ML20196K131
| ML20196K131 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/08/1998 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9812140231 | |
| Download: ML20196K131 (87) | |
Text
.-
ORIGINAL
's UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
l
Title:
BRIEFING ON EEO PROGRAM PUBLIC MEETING Location:
Rockville, Maryland l
Date:
Tuesday, December 8,1998 0
Pages:
1 - 76 hh 9eg214gpg vetaos PT9.7 PDR
"!!3029 l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LT.
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DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on December 8, 1998, in the Commission's office at One White Flint. North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain l
inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informE?. record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other' paper may be' filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
3 4
BRIEFING ON EEO PROGRAM l
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PUBLIC MEETING l
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission i
9 Commission Hearing Room
]
10 11555 Rockville Pike 11 Rockville, Maryland 12 Tuesday, December 8, 1998 13 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 14 notice, at 10:00 a.m.,
the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, 15 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
16 17 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
18 SHIRLEY A.
JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission 19 JEFFREY S. MERRIFIELD, Member of the Commission 20 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR.,
Member of the Commission 21~
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1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
2 KAREN D.
CYR, General Counsel 3
JOHN D.
HOYLE, Secretary 4
PETER HEARN, NTEU 5
JOSE IBARRA, Hispanic Employment Advisory 6
Committee 7
IRENE LITTLE, Office of Small Business and Civil 8
Rights 9
BILL TRAVERS, EDO 10 PATRICIA NORRY, Management Services 11 PAUL BIRD, Office of Human Resources 12 ASHOK THADANI, Office of Research 13 JESSE FUNCHES, Chief Financial Officer 14 15 l
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'24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 PROCEEDINGS l
2
[10:00 a.m.]
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Good morning, ladies and 4
gentlemen.
5 The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended, l
6 requires the Executive Director for Operations, the EDO, to l
7 report to the Commission at semiannual public meetings on i
8 the status of the NRC's equal employment opportunity 9
efforts, the progress of the program, and any associated 10 problems.
11 The purpose of the briefing today is to discuss 12 the following:
First, EEO accomplishments since the last 13 June 25, 1998 briefing, including a status report on EEO 14 commitments made by office directors and regional 15 administrators at previous EEO briefings.
Second, responses 16 to a July 17, 1998 staff requirements memorandum, about 17 which you will hear more later.
Third, EEO accomplishments 18 for fiscal year 1998, meaning October 1, 1997 through 19 September 30, 1998.
Four, fiscal year 1999 EEO objective.
20 And, five, the implementation of EEO programs and policies 21 in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research and the Office 22 of the' Chief Financial Officer.
23 SECY Paper 98-271, copies of which are available 24 at the entrances to this ro6m, contains additional 25 information and data on the status of the NRC EEO program ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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and the activities of the EEO advisory committees, 2
subcommittees, and the Joint Labor-Management EEO Committee.
3 The paper represents the continuing cooperative 4
efforts of the Office of the EEO, the Office of Small 5
Business and Civil Rights, Human Resources, the EEO advisory 6
committees, subcommittees, and the Joint Labor-Management 7
EEO Committee.
8 So I want to begin by encouraging you to continue 9
in your efforts to work together to recommend improvements 10 and to establish and accomplish clear and tangible results 11 and outcomes in meeting our EEO goals.
12 On that note, I welcome Dr. William Travers to his 13 first EEO briefing as the EDO, as well as his partners, the 14
'various presenters, and all employees in the audience who 15 demonstrate by your presence your interest in and commitment 16 to the NRC EEO program.
17 The Commission looks forward to hearing about the progress we are making and the results we have achieved in 18 19 the EEO area.
As you are aware, our agency is addressing
~
20 and responding with an intense focus to many challenges, 21 including external and internal changes such as 22 streamiining, reorganizations, electric industry 23 restructuring, this is inside and out, nuclear plant license 24 transfers, license renewals $ and improvements overall in our 25 regulatory regime.
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Although we must stay the course regarding these 2
vital issues, we currently and concurrently must take real 3
and concrete efforts to ensure that all of this occurs in an 4
equitable way,.so that we'll be better equipped to confront 5
the various challenges and opportunities that are before us.
6 As I have said on numerous occasions, and as I fundamentally 7
believe, at a time'like this, we don't waste anybody.
8 So with that, Dr. Travers, would you like to 9
begin.
