One aspect of personnel management drawing the most attention would be to begin a six-month study, starting as soon as October, of several alternative personnel systems operating within DoD–most notably the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System and the demonstration project in the acquisition workforce–with an eye to expanding them.
Such alternative systems commonly feature pay banding with a pay for performance element, streamlined hiring authority, retention priority that places performance before length of service, and the ability to use innovative practices to meet mission requirements. The goal would be to have a legislative proposal drawn together in time for Congress to consider it next year in the budget process, and then start the expansion with pilot projects in some components in October 2017.
Meanwhile, the standard probationary period would increase from one year to two, and for the post-probationary time, management would gain greater flexibility in taking disciplinary action. In particular, employees could be suspended without pay immediately if management determines that the employee’s performance or conduct might merit removal. Employees would retain rights to appeal to MSPB but the timeframes would be shortened.
Also, “performance improvement periods” would remain in an employee’s personnel files, “allowing managers who could hire them in the future to see whether the worker was ever on a PIP, what the circumstances were, and how it was resolved. This will allow the department to monitor low performance across the enterprise for the first time.”
Further, performance would become the first factor in RIF retention standings, rather than the last.
And another form of “workforce shaping” would be enhanced by allowing the maximum buyout payment that can be offered to rise from $25,000 to $40,000 and allowing supervisors, with higher-level approval, to target them to individual employees rather than only to groups as is allowed today, and then replace those employees as if they had retired.
