DoD civilian employees under the National Security Personnel System have responded positively regarding some aspects of the system, but DoD does not have an action plan to address the generally negative employee perceptions of NSPS identified in both the department’s Status of Forces Survey of civilian employees and discussion groups held at installations, GAO has said.
DoD has about 212,000 civilian employees currently in the system, and has temporarily halted expansion at least until October pending a review of the performance management aspect of NSPS.
The department has put internal safeguards in place to help ensure the performance management system is fair, effective, and credible, but GAO said continued monitoring of those safeguards is needed to help ensure that DoD’s actions are effective as implementation proceeds.
GAO said that in a DoD survey from May 2007, NSPS employees expressed slightly more positive attitudes than their DoD colleagues who remain under the general schedule system about some goals of performance management, such as connecting pay to performance and receiving feedback regularly.
According to GAO-09-840, an estimated 43 percent of NSPS employees compared to an estimated 25 percent of all other DoD employees said that pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs – something that could be worth focusing on.
