U.S. Federal General Civil Service Pay System and Its Reference to China
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ICPM-2012. Crisis Management in the Time of Changing World U.S. Federal GS Civil Service Pay Systems and Its Enlightenment to P.R.C. Li Yongkang1,2 , Sun Weiyan2 , Bai Yang1,Wang Xiaofen2 1 School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, P.R.China,100872 2 School of Public Management, Yunnan University of Economics and Finance, Kunming, P.R.China, 650221 ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected] ) Abstract employment relationship. They include wages, benefits ,insurance and so on. As for civil As an extremely important part of civil service, servants who provide public services, their pay the pay systems of civil servants provide system is far-reaching. basic life guarantee for civil servants. The There are many researches on the US federal method of literature and comparative analysis civil services on broad. American scholars pay are adopted in this paper. Some viewpoints are more attention to the pay model. Such as, put forward on U.S. federal General Schedule Profit sharing model (Jones and Svejnar, (GS) civil services pay systems. Firstly, they 1985);The U.S. federal government pays for here have a wide scope, and include salary, performance (Kellough and Selden, 1997). 4p allowances, bonuses, benefits, insurance; pay model, strategic pay model (Joseph J Secondly, their six characteristics are analyzed, martocci Austria, 2002).The design, including complete legal systems, rational implementation, and maintenance of position classification system, pay for compensation systems are important parts of performance, equity, flexible pay system, strategic human resources market-oriented; Thirdly, they supply six management(SHRM)(Joan E. Pynes, enlightenments to the pay systems reform of 2004:226-261). Designing and creating an Chinese civil services below department or effective compensation plan : devote to a bureau level and non-leadership, including the step-by-step discussion of constructing and acceleration of the pay systems legal maintaining an effective salary structure, construction, the improvement of the civil bringing together objectives, structural service position classification management alternatives, and pay administration system, the optimization of the civil services policies(Gilbert B. Siegel, 2010). Meanwhile, pay systems, the reform of the assessment the U.S. federal government applies the methods of civil service, the introduction of methods and technology of human resource flexible pay system, the establishment of management to make a pay decision. market-oriented pay model. At last, it is Chinese scholars attach great importance to concluded that a new road can be created to introduce the U.S. federal government civil improve Chinese civil service pay system service pay systems. For example, the through absorbing the advanced experiments of introduction of broadbanding (Wang other country according to Chinese actual Jianchang,2004); describing the U.S. civil situation. service wage benefits and civil service pay basis :job classification system(Li Yuanbao, Keywords: U.S. Federal General Schedule(GS) 2007); the reform of U.S. federal government Civil Services, Pay Systems, Legal System, civil service pay systems(Wu Zhihua, 2006). Market-oriented, Flexible introducing U.S civil service pay systems and 1. Introduction its enlightenments to China : strengthening of the legal construction, improving Pay systems are various forms of financial performance appraisal methods of civil returns, tangible service and benefits which are service(Liu Biqiang, 2010). obtained by the staff as a party to the Chinese civil servants' pay system is not perfect in the modern time. It needs to absorb © 2012. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 70 the advantages from the pay system of other Salary is a major component of the countries. The United States has a relatively remuneration. The compensation of U.S. sound pay system. Through the introduction of federal civil service has evolved into a the U.S. federal government civil service pay complex set of pay systems including two systems, some references will be provided for categories of seven series. The first category is Chinese civil servants pay systems reform, the statutory pay system, suitable for especially the pay system reform of Chinese white-collar employees, including General civil service below department or bureau level Schedule (GS), diplomatic personnel payroll, and non-leadership. veterans health administrators. The second one 2. The Contents of U.S. Federal GS Civil is other pay systems, including Executive Service Payment Systems Schedule(ES) ,Senior Executive Service (SES), the Federal Wage System(FWS) for blue-collar What is the Contents of U.S. Federal Civil employees. The FWS is a uniform pay-setting Service Pay Systems? The term "total system that covers Federal appropriated fund compensation" is used to describe not only and nonappropriationed fund blue-collar salary and wages, but also all the plans, employees