May 15, 2008
A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.
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Sick-Leave Abuse Prompts Calls to Compensate for Unused Time
The Washington
PostBy Stephen Barr
At the Internal Revenue Service, one employee over a two-year period took sick leave on 13 of the 14 Tuesdays after a Monday holiday.
That's an extreme case of sick-leave abuse, but the IRS employee had plenty of co-workers who also liked to take Tuesdays off, a report by the
Inspector General for Tax Administration found.
For weeks that had a holiday falling on a Monday, 27 percent of all sick leave at the IRS was taken on a Tuesday in 2005 and 2006, the report
said. And 24 percent of all sick leave taken by IRS employees during non-holiday weeks was on a Monday.
The report was prompted by growing concerns about sick-leave abuse and the willingness of some federal workers to treat themselves to three-day
weekends.
Most of the civil service is covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System, and FERS employees are not allowed to fold their unused sick
leave into their pension benefits when they retire. In contrast, workers under the old Civil Service Retirement System can take compensation for
unused sick leave upon retirement.
Allowing sick leave to be turned into pension credits is costly, and when FERS was created about 20 years ago to phase out the older pension
program, Congress opted for more modern benefits (such as matching contributions to a retirement savings plan) that make it easier for employees to
come and go from the government.
The inspector general's report on the IRS workforce mirrors many of the findings in a report from the Congressional Research Service last year --
that FERS employees are more likely to use up their sick leave as they near retirement because of the system's use-it-or-lose-it rule.
About 97,000 IRS employees took more than 15 million hours of sick leave in 2005 and 2006, costing the IRS about $450 million in salaries and lost
productivity, the inspector general found.
Federal employees earn 13 days of sick leave a year, and IRS employees took an average of 11 days of sick leave in 2006, the inspector general's
report said. It is relatively easy to take sick leave in small amounts because most managers will take the employee's word that an absence was because
of illness or to care for a sick child.
There is no limit on how much sick leave an employee can carry forward into the next year, and IRS employees had an average balance of 43 days of
accumulated sick leave at the end of 2006.
"We believe that the lack of compensation for unused sick leave at retirement has contributed to the higher amount of sick leave used by FERS
employees," the report said, adding that a change to the use-it-or-lose-it rule might be warranted if the change is less expensive than the current
policy.
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) thinks providing an incentive might reduce the use of sick leave. He has introduced a bill that would provide FERS
employees with a lump-sum payment for any unused sick leave at retirement but would be capped at $10,000. The bill, introduced in March, has 34
co-sponsors.
Moran estimates that overuse of sick leave across the government costs taxpayers $68 million a year in productivity losses.
IRS officials faulted the inspector general's report for providing no specific evidence of sick-leave abuse and criticized the report for
providing no comparable information from other agencies or the private sector, according to a management response included in the report.
The inspector general agreed that the report did not provide evidence of abuse but noted that investigators identified 214 employees who had
questionable rates of sick-leave use, such as taking sick leave on seven or more of the possible 14 Tuesdays after a Monday holiday.
IRS managers are counseling employees about misusing sick leave as vacation, and 22 percent of managers surveyed by the inspector general said
they had denied sick leave requests.
But 12 percent of the IRS managers in the survey said it was acceptable for employees to use sick leave in lieu of annual leave, or vacation time,
and 11 percent said employees should be allowed to use sick leave "whatever the situation," the report said.
The inspector general recommended that the IRS ensure that managers receive training on leave policies to increase their awareness of possible
abuse.
Intelligence Agencies Make Changes to Pay Raise System
Federal TimesBy Stephen Losey
There will be a few changes in the way employees at intelligence agencies are evaluated and rewarded with pay raises, according to the
intelligence community’s top personnel official, Ronald Sanders. Among those changes:
- Employees who meet their performance standards in fiscal 2009 will get at least the same raise they would have under the General Schedule system
in 2010. This differentiates the proposed intelligence pay system from the Defense Department’s National Security Personnel System (NSPS).
Management groups criticized NSPS after some employees in January received pay raises that were less than they would have received under the GS
system, despite the fact that they received satisfactory ratings.
- Senior leaders on detail to other agencies, who now are being evaluated by their home agency supervisors under separate performance-based pay
systems, will instead be evaluated under a common system and standards by supervisors at agencies where they are detailed.
“We have anecdotal evidence that when people are on detail from their home agency, their performance ratings may have suffered,”
said Sanders, chief human capital officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). “They were out of sight, out of
mind.”
