Newly hired employees of the Defense Department would serve a two-year probationary period, double the current standard, under legislation now headed to the White House.
The Senate on Tuesday joined the House in passing a defense spending bill containing that provision along with several others designed to increase the role that performance plays in Defense employees’ careers.
Even after newly hired federal employees are on the job, the hiring is not considered final until they complete their probationary periods — typically one year, although there are exceptions requiring longer periods.
During that time, the supervisor is to monitor and guide their work and may discipline them, including firing, with those employees having far fewer appeal rights than those who have gained tenure.
Says a statement from House-Senate conferees on the bill, “In extending the probationary period for new employees of the Department of Defense (DOD), we expect the Secretary of Defense to ensure that supervisors optimize the additional probationary time by educating supervisors on the importance of tracking when an individual’s probationary period is ending and directing the supervisor to make an affirmative decision or otherwise take appropriate action.”
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The extension “will be beneficial only if an agency has effective performance management practices in place and uses the extra time for the purpose intended,” it says.
The provision would apply only to at that department, but Defense is the largest federal employer, and policies there often set precedent for wider application.
A report this year from the Government Accountability Office recommended considering a two-year period at least in some occupations government-wide. It said that with only one year, supervisors feel they do not have “enough time to observe the individual’s performance in all critical areas of the job”— and additionally sometimes don’t even know the period is ending.
Similarly, the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears most appeals from federal employees, this year called the probationary period “a missed opportunity to address poor performance.” An MSPB publication said the period is “not being used to separate some candidates who failed to show they were the right choice for the job at hand” and that some disciplinary actions “could have been avoided by better use of the probationary period.”
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However, federal employee organizations have opposed extending the period.
“We believe one year is more than sufficient for any competent supervisor to assess whether an employee should continue in their federal employment,” said a spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents many DoD civilian employees.
The difference in appeal rights is another concern to unions. MSPB reported this year that two-fifths of the 77,000 federal employees fired over 2000-2014, out of a workforce of above 1.8 million full-time, permanent employees, were still in their probationary periods. That doesn’t account for employees who resigned to avoid having a firing on their records.
Doubling the probationary period also was among the ideas raised in a recent document from the Pentagon outlining potential changes in civilian personnel policies.
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Separately, the House this year passed a bill that among other things would extend the probationary period to 18 months for new Department of Veterans Affairs employees; a pending Senate bill would do the same.
In addition, another pending House bill would lengthen the standard period to two years for newly hired employees government-wide.
The defense spending bill — which was rewritten and sent through another round of voting after having been vetoed earlier over unrelated issues — also would stress performance for the department’s civilian employees in two other ways.
One states that decisions on who stays or goes when the department is downsizing “shall be made primarily on the basis of performance.” Currently performance is the last of four retention factors in what the government calls reductions in force.
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The other would delay what the government calls “within-grade” raises for any period an employee’s performance is rated as unsatisfactory. Currently those raises, which boost salary by about 3 percent, are paid if the employee is rated as satisfactory at the end of a waiting period. Those periods are one, two or three years depending on how long an employee has been in a pay grade. They apply only in certain jobs and end once the employee reaches the top of a grade.
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