Along with broadbanding, the Contribution-based Compensation and Appraisal System (CCAS) is undoubtedly the most important of the AcqDemo initiatives to most employees. For the first time, there is clear linkage between an employee’s contribution to the organization and his or her compensation. That’s why it’s so important for managers and supervisors to get employee appraisals right: ensuring that top contributors are recognized and compensated accordingly is what CCAS is all about.

From the organizational perspective, rewarding top contributors motivates them to even better contributions in the future. Conversely, under CCAS it is now possible to send a message to those who are not contributing at the expected level by denying them some or even all of an annual pay increase (with the exception of locality pay, which is not affected by CCAS).

Unlike other government ratings systems, which often had little or no real effect on employee performance, this system has teeth. And because it has teeth, managers and supervisors must take care to insure they are following the guidance and procedures laid down for CCAS; after all, these appraisals can have significant consequences for employee livelihoods and even quality of life.

The fundamentals of the appraisal process are covered in the Operating Procedures (Chapter 6) and the basic AcqDemo tutorial . This section provides additional hints and tips for managers and supervisors on CCAS topics that have been shown to be areas of concern across the demonstration project to date.