Several of the civil service fields in the DoD are exempted from the GS scale. I can say from many years experience it does not help. The study was spot on, the combination of managers not wanting to pay highly skilled labor more than they think themselves are worth kills it. Also just because they are exempted does not mean they actually pay more or have the budget to do so. Add to that the total lack of leadership competency, which the study also addresses, and voila there's a bi-modal distribution of people in the department. Young and close to retirement; all your mid career engineers leave.
Slashdot Mirror
Several of the civil service fields in the DoD are exempted from the GS scale. I can say from many years experience it does not help. The study was spot on, the combination of managers not wanting to pay highly skilled labor more than they think themselves are worth kills it. Also just because they are exempted does not mean they actually pay more or have the budget to do so. Add to that the total lack of leadership competency, which the study also addresses, and voila there's a bi-modal distribution of people in the department. Young and close to retirement; all your mid career engineers leave.