No Boos (Yet) for a Plan That Isn't Called 'Pay for Performance'

RENO, Nev. In a delicate dance, the Obama administration took its plan to reward federal employees based on how well they do their jobs, rather than on tenure, to a group known for its fierce opposition to "pay for performance."

Instead of using that terminology, which is considered profane language to the organized federal workforce, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on Monday pushed the notion of a "performance appraisal" system to members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) meeting at a convention here.

He escaped largely unscathed, even drawing repeated, if polite, applause from the crowd, but left the union's president unconvinced.

One of Berry's biggest applause lines came when he said he needs the union's help to "craft a fair performance-appraisal system" and added: "I didn't say 'pay for performance' . . . that is not NSPS, not NSPS." That repeated reference to the National Security Personnel System, the Pentagon's pay-for-performance program, was greeted with cheers by many in the crowd.

But just how the administration's notion of performance appraisal differs from pay for performance remains to be seen. Berry didn't define what he has in mind during the speech. In a later interview, he said the concept is a framework that he hopes will be filled out with labor's help.

That's a key difference he sees with pay for performance, an effort that George W. Bush's administration pushed to replace the long-standing General Schedule, or GS, system. NSPS, the signature federal personnel effort by the Bush White House, became "strategically flawed . . . to the point where it cannot succeed, because it does not have the buy-in of half of the equation, which is the workers," Berry said during the interview.

"I didn't get booed," he added. "I was very pleased with the reception."

But the crowd was a bit warmer than John Gage, AFGE's president. Almost the moment Berry finished speaking, Gage told the gathering that he had to talk privately with Berry, and they retreated behind the stage.

After their talk, Gage said it is "astounding to me why the administration is taking up federal performance management at all." He added that he's "keeping my powder dry" until an October conference on federal employee issues that Harvard University is organizing along with the OPM and labor unions.

Yet Gage said he doesn't think Obama administration officials, not necessarily Berry, have "a good hold on the federal workforce." They need to "study up," he added, because some of them are dealing with workplace matters on a "superficial level."

Gage was more complimentary to the administration in his own speech earlier in the day. He called President Obama "the most pro-worker president" since Franklin D. Roosevelt. But he stressed that "we've got to kill the underlying concept" of pay for performance and said that "even our friends who may be taken in by the phrase must feel our wrath."

Almost as if to counter the view that the White House has a superficial grasp of workplace matters, even before Gage mentioned it, Berry described a draft strategic plan that lays out the administration's vision for reforming federal workplace practices. His introduction to the plan says: "We will expect the best from each and every worker and ensure fair and effective approaches to encouraging, evaluating and rewarding superior performance and correcting shortfalls. In exchange, we need to provide competitive pay and benefits, healthy model workplace environments, and sensitivity to employees' responsibilities to family and loved ones."

Raising federal pay to make it more competitive with the private sector is the carrot in his plan for federal workers. He knows selling federal pay raises to the public and Congress will be tough. Without a stronger way to evaluate, reward and punish federal employees, the significant increases that workers would like to see won't occur. The administration won't support such a pay boost unless it's part of a larger package of reforms.

"This is a once-in-a-generation chance to ask the big questions, and if we do this right, we'll have a people policy that can last us the rest of the century," Berry said. "So I'm encouraging all of you and all of our partners to help us think about the big picture."

But if there is anything in that picture "that smells of pay for performance," Gage said, "this union will go nuclear."

Contact Joe Davidson at federaldiary@washpost.com.