The Foreign Service Journal, December 2018

42 DECEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The new performance management program for Locally Employed staff offers many benefits for staff and supervisors alike. BY E L I ZABETH LAMONTAGNE Elizabeth LaMontagne currently works in the State Department Bureau of Human Resources’ Office of Overseas Employment on the Locally Employed Staff Policy team, focusing primarily on the performance management portfolio. She joined the State Depart- ment as a Foreign Service eligible family member in 1999 and served at several overseas missions, including Vietnam, Suriname, France and Benin. Prior to working at the State Department, she worked at IBM in the field of brand marketing and communications. H ave you ever managed an amaz- ing Locally Employed staff member who is no longer eligible for salary increases because he or she is at the top step of their grade? Or have you had to incentivize a local staff member “retired in place” at the top step? An exciting development for both American and LE supervisors is the new performance management program for LE staff at U.S. missions called Merit Based Compensation. By the end of 2019, nearly 50 percent of U.S. missions world- wide will have adopted the new tools of the MBC pay-for-perfor- mance system. Currently at 66 embassies worldwide, supervisors Get Ready for Merit Based Compensation ON FSN PERSPECTIVES FOCUS and local staff are recognizing the numerous advantages this performance management method has to offer. The Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs fully adopted MBC at all posts in 2016, and other bureaus have begun implementing the program on a post-by-post basis. This is a major initiative on which all American managers should be well-informed. Here’s a quick tutorial on the history of MBC, its multiple benefits and what local and U.S. direct-hire supervisors overseas need to know about this inspiring program. What Is MBC? Merit pay, incentive pay or pay-for-performance plans, as they are sometimes called, reward employees with raises, bonuses or other forms of financial compensation. Instead of tying perfor- mance rewards solely to time on the job, employers give rewards for superior performance in the form of an annual variable pay- ment. In 1995 Embassy London spearheaded a performance man- agement program titled “Performance Related Pay.” Jon Lloyd, Embassy London’s LE staff HR specialist, led the original effort to create the new performance-related pay program to transition the mission to a merit-based pay system to match prevailing practice at the time. Embassy London specifically sought to craft a more contem- porary methodology for the management, recognition and reward