U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Release

DoD Announces Next Phase of NSPS Implementation

            The Department of Defense (DoD) announced today that it will implement Spiral 1.2 of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), a new civilian human resources system, to over 66,000 employees between October 2006 and January 2007.

            The human resources system includes classification, compensation, performance management, staffing, and workforce shaping elements.  The department will continue to implement NSPS to the DoD civilian workforce in phases.

            “NSPS is critical to the department’s transformation to a results-oriented, mission-focused culture,” said Michael Dominguez, principal deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness.  “The performance-based system will create an environment, where our employees will be focused on outcomes that support our national security mission and they will be rewarded for results.”

Civilian employees from organizations throughout DoD, including overseas, are included in this group.  Each component considered mission, organization and operations, wholeness of units and readiness to implement.

“Organizations have the discretion to convert their workforce at anytime during the four- month period,” said Mary Lacey, NSPS program executive officer.  “Training is critical to the successful transition to NSPS.  We want to give organizations sufficient time to train employees, do it right and implement when they are ready.”

            Employees will be given new performance plans clearly linked to their organization’s mission and strategic goals.  They will also be converted to pay bands that replace the General Schedule.  Employees will not lose pay upon conversion to NSPS and most will receive an initial adjustment in pay to account for time already earned toward their next within grade increase.

            Lacey recently met with Spiral 1.1 senior leaders to identify what worked well during the conversion of the first 11,000 employees, and where improvements need to be made.  This information will assist in planning for implementation of this next phase, referred to as Spiral 1.2.

            “We are already assessing implementation for the first group of employees,” said Lacey.  “We are pleased with what we are seeing thus far, at least with the technical aspects of conversion.”

            Lacey said, personnel actions were completed for the first 11,000 employees with a 99.9 percent accuracy rate and all pay transactions processed successfully at DFAS.

             Employees have access to training materials, including a conversion tool in the NSPS 101 Course located on the NSPS Web site.  This tool lets employees see an estimate of the value of their within-grade increase (WGI) buy-in as well as their career group and pay band.

            The performance appraisal cycle for Spiral 1.2 employees begins on their actual day of conversion and ends Sept. 30, 2007.  These employees will receive their first performance pay increases in January 2008.

             Lacey will meet with Spiral 1.2 leaders and employees throughout the coming months.  She will continue to seek feedback from Spiral 1.1 organizations, who converted to the system in late April, to determine if adjustments to the system are necessary prior to implementation to the next group of employees.

            The complete list of organizations included in Spiral 1.2 is available on the NSPS Web site at http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps.

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