Federal Manager's Daily Report Friday, August 27, 2004 Published by FEDweek, the federal government's largest information resource with now over one million weekly readers to its electronic newsletters.
*********************************************************** Federal Manager's Daily Report is a brand new FREE daily electronic report for all federal managers and supervisors featuring the day's top stories on management and workforce issues. Please pass this information on to your fellow colleagues. You can sign up for this free daily report at http://www.fedweek.com/subscribepopup.htm. *********************************************************** In Today's Issue: 1. Coalition for Effective Change Endorses Pay for Performance 2. Medicare Call Centers Need to Improve Performance, Says GAO 3. The Brand New In-Print 2005 CSRS & FERS Retirement Planning Guides Are Now Available For Immediate Shipment! http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294936155/821889/1/0/ ******************************************************** 1. Coalition for Effective Change Endorses Pay for Performance The Coalition for Effective Change and its 30 or so executive, professional and managerial associations have come out in favor of pay for performance in the federal government, and the stated intention of current reforms underway including a possible further departure from the general schedule system. It reached a consensus over a mercifully short paper that Chair Roz Kleeman says, "demonstrates that federal managers and other professionals are quite willing to be held accountable for their performance and are committed to improving government operations." The paper qualifies many of the Coalition's views on design and implementation and agrees with a recent report from the Government Accountability Office stating that the importance of timing and methodology to success of such a system. It also notes that pay should not be the sole focus of employee and organizational performance. "Other factors that drive performance, in some cases more than pay, include the strong public service motivation of most government employees, good management and leadership, the importance of the work, the opportunity to have responsibility and to make good use of one's skills and ability, the prospects for personal growth and career development, the support of superiors and co-workers, and the nature of the work environment," said the report. The Coalition also said it favors recent statutory requirements related to the need to train and retrain supervisors, managers and employees in the implementation of a pay for performance system and outlined what it called essential design elements including a flexibility in the amount and distribution of awards to be controlled by budget allocations rather than arbitrary quotas and forced distributions. Other design elements it considers essential would establish a means for ratings officials to exercise reasonable judgment, provide for third party review and a rational and reasonable process for the appeal of actions materially affecting employees, and a minimum cost of living annual pay increase for employees deemed satisfactory. A copy of the report can be accessed at www.effective-change.org 2. Medicare Call Centers Need to Improve Performance, Says GAO The Government Accountability Office has said that just 4 percent of the 300 test calls it made to 34 Medicare call centers were correct or complete, a deterioration of performance over 2002 when it found that 85 percent of the responses it received regarding calls it placed to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were inaccurate or incomplete. It said the call centers -- operated by Medicare carriers -- need to improve communications with providers that deliver medical care to beneficiaries. GAO also found that the centers primary oversight tools do not ensure accurate communication. It said it asked four policy questions 75 times each to carrier call centers and that the rate of correct and complete responses for individual billing questions languished around 1 to 5 percent. Fragmented information sources, confusing policy information and difficulties in retaining the same representative throughout the query, partially account for the lack of accuracy, according to GAO-04-669. It recommended more frequent testing and that CMS consider adopting an industry practice of routing calls to representatives who are better able to handle particular cases. 3. The Brand New In-Print 2005 CSRS & FERS Retirement Planning Guides Are Now Available For Immediate Shipment! Plus--Get FEDweek's The Book of Answers FREE! We are Fully Stocked and Ready for Your Agency Bulk Orders. Go to http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294936155/821889/1/0/ to place your order now or continue reading about our special FREE Offer. ******************************************************** Our 2nd Printing/Shipment of The Brand New 2005 CSRS & FERS Retirement Planning Guides Have Just Arrived From Back From the Press. ** FEDweek Reader Special FREE Offer ** Order Yours Now and We'll Ship Them Straight Back out To You--Along With FEDweek's The Book of Answers FREE! http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294936155/821889/1/0/ That's right, when you place an order for either one of our brand new 2005 CSRS or FERS Retirement Planning Guides you will receive FREE,The Book of Answers, one of FEDweek's most sought after and sold books. Here's just a few reasons why: *********************************************************** A Few Facts About FEDweek's Book of Answers It will help you determine what you magic retirement age should be http://fedweek.sparklist.com/t/294936155/821889/1/0/ This comprehensive publication contains complete answers, expert advice and guidance to nearly every question, situation or life event that a federal employee or retiree experiences, that's why this publication is appropriately nicknamed "The What If Book". What if? is a question we have heard time and again from our readers who simply don't know what effect a change in status (marriage, divorce, illness, outside work, leaving government, etc.) will have on their government job and benefits. What if I get married-or divorced? What if I leave government before I'm eligible to retire? What if I want to supplement my government salary with outside income? What if I'm sidelined by a serious medical problem? 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In short, they contain everything you need to know to make your federal retirement a success. These 2005 CSRS & FERS Retirement Planning Guide are NOT Dot.com downloads or government handouts or pamphlets, they are In-print comprehensive and easy-to-understand planning guides that were written and edited by our veteran-team of federal retirement planning experts in the field. 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