From the Federal Times, OPM is moving forward on bringing performance pay to all federal employees:
The Bush administration is setting the stage for extending performance-based pay reform government-wide by requiring agencies to strengthen how they appraise their managers and employees outside the executive ranks. As part of the president’s management agenda, the administration last year laid out new goals for how agencies should manage their human resources. One of those goals is for agencies to hold their supervisors, managers and executives accountable for managing employee performance. Toward that end, the Office of Personnel Management has asked agencies to reassess how they manage the performance of non-executive managers and employees and to apply to them the same performance-management practices they use for senior executives. Three years ago, senior executives were the first government-wide group of employees to be moved into a performance-based pay system. The result has been that most are now evaluated under new, more rigorous performance appraisal systems. OPM expects agencies to set quantifiable performance goals for employees that are tied to achieving program or agency goals. This is how Senior Executive Service members are appraised for performance. Specifically, in 2007, more than half of every employee’s performance plan must be focused on achieving specific and quantifiable results, OPM Director Linda Springer said in a Jan. 30 memo to agency chief human capital officers.
Full article here.