AF creates personnel system team

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. David A. Jablonski
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  The Air Force has formed a team to implement the Defense Department’s most dramatic civilian personnel system transformation in the last 50 years.

The National Security Personnel System gives DOD managers the flexibility to place civilian workers where they are needed most, without delay. It reduces the time it takes to hire new people, introduces pay-for-performance bonuses and streamlines the promotion process.

NSPS became reality for the Defense Department when President George W. Bush signed the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act on Nov. 24. The president called the legislation “transformational.

“This bill also advances the vital work of transforming the personnel system for civilian defense workers so we can put the right person in the right job to meet the challenges we face,” he said.

Maj. Gen. John M. Speigel, Air Force director of personnel policy, said he is confident the system can meet the service’s future needs.

“We can successfully shape a flexible and responsive civilian personnel system to meet our needs for the 21st century,” he said.

The implementation will be extremely challenging and workload intensive, General Speigel said.

“These will be exciting times,” he said. “But the road to success will be filled with many speed bumps, and to overcome those bumps we need to ensure clear lines of communication with our civilian workforce as we transition to this new system.”

To do that, the Air Force NSPS staff plans to establish e-mail updates tailored to civilian personnel staffs, video-teleconferences to capture the most pressing issues and find appropriate solutions, and a Web site to post the latest information for employees and managers.

“DOD will provide the basic information for training on NSPS. It will be [the] Air Force’s responsibility to ensure that every single one of our 160,000 civilian employees, all military and civilian supervisors and managers, and our senior leaders and commanders are trained on the new personnel authorities and procedures,” said Sarah Bonilla, director of the Air Force NSPS implementation team. “This will entail a significant effort that will rely on our local civilian personnel flight staffs. The CPF staffs will receive extensive training in the new system so they will not only be prepared to implement NSPS, but train their base population.”

Ms. Bonilla has begun to hire her team and set initial goals.

“I am in the process of hiring some of the very best personnelists the Air Force has to offer, so we can begin developing the education and training material needed to implement NSPS,” she said. “This is a huge task, as we will need to touch almost everyone in the Air Force: civilians, active duty, guard, Reserve, commanders, supervisors and managers.

The initial goal is to ensure everyone in the Air Force is trained on and understands the new personnel authorities and programs, she said.

“We are talking about some radical changes to civilian personnel administration -- replacing a system that all of us have grown up with, with a system that offers more flexibility and rewards, but also puts more at risk,” she said. “We have to build a marketing and training program that is deliverable to every employee, commander and supervisor in an easy to understand format.”

But Ms. Bonilla said that the civilian personnel community would meet the challenges this new system presents.

“While we are still assessing the impact of NSPS on the personnel community, we do foresee some changes,” she said. “NSPS will free our Air Force civilian personnelists from the perception that they are the ‘cop’ or ‘bad guy’ of the personnel system. Because NSPS delegates considerable personnel and fiscal authority to supervisors and managers, many personnelists will move into an expanded role of adviser to management. They will become indispensable players on management’s team providing insight and guidance on implementation of the NSPS’s flexibilities.”

Ms. Bonilla also said she envisions a change in the skill sets of personnel specialists under NSPS. Pay-for-performance, pay banding and a simplified classification system may require different levels or combinations of knowledge and experiences that are required today.

The most dramatic changes will be in classification and performance management. Pay banding will replace the traditional general and wage schedule grades. This is expected to greatly simplify the classification of positions as there will be much less need to identify specific differences in duties. The result should be streamlined position descriptions that should not exceed one page. Under NSPS, the performance management system becomes pay-for-performance; employees will be compensated based on their contribution to the mission of their organization.

NSPS will also allow more competitive hiring and more options for current employees.

“For example, one of the really great things about NSPS is that we can actually give an employee a small pay increase if (he or she is) reassigned to a tougher or bigger job,” Ms. Bonilla said. “We can’t do that today.”

While there are many changes to the personnel system, some “very important safeguards” will remain the same. Employees will retain all the protections they currently have; merit system principles, rules against prohibited personnel practices, anti-discrimination laws, ability to join unions, appeal rights, etc. Leave and attendance, retirement, benefits, safety and drug abuse programs and some other things have not changed.

Until the Air Force site becomes available, people can learn more about NSPS at the Defense Department level by visiting www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/.