Awaiting the future of NSPS

In the next few weeks, the Defense Business Board is expected to deliver its final report to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on the future of NSPS - the National Security Personnel System.

The controversial "pay for performance" program has been strongly opposed by federal labor unions. But President Obama and OPM's Berry are both publicly on the record favoring some form of "pay for performance" - not only at the Pentagon, but throughout the Federal Government.

For some perspective on the future of NSPS, we spoke recently to John Salamone, a senior consultant with Federal Management Partners in Alexandria, Virginia. Until last December, Salamone was head of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council at OPM, during the time that NSPS was in place at the Pentagon.

"NSPS has been a contentious issue from the start," Salamone told Federal News Radio in a recent telephone interview. "It's really commendable for the new administration and the Defense Business Board to take a fresh look at the program."

Salamone believes that if the draft recommendations are any indication, "the DBB is on the right track", and warns that there are possible unintended consequences if NSPS is ended entirely.

With the emotional baggage currently attached to NSPS, Salamone was asked if changing the name of the program might help improve the acceptance of a modified pay-for-performance scheme?

"I'm not much for changing titles and names, but more of the substance and what's behind the title, certainly a title change will help."

Regarding the challenges ahead for Secretary Gates, OPM director Berry, and President Obama in implementing a better pay-for-performance scheme, Salamone says adopting any reform has to begin with a discussion of "style over substance.

"You have to create a framework around core principles, involving key constituencies, and determine a way forward." And he adds that without those discussions, "any effort will fail."

During the DBB's recent public hearings on NSPS, it was made clear that the federal employee unions are vehemently opposed to the current NSPS.

Salamone says it is notable that "when President Obama and director Berry came out to talk about pay for performance, the unions had no outright objection to the administration's overtures, of implementing some form of performance based pay."

Along with encouraging the administration to actively involve the federal labor unions in talks regarding the future of pay-for-performance at DOD and the rest of the federal government, Salamone also believes that his former group, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, could also be helpful in smoothing over any bumps in the process, saying that the legislation that created the CHCO council mandated that they participate and assist in resolving federal personnel matters.

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On the Web:

Federal News Radio - Bob Tobias: The NSPS review explained.

Federal News Radio - The reconstruction of NSPS

Federal News Radio -

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