What’s the best way to encourage good performance? Employers have always struggled with this question. One answer is to pay employees based on how well they perform their jobs. Many private sector employers have adopted pay-for-performance (PFP) programs, and several federal agencies have also experimented with PFP. Some federal PFP programs have operated successfully for many years; others have been more controversial. Last year, Congress terminated a PFP program at the Defense Department. Employees complained that the program was arbitrary and lacked transparency. Clearly, designing a successful PFP program is not always easy.
Loading ...The Postal Service adopted an annual PFP program in 2003. PFP is the only source of annual pay adjustments for Postal Service non-bargaining employees. Employees and their managers review targets and expectations at the beginning of the year. During the year, managers provide feedback to employees through mid-year performance reviews. Then, at the end of the year, employees receive a rating.
For most employees, the rating is based on a combination of their individual accomplishments and how well certain targets have been met by the unit, district, area, or the Postal Service as a whole. The employee’s position determines the choice of targets included. For example, the rating for a postmaster of a small Post Office would be based on factors such as how well Post Offices in his or her group met revenue and expense targets and how well the district met delivery performance goals.
The Postal Service’s PFP program has won awards and been cited by other organizations as a model to emulate, but there have been some criticisms. Some of the factors on which an employee is evaluated may be outside the employee’s immediate control. Given the Postal Service’s current financial condition and the drop in mail volume, it can be difficult for even high-performing employees to receive an increase.
What do you think? What makes for a good system of rewarding performance?
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
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Budget adjustments are made in the Western Area for the sole purpose of ensuring that no District makes TOE and total work hours goals. This has been going on for years. Totally unethical, dishonest, and probably illegal.
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It is a broken system. I have seen many deserving and competent EAS employees get little or nothing year after year, while those who ‘apple polish’ and do nothing get rewarded.
On top of that, in some areas it causes problems for craft employees. A former co-worker moved to a new facility after 20+ years. Hard working, pleasant man with good work, safety and leave record. New supervisor threatened him with removal because ‘he didn’t learn the job fast enough and if her PFP suffered for it, he would too by not having a job.’ I really don’t think that was the whole idea behind PFP, now was it?
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PFP is a joke! Upper management uses uses it as a carrot to get more from less out of EAS. Then, when you work your butt off, you are rewarded with a big goose egg. I’ve always said that PFP does not drive my performance, I work hard, do the best that I can do to be successful, for my own satisfaction and integrity. I’d be ok if everyone got a zero considering the dire straits we’re in, but to see upper management and cronies get rewarded for the hard work of the field, is unethical and just plain wrong.
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I recieved a letter of warning because I didn’t want to partisapate in the PFP as it was completely unfair.
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i have been a post worker for the post office for over 12 years, a retired army 1st sgt. in the elite units( 101st airborne ,2nd ar cav unit) and never have i seen such a joke in my life . the window clerks are your front liners and dont get the credit they should get. they get a 100 on the mystery shopper and the post manager and their puppets get the glory. no programs for improvement as employees of the us post office. the supervisor that have been at this post office has done nothing to benifit the post office. they do clerks jobs to make them look good and if you file a complaint they make your life ( well we wont use that word) how much money has the post office lost becuase of managment doing the wrong thing. and employyess losing time and money becuase of this. the oig is a joke because most of them are sleeping with the postmasters. they go out and eat with them and talk and joke and talk about how to ( do wrong to employess that they dont like). if they really are watching all employess why are post master and their puppets getting away with stealing from the workers.
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PFP has resulted in working towards the numbers, not to giving better service. Goals are not within our control, so we can’t work harder to get higher pay as was the intention. Even if you do achieve the goals, the ratings are changed or manipulated so you get less of a raise than the people you supervise.
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pfp is not a fair system esp when its changed mid stream
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My supervisor fell asleep at his desk every morning while the work got out all around him. He got into trouble by fudging a pet employee’s time and he had some thing on the pm so they gave him a pm position to keep him quiet. The man should have never been in this position let alone not fired (I still don’t believe the postal inspectors were notified, and if so..why nothing was done when we have had employees walked out the door for far less violations) Integrity needs to start at the top.
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This is supposed to be a discussion of PFP, take your griping about management as a whole to Postal Reporter or some other blog. If carriers and clerks had to use a PFP system they’d find their pay was stagnant at best, as it depends on the performance of the entire district, not individual efforts. Except for PCES, there haven’t been “bonuses” for years, try working without a raise for two years, PFP is the only raise EAS get, they don’t get more money just for showing up like the craft do.
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RUKiddingme with this question? Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. PFP has a fundamental flaw….you have to make money to pay a BONUS.
The real question should have been how much they should have to give back to save their employer and is that fair.
