NSPS employees should have their approved job objectives by now

  • Published
  • By Kevin Gilmartin
  • ESC Public Affairs
Hanscom AFB, Mass --  Electronic Systems Center employees who converted from the old GS personnel system to the National Security Personnel System on Jan. 21 should by now have approved job objectives in their official electronic "My Biz" folders, according to ESC's NSPS officials.

Additionally, they should be preparing for the interim review portion of NSPS, which begins May 21, the official midterm of the first rating cycle, said Bob Youtt, ESC's NSPS program manager.

The interim review gives employees an opportunity to write and file a self assessment at the performance period's halfway point that will give their supervisors a written narrative of their contributions to the organization as well as document their performance against their job objectives.

"These self assessments are not mandatory, but are highly encouraged," Mr. Youtt said.
Employees who need help in writing the self assessments should take the on-line "iSuccess" training course available on the NSPS web site at http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/index.html . This course, which guides people through writing self assessments using a step-by-step approach, is the result of feedback and lessons learned from the first "spiral" of NSPS in 2006.

Regarding job objectives, Mr. Youtt said that employees and supervisors have been creating their performance plans with specific objectives using either a DD Form 2906 Microsoft Word document, or using Adobe PDF documents. The objectives should then have been reviewed by each organization's pay pool panel. Once reviewed and approved, they must be entered into each employee's NSPS Performance Appraisal Application in the official, on-line Defense Civilian Personnel Data System.

"Job objectives are not considered established until the supervisor and employee have entered them into the employee's Performance Appraisal Application in the official on-line DCPDS system," Mr. Youtt said.

"I've been getting a lot of questions from employees and supervisors about how to create an individual's performance plan and access the PAA. It's really not that difficult, but can be confusing when doing it for the first time," he said.

First, employees must create an account on "My Biz," and supervisors do the same on "My Workplace." Both these systems, managed by the Air Force Personnel Center, will allow access to the Performance Appraisal Application.

Employees and supervisors will regularly be reviewing and entering data into the PAA throughout the NSPS process," Mr. Youtt said. "They should take the time now to learn the application."

The NSPS Web site has an on-line demonstration of the PAA, available by clicking on http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/EPPTutorial/main.htm , as well as a user's guide that will help navigate the application available here: http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/docs/PAAUserguide.pdf .

"A higher-level reviewer process has been added to the application since the original user guide was posted to the NSPS web site," said Laurie Cunningham of ESC's Personnel Directorate. "Once the supervisor has accepted and the employee has acknowledged the job objectives, the second-level supervisor needs to approve the objective before the employee's performance can be rated."

Once the PAA is established and job objectives approved, rating officials need to go into the PAA and create an interim review record, and then transfer responsibility to their employees to write self-assessments.

"This written narrative is a permanent part of the official archived PAA," said Mr. Youtt. "Once the self assessment is done, the rating official will review it and provide an interim assessment to the employee. The employee then reviews the supervisory interim assessment and acknowledges it in the automated PAA. The rating official then approves the interim review.

"We really expect that the rating official and employee will have face-to-face discussions regarding performance, but the written assessment must be documented in the PAA," he said.