Reforming the Civilian Workforce: Two Carrots and Two Sticks

I like his ideas, but we need to do more if we are to effectively reform the civilian government workforce. Here's my recommendations:
1. Tie pay to performance. This requires supervisors to set performance goals for employees, make sure the employees understand the goals, and then evaluate the employee against the goals. Senior managers must then fully support their supervisors' evaluations of the employees and evaluate the supervisors on how well they evaluate the employees. Senior managers (GS15 and SES) should be evaluated against their support and accomplishment of organization-level goals. This evaluations requires the revised evaluation system in "2". Tie pay raises and bonuses directly to the employee's rating in the evaluation system. If the employee is "average", then they get only the across-the-board raise. If the employee is below average, then their raise is reduced or eliminated. Bonuses go only to top performers.
2. Revise the evaluation system. The evaluation system must be revised to support the pay-for-performance concept. Senior managers must enforce the expectation that most employees will receive an "average" rating. The stigma of being "average" must be removed. Excessive paperwork must not be required when an employee is rated above or below average. If he employee comes to work most every day and meets the goals their supervisor set for them, they are average. We can praise them for their solid support to the organization and mission, but they don't deserve a big raise or bonus for simply doing the job. Performance goals must be clear, measurable, and objective. Supervisors must track employee performance against the goals and use the facts to determine the rating. This all sounds a little cold, but if done correctly it will ensure the workforce if fairly evaluated and rewarded.
3. Abolish public sector unions. Public sector unions in Federal Government are a waste of time and taxpayer money. The unions cannot bargain for wages or benefits by law. They can bargain for working conditions that are specified in their contract, such as in what cube the employee works, and handle grievances. Federal employees cannot be forced to join a union making the Federal Government a right-to-work organization no matter what state the government organization is located. Unfortunately, union officers are allotted paid Government work time for union business. This makes those union bosses nearly useless to their supervisors. In my experience, the unions are mostly a way for disaffected employees--those that probably would get a below-average rating anyway--to cause trouble for their supervisors. They file multiple and often spurious grievances. Supervisors and managers then have to spend a lot of their time proving they were doing their job correctly and the employee's grievance is not valid. In short, nobody wins.
4. Shorten the hiring lead time. It took me over 6 months to fill a GS13 vacancy. That wasn't unusual in the organization for which I worked. I'll admit I was new to the Government hiring process and was biased from my private sector background. The entire process needs to be streamlined from the time an employee decides to leave the position or a new position is approved to the time the new employee reports to his or her line supervisor for work. In the private sector, if it took more than 60 days to fill a billable vacancy on a project team, somebody in the HR department was likely looking for a new job. The resume review and interview process is burdensome and very time consuming. It is not designed to hire the best qualified person, but to make sure the organization doesn't get sued for some perceived discrimination. This is where the process is probably over-regulated.
5. Firing is a real thing. It is difficult to fire a government civilian. I tried. I was able to force retirement for an employee who consistently failed to meet performance goals. It took tons of paperwork and about a year. In that year, the taxpayer go little for the salary the person took. In the private sector, we could fire an underperforming employee in one two-week pay cycle if necessary. We were often much nicer in the public sector when a business decline required a layoff, but if an employee really screwed up, like exposing classified information into a public forum, then they could be gone in less than two weeks. Mid- and upper-level supervisors need to be able to recommend release of any government employee within their area of supervision. Failure to meet average performance standards on one annual eval should be enough to get one fired. Final firing authority should rest at the Government equivalent of a corporate VP, about the GS15 or SES 1 level. Severance package should be humane, but not overly generous.

I'm not sure where the figures came from or what the %'s are but I know there are less Active duty and Reserve components as indicated and the amount of civilians numbers through the Government have by more than 50%

While I am no advocate of extra money for doing your job to the best of your abilities, I also believe their can be some kind of streamlining and incentive program that can be instituted without shelling out bonuses....Hope he figures it out, I have faith he will