TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010

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THE FEDERAL WORKER

Many defense workers switching pay systems

169,000 to transition

to General Schedule by end of fiscal year

by Ed O’Keefe

More than 100,000 Defense De-

partment workers paid through the National Security Personnel System will switch to the General Schedule pay system by the end of June, according to the office that oversees the pay-for-performance plan, repealed last year by Con- gress.

According to documents posted on the NSPS Web site, more than 8,100 workers will have transi- tioned by the end of the month; 50,728 will do so in May; and 44,115 workers will move in June. More than 169,000 of the roughly 226,000 workers in the program will be on the GS system by the end of the fiscal year in Septem- ber, the NSPS transition office said. Congress mandated an end to the NSPS by the start of 2012, meaning the transition will be well ahead of schedule if the time- table holds. About 75 percent of workers on the NSPS will go to the GS system,

and the remainder will join small- er demonstration programs for contract acquisition officers, mili- tary lab workers or organizations going through Base Realignment and Closure. Those other transi- tions will occur in fiscal 2011. No Defense Department em- ployees will lose pay in the transi- tion from NSPS to GS, according to John H. James Jr., the Pentagon official leading the transition. “When an employee transitions out of NSPS, the classification of his or her position into the Gener- al Schedule system is based on du- ties and responsibilities,” James said in a statement on the NSPS

Web site. About 30 percent of civilian De- fense Department employees fell under NSPS jurisdiction, the Pen- tagon says. President George W. Bush’s administration pushed for the program and Congress ap- proved it in 2003, but then re- pealed it in October as part of a House-Senate compromise over the Defense Authorization bill. The Pentagon will maintain more performance management and hiring flexibilities than other federal agencies and cannot enact a new performance system with- out congressional approval.

ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com

Obama officials to help preside at public service event

by Ed O’Keefe

Six Obama administration offi- cials will serve as honorary co- chairmen of this year’s Public Service Recognition Week, the first time that government offi- cials have led the annual series of events to honor public sector workers at the federal, state and local levels. Office of Personnel Manage- ment Director John Berry, En-

ergy Secretary Steven Chu, Gen- eral Services Administration Ad- ministrator Martha N. Johnson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Health and Human Services Sec- retary Kathleen Sebelius and Vet- erans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki will serve as the week’s co-chairmen. The lineup of events begins

May 4 with a Senate subcommit- tee hearing on attracting and re- taining federal workers. It con- tinues with exhibits from more

Pentagon taps Iglesias for Guantanamo team

Fired U.S. attorney

to try Canadian teen in death of soldier

Miami Herald

The Pentagon unveiled a new

face Monday to advocate for mili- tary commissions: David C. Igle- sias, one of eight U.S. attorneys whose dismissal in 2006 by the Bush administration raised ques- tions of improper firings. Iglesias was U.S. attorney for

New Mexico when he says he was pressured by two state Repub- lican lawmakers — then-Sen. Pete V. Domenici and then-Rep. Heather A. Wilson — to speed up a political corruption investiga- tion. He rebuffed their inquiries, and months later, he was fired from the Justice Department job. Congress examined whether the prosecutors were dismissed because they would not time in- dictments and investigations fa- vorably for the GOP at election time. Iglesias was mobilized last year to the war court as a U.S. Navy Reserve captain. On Monday, he left Andrews Air Force Base for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of a Pentagon prosecution team involved in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian teenager ac-

on washingtonpost.com

What is the best example you have of a step taken by a supervisor that helped build trust with his or her employees? What about a misstep that helped destroy trust? Was the

situation able to be repaired?

 Send your answers to federaleye@washingtonpost.com and include your full name, home town and the federal agency for which you work. Your answers might be used in Friday’s Washington Post.

FED FACES

U-Md. senior sharpens focus during internship

Rachel Volke

Department of Health and Human Services intern, International Partnerships and Initiatives Team, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response

Best known for: As an intern at HHS and a 20-year-old senior at the University of Maryland, Volke is known for her positive attitude, an eagerness to learn and con- tribute, and for collaborating with an innovative team of sci- ence and public health experts to help address the issues of pre- paredness and response in an international health environ- ment.

