Personnel chief outlines NSPS, other initiatives

  • Published
  • By Gerry J. Gilmore
  • American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  Defense Department civilians soon will be paid for productivity rather than longevity, while in the future, servicemembers may be required to serve longer tours of duty and spend more time in the military before becoming eligible for retirement.

These initiatives are part of efforts by officials to transform DOD into a more agile and efficient organization for the 21st century, said Dr. David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Dr. Chu said the new National Security Personnel System slated for partial implementation in July will affect about 300,000 of the department’s 700,000 civilian employees. Remaining DOD civilian employees are slated to move into the new system beginning around January 2007.

He said current civilian pay scales are based on how “long you’ve been around.” Polls show the younger workers DOD officials are seeking to replace retiring older employees want a more performance-based compensation system.

“They want to join an organization where if you do more, you are rewarded,” he said.

Performance for pay “is not an untried principle” at DOD, Dr. Chu said, noting several pay-for-performance pilot programs have been tested through the years.

The system also gives managers the tools to hire new employees more quickly and more means to discipline underproducers.

Dr. Chu said such change is likely to be “upsetting” among a work force accustomed to the older personnel system. Managers who will supervise workers under NSPS will “require training and preparation in order for them to be effective,” he said.

He asked DOD employees to be patient as the system is implemented, noting studies of pay-for-performance pilot programs have shown most workers like the new system.

After NSPS has been fully implemented, employees "will have a much happier work force,” Dr. Chu said.

He said old civil service rules hamstrung supervisors and often caused servicemembers to be employed for tasks that could be accomplished by civilian employees. Implementation of NSPS will allow more flexible use of civilian employees, while freeing up servicemembers to perform other important duties, Dr. Chu said.

Another initiative that is under study involves establishing longer duty tours for servicemembers, especially senior officers, he said. Some military leaders serve in their posts for too short a time, and many senior officer tours of duty span 18 to 24 months.

“They never have enough tenure to make transformational changes, to see them through to success,” Dr. Chu said.

Another personnel change under consideration is increasing the years of service military members need to retire. Today’s 20-year minimum required for military retirement “has become something of an ‘automatic’ event” that began after World War II, he said. The requirement was established in conjunction with an “up-or-out” policy recommended by then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall that was designed to prune veteran servicemembers who had become ineffective partly because of increased age.

But Dr. Chu said today’s servicemembers in their 40s and 50s are “physically fit” and are “able to do many of the things that are necessary” in the military environment. Consequently, “we need to have a system that allows them to serve … on active service longer,” he said, and that envisioned change “is one of the most difficult transformational challenges” DOD officials face.

“We are really at (the) early stages in making this shift,” he said. “Some of it requires legislative changes, which we have not yet convinced the Congress to make.

Addressing the amount of military pay required to attract and retain quality servicemembers in the future, Dr. Chu said “if we don’t keep up a vigorous, upfront compensation package, we will not succeed in the long term.”

Achieving transformation requires having “a sharp and appropriate set of tools in your toolkit” and a willingness to adapt new methods of doing military business, he said.

For example, the asymmetrical nature of the war on terror has made U.S. military field hospitals likely enemy targets, he said. Consequently, it is now routine for servicemembers who have been severely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq to be medically stabilized in local field hospitals and then air-evacuated to “safe havens” in Germany or the United States for further treatment, Dr. Chu said.

This transformational change contrasts with past practices where injured troops often received medical care at facilities established in or near war zones, he said. He credited the field hospitals “for being able to stabilize the patients” and the Air Force for providing the needed “air bridge” support.

“We will not go backwards,” Dr. Chu said, noting DOD officials will no longer plan to “take heavy, bulky, hard-to-protect medical facilities to the front.”