NSPS is the Department of Defense’s (DoD) flexible and responsive civilian management system that:
- Values performance and contribution
- Encourages communication
- Supports broader skill development
- Promotes excellence in the workplace
NSPS modernizes a 50-year-old civil service system, allowing DoD to better attract, recruit, retain, compensate, reward, and manage employees. The system focuses on people, performance, and employment decisions that are cost-effective and best for business practice.
Need for NSPS
The Department of Defense (DoD) faces immense challenges today and requires an agile and responsible civilian workforce to support its military forces. More than ever, civilian jobs need to be aligned with the mission of the Department and the organization.
An accountable, more flexible, results-oriented civilian workforce is needed to efficiently respond to difficult situations, proactively seek solutions, expand workforce capabilities, improve the capacities of our allies abroad, and strengthen our global force posture. NSPS is a tool that helps the Department achieve this vision.
NSPS creates a civilian workforce that is competency-focused and performance-based, putting the right people in the right jobs at the right time. It accelerates the Department’s efforts to create a Total Force (military, civilian personnel, Reserve, Guard, and contractors) that operates as one cohesive unit, with each individual performing work most suited to personal skill sets.
NSPS Authorizing Documents, Final Regulations, and Implementing Issuances can be found on the Documents page, Click Here
Key Components
NSPS has been carefully designed and structured to work for civilian managers, supervisors, and employees across DoD. More than two and a half years of intensive planning and design has shaped the system’s architecture. As the initial phases or “spirals” of NSPS were implemented in DoD, feedback on the system’s effectiveness was collected.
While minor modifications are occasionally made to enhance the system and ensure that it works for DoD’s multifaceted organizations, the key components of NSPS remain the same. They are:
- Classification system
- Compensation structure
- Performance management system
- Staffing component
Features and New Flexibilities
The key components of the NSPS pay-for-performance system provide new, unsurpassed opportunities to civilian employees in DoD. The following table outlines some of the system’s features and flexibilities:
| NSPS Features | Flexibilities |
| New “streamlined” classification system |
|
| Supervisors required to set clear, mission-aligned work expectations |
|
| Culture of open communication and shared feedback |
|
| New management flexibilities |
|
| Behavioral skills (“soft skills”) affect performance rating |
|
| Extensive employee and supervisor training |
|
| New staffing flexibilities |
|
| New “streamlined” classification system |
|
What Elements Remain Under NSPS
NSPS preserves important employee rights and benefits, such as:
- Benefits, such as retirement, health, life, etc.
- Merit System Principles
- Veterans’ Preference Principles
- Whistleblower protections
- Rules against prohibited personnel practices
- Anti-discrimination laws
- Fundamental due process
- Allowances and travel/subsistence expenses
- Training