Government service: Two

months gaining invaluable in- sights into the rewards and chal- lenges associated with a career in

COURTESY OF RACHEL VOLKE

Rachel Volke, 20, says she sees the potential to make a “huge” impact as a government worker.

international health policy, in- cluding taking part in research on the state of the H1N1 virus in parts of the Southern Hemi-

sphere. Looking forward to many years to come.

Biggest challenge: Learning the

acronyms associated with federal departments and agencies. Quote: “My goal is to go to med- ical school and then work in the federal government because the potential for impact is just so huge. I’m now very interested in epidemiology and studying in- fectious diseases. I feel very lucky to have had this experience as an intern while in school, because my career path will be more fo- cused going forward.”

— From the Partnership for Public Service

For more on Volke, visit

washingtonpost.com/fedpage. Send

your nominations for Federal Faces to

fedfaces@washpost.com.

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than 100 federal civilian and mili- tary agencies on the Mall, May 6 toMay 9 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Next Friday, hundreds of astro-

nauts, firefighters, police officers and members of the military will meet with Washington area stu- dents on the Mall. A federal job fair will be held there on Satur- day, and a letter-writing project for service members serving abroad will be held on Sunday. The White House and Congress consider such events a good op-

portunity to talk about govern- ment service, according to the Partnership for Public Service, the nonpartisan think tank spon- soring the lineup along with 16 other good-government groups. Al Gore visited the festivities as vice president, as did other Clin- ton and Bush administration offi- cials, but officials have never held such roles in the 25-year history of the event, according to the Partnership.

ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com

On Leadership: The Federal Coach

6Excerpt from washingtonpost.com/onleadership

The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post’s On Leadership site have a new online feature, the Federal Coach, hosted by Tom Fox, director of the partnership’s Center for Government Leadership.

The goal is to “engage, inspire and learn from you, the federal worker, whether you are a new hire, a contractor or a manager at the highest departmental level.” There are three weekly installments:

Mondays: “Getting Ahead,” advice on “leading up.” Wednesdays: “View From the Top Floor,” interviews with federal leaders. Fridays: Answering your questions about navigating the federal workforce terrain. Below is Monday’s “Getting

Ahead.”

Beating the odds and building trust

As a Toyota owner, I was disappointed when the company failed to recall its vehicles after large numbers of driver complaints about sticky gas pedals. However, I was not surprised that a company would overlook the data in favor of profits.

On the other hand, we expect

cused of killing an American sol- dier in Afghanistan. Khadr, 23, was captured in a

July 2002 firefight near Khost, Afghanistan, in which Delta Forces Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque was fa- tally wounded by a grenade. Pentagon prosecutors say

Khadr, who was then 15, threw the grenade that killed Speer as a war crime. He faces charges of murder and of being an al-Qaeda foot soldier; prosecutors seek life in prison, not the maximum pen- alty of death, in consideration of his age. Hearings this week on the U.S.

Navy base will center around the question of which, if any, of Khadr’s confessions can be pre- sented to a jury at his summer- time trial. The case has drawn 35 report- ers, a larger media contingent than typically follows Guanta- namo proceedings. Many of the media are Canadian. And the Pentagon tapped Iglesias to brief the media as they left Andrews. The chief war crimes prosecu-

tor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, is leading the Khadr team in court. Earlier in his Navy lawyer ca-

reer, Iglesias has said, he worked on a hazing case that became a basis for the Hollywood hit set in Guantanamo, “A Few Good Men,” starring Tom Cruise and Jack

CRAIG FRITZ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

David Iglesias was one of eight U.S. attorneys whose dismissal in 2006 by the Bush administration raised questions of impropriety.

Nicholson. Since then, he has emerged as a telegenic critic of Bush-era policies. Iglesias announced in January 2009 that he had been mobilized, and he kicked off his role in the December edition of Esquire magazine, promoting the Obama reforms for the war court in an article titled “Can One Good Man Redeem a Nation for the Sins of Guantanamo?” The Panamanian-born Iglesias

also sat for a Web video for Es- quire, in which he criticized the Bush White House he once

served, saying: “There was a sense that, pretty much, there were no rules regarding prosecu- tion of alleged terrorists.” He hailed Obama-era plans for Guantanamo in particular and war on terrorism policies broad- ly: “For the public to have — not just the American public, but the international public — to have confidence in the prosecutions, they have to believe that the sys- tem is based on fairness, and I be- lieve there was a substantial doubt as to that in the prior ad- ministration.”

