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04/22/2009

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Very interesting issue.

My father was a retired Air Force Colonel (after 30 years), an attorney and was Staff Judge Advocate for the Air Force. That position meant he had a lot of people that reported to him adn he dealt a lot with the contracts the Air Force had with the private sector. He always said that one of the biggest problems he had was that he couldn't use the same tools private enterprise had to drive performance.

Since there was no "profit motive" (his words) he didn't have a performance measure to use as a lever for getting things done. He couldn't reward people for good work, and conversely, couldn't get rid of them for poor work.

Wonder where $500 hammers and toilet seats come from - look no further.

I think if he had the opportunity to use pay for performance he would.

Amen! Amen! Amen!

It is madness to think that federal entities that have spent so much time and energy in developing pay-for-performance under bipartisan Congressional guidelines should now go backwards to the old GS system in order to go forward!

And its also madness to think that the current Congress who has at best a spotty record for designing federal pay-for-performance should even think themselves qualified to regulate private sector pay-for-performance!

But let’s not paint so broad a brush on this issue to ignore the few federal entities that have had success with pay-for-performance. A handful of federal entities have been selected to the balanced scorecard hall of fame organized by Kaplan and Norton. Pay for the Senior Executive Service has been administered under solid pay-for-performance principles for 4 years. The US Postal Service has had an award winning pay-for-performance program for its 70,000+ white collar employees for 14 years and counting, and has results on a balanced scorecard of performance metrics to show PFP works (see this WorldatWork Journal article by Schuster, Weatherhead and Zingheim: http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=16925&nonav=yes).

Fortunately, there are a handful of us federal bureaucrats who still feel that pay-for-performance can work in the federal sector; although these days we feel more like Don Quixote tilting at windmills!

Read GAO-09-464T, "HUMAN CAPITAL - Improved implementation of Safeguards and an Action Plan to Address Employee Concers Could Increase Employee Acceptance of the National Security Personnel System", Testimony before the House Subc. on Readiness, Armed Services Committee, by Brenda S. Farrell, Dir. Def. Capabl. & Mgmt., April 1, 2009. At only 7 pages long, it's a marvel of brevity for a GAO report.

Fitting, that her tesimony on April Fools Day got absolutely no press. But with phrases like, "However, the purpose of analyzing predecisional rating results is to identify any potential egregious decsions...," I'm not suprised. Doesn't compete well with Beltway-bandit sound bites by union lobbyists about abusive bosses showing blatant bias to their favorite cronys.

Howard Risher is fighting this battle on the front lines. His "The NGA Pay Program: A Success Story" about P4P victory due to stakeholder buy-ins at the renamed Defense Mapping Agency outside St. Louis is scheduled for publication in The Public Manager. He might send you an advance draft.

It is truly tough to crack the centuries-old beaucratic attitude that prefers rewarding credentials over results and favors process over product. Must overcome the WIIFM obstacles, for reform to work.

Fear is such a strong motivator, and you can count on those who are afraid of losing power to stir the pot. It's hard to imagine the federal government doing a good job at this type of change management, especially with a group of employees who have every evidence that if they ignore something it will eventually go away. I hope that Obama weighs in on this, but the union crowd seem to have an awful lot of power in the new days of the administration, which is hard to understand since the only employees they seem to be really meaningful to anymore are the failing rust belt organizations (and healthcare, which is a real challenge for both employee and management).

Paul H:

Sounds like your dad was a smart, thoughtful guy - and astute enough to appreciate both sides of the merit pay equation; the ability to appropriately recognize and respond to not only good work but also bad.

Paul W:

I think many of us are struck by the absolute irony of Congress trying to impose their design efforts on private sector pay-for-performance while trying to push back merit pay efforts in Federal government. And certainly the success of the Postal Service in implementing pay-for-performance flies in the face of any efforts to convince us that "these systems" can't and shouldn't work in the public sector.

(Hmmm... I feel a possible future post on the Postal Service program coming on....)

Jim:
Thanks for the info (will check out the GAO report) - and the heads up on Howard Risher's efforts. Another ex-Watson Wyatt colleague - I will try to see if we can get his work additional attention here.

Margaret:
You're correct to remind us of the sheer breadth and level of change management involved in an effort like this. And its hard to disagree that this group of employees probably has plenty of experience and evidence to back-up a belief that ignoring these efforts long enough (until the next administration comes into power, for example) is worth their while.

Thanks - all - for the great comments and discussion here!

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