “national security personnel
system,” a briefing presentation says, “is not an HR tool.
It is a management tool.”
The reformed system will offer manages the opportunity to
“reshape their workforces” and to “obtain and retain high
performing workers.” Says the presentation: “NSPS’s basic
tenet of pay for performance is more than just words.
It’s a philosophy that will enable you to achieve” those
objectives.
However, it adds that the system’s effectiveness is
dependent on managers clearly communicating to their
subordinates how their work supports the mission and
setting performance goals accordingly, what management’s
expectations are of performance, and information on how
subordinates are performing and contributing to mission
accomplishment.
Managers also will have to be “fiscally responsible by
deciding how best to use pay bands to attract and retain
the best and brightest, but within the limits of
available money, current and future.”