Federal probes lead to seizure of $263 million worth of fakes

Federal officials announced

Monday that they have seized $263 million worth of counter- feit products — much of it smug- gled through Baltimore — fol- lowing two long-term investiga- tions. The National Intellectual

Property Rights Coordinator Center, a partnership among sev- eral government agencies, spear- headed the so-called Operation Spring Cleaning, which resulted in more than $44 million in sei- zures of fake products, including DVDs, circuit breakers, luxury goods and medications, from ports across the country over the past three weeks.

In addition, 45 people were ar- rested on federal and state coun- terfeiting charges as part of the operation. Immigration and Cus- toms Enforcement officials also seized $219million in counter- feit merchandise made in Asia and shipped through Baltimore this month as part of a separate investigation over several months. The IPR center said that sever-

al new government agencies were joining its program: the General Services Administra- tion, Naval Criminal Investiga- tive Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

—Ylan Q. Mui

our government to take care of those things no other organization will — fixing the economy, guarding our national security, assisting in recovery efforts. So each time an agency fails, our confidence in government erodes. You have probably seen the headlines from a troubling study by the Pew Research Center: Only 22 percent of Americans say they trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time. Sure, Americans are distrustful of most big organizations, but we hold our federal government to a higher standard. As a government leader facing

this level of distrust, where do you begin? Well, trust in government begins at home — or at least your home agency. According to Patrick Lencioni’s best-selling book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” trust is the starting point for building a high-performing team that delivers results. That’s the good news: You can

start small. Americans’ trust in government depends on your employees’ trust in you. Now, the bad news — and I

hate to be the one to tell you this — your employees may not trust you. According to the Best Places to Work rankings, federal workers’ trust in their leaders, particularly with regard to sharing information, lags behind

that of private-sector workers by as much as 18 percent. So here are a few ways to overcome the odds and earn your team’s trust:

Be a supermodel: Anyone

with kids knows that actions speak louder than words. I may tell my kids to be patient, but if I lose my cool every time they push my buttons — and they do — then I’m sending a different message. If you’re a leader, people will follow your example. Start by trusting the members of your team and your colleagues across the organization.

Share your thinking:

Sometimes when leaders are trying to appear decisive, they inadvertently undercut the trust they’ve built up by announcing their decisions without explaining how they made them. Don’t be afraid to share your decision-making process with colleagues. They may not like the outcomes, but they’ll understand your reasoning and trust you more for giving them a window into your thinking.

Get your hands dirty: Setting

and achieving a goal — particularly an aggressive goal — is one of the best ways to build a team. Look for opportunities to be part of the action. If the office is staying late to wrap up a big project, stick around to help, even if that means stuffing envelopes or putting the final touches on a memo. Order food for the team, make sure people can get home safely and be sure everyone receives the comp time he deserves.

Admit your mistakes: No one

expects leaders to be perfect, but employees certainly expect them to be honest. If you’ve made a mistake, big or small, admit the fault to your team during your next conversation and share the lessons you took away from the experience. You might consider requesting feedback. Plus, demonstrating that sort of vulnerability will generate admiration and set a good example that it is okay to make mistakes.

Remember, building trust among your team members — let alone between our government and the American public — requires dedication and persistence. Share concrete ideas for building trust by sending an e-mail to fedcoach@

ourpublicservice.org.

Please check back on Wednesday, when I interview Nicole Nelson-Jean from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration or receive a reminder by following us on Twitter@ thefedcoach.

Visit On Leadership at views.

washingtonpost.com/leadership/ fedcoach.

S

B3

‘I just listen’

With a vote of approval from lawmakers, Daniel Coughlin, right, marks a decade of work as House

chaplain. The Fed Page, A15

The left’s new voice

Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) has become an unlikely hero to liberal activists with his proposal to limit the size of big banks as part of the financial reform package.

In Session, A15

 Joe Davidson is away. The Federal Diary column will resume when he returns.

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