New Defense Personnel System Gets Early Passing Grade
The Defense Department has made "adequate progress" in establishing a new pay-for-performance system but it is too soon to gauge employee support and perceptions, a review found.</br></br>Congress approved creation of the National Security Personnel System for Defense civil service employees in 2004. NSPS regulations were published in late 2005, but the system has taken longer to start up than projected, in part because federal unions challenged some of the new rules in a suit that is pending before a federal appeals court. When completed, the system will cover nearly 700,000 Defense employees, making it one of the biggest changes in the civil service in decades.</br></br>The regulations were written in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management, which conducted the review of the NSPS. The 165-page paper is the first of several audits, by analysts inside and outside the Bush administration, to determine if the overhaul in pay and personnel rules leads to improvements in Defense workforce management and departmental operations.</br></br>According to the OPM review, the Pentagon provided data showing that National Security Personnel System has leaders committed to the program, a strategy for training employees and managers and procedures to tie employee pay raises to annual job performance ratings.</br></br>Most of the 11,000 employees in the first wave of the new personnel system appear to have met expectations set by their managers, according to data released by the NSPS program office. That report showed 97 percent of the employees qualified for a performance-based raise or bonus that was awarded on top of the across-the-board pay raise given all federal employees.