• Performance Anxiety

In her work for the government, Office of Personnel Management director Linda M. Springer has been finding new ways to achieve results, streamline operations and save money.

Before being sworn in as director of OPM on June 28, 2005, Springer had been controller of the White House Office of Management and Budget and head of the Office of Federal Financial Management. At OMB she reduced the government’s year-end financial reporting time from

"I’m a believer in paying people on the basis of their work product and the results that they achieve." (Image: Susan Whitney-Wilkerson)

five months to 45 days and began updating OMB Circular A-123, establishing a federal government equivalent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires strict internal controls over financial reporting.

In a recent interview with Government Leader senior writer Trudy Walsh at OPM’s headquarters in Washington, Springer talked about the Working for America Act and the past, present and future of the federal pay system. WFAA would require agencies to better manage, develop and reward federal employees, Springer said, who in turn will be better able to serve the American people.

GL: Some officials, including OMB deputy director for management Clay Johnson, have said that pay for performance is a bad term because it suggests that if you don’t perform, you don’t get paid—which is not the case, certainly. Do you think pay for performance has an image problem that needs to be overcome for it to be fully accepted across government?
SPRINGER: We’ve moved away from that terminology because we don’t want to get tripped up over words. What we’re after is a results-based, market-based form of compensation. And I think that Clay is right that some people misinterpret or misapply pay for performance to what we’re doing. And the results terminology does a better job. Pay for performance sounds a little too mercenary, if you will.

GL: Since many agencies are already implementing pay-for-performance systems, what will the WFAA do that can’t now be done by mandate?
SPRINGER: We have over 90,000 federal employees [who] are covered by alternative pay systems today. That includes the Senior Executive Service and various demonstration projects, some of which date back as much as 25 years. And we, the Office of Personnel Management, have surveyed the employees covered by those systems and, by and large, with few exceptions, they would not go back to the old way of doing things. So that’s been a good learning experience and a good validation that improvements can be made in this area.

Now, getting those demonstration projects or special authorities usually required congressional legislation, something in an authorization bill, for example. Doing it in a piecemeal fashion is not the right way to do it. What a comprehensive bill would accomplish is a level playing field. It would provide additional protections and OPM oversight. It would allow employees to have a better understanding as they would consider employment opportunities in different agencies.

GL: What do you think are the main problems with the current General Schedule pay system and how will WFAA improve on the current system?
SPRINGER: My biggest problems are in the compensation area. I’m a believer in paying people on the basis of their work product and the results that they achieve. I’m also a believer in having goals, in managers helping employees to achieve success in meeting those goals, or in motivating managers to do that. And giving good feedback and having performance goals in writing.

Then at the end of the day, I believe the chance of success is much greater in that environment. Employees will not only have the satisfaction of success but there will be monetary reward as well. I also think it provides for making the right distinction or having the right basis for distinction in how we reward and compensate employees.

Longevity, by itself, is not a good basis for making those distinctions. I think the current structure was appropriate when it was introduced 50 years ago, but we’ve outgrown it.

GL: What advice would you give agency executives as they look toward implementing pay-for-performance systems?
SPRINGER: Train your managers. In any compensation structure, including the current General Schedule, managers have responsibilities to give their employees what they need to be successful. And they don’t need to wait for legislation to do that.

There are people who are finding that they’ve been promoted into management positions on the basis of their technical skills, which may be superior, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the core competencies of good management. So agency leaders have the responsibility to sort out who really has management competencies and who doesn’t. And make sure the right people are in the right positions.

GL: The Senior Executives Association is concerned about the lack of locality pay and an annual cost-of-living adjustment in the new SES system. Does the absence of such benefits mitigate the incentive for GS-15 employees to move up to SES? Do you think more incentives are needed to encourage GS employees to rise to SES management positions?
SPRINGER: I don’t think that that’s an impediment. I think that there are many reasons why people aspire to be in the SES. And in my experience, I’ve never seen any difficulty in finding candidates for the SES. In fact, we’ve seen more candidates than there were spots.

The SES has a very special place. It’s a recognized set of leaders in the federal government. I meet with the new classes each year. We train the new SES candidates in OPM’s executive programs. And they’re very enthusiastic about being leaders in the federal government. If we had more spots, we could fill them.

GL: What sort of training will managers get to prepare them for their role in a pay-for-performance system? What is the best way for agencies to fund that training?
SPRINGER: There’s nothing more important than management getting properly trained, in the current environment as well as in any other type of pay structure that may be in the future. There are many ways to get that training. There are programs within the government, and there are programs—good programs—in the private sector. OPM offers training as well. So there’s no one set course that we mandate. But a good training program will have certain hallmarks to its curriculum, [such as] goal setting and performance feedback. It will have how to write good performance goals, because one of our requirements is that these goals be in writing. That’s a safeguard that any employee should have and that OPM’s committed to. A good program will focus on how managers can help employees be successful.

It will help managers give feedback in a useful way. Some of the performance appraisals have become perfunctory. What a good manager does is give comments that are really constructive and aid in the development of staff.

As far as funding goes, each individual agency will deal with that, but there are many agencies that do training already.

GL: What are the critical factors that go into an effective performance evaluation?
SPRINGER: You can’t do good performance evaluations unless you have goals and standards to use in that evaluation process. At the very beginning, there have to be clearly articulated goals and they have to be in writing—I can’t say that too many times—and those goals have to be aligned with the mission of the agency. That’s true in any organization, whether you’re in government or outside government. So that’s your starting point.

Then, through the course of the rating period, there’s got to be interaction between manager and employee. The employee should feel free to go to the manager and say, “Listen, we’ve agreed on these goals, but I need a certain thing in order to be successful. You want me to be successful, I want to be successful,” and that’s the key. They both want the same thing, if it’s done right at the very beginning. And then it’s just a question of each one helping the other to achieve it. Don’t wait till the end of the year to give feedback, good or bad. That’s needed through the year.

GL: How do you keep performance measurements from being vague or subjective? What measures does the WFAA have that will minimize subjectivity in performance reviews?
SPRINGER: First of all, as far as having good goals, they’ve got to be ones that are measurable and quantifiable. The [more] subjectivity that you can take out from the way [the goals are] articulated in the first place, the better off you’re going to be. So, rather than say, “We’re going to make a certain customer group happy,” it’s better to say, ‘“We’re going to provide responses to these customers, within so many days, and they’re going to be right 100 percent of the time.” The more precisely the goals can be articulated, the less subjective the evaluation will be.

The Working for America Act preserves due-process rights of employees. Employees will have the opportunity to appeal their ratings if they disagree with them. There are procedures for re-evaluation. There are reviews—a second set of eyes is the way I’d put it—that will review internally the supervisor’s assessment. So there are many steps before it becomes final and even once it’s communicated, the due-process rights are still there for an employee who feels that the rating was not accurate.