CSRA and its abilities to fix problems
The Civil Service Reform Act was represented to public in 1978 in order to reform the civil service of the federal government in the Unites States of America. The essence of this act was to reorganize functions of the Civil Service and “to create a professional, well-managed federal workforce in keeping modern employment practices” (Civil Service Reform 2).
The peculiar feature of this act is that civil servants and top mangers in particular got numerous opportunities to have bonuses or merit pay for their work. People tried to demonstrate the best results of their work in order to distinguish from the others and prove that they were worthy of these performance awards. Unfortunately, the attempts to achieve the desirable success led to a terrible failure only.
In spite of the fact that congress made numerous attempts to fund some of the bonuses and government was on the side of the bonuses, people realized that they could work just a little in order to get the desirable bonuses. People also got a chance to forget about numerous reprisals against whistleblowers, which limited their actions (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt 280), but still cannot comprehend the benefit of this opportunity and decrease the level of work and the abilities to save this act working.
Taking into consideration these facts, it is possible to give more or less clear answer to the question whether CSRA was able to fix problems for the federal system or to promote their development. The role of time is crucial in this concepts.
Because on the one hand, this act is a good attempt to encourage people to work and to demonstrate their potentials; on the other hand, with time, people realize that they can do nothing and still get benefits. It is the problem number one, created by both time and CSRA. New issues were presented, and they lead to new problems and new challenges, people have to cope with.
Pay band, pay scales, and pay for performance
The results that congress makes all possible attempts to vote against NSPS (the National Security Personnel System) are not that positive. Pay for performance systems (another explanation of NSPS) usually aim at meeting all types of need of cultures and organizational structures of their nations (Human Capital 4). General Schedule (GS) has been already replaced by NSPS. This system also becomes more effective than pay band system.
The peculiar feature of NSPS is its ability to provide flexible payment levels and to decrease people’s efforts while paying for performance. Taking into account the fact that GS schedule is used by the variety of white collar personnel in the existed civil services, I think that General Schedule system has to be modified in order to meet the conditions under which National Security Personnel System works and provides a qualified pay for performance system.
This modification may happen in the following way: NSPS system is closer to private affairs and their effective collaboration; it attracts more and more performers; and if the conditions of NSPS are used in GS system, where federal salaries have to be kept on the same level with other federal affairs, the improved system makes GS system closer to private agents. So the level of competition, pay scales, and pay bands systems become easier to control and to improve if necessary.
Federal personnel system and its panacea
Time is one of the most influential factors on the development of the federal personnel system. This system may be under the influence of numerous concepts, and this is why it is crucially important to improve this system as frequent as possible.
The Civil Service Reform offered by the United States General Accounting Office may serve as a kind of panacea for the federal personnel system because it presents the evaluation of the Civil Service Act of 1978, analyses the service system and defines it as a “burden some for manager”, and investigates the actions of congress and the discussion of their decisions.
The federal personnel system touches upon numerous issues like equity, fairness, and accountability and works on the establishment of the rules and procedures, which meet resource requirements and demands (Abramson and Gardner 69).
And because of time, it is considerably broken: inability to meet the challenges of the currently developed world, failure to analyze the attempts to deepen into knowledge-based environment, and finally, presence of NSPS conditions, which influence the development of the system.
To introduce a new, improved, and able to answer all modern standards, the federal personnel system should considers technological development, attract the attention of people due to its abilities to cope with any modern challenge, and to prove its readiness to help and support people at different working levels.
The debates within the sphere of civil services and the federal personnel system are not a new concept to deal with, and to improve the current state of affairs, it is obligatory to start analysis the development of the system from the end of the 1970s, when the Civil Service Reform Act was adopted.
Works Cited
Abramson, Mark, A. and Gardner, Nicole, W. Human Capital 2002. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002.
Bardes, Barbara, A., Shelley, Mark, C., and Schmidt, Steffen, W. American Government and Politics Today: the Essentials. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.
Civil Service Reform: Changing Times Demand New Approaches. United Sttaes General Accounting Office. 12 Oct. 1995. 18 Dec. 2009. Web.
Human Capital: Implementing Pay for Performance at Selected Personnel Demonstration Projects. United States General Accounting Office. Jan. 2004. Web.
Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing the Federal Government for the 21st Century. Report of the National Commission on the Public Service. Jan. 2003. Web.