Air Force civilians should expect something new from supervisors in April

Air Force civilian employees will be getting a different look from their supervisors starting next spring.

The Defense Department’s new civilian appraisal program aimed at enhancing leadership/employee communication and developing and rewarding the workforce is coming to the Air Force in April.

The DoD Performance Management and Appraisal Program (DPMAP) is part of the Pentagon’s New Beginnings initiative.

The program will require more frequent reviews between supervisors and employees and a linkage between performance and rewards such as bonuses and promotions.

“Our civilian Airmen are an important part of the Air Force mission, and we want to continue to build on our culture of high performance with this new program,” said Cynthia Manchester, performance management program manager at Headquarters Air Force. “While DPMAP may feel familiar to the current Air Force appraisal program, it provides for greater employee-supervisor communication, increased employee engagement and timely recognition.”

Air Force employees can expect their first annual appraisal under the new system in 2018. The service will make educational training on the program available before the roll out. Employees and supervisors will be required to take mandatory training online or in an 8 to 12 hour in-resident class. An option to combine the two types of training will also be available.

The Air Force is one of the early adopters of the program, which is being phased into DoD agencies and military services.

The new system creates a three-tiered rating level from employees — outstanding, fully successful and unacceptable.

The criteria for outstanding work includes exceptional results, exceeding high metrics, acting as an expert and role model and handling roadblocks well. On the other hand, unacceptable work is defined as being unreliable, making poor decisions, failing to use skills required for the job and requiring more supervision than expected.

“One of the changes we are really trying to advocate through this system would be that we have communication throughout the ratings cycle and that the employees receive recognition and acknowledgement of their performance and their contribution to the nation throughout the ratings cycle and then there is nothing that comes as a surprise on the 365^th day,” said Paige Hinkle-Bowles, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy, in a March interview with Federal News Radio.

The new system requires supervisors to hold a minimum of three formal documented performance discussions with an employee per year.

“It focuses on improving overall performance management through continuous engagement between supervisors and employees. It allows us to link organizational missions and goals to individual performance of the employees by providing regular feedback during the appraisal cycle,” Hinkle-Bowles said.

The new system ties promotions, within-pay grade increases (WGI) and quality step increases (QSI) to the performance reviews.

To receive a WGI, an employee must be performing at fully successful or higher. QSIs will be used in cases where exceptional performance has extended over a long period of time and is expected to continue in the future. QSI recipients must currently be paid below step 10 of his grade, have a most recent rating of outstanding and not received a QSI within the last year.

The incentive system “fosters a high-performance culture by ensuring supervisors make meaningful distinctions in performance,” Hinkle-Bowles said. “Those formal ratings will be used for all types of personnel based decisions.”

Those decisions include awards and developmental opportunities as well.

The system overhaul stems from requirements in the 2010 and 2012 defense authorization acts. The laws asked for a system that redesigns “procedures for use within DoD to make appointments to positions within the competitive service in a way that supports the mission, managers and applicants.”

Military evaluation

Civilians aren’t the only ones in store for a change in the way they are evaluated.

This fall the service began a planned overhaul of its officer evaluation system. The Air Force wants to change the way officers are appraised and how they can present themselves to superiors when they are up for promotion.

“Really we are doing a cradle to grave look … we are starting that now and you can imagine that takes a lot of bandwidth, honestly, but everything is on the table: How we evaluate people, how do we think about the promotion recommendation form, how do we stratify?” said Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services headquarters for the Air Force.

That undertaking may take a year to a year-and-a-half to complete. Grosso said the Air Force is talking to its officer airmen right now. It will then decide what needs to be fixed and put in recommendations to senior leadership.

The Air Force has been planning to change its evaluation system since 2014.

The service completed its rebuild of the enlisted evaluation system last year. The Air Force created static closeout dates for each rank, updated performance report forms and limited stratification restrictions.

Static closeout dates require airmen to send in performance reports in the same time frame.

“When all Airmen in a unit are assessed for accomplishments during the same time frame, factors like special events or increased workload will not unfairly favor one Airman over another. Quality of performance then becomes the primary focus,” Will Brown, the AFPC Evaluation and Recognition Programs Branch chief said in 2014.

Grosso said a lot of officers were interested in the static closeout date method.

Stratification restrictions limit the percentage of airmen in each rank that may be endorsed by a senior rater.

“This is one of the key steps we need to take to truly ensure performance counts and that the promotion system is about performance first,” said Air Force Chief Master Sgt. James Cody when the new system rolled out. “There has to be a level of discernment when it comes to promotions; this step gives us the tools to do just that.”

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