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PFP causes some in mgmt positions to fudge figures, alter time records, willingly violate employee contracts. Yes if you hit goals set by your superiors the bottom line should look good. Wait a minute, how much money we losing? How many millions are paid out due to grievances caused by hitting these “goals”
How can anyone in upper mgmt take a “bonus” while the company operates billions of dollars in the red?
Do away with PFP, have bi-annual reviews of performance based on how they are doing “managing” their employees. Yes you must pay good money for good employees. That should help get rid of the number crunchers who only care about making their “bonus” at all costs.
Oh wait first lets squeeze those darn union workers a little more. If our payroll wouldn’t be 78% of our cost’s we’d be rolling in money… (Funny they never give the breakdown of Administrative & Management payroll vs the payroll of the people doing most of the work)
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PFP was designed to be an ADDITIONAL avenue to increased pay, not the only way to increase pay, and that’s where this system went wrong right from the beginning………..
the rest of the federal gov’t has PFP and regular steps in salary per year as part of their pay package, all in the goal of within a prescribed time period to get you to top step in your salary range, not hold you back…………..
PFP also has changed from when it was initiated, where you had a wide range of goals specific to each EAS position versus goals mismatched for positions as well as no mid year or end of year reviews, no choices in the goals, goals not attainable due to your best efforts, no clear cut way to acheive goals due to no direction or assistance from your managers, being held responsible for goals that you have no control over at your level, as well as any other level, attaining goals at mid year review only to have goals change after wards to such an unattainable level that it is impossible to recover and acheive new goals set, changing ratings even though goals were met, etc……….
The National Assocoiation Of Postal Supervisors has decreed that there will be no pay package containing any vestiges of PFP-i would have liked to have had it as it was designed, but it has left such a bad taste in my mouth that i don’t want any parts of it anymore, and no other EAS 14-17 in their right mind does either………….
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The PFP as failed miserably. I was on the ground floor when it was rolled out to EAS by the PCES who had already benefited times two from it before we EAS got hooked in its benefits(not long term for sure). The first year I was a contributor and got what a NORMAL increase should have been. Some people got 9.5 and higher percent increases that year for doing absolutly nothing extra other than showing up for work because nobody in budget or PO Operations understood the program and they were still hiding hours in other offices that wouldn’t use them. So these people got nice raises because of the stupidity (maybe I should say ignorance the first year)of some POOM or budget person/Mgr of Finance. In subsequent years budget became less of a factor (even though in its infancy you could not be anon-contributor for not making budget) so good revenue and corporate goals got me more than ample increases. The biggest problem now is that MOPS have control of most budgeting and I have been a recipient of the penalty budget process because I have not converted to a robot and sacrificed service and customer satisfaction for falsely derived goals and the OPS Support people try to tell us it is what the program spits out. We can’t even get a copy of the program and to topit all off the MGR of Ops Support in our district’s wife who is a postmaster always gets call 11 or above and this year although I am sure she isn’t aware has a thousand more hours in her level 18 office’s budget than she used last year. TOE looks good this year for her again after one hopefully disappointing year oh well. As I said these are facts and the way NPA was rolled out or should I say never fully rolled out and everyone given TRAINING as to how it works or was intended to work. No wonder we are in financial difficulties. Payouts unless manufactured by senior management could not be even planned in a budget process when the systems overlap and there is no way to plan for the next year except after the fact. But even after rambling the system should have been scrapped when we were paying double digit percentage increases to anyone in the dervice business.
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When you get zero, they are telling you that basically you did nothing all year. I broke my butt to get to my goals, as unattainable as they were. Nothing at all
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Althought PFP is in theory a good option. The Post Office did not use it as it should be used as a reward for exceptional performance. Instead USPSHQ manipulated the system. They changed goal and scores as they felt fit. They reduced scores of people who worked hard all year to make or exceed thier goals. Then to say your goals were not set high enough only because you got exceptional in all of your personal goals. USPSHQ changed goals mid year or later to reduce the possible pay out to lower level managers and supervisors. All USPS HQ did was use it to screw supervisors and lower level managers. USPS needs to go back to step increases and give COLA. Those were taken away with the inception of the original PFP or EVA. Supervisors and managers should have a way to reach thier top pay scale in a timely manner. Not to take 20 years or more and possibly never reach top pay unless you get lucky and get PFP raises.A long as the top pay increases are more then your PFP rewards then your losing ground and money towards retirement.
