Federal Manager's Daily Report

Says the memo, “Agencies should ensure only SES and SL/ST employees who have demonstrated the highest levels of individual performance and/or contribution to the agency’s performance receive the highest annual summary ratings and the largest corresponding performance awards, pay adjustments, and rates of pay.”

“Agencies are encouraged to use these awards to recognize those senior leaders who take on the most challenging assignments, use exemplary innovative and collaborative methods, take on challenging rotational assignments, and/or have the greatest impact on agency priorities and mission imperatives in a given performance period,” the memo says.

“Agencies should ensure differentiation is evident individually in the performance awards, pay adjustments, and rates of pay; and OPM and OMB will review and verify this through the appraisal system certification process,” it says.

According to the latest OPM report on SES performance ratings, covering fiscal 2014, 48 percent of execs were rated at the top of five levels and another 42 percent were rated at the fourth level, while all but 0.3 percent of the rest were rated at level three.

Among those rated at the top level, the average performance award was about $11,800, while at level four the average was about $8,900 and at level three $8,500. None of those rated at the lowest two levels received performance awards.