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Washington, D.C.—It’s clear that managers and supervisors in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with front-line employees, have a number of serious concerns about the design and implementation of a pay-for-performance system at DHS, the leader of the union representing thousands of border security employees said today.

That’s a key finding of a series of DHS employee focus group meetings on the subject, said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), and should emphasize to DHS that all of its employees have unanswered concerns and questions regarding a pay-for-performance system.

“This report reaffirms my belief that DHS is moving forward with a system that is yet undefined and unclear, even to supervisors, and should slow down implementation until it has a structure in place that is understood and accepted by all DHS employees,” Kelley said.

In the past few months, DHS conducted a series of separate focus group meetings for bargaining unit employees, for those not in the bargaining unit but excluding supervisors and managers, and for supervisors and managers regarding pay for performance. Non-managerial employees expressed their lack of trust that any such pay system can be administered fairly, given their widespread perception of favoritism in the workplace and inadequate supervisory skills; their concern over the time required to maintain such a system; their clear worry that it won’t be sufficiently funded; the difficulties in identifying meaningful measures for jobs; and the need for accountability for supervisors in using the process and tools properly.

Supervisors and managers expressed their concerns about adequate skills training, particularly around goal-setting; the need for information to respond credibly to employee questions about pay-for-performance and related issues; the time needed to do performance planning, coaching and employee development activities; and the workplace reality that the responsibility for pay-for-performance decisions will fall on them when everything else is a priority as well.

President Kelley emphasized the union’s continuing efforts to ensure that DHS has a performance management system that is fair, workable and credible with employees—including its pay system. For any pay-for-performance system to have a chance to work effectively, she said, adequate funding must be available and it must truly reward employees for their performance.

To that end, the union leader called on DHS to take seriously the concerns about pay raised by its employees and continue to seek their input into the development of a new pay system. She said NTEU is taking at its word the agency’s pledge to continue to work with the union in seeking and using employee input in designing a pay-for-performance system.

“From the beginning, I have cautioned DHS that unless employees have a voice in the creation of a pay for performance system, that system is doomed to fail,” Kelley said. “NTEU remains concerned that DHS will implement a pay-for-performance system that will be unworkable if artificial implementation deadlines take priority over adequately addressing the concerns referenced in the report.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 15,000 in DHS’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).