10 DR. TRAVERS:
Thank you, Chairman Jackson, 11 Commissioners, and good morning everyone.
We are pleased to 12 be here today, and I'm particularly pleased to be here in my 13 new role, to provide the Commission with information on the 14 problems, progress, and status of the Agency's equal 15 employment opportunity program.
16 As you pointed out, our last briefing was held on 17.
June 25 of 1998, and it provided the status of the EEO 18 program through March 31 of 1998.
The briefing paper, 19 SECY-98-271, submitted to the Commission in November, covers 20 EEO activities for all of fiscal year '98.
Today, although 21 we will discuss highlights of the entire fiscal year, our
(
I
'22 primary focus will be on activities since our last meeting 23 with the Commission in June.
24 Joining me on my right are Pat Norry, the Deputy
'25 Executive Director for Management Services; Paul Bird, the i.
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Director of the Office of Human Resources; Ashok Thadani, 2
Director of the Office of Research; and Jesse Funches, who l
3 is the Agency's chief financial officer.
4 On my left is Irene Little, Director of the Office 5
of Small Business and Civil Rights, and Irene will introduce 6
the EEO Advisory Committee representatives.
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7 MS. LITTLE:
Thank you, Dr. Travers.
8 To my left is Jose Ibarra.
He is the chairperson
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9 of the Hispanic Employment Advisory Committee, and he is l
l 10 also representing the EEO Advisory Committee's spokesperson i
l 11 today.
And Peter Hearn, who is the president of the NTEU.
12 In back of me in the well, I will ask that each l
13 person please stand as I call your name.
John Minns, chair 14 of the Selection Subcommittee; Janette Copeland, chair of I
15 the Paraprofessional Subcommittee; David Diec, chair of the 16 Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee and the l
17 Performance Monitoring Subcommittee; Elliott Greher, chair 18 of the Affirmative Action Advisory Committee; Mary Adams, j
19 sitting in for Charleen Raddatz as chair of the Federal 20 Women's Program Advisory Committee; Raymond Holt, cochair of j
21 the African American Advisory Committee; Paul Norbut, 22 sitting in for John Wilcox as chair of the Committee on Age 23 Discrimination; and Cheryl Trottier, cochair of the Joint 24 Labor-Management Equal Employment Opportunity Committee.
25 Thank you, Dr. Travers, i
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DR. TRAVERS:
Thank you, Irene,
+
2 As we all know, the Agency is in the process of j
3 carrying out a broad range of initiatives which are intended 4
to increase both the effectiveness and the efficiency of 5
many of our programs and processes.
Included in these 6
activities are significant reorganizations and some 7
downsizing of staff levels.
As we carry out these 8
reorganizations, we recognize the challenge before us to 9
effectively manage a declining work force, enhance and 10 appreciate diversity at all levels in the Agency, maximize 11 individual 'and organizational performance, and improve 12 organizational synergy.
13 It is imperative that we collectively and 14 strategically seek to achieve common goals and objectives 15 necessary to carry out the agency's mission.
16 Our immediate focus in the EEO program has been 17 twofold:
maintaining the gains we have made over the years 18 in diversifying our work place and work force., especially in 19 the supervisory and managerial ranks, and taking steps to 20 make'sure that the limited career opportunities in the 21 Agency in these times of declining resources are made 22 available fairly to all employees.
23 As we move forward, we are working towards 24 establishing an EEO standard of excellence.
Our guiding 25 principles are spelled out in the updated affirmative ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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employment plan.
These principles have been established to 2
ensure that our guidelines are clear and our efforts are 3
realistically focused and integrated into our day-to-day 4
management of the Agency.
5 I am convinced that this pursuit will propel us 6
toward a more effective and efficiently run organization 7
that values its people and their contributions.
I 8
I will now ask Pat Norry to provide details about 9
our progress and highlights of some of our response to the 10 staff requirements memorandum.
j 11 MS. NORRY:
Thank you, Bill.
12 First, I'll briefly review the highlights of the t
13 staff's response to the staff requirement memorandum from 14 the last meeting.
l t
15 May I have the first slide, please.
16 Steps to achieve an honest and fair assessment of 17 individual employee performance across all NRC offices has l
18 several aspects:
applying the definitions of performance 19 ratings consistently and providing candid and timely 20 feedback to employees are difficult challenges.
21 May we have the slides, please?
22 We have consistently encouraged managers and 23 supervisors to provide honest and candid feedback to 24 employees throughout their performance period.
