1. Feds, You’ll get your 1% raise, (if you’re still working).
This is what showed up on my RSS newsreader this week….
Notice a recurring theme here? Federal Employee Morale stinks. This is because overall Federal Employee compensation is shrinking while workloads are expanding (due to hiring freezes). Pay, benefits, and the FERS Annuity itself are once again bargaining chips on the table.
No wonder 12,000 Feds bailed out in October.
Two Navy commands I met with last month were both mentally preparing themselves for the Next Shutdown (in January 2014).
What to do? Continue reading
Quitting work for Uncle Sugar is not as straightforward as you think it would be.
In my case, I briefed my supervisor about the competing job offer I accepted, then I coordinated with our administrative specialist to generate my separation date, “request for personnel action”, and final SF-50 (Notice of Personnel Action).
I did not need to fill out a huge list of forms, but I’m sure the process was rather involved on the HR end. The SF-50 is generated by an SF-52 (Request for Personnel Action).
The SF-52 has about two hundred codes for why you are leaving the employ of Uncle Sugar, but for all these codes, there is no code in existence that says “The Employee is departing of his/her own Free Will“. Fascinating- I must be the first person ever to resign from Federal Employment on my own volition [/sarcasm]. Continue reading
I’ve recently mentioned that I have separated from federal service. The below discussion about RIF’s was not a consideration in my depature, but if I was a newly-hired employee, it certainly would have been the very first thing to factor in to my decision.
Here goes.
During many of the recent FY14 budget discussions, SECDEF has mentioned that DoD Civilian RIFs may be part of the solution for reducing Defense Spending under Sequestration. He also mentioned that if he had his druthers that Performance would be a deciding factor in deciding who to RIF first.
Why has he asked Congress to use Performance in deciding who gets RIF’ed first? NSPS (National Security Personnel System, aka Pay for Performance) died back in 2010, and just about everyone went back on to the General Schedule in 2011.
Here’s the GubMints analysis. Continue reading