March 12, 2008

FCW Forum: Too much training — or not enough?

"The last thing government employees need is more time in a classroom," wrote one reader in a letter to the editor, in response to an article about a new training opportunity offered by the Partnership for Public Service. "Where does it end? I swear that between training, conferences, meetings and their generous vacation, federal employees are present for their actual jobs about 50 percent of the year max." Read the full letter here.

Several readers took issue with this assertion.

"I have occasional training, but most training I received was on-the-job and I was expected to pick it up rather quickly. And I did," one reader commented. "I know there are managers and upper levels who spend a lot of time on travel, but most of us here in the trenches show up every day for work and have to fit training in around our work schedules."
 
Another reader sees it differently:

"Training? What training? In my agency (Navair), the only training we can realistically access is the stupid online stuff, [which] only encourages folks to 'get thru it' as quickly as possible."

What do you think? Do feds go overboard on training — or are there not nearly enough training opportunities? Paste a comment (registration required), or send your comment to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Blog comment) and we'll post it. 

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February 28, 2008

FCW Forum: Is government procurement YouTube-ready?

As reported in the March 3 issue of Federal Computer Week, the District of Columbia's chief technology officer, Vivek Kundra, would like to use wikis and YouTube videos to improve government-industry communications during the procurement process.

In a pilot project, the city created a wiki to host solicitation documents and provide an interactive question-and-answer section. The wiki also includes a link to complete video coverage of a pre-solicitation conference for potential bidders, courtesy of the YouTube social networking site.

Using Web 2.0 technology during the procurement process is "like a movie being played in front of the world," said Kundra. "It allows every potential bidder to have equal footing when it comes to competition."

What do you think: Could wikis, videos and similar technology improve the federal government's procurement process? And what pitfalls would agencies need to avoid?

Post a comment on this blog (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com and we will post it for you.

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February 21, 2008

FCW Forum: What's your problem with NSPS?

During the last two months, FCW has received more than two dozen letters in response to articles about the National Security Personnel System. In many cases, readers were less interested in discussing the particulars article than in having an opportunity to discuss the flaws and pitfalls of NSPS and its application by federal managers.

Some concerns are strictly financial: Readers moving from the General Schedule pay system to NSPS say they are losing money in the process, either now, in the form of bonuses, or later, in retirement pay.

Other concerns are more conceptual: Performance-based pay makes more sense in the private sector, where managers do not have a limited pool of funding for raises and bonuses, several readers pointed out.

And, as always is the case when it comes to performance evaluations, some readers doubt the ability of their supervisors to manage them effectively and fairly.

Here are excerpts from some of the letters we received (with links to the full text). Let us know what you think by posting a comment (registration required) or by e-mailing your comment to letters@fcw.com and we will post it for you.

Lost in transition

Those of us who are in the lower [General Schedule] grades, who have reached step 10, receive nothing other than the locality pay at the beginning of the year. Gas and everything else has gone sky high. I used to look forward to the third year for my step increase. And now whenever we transition, it sounds like we will receive nothing for going in the NSPS system.  Where is the "fairness" in that?  Read the letter.

A long-term loss

In light of the military receiving a 3.5 percent pay raise this year, it means that I am making a little more now, but that my retirement was diminished this year alone by 1 percent. If you carry this trend out to the logical conclusion, in the next 15 years, the government could reduce my retirement by as little as 15 percent to as much as 30 percent.  Read the letter.

A zero-sum game

If anyone thought that the new pay-for-performance system was designed to give any more [money] to any one, I'd like to talk to them about a bridge in Arizona!  It defies reason to assume that the same group of managers that weren't able to effectively execute the old [General Schedule] system could effectively manage the new system.

Without more funds, the new system is a zero-sum game.  If one person gets more someone else gets less!  Just another beauty contest.  Read the letter.

Lessons learned (or not)

USDA tried the performance pay system in the 1980s; it was called the General Merit system. It failed because additional funding was not provided for true merit raises; they took money from COLAs and step-increase money due to employees and used it to reward the "highest performing" employees.  When managers with outstanding ratings only received a $300 to $400 "merit raise," the system started to die and was eventually canceled. Do we not learn from history?  Read the letter.

What about the alternatives?

I was a Defense Department employee in a pay-for-performance system that included former General Schedule and Wage Grade employees. With very little revision, that system might have met the wider DOD needs, but nobody bothered to take a look.  Read the letter.

The elusiveness of objectivity

The absence of objective measurements of success -- sales, revenues, profits -- means that pay for performance is an individual and personal assessment between the boss and subordinate. This process can be destructive to management and worker relationships, and diminish the collaborative environment that we should be working toward in the information society.  Read the letter.

Asking for trouble

We've moved from a system with a two-page evaluation form and an unconstrained employee self-assessment input to a 13-page evaluation form and employee input constrained to about 800 words.