who are paid by the hour. The programs, benefits and opportunities that system's goal is to make sure that Federal trade, become available to you through your craft, and laboring employees within a local employment. The University of Guelph offers wage area who perform the same duties receive a competitive total compensation program the same rate of pay. The FWS includes 132 involving payroll, group benefits, pension appropriated fund and 125 nonappropriated administration as well as various assistance fund local wage areas. Successful programs and subsidies for employees of the labor-management partnership is the hallmark University. The Total Compensation package of the FWS, with labor organizations involved helps attract, retain and motivate a talented and in all phases of administering the pay diverse workforce (Total Compensation system.( Office of Personnel Package,2012). We think here that the pay Management ,2012) However, 71% of federal systems have the same scope with Total civilian employees are paid under the GS, the Compensation package. Therefore, the remaining 29% are paid under other systems . Contents of U.S. Federal Civil Service Pay Because the majority of the federal civil Systems include salary, allowances, bonuses, service is paid under GS, this paper mainly benefits, insurance. introduces this part. 2.1. Salary (Data sources: Office of Personnel Management , 2012. http://www.opm.gov/oca) Table 1: Salary Table 2012-GS:General Schedule Pay Scale, Annual Rates by Grade and Step In table 1, GS is separated into 15 grades In table 2 , GS Salary Table of U.S. Federal (GS-1,GS-2,etc.up to GS-15);each grade is civil service is a basic standard, the locality separated into 10 steps. GS position sequences pay will be adjusted according to the are divided into single-interval sequence (such conditions of each region on this basis. Such as, as GS-2 - GS-8) and double-interval sequence Alaska payroll is more 24.69percent than the (such as GS-5, 7,9,11). annual wage of Federal civil service: 17803+17803×24.69%=22199(see table 3). 71 Locality Annual rates State of Alaska 24.69% State Of Hawaii 16.51% Richmond, Va 16.47% Raleigh-Durham-Cary, Nc 17.64% Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia, Wa 21.81% (Data Source :http://www.opm.gov/oca) Table 2: GS annual pay rate in some states (Data sources: Office of Personnel Management ,2012.http://www.opm.gov/oca) Table 3 salary table 2012-ak incorporating a locality payment of 24.69% state of Alaska effective January 2012 Annual Rates by Grade and Step 2.2. Allowance uniform allowance can not be more than 125 dollars. The allowance are various supplements which 2.3 .Bonus are paid according to the specific work of civil service wages, Its main function is used to Bonus is the form of excess labor remuneration, adjust contradiction in the allocation of income. which is characterized by unity, flexibility, The subsidies of federal civil service in GS timeliness, and honor. The bonus of U.S. mainly include two categories: area adjustment federal civil service in GS mainly include work allowance and non-taxable allowance. achievement award and a cash prize of plan. Non-taxable allowance includes living Achievement award's amount should not be allowances, post allowances and housing more than 10% of basic salary and not be less allowances. Area adjustment allowance is than 2% of basic salary. However, the applicable for American territories and achievement award can be given more than overseas areas, a large coverage, and generally 10% of basic salary and not exceed 20% by accounts for a certain proportion of the salaries approval of the heads of departments. The of public servants, 4.76% in 2010. Every amount of a cash prize is not more than 10 allowance with their respective scope of thousand dollars, but by the approval of the application is the root of the specific Personnel Management Department, civil environment, such as post allowance, which is service may be granted more than $ 10,000 but given to the civil service in the diplomatic area, not exceed $ 25,000. Meanwhile, In order to but the difference between positions can not attract, retain and inspire with excellent public exceed 25% of the basic wage rate. In addition, management talent, the U.S. Government the U.S. civil service also receives overtime introduces the 3RS measures: "Recruitment allowance and uniform allowance when GS Bonuses", "Relocation Bonuses", "Retention civil service work more than eight hours which Allowances"(Wu Zhihua, 2006). In addition, is considered overtime. Overtime allowance there are still many types of bonus for GS civil can be divided into night overtime, Sunday services, such as Performance Award, Service overtime and holiday overtime. Each Award and Gain sharing . allowance has a different allowance standards; 2.4. Welfare 72 Welfares are also known as the marginal salary, increase the value of the pension. In contrast, including the remuneration of all non-working the federal employee retirement system is hours, employees' services and protection more extensive, flexible and portable.