First group of Air Force civilians now part of NSPS

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Julie Weckerlein
  • Air Force News Service
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  Although there have been only two pay periods since the Department of Defense’s new civilian pay system began, the transition to the National Security Personnel System has been smooth, said an NSPS official here.

“The system conversion to NSPS went very well,” said Deborah Carlton, NSPS deputy chief program manager at the Pentagon. “That’s a tribute to the hard work of the staff at the Air Force District of Washington, Tinker (Air Force Base, Okla.), and Randolph (AFB, Texas) as well as the design teams and system programmers. We continue to monitor how things are going and stand ready to handle problems as they appear, but so far, it’s been business as usual."

NSPS is being deployed throughout the DOD in stages called “spirals.” Spiral 1.1 was implemented on April 30, with more than 3,100 non-bargaining General Schedule Air Force civilians from the Air Force Audit Agency, office of the secretary of the Air Force, the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, and elements of Tinker AFB converting to the new management system.

Spiral 1.2 will deploy in October and Spiral 1.3 will deploy in January. The Wage Grade workforce will convert to NSPS in Spiral 2 starting in 2007.

Senior Air Force leaders from each major command and the Pentagon met here on May 3 with Michael L. Dominguez, assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, to discuss their role in making NSPS successful. Mr. Dominguez led a discussion on leadership responsibility in ensuring readiness for NSPS and successfully building a results-oriented, high-performance culture.

Mary Lacey, the DOD NSPS program executive officer; Roger Blanchard, assistant deputy chief of staff, manpower and personnel; and Lt. Gen. Terry L. Gabreski, Air Force Materiel Command vice commander, were among the speakers who contributed to the discussion. The program executive office will host a second meeting with senior officials from Spiral 1.1 installations to discuss lessons learned in June.

In development since 2003, the system replaces outdated civil service rules to tie employee pay to performance and work objectives to the mission. Approximately 650,000 DOD civilian employees will eventually be covered by NSPS. Deployment plans continue to develop for the remaining spirals, with training targeted for all employees before they convert to NSPS.

“Training for the workforce is ongoing,“ said Randy Yates, Air Force NSPS training manager. “Every major command is providing training for both the Performance Management and Human Resource changes in NSPS and also for 'soft skills' such as supervisory skills and change management.”

Several Web sites are dedicated to NSPS while classroom training is available to both civilian and military supervisors of civilians. The courses explain how to navigate NSPS as well as how to manage and motivate workers using the system. The performance management for managers and supervisors courses are required before any supervisor of civilians, including military supervisors, may evaluate their employees.

Similar to private sector businesses, civilian workers under NSPS will be rewarded with raises and bonuses. Their salaries will be more competitive, too.

“One of the problems we face with the GS system,” Ms. Carlton said, “is recruiting new workers, especially in some hard-to-fill career fields such as engineering. At entry levels, the salary we could offer under the old system wasn’t always competitive with private industry.

"NSPS, which provides managers with optimal flexibility in managing their workforce, provides the pay setting relief that allows us to be more competitive in the marketplace," she said. "That flexibility helps us bring in the high-quality workers today who will become the backbone of our workforce tomorrow, when the men and women who have already done so much for our Air Force begin to retire.”

But new hires aren’t the only ones to benefit from the changes implemented by the new system.

“NSPS also benefits current employees,” Ms. Carlton said, citing the shift to broadbands that allows the DOD to move employees more freely across a range of work opportunities without being bound by narrowly described work definitions, and changes to the staffing portion of NSPS that streamline the promotion and hiring processes.

“Some of the limitations that kept us from recognizing our best employees have been addressed by NSPS,” she said.

NSPS was designed to take advantage of the best features of the old system by preserving core principals such as merit consideration and veteran’s preference while adding the capabilities needed by managers and supervisors to react to an ever-changing world, Ms. Carlton said.

“NSPS provides the Air Force and DOD with the tools needed to manage our workforce in the 21st century in a way that allows us to reward performance, focus on results, and adapt to our changing mission,” she said. “We encourage employees to become involved in the transformation by asking questions, reading available material, and taking advantage of both classroom and Web-based training opportunities."

She said members should check the Air Force and DOD NSPS Web sites periodically and sign up for the NSPS newsletter.

"Stepping into the future can be intimidating, but the journey can be made easier if you know what is waiting for you when you arrive,” Ms. Carlton said.