Fedweek

The budget proposal also could include at least some elements of a proposal the Defense Department raised last summer to revamp personnel practices there. While the plans would be limited to DoD, it is the largest employer of federal workers, accounting for about a third of the total workforce, and changes there commonly set precedent. Those ideas included: broadening the pay for performance programs now used in certain components within DoD; broadening the circumstances in which employees facing discipline could be immediately suspended without pay with no option to be put on paid administrative leave, shorten the time they have to answer proposed discipline, and shorten the time they have to appeal actual discipline to the MSPB; increasing salaries and hiring flexibilities in hard-to-fill occupations; increasing the value of buyout separation incentive payments from $25,000 to $40,000 and using them more liberally; and creating paid parental leave (DoD recently increased paid maternity leave for uniformed personnel, but that doesn’t apply to civilian employees). Several other ideas raised at the time later were enacted as part of a late-year DoD budget bill, although they are not yet in effect: lengthening the standard probationary period for new employees from one year to two, and making performance the first determinant of RIF retention standing rather than the last. Another proposal, to put all employees not eligible for union membership in the excepted service rather than the competitive service, drew heavy criticism and could be dropped.