As I've recently discovered a small amount of traffic to my short post about DCIPS I thought I'd write a quick followup with a little more details. (Also a quick shout out to the person/persons at the NSA visiting here, you guys rock.)
I'm a fairly young fellow, and although I am employed by DoA I am only a temporary hire as I have been in school most of the two years I've been working as a civilian. In that time I've endured countless hours of "mandatory training" that sucks the life out of me. Despite all of the mind numbing training, DCIPS conversion training ended up not being the worst thing ever. The instructor gets great credit from me for making the process as painless as any required training is.
What about DCIPS? Well, there are a great number of issues with NSPS, hence our command avoided it like the plague. Converting first from GS to GG, now to DCIPS. Will you, really be any better under DCIPS than other systems? So long as you have a supervisor who isn't an asshole, if you haven't personally had one you know who they are, then you will be better off under DCIPS. Unfortunately, if you have a supervisor who is, well, DCIPS as well as NSPS allows them to screw you over in a more documented manner.
During training we heard stories how some idiots at fairly high levels said "no current lower grade GG/GS employees will get better than a three" (with one being the worst, five the best). Flat out wrong and incorrect. Although one of the goals of DCIPS is to fight the inflated ratings that exist in the current GS/GG systems, to flatly say something like that is wrong and demoralizes all. The inflated ratings never meant anything before, but now that it is tied to compensation, well, shouldn't they mean more? It used to be that if you did your job, most supervisors would rate at least four across the board, sometimes mostly fives. It many cases, these "excellent ratings" were the reward for going above and beyond. There might be a small one time bonus, but that was pretty much it.
DCIPS though allows a supervisor, who really wants to encourage employees, the ability to reward those with a lasting pay increase as well as a bonus. This bonus however is not always small, rather linked directly to your final rating score. If you somehow get fives across the board, your payout will be much greater than those with "just" fours. Shouldn't it be that way? Doesn't it frustrate you that even if you go well above and beyond the GS/GG system tied your supervisors hands in being able to reward you?
I think DCIPS has issues, don't think that I believe that it's perfect by any means. However, how great is the current system? You can't honestly say it's anywhere near amazing either. Bad managers will be bad managers in both systems. You don't lose the ability to fight things up the chain, but you do get to be paid more for what you do now and you're not held to some arbitrary grade/step system that doesn't pay you what you are really worth.
I'm sorry long timers, but if your organization wants to hire me you will have to pay me a decent wage. Just because I haven't been "in the system" doesn't mean that you can hire me in as a 7 with the promise of going up to a 12 in X number of years. That's just stupid when I can make what a 12 makes, and have the responsibilities and knowledge of one, right now. I might come across cocky sometimes, but I know what I know, and I'll straight up tell you when I don't. However, I am a very quick learner and am very proactive in learning new things. I fear for the government agencies that fight DCIPS and NSPS as they will continue to fail in attracting the very best and brightest. Again, there is more than money, I've quit a job and taken less money elsewhere because I wanted to be a part of something I believed in, but when I have a family to take care of and bills to pay... most everyone knows the struggle there. Maybe that's why the government is so dependent on contractors?
In summary. DCIPS is better than what I've seen and heard about NSPS. DCIPS is better than current GG/GS systems. DCIPS has issues, but good managers will overcome those issues, while bad managers will continue to make your life hell no matter the system.
Either way, I'm headed back to school before I get "converted" so this doesn't really even effect me right now. However, if the kick ass organizations that I'd love to work for (NRO/DISA/NSA/CIA/DARPA) can't stay competitive, well, private sector works well for me.
If you are a manager, why should you care? Because you don't want to miss out on folks as good and better than me.