Measuring Up

Just 44 percent of Senior Executive Service members received top ratings last year under agencies' new SES pay-forperformance system.

OPM Director Linda Springer crowed about the ratings drop, saying the data indicates that agencies are "taking seriously the requirement to develop rigorous appraisal

But the 17 percentage point drop, down from 62 percent in fiscal 2004, isn't necessarily evidence that supervisors are suddenly spending more time separating wheat from chaff, or that there's more chaff to be found.

"Outstanding" ratings fell partly because for the first time the majority of agencies-including the Defense Department with the lion's share of SES members-have replaced three- or fourtier rating systems with five levels. Now there's a handy "exceeds expectations" category between "fully successful" and "outstanding," where agencies can stow high-achievers while still meeting the mandate to hold down "outstandings."

In fact, of the 5,905 SES employees rated in all systems, more than 80 percent were above "fully successful"-2,562 got "outstanding" ratings and 2,245 received "exceeds expectations." A much smaller number received "fully successful" ratings, with barely anyone falling below that.

OPM's push to reduce top ratings is worrisome to Carol Bonasaro, head of the Senior Executives Association. "It's unfortunate that OPM seems to define progress by the decrease in those who receive the highest ratings," she says. "There's a supposition there . . . that executives were being incorrectly rated at the highest level, and I don't know that anyone has really proven that yet." Even with the ratings dip, executives got a slightly higher average raise, 3.8 percent, in 2005 compared with 2004's 3.7 percent. -Karen Rutzick