Recently a couple of senators held hearings on the status of pay-for-performance in the federal government (see article at http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=40531&dcn=e_wfw). 

Basically, agency leaders see PFP has gotten off to a good start and necessary for the future, while employee groups don't like PFP.  Is anyone surprised at the difference in reactions?  This discrepancy in reactions to PFP is as old as the hills. 

What I find interesting is Congressional reactions to the debate.  On the one hand they say that you can't have a good PFP system unless the employees like it, yet they don't provide sufficient funding to make meaningful pay differentiation. 

And no one in the process thinks strategically about compensation.  So much of annual federal pay adjustments is filled with base salary increases that people who only look at annual appropriations can't see the long term advantage of replacing a 1% base salary increase with 5% to 7% lump sum payments.  If you did that, you could build some truly meaningful distinctions in pay that would still pay off in the long run. 

Long run?  Long run to legislators is within four years until the next election season.