We have 25 stressed this practice in our training course, Effective l
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Management in Merit Staffing, and in our performance 2
appraisal courses.
Managers and supervisors are reminded to 3
closely adhere to the criteria and the definitions 4
established for rating SES and non-SES employee performance.
5 The results of these efforts show that we need to do more.
6 Office directors and regional administrators are responsible 7
for improving the evaluation process within their offices 8
with help from Human Resources.
j 9
By the next EEO briefing I hope we are able to J
l 10 report additional progress in this area.
Training is an 1
I 11 important component here, and we may need to step up the 12 pace in the training.
But I stress we have made progress 13 since the last briefing, and we continue and we will be able 14 to report further progress at the next briefing.
15 In addition we've taken steps to eliminate 16 preselection of individuals for assignments and assure equal 17 opportunity to all employees.
The Merit Selection 18 Subcommittee raised this concern in previous. briefings and 19 made several recommendations to enhance the merit process.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me stop you for a minute.
21 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You make the point that 23 managers and supervisors are routinely reminded to adhere 24 closely to the criteria and definitions established for 25 rating SES, and you say you've met with limited success.
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Would you elaborate?
2 MS. NORRY:
What I mean is that we believe that 3
the correct application of the definitions for various 4
appraisal ratings is not yet consistently applied throughout 5
the Agency.
This has to do with -- as you know, we've made 6
a major effort to make sure that appraisals are honest, and i
7 in so doing we have stressed what it means to be an 8
outstanding performer, what it means to be an excellent 9
performer.
10 Now as you know, in the case of SES, all SES are i
11 rated fully successful, but the definitions of the 12 performance within the subelements are characterized as l
13 exceeding or just meeting the goals.
In the case of i
14 non-SES, we have the different appraisal ratings.
And there 15 is progress being made, we believe, and we know that in a 16 number of parts of the Agency there's been a lot of emphasis 17 put on this.
But we just need to do more.
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18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
One additional question here:
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19 But criteria and definitions do exist?
r 20 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
And are the managers and 22 supervisors themselves rated on the extent --
23 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: 'To which they adhere to that?
25 MS. NORRY:
As part of the rating of managers; ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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it's part of the rating of SES managers, how well they l
2 administer various human resources activities, including how 3
well they administer the appraisal system.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Does that show up then in their 5
performance ratings?
6 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
Not consistently.
That is one l
l 7
area where we need to do a better job, but it does show up.
8 That is something that I believe we need to put more focus 9
on, make sure that it is in there that Office Directors, l
10 Division Directors and down in the managerial ranks are I
4 11 rated on that.
12 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
You said that you 13 haven't achieved the goal that you have set out agency-wide 14 to get this consistency, and if you characterize it, there 15 is a difference between Headquarters and the regions or a 16 particular region or is this really agency-wide including 17 across-the-board to the regions?
18 MS. NORRY:
I don't -- I mean we --
19 MR. BIRD:
Pardon me --
20 MS. NORRY:
Yes, go ahead.
21~
MR. BIRD:
I think you could broadly characterize 22 it that way.
The regions seem to overall rate lower than 23 the Headquarters, and then within the Headquarters the Staff 24 offices tend to rate lower than the Commission offices and l
25 so there's some generic ways you could look at this and then i
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office to office there are some inconsistencies in outcomes.
2 Now that is not to say they are not fair and 3
honest.
You know, some offices, particularly offices with 4
small staffs, you may have people who are performing in a 5
different level than in other offices, but I think in 6
response to your question you could say that you can make 7
'those breaks.
8 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
So that would seem to target 9
some of the areas that you need to work on.
10 MR. BIRD:
Exactly.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I continue to believe that if 12 you have elements and standards for your supervisors and I
13 managers, then it has to be policed in terms of holding them 14 to it.
If you don't do it with the people who work for you l
15 and they-don't do it for the people who work for them, then 16 you have a dishonest performance appraisal system for i
17 managers and supervisors, so that is my only comment.
18 MS. NORRY:
That's right.
19 I was talking about the steps we have taken to 20 eliminate preselection and we, as the Merit Selection 21-Subcommittee had made a number of excellent points in 22 recommending additional things we could do, we have accepted 23 many of them and in fact have just published a merit 24 selection brochure that addresses many of the questions that 25 are raised about the application process, the selection i
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process, and how people are qualified.