Employees rated successful — a three on a five-level performance rating system — will get the same pay raise all GS employees will
get in January 2010, plus their full locality pay raise, in addition to possible performance-based raises or bonuses, Sanders said May 7.
Sanders acknowledged that he and other officials had the criticisms of NSPS in mind when they crafted the pay-for-performance plan. But he said
the intelligence system was also largely based on the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s 9-year-old pay system, which sets the full GS
pay raise and locality raise as the minimum increase that satisfactory employees can receive.
Employees who are rated minimally successful or unacceptable will not get any raise, according to directives signed April 28 by Director of
National Intelligence Michael McConnell.
Sanders said the CIA and ODNI plan to evaluate their senior leaders under the new performance management system this fiscal year, with the same
pay rating system. This new system will determine the size of their raises in January. All other intelligence employees will be placed under the new
system when fiscal 2009 begins.
Senior intelligence officials have been evaluated under their agencies’ unique performance management systems for several years, Sanders
said.
But that created problems when senior officials were detailed to other agencies, he said, because their home agencies still conducted their
performance evaluations.
Because encouraging joint duty is a major part of the intelligence community’s reform efforts, Sanders said he wanted to fix that problem.
Under the new system, senior officials on joint duty will be evaluated by the supervisor to whom they are detailed. Those supervisors will also set
the performance goals for detailed senior officials.
The performance management system also will evaluate employees on common measurements, which Sanders said will help ensure fairness when
executives are detailed to other agencies.
“We tried to make sure the performance elements are blended,” Sanders said.
All executives will be evaluated on how well they collaborate, show leadership and management skills, understand how different intelligence
components work together, and understand the areas they oversee.
Sanders said McConnell is getting ready to sign another directive that spells out how pay raises will be distributed to employees for each of the
top three performance ratings.
The new performance management system will also include a concept called 360-degree feedback, where supervisors, managers and executives receive
anonymous assessments from their supervisors, colleagues, subordinates, customers and peers on ways they can improve and what training they need.
A contractor is collecting 360-degree feedback on Sanders and six other top intelligence officials. But Sanders said that information will only be
used for developmental purposes and will not be used to determine pay raises.
Report: "Onboarding" Helps Retain Employees
Federal Computer Week
By Richard W. Walker
A process called “onboarding” is one of the best ways for federal agencies to retain new employees once they start work, according
to a new report from the Partnership for Public and Booz Allen Hamilton.
In “Getting on Board: A Model for Integrating and Engaging New Employees,” issued May 13, researchers concluded that successfully
integrating new employees into the workplace, or onboarding, during their first year increases retention by up to 25 percent.
“What agencies do or don’t do has a large impact on a new worker’s view of government service,” said Max Stier,
president of the Partnership for Public Service. “And ultimately that will impact how effective agencies are at getting the job done.”
First impressions have effects; 90 percent of new employees decide in the first six months on the job whether they will stay or go, according to
the study. It cites one case of unsuccessful onboarding in which a federal employee spent his first day at work counting the change left in his desk
drawer because he had no computer and nothing to do.
The researchers found there is no consistent approach to onboarding in the federal government and that when onboarding initiatives are deployed,
they often lack focus on the agency’s mission, vision and culture.
The study recommended that agencies implement a four-part onboarding model to help new employees.
- Defining principles to ensure the onboarding process is aligned to an agency's mission.
- Identifying specific onboarding roles for agency personnel and new employees.
- Implementing specific phases and activities to integrate new employees.
- Measuring and reporting on onboarding outcomes.
Researchers developed the model from best practices in the private sector and lessons learned from focus groups with federal employees and
interviews with agency managers.
Celebrate Public Service at a Washington Nationals Game!
The Partnership for Public Service Join the Washington Nationals and the Partnership for Public
Service as we celebrate public service this summer -- come cheer the Nationals on to victory! Get discounted tickets for three summer games --
click here to
purchase through the Partnership for Public Service. You do not need to be a federal employee to receive this discount. Discounted tickets are
available for games on:
- Saturday, May 24 vs. Milwaukee Brewers
- Saturday, July 12 vs. Houston Astros
- Saturday, September 20 vs. San Diego Padres
Discounted ticket prices are:
- RF Mezzanine: $33 (Normally $38)
- Scoreboard Pavilion: $24 (Normally $29)
- Upper Infield Gallery: $15 (Normally $20)
