Letter: Longtime employee calls for new system and fair compensation
A reader writes that the National Security Personnel System is bad and employees have "become beta testers for a system that doesn't work and should never have been put in place in its current form."
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Regarding "Feds need to tap aging boomer workforce": As a member of "the aging workforce", and [a person] working for the government, when is the government going to recognize what we have to offer and start compensating us for it?
I mentor someone, yet receive no additional credit or money. Yet, I'm considered an asset because I know a lot and can provide knowledge to others. I would like to keep working as long as I feel I'm benefiting others as well as myself, but I'd like to be compensated. If I'm the only one who knows certain aspects of the job, I should be compensated for it.
Things were bad enough, but when we were put under [the National Security Personnel System], bad became worse. Not only did the government withhold 1 percent of our cost of living increase, which went to a pay pool to benefit others receiving points, but in the years since the system has been in place there are no opportunities for advancement/promotion if an employee is already in the primary pay band! Where is the incentive to do better?
NSPS was put into place after years of debates, etc., but it is not a good plan. It was supposed to be based on a Demonstration Project that was in existence for more than 20 years and which worked fine. But, NSPS is only vaguely similar to the Demo Project. The aspects that worked well were not put into the new system, a system in which there were points given for doing a good job and for which we were compensated accordingly, and there was the possibility of promotion, even if it didn't happen much. Now, there isn't even the possibility.
We have become beta testers for a system that doesn't work and should never have been put in place in its current form. By the time they figure it out (if they ever do), it may be too late for those of us who are in the aging workforce.
Since most of the time it seems that the Defense Department has to try new systems or regulations before they are passed on to the other agencies, it is presumed that all federal agencies will have some sort of NSPS, although it will be called something else. I hope it is
rectified by that time.
Anonymous
letters@fcw.com
I mentor someone, yet receive no additional credit or money. Yet, I'm considered an asset because I know a lot and can provide knowledge to others. I would like to keep working as long as I feel I'm benefiting others as well as myself, but I'd like to be compensated. If I'm the only one who knows certain aspects of the job, I should be compensated for it.
Things were bad enough, but when we were put under [the National Security Personnel System], bad became worse. Not only did the government withhold 1 percent of our cost of living increase, which went to a pay pool to benefit others receiving points, but in the years since the system has been in place there are no opportunities for advancement/promotion if an employee is already in the primary pay band! Where is the incentive to do better?
NSPS was put into place after years of debates, etc., but it is not a good plan. It was supposed to be based on a Demonstration Project that was in existence for more than 20 years and which worked fine. But, NSPS is only vaguely similar to the Demo Project. The aspects that worked well were not put into the new system, a system in which there were points given for doing a good job and for which we were compensated accordingly, and there was the possibility of promotion, even if it didn't happen much. Now, there isn't even the possibility.
We have become beta testers for a system that doesn't work and should never have been put in place in its current form. By the time they figure it out (if they ever do), it may be too late for those of us who are in the aging workforce.
Since most of the time it seems that the Defense Department has to try new systems or regulations before they are passed on to the other agencies, it is presumed that all federal agencies will have some sort of NSPS, although it will be called something else. I hope it is
rectified by that time.
Anonymous
letters@fcw.com
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