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It gives fairly forthright answers to these 3
questions and we are going to distribute this brochure to i
4 everyone in the agency, and this should help.
5 Do you have a copy of that?
You got it?
Okay.
6 Merit Staffing at the NRC -- in this we have tried l
7 to answer all the questions that keep getting raised and we f
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will keep working on this and improve it in future i
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publications.
10 We have also implemented a Managing Diversity i
11 process to assist in creating a work environment that i
l 12 supports maximizing the potential of all employees and i
13 improving individual and organizational performance, thereby j
14 helping to enhance regulatory effectiveness.
15 Awareness sessions have been completed for all 16 managers and supervisors.
The next phase will consist of 17 sessions for all employees.
Managing a diverse workforce l
18 will require'the cooperative effort of management and staff 19 to ensure success of long-term organizational change.
20 We believe these initiatives will continue to i
21 mitigate the perception of preselection in the merit 22 process.
23 Finally, the SRM requested information regarding 24 the status and utilization of a Commissioner Assistant l
25 candidate pool and a paper has been forwarded to the l
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1 Commission which addresses this issue.
i 2
Next I would like to review our activities in the f
3 primary focus areas for our EEO program.
May I have the 4
next slide, please, f
5 These are enhancing opportunities for women and 6
minorities in professional positions, expanding the pool of i
7 minorities and women in supervisory, ranagement, executive, 8
and senior level positions, enha' icing efforts to attract and l
9 retain employees with disabilities, and improving 10 communications about the agency's EEO objectives.
j 11 Even in the current downsizing and reorganizing 12 environment, these four areas have remained our primary 13 focus and we have had some degree of success in achieving 1
14 them.
i 15 The first area of emphasis, enhancing 16 opportunities for advancement of women and minorities in 1'
17 professional positions, 71 professional hires were made in I
18 Fiscal '98 of which 21 were minorities and 7.were 19 non-minority. amen.
The intern program was reinstated this we continued our outreach to attract highly l
20 fiscal year l
i 21 qualified women and minority candidates and were successful.
j 22 Five interns were hired.
All were minorities or women.
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23
+xt slide.
l 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me ask a question here.
I 25 Did any Native American, African American, or Hispanic women j
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-apply to the intern program?
2 MS. NORRY:
I don't know the answer to the 3
question.
4 MR. BIRD:
I am not sure, but I believe so.
We 5
can certainly check that.
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay -- and how many 7
individuals applied overall?
8 MR. BIRD:
I am not sure I have that data.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Could I ask a question 10 before you leave that slide?
I was looking at this document 11 that just came to us, the Affirmative Employment Plan.
12' There is a reference in the Appendix, the Glossary 13 of Terms, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education 14 Data or ORISE Data, which apparently lays out demographic 15 data on each occupation and what the applicant pool is 1
16 likely to consist of for each occupation.
17 D* you look at that data and compare it to what i
18 our actual hires are to see -- and is that available?
i 19 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
20' COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The comparison of the 21 ORISE demographic data with our actual hires?
22 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
We have that.
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I just would be l
24
' interested in seeing that at some point.
-25 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
In fact, I think at one point in I
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these papers we used to include those data and we certainly 2
can do that again.
It got to be a little much in a word --
3 the necessity to make comparisons in cases where the groups 4
were not as representative of the ones we actually hired as 5
they could have been, so we kind of stopped putting that in 6
there, but we do have those data.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Okay.
This may be 8
something left -- I couldn't find it anywhere except in the 9
Glossary so it may have been a mistake to leave it in.
I 10 would be interested in seeing it if it is available.
11 MS. NORRY:
Okay.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Of the 21 minorities that you 13 point out were hired, you can't give me any breakdown by 14 ethnicity and sex at all?
15 MS. NORRY:
That's.in here, isn't it?
16 Well, it doesn't break down -- that's the whole 17 thing but it doesn't break down the actual hires.
18 Could Paul -- Paul said he actually has that or we 19 can certainly supply it.
20 MS. LITTLE:
Pat, I believe that is in the 21 attachment 4 on page 1, attachment 4.
22 MS. NORRY:
Okay.
What page, Irene?
23
[ Pause.)
24 MR. BIRD:
It's the first paragraph.
25 MS. NORRY:
So it breaks it down between ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,-LTD.
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Professional and Other and then it gives the breakdown of 2
the ethnicity groups.
