Is this really a big deal? If you're lucky enough to get an award in my office, it's usually $750 or less. I did see one person get $1500 once but that was the only one in the office and that person put in a lot of work to get that. I made the calculation a long time ago that these amounts are not worth my time. Instead I play the long game to ward off burnout.

Word trickled down through my agency that picking up extra work from all the colleagues that left would not constitute a 4 or 5. Instead, it would be the people that were assigned tasks related to administration priorities that would get the higher ratings.

I’ve earned an Outstanding rating every year that I’ve been in federal service. I anticipate getting a Fully Successful this year because I am working 4 jobs and management realized that they couldn’t put me on one of the new programs or the place would fall apart.

5 C.F.R. § 430.208(c)

The method for deriving and assigning a summary level may not limit or require the use of particular summary levels (i.e., establish a forced distribution of summary levels). However, methods used to make distinctions among employees or groups of employees such as comparing, categorizing, and ranking employees or groups on the basis of their performance may be used for purposes other than assigning a summary level including, but not limited to, award determinations and promotion decisions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the right call, awards s/b very limited.
They need to offer work life balance back or offer generous time off awards throughout the year. Would be a great incentive.

I'm completely not interested in time off awards. Many of us already don't use all our leave.

Fed "awards" already are limited. We're talking $250/$1500/$2500. These aren't the huge bonuses private sector gets.

I’d much rather get a TOA, especially since the cash bonuses weren’t that much.

It’s useless if you end up not using it because you have too much use or lose.

Take your vacation!! Nobody can help you if you don’t draw your own boundaries. Even if it is a staycation to go to yoga and do chores around the house.

Anonymous wrote:The whole grading on a curve thing is ridiculous for really high level competitive jobs. You don't select for the best of the best and then arbitrarily rate some of them down because "well you can't all be outstanding". This is happening to a small office in my agency incredibly sought after position, they only take very experienced people with the highest past performances. And then they told them they had to rate some of them 3s, despite no difference in work, despite everyone exceeding goals.

It's nonsense.

+1. I worked at an independent agency with a pretty strict curve, and this definitely impacted my desire to go above and beyond. Very little point if you never get recognition, compensation, or promotion out of working harder.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Feds cared about the mission?

You give good Feds a bad name.

Non sequitur. This is about caring deeply about the mission, working hard, and then getting only a 3/5 for "reasons." No one at my agency is expecting a $ award, but the least they can do is tell us we did well.

Your productivity has gone down because you have to work in an office like most of America? It doesn’t sound like you did actually do well.

DP. My productivity has gone up but my motivation has gone down due to a year of insults and harassment. While I am very conscientious about getting my work done, we have latitude to do it more quickly or more slowly. And it will go more slowly because my coworkers and I can only do so much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is the memo folks are talking about:
https://www.opm.gov/news/secrets-of-opm/not-managing-performance/

That’s not a memo. It’s the OPM director’s blog.

My agency is paying awards for FY25 per usual. FY26 may be a different story but we don’t know that yet.

It's saying those with a 3 should still get awards, just less than 4s and 5s. That seems reasonable.

PP above and that’s what my agency has done for years already. 3 is not rewarded. Now the new guidance wants a lot more ratings at 3 so that may change in the future.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some agencies, your rating directly affects your pay (salary increase, bonus amount).

Who gets salary increases based on performance? If I wanted my 15, I'd need to apply on usajobs and compete. There's no way I could get a salary increase. That's been true since I've been a GS 11.

We were told no bonuses this year, even for small amounts like $200.

All AD scale employees at my agency (the original PBO). Consider learning about the 50% of Feds who were not MSPB-protected even before this admin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the right call, awards s/b very limited.
They need to offer work life balance back or offer generous time off awards throughout the year. Would be a great incentive.

I'm completely not interested in time off awards. Many of us already don't use all our leave.

Fed "awards" already are limited. We're talking $250/$1500/$2500. These aren't the huge bonuses private sector gets.

I’d much rather get a TOA, especially since the cash bonuses weren’t that much.

It’s useless if you end up not using it because you have too much use or lose.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is the memo folks are talking about:
https://www.opm.gov/news/secrets-of-opm/not-managing-performance/

That’s not a memo. It’s the OPM director’s blog.

My agency is paying awards for FY25 per usual. FY26 may be a different story but we don’t know that yet.

It's saying those with a 3 should still get awards, just less than 4s and 5s. That seems reasonable.

In our ridiculous system, you either pass or fail (not the official name, but it’s binary) so there is absolutely no way to distinguish people.

The union loves it since they are against any form of acknowledging top performers, but it’s a bad system for management and any employee who wants to do anything beyond the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the right call, awards s/b very limited.
They need to offer work life balance back or offer generous time off awards throughout the year. Would be a great incentive.

I'm completely not interested in time off awards. Many of us already don't use all our leave.

Fed "awards" already are limited. We're talking $250/$1500/$2500. These aren't the huge bonuses private sector gets.

I’d much rather get a TOA, especially since the cash bonuses weren’t that much.

My program is doing 10/20 approach too

Anonymous wrote:Commerce instituted a 30% limit (10% for the top rating, 20% for the second level) for FY25 ratings. It's blatantly illegal, but laws and regulations don't matter under Trump.

My office told us that no one will receive the top rating this FY, period. The most you can get is the second level.

He makes a logic error claiming that if individual performance is all outstanding then why is the agency performance terrible. In the case of my agency, it's because we don't have enough staff. Yes, the existing staff ARE performing well, but there's not enough to really adequately cover the workload. We have a lot of people working through lunch for example in order to keep things afloat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Commerce instituted a 30% limit (10% for the top rating, 20% for the second level) for FY25 ratings. It's blatantly illegal, but laws and regulations don't matter under Trump.

All the tech companies are bringing back stack ranking, and then cut the bottom 10%. I assume that is the same dynamic they are trying to replicate, only without the generous tech pay to make it worthwhile.

People stop taking risks, its a zero-sum game so people stop collaborating, sabotaging and information hoarding, and of course hire to fire. It almost killed Microsoft in its Lost Decade -- but it keeps coming back as a quick fix to budget or performance problems.

That's utterly bonkers when you work in a specialized field. My agency has offices of just highly specialized attorneys. You can't just find 10%/year of people who are knowledgeable in a niche upon niche field. Hiring and replacing 10% just because would cost an absolutely insane amount of money.