[Also], NSPS is constrained by funds available to award for performance, just like the demonstration projects of previous years. This forces supervisors to fit the actual performance and adjective grades of their employees into a "normal distribution model" to not give "too many" high marks. Once again, the system puts the supervisor and employee in an unresolvable conflict.  Read the letter.

A loss of protection

Pay for performance eliminates protection from negative personnel actions by managers who can harass and fire employees who don't cooperate when asked to overlook policy violations. This is one of the most basic reasons government employees are needed.  Read the letter.

Integrity needed

Inexperienced officers should not rate civilians under this system. I spent nearly two hours going over NSPS with a rater who had little knowledge of the impact of not setting aside an appropriate amount of time to write an unbiased review. . . The employee’s livelihood is at stake, and the ability to be rewarded based on performance is supposed to drive motivation. Top officials, please perform an independent audit and get the right facts. People in control of NSPS should ensure that the integrity of the civil service system remains viable.  Read the letter.

A point of departure
 
What the Office of Personnel Management says: It takes about five years for a pay-for-performance system to be accepted by employees. What OPM means: It takes about five years for the career employees who know the system is unsuccessful to retire and stop exercising their right to a fair system. It's not that the new system becomes more successful. There are just fewer employees knowledgeable enough to complain.  Read the letter.

And finally. . .

Why the whining?

Given the reports earlier this month that average pay increase for employees under the NSPS was in excess of 7 percent, I find it hard to understand the wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth from government employees and their union representatives on this issue.  Read the letter.

John Monroe
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February 5, 2008

FCW Forum: Can feds turn back the clock on outsourcing?

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), speaking Monday during a virtual town hall meeting, reiterated her promise to cut 500,000 contractor jobs in her first year in office.

"This administration has given away so many of the fundamental functions that our government should be performing," Clinton said.

Speaking on the eve of the "Super Tuesday" primaries, she said the Bush administration's outsourcing policy has been a failure because, among other reasons, "we are not getting our money's worth."

Cutting half a million contractors would save the government $18 billion "that I think we could use in better ways," Clinton said.

What do you think? Forget, for a moment, the political context of this discussion. How difficult would it be for agencies to bring work back inside government after it has been outsourced? Do agencies have the workforce to handle that work? And what would be the financial impact?

Post a comment on this blog (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Outsourcing) and we will post it for you.

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January 31, 2008

FCW Forum: Should DOD ban personal use of its nets?

As recently reported by FCW, Defense Department officials are considering a policy that would banish all traffic not proven to be purely official DOD business from its networks.

The proposal to ban non-official traffic from the network is intended to increase the network’s security and stability by reducing the number of times malicious software code enters DOD networks, said Lt. Gen. Charles Croom, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, speaking at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement’s Network Centric Warfare 2008 conference in Washington.

Does this policy make sense?

Based on the letters FCW received, readers generally understand the intent, but wonder about the potential ramifications. Check out the excerpts below from some of those letters and let us know what you think. You can either post a comment on this blog (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com and we will post it for you.

"[DOD] better make sure that civilian web sites used/hosted by first responders, other government agencies, defense contractors, Web 2.0 collaboration sites, etc. are not blocked also."

"What percent of the problem would be solved if we banned Microsoft Explorer and made Firefox mandatory for all .mil computers? More than the IT community would like to admit, I suspect."

"DOD probably has a better case than most enterprises for banning non-necessary network traffic. But it's a truism of InfoSec that any type of ban inevitably results in the spawning of workarounds by those who need or want access to the resources they are being denied."

"It is nearly always impossible for a policy-maker in any organization to be able to specify exactly what network traffic is "legitimate" and what is not because the work environment is rarely simple enough to submit to high-level heuristics."

"Is visiting online retailers non-official or official? What if it is for obtaining price estimates on items that the individual intends to buy to support his organization's mission?"

"Your article left out any information about the feasibility of preventing non-official traffic without stripping DOD employee's of the ability to leverage the network and the internet to do their jobs as efficiently as the private sector."

"Innovation and creativity begins when government personnel can see what industry and other government agencies are doing to improve processes."

"As much as I understand DOD's need for security, I hope they keep in mind that the service Web mail sites can be an important means of communication between family members and deployed or otherwise absent service members."

"At a time when companies throughout the corporate sphere are realizing that the line between work and life is increasingly blurry, DOD/DISA seems to be considering a step backward in time."

"DOD and the federal workforce is facing an unprecedented wave of retirements and the next-gen workforce, facing a more restrictive work environment, will either enter government service and then proceed to fight the system from the inside (lower percentage chance of happening) or more likely, will simply bypass government service all together."

"While the idea is sincere, the implemented policy as stated would severely impact morale, recreation, and productivity for deployed ground and fleet forces who readily depend on the Internet for news, independent study, entertainment, and personal email communications."

"Who will determine what is official business? Think of the Red Tape of getting sites approved for access. This will stop research, training, support and impact business processes."

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