# NSPS WARNO



## SSmith (Jul 24, 2008)

This will probably apply to Federal employee more than the rest, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up about NSPS that was not discussed during our conversion.

I have recently accepted a job in a different Army unit. The position I am currently in is NSPS. The one I am moving into is not. (It is on the laboratory demonstration payscale.) As part of my out processing, I have been going through all the NSPS drills required for Early Annual Appraisal.

Yesterday my supervisor informed me of good news and bad news. The good news is my evaluation would be 4 out of 5. That puts me in the top 15-20% of our organization. The bad news is that since I am transitioning into a unit that is not under NSPS, I would receive no compensation for that outstanding rating. In fact, I would receive the same compensation as if I was rated a 1.

After reviewing SC1930 and SC1940 (the legalese for NSPS), I found the bad news to be correct. The lesson learned is this:

1. If you are leaving an NSPS position for a non-NSPS position, it is worth waiting until after your paypool pays out (1st payperiod in January) to start your new job. Even if you leave after the appraisal period but before the payout, you get nothing. (Technically, this shouldn’t be a problem when moving from an NSPS position to a different NSPS position, but a quick online search shows that this is also not occurring in many situations.)

2. If you are expecting a really bad appraisal, then leave before the first payperiod in January.


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## Guest (Aug 1, 2008)

^^^ That totally blows! 

JR


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## IlPadrino (Aug 1, 2008)

jregieng said:


> ^^^ That totally blows!
> JR


JR,

Blows seems a little extreme. I've had plenty of "blows" and they haven't been all bad!

SSmith,

Sorry you're getting the short end of the stick, but it's to be expected given the parochial nature of our government services. As a Navy guy, I'd ask why we should spend our money making a soon-to-be Army guy happy about his hard work. It ain't fair, but it makes sense.


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## SSmith (Aug 1, 2008)

IlPadrino said:


> SSmith,
> Sorry you're getting the short end of the stick, but it's to be expected given the parochial nature of our government services. As a Navy guy, I'd ask why we should spend our money making a soon-to-be Army guy happy about his hard work. It ain't fair, but it makes sense.


1. Just as a point of clarification--Im not switching service. The move is Army to Army with just a change of MACOMs (TRADOC to RDECOM).

2. We all work to support the war fighter. Period. End of sentence. How does this move make sense to the war fighter? It seems to me that they are best served by encouraging high performers to continue to perform highly. Evidently our G1/J1 shops disagree. (PEO NSPS just said that the comment was noted and promptly hung up on me.)

/soapbox

Everyone that I spoke to about this said that it wasn't fair, but it's whats in the regs--all they do is enforce the regs. I then asked what work are they doing to influence the regs to make the system right. Each and every person told me that that wasn't their job.

I'm 28 and still full of piss and vinegar, but that attitude deeply bothers me. The regs represent a best practice _at a point in time_. If for some reason they are shown to be inadequate then it should be EVERY civil servant's responsibility to make it right. Not plodding along knowing things aren't right and still enforcing them.

/off soapbox


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## Capt Worley PE (Aug 4, 2008)

Nobody I know has anything nice to say about NSPS.


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