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I apologize for the grammer in a previous blog but after a long career as a clerk/carrier/204-B/OIC/Postmaster my eyesight is not getting any better. My memory is still top notch and I know who did who and who stuck it to who and now who will be feeling the wrath of their abuses and missuses. What goes around almost surely comes around and upper levels of management are going to be paying dearly for failing to be truthfull with all of the lower levels because from what I have been reading they have kept the lower levels in the dark long enough. These blogs open up meaningful avenues of communication between those levels of management that have been trying to do the right thing for the good of the Postal Service(not THE COMPANY) and the American public and have been bullied and put down and made non-contributors long enough. They work hard, are involved in their communities(and alot are even known by their local communities), are involved with their management organizations and are hard working take what the upper levels say as being honest and truthful and have produced record levels of service year after year. These same hardworking Americans are slowly coming to understand that most POOMs and managers at the district level have used bullying as a replacement for their lack of knowledge and this has hurt the Postal Service worse than the recession. While these cowardly bullys take pride in their performance it has been at the cost of many a single mother or older woman or some other weak natured but hard working postmaster or manager that they know needs a steady paycheck and they have the power to make it go away or impede it. The management associations are no different than the unions and I know this from first hand experience. Your problem managers have no use for unions or the management organizations and most never belonged unless it was to keep their jobs. The pay for performance has futher enhanced this problem by creating an atmosphere that creates distrust and deceipt among all levels of the Postal Service and until it is abolished and we go back to building individual budgets and action plans that involve honest and accurate accounting of workload and involvement of those tasked with proving exceptional service to the American public corruption and abuse will abound. When good men stand by and do/say nothing treachery prevails. Let’s hear from 40,000 managers who honestly care and who are a part of the backbone of the Postal Service because the backbone has more parts than NALC, APWU, etc if you get my drift.
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We have not been rated on what we actually did and in many cases the PO would not accept in certain areas or goals at the beginging of the year even though they were something we could select. When we did make goals and showed the numerical scores they still used other things like “You made your goal but you didn’t make your budjet” when the goal was not predicated on the budget. Honestly the real problem with the NPA is that it make the higher ups only focus on THEIR goals and I see them forgetting about servicing the customer. I’m old school PO and believe that comes first. Lastly, every POOM, Plant Manger, etc were affraid to buck their District Managers instructions to lower the scores and POOM’s and Plant Managers told me that in one on one honest conversations.
Thanks for listening!
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Congress should remove this unmitigated failure from off of the backs of EAS. There are five reasons this process does not work:
1) The “flexes” of the goals throughout the year causing the EAS to constantly chase a moving target. How unfair.
2) The obligation to meet at the goal setting, mid-year and year-end with the manager is non-existent. Therefore, realistically reaching your goals is virtually impossible. How unfair.
3) The range of the goals is ridiculous as there is not a determinate gauge of the difference between the scores. How is a 5 any difference between a 7? How unfair is that?
4) The process was arbitrarily lowered last year even when as flexes wrecked havoc on goals. The NPA/PFP is extremely complex and does not lend itself to basic understanding of how to achieve year setting goals and how to find the scores, much less as they are flexed. How unfair it that?
5) The eRecourse process is too difficult and convoluted and most supervisors did not use it. This appears that the USPS counted on the process being so difficult that they knew that not many EAS would apply. That is criminal and how unfair is that?
6) The process is too subjective and unfairly applied. I work in the Bay-Valley District of the Pacific Area and there is much gnashing of teeth by both front line supervisors and postmasters.
7) The goals should be jointly applied by local NAPS, League and NAPUS in conjunction with local management. That would prevent the Voice of the Employee scores being tied to PFP. Particularly, when the union leaders are recommending that their employees either do not participate or score their supervisor in the poorest light. Another by-product of the VOE is that EAS are untruthful with their working conditions and their senior management because it would have an adverse impact on their PFP score. How unfair is that?
8) The PFP was never set up as a “bonus” system. It is not fair that a supervisor “hiding” within a group, does nothing extraordinary, yet receive the same category score. How is that fair?
This process causes manipulation of the numbers and the unethical chasing of scores at the expense of service to customers and a disservice to rewarding the hard working members of the craft that also deserves to be recognized [I am not confident that the unions will ever allow anything by mediocrity]. Unless the management association are permitted by the USPS to have policy setting input instead of the consultation being a “take-it-or leave it proposition Congress should scrap it and replace it with the same process that other government agency employ.
The credibility of the public most trusted government agency has been soiled with the debacle of 2009. Simply, it does not work.
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It is a known fact that the past couple of years people who reached their goals had their final rating dropped by upper management in the districts.
Appealing a lower rated score did nothing for the majority that challenged their lower ratings.
The worse part is that everyone knows that the decision to reduce ratings came from above the field level (Area offices) but nobody will come forward and say they were instructed by those at Area offices to keep the ratings lower.
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This program is no longer valid. It lost the faith of managers when scores were changed. When goals were no longer selected. When core goals were changed mid-year.
When employees who participate no longer have faith in a program it loses its ability to be effective.
This program needs to be replaced with steps again. Why should a manager never reach the top level?
Please ignore craft employees who have no idea what PFP is and still call it a bonus.
Also remember at one time it was offered to craft employees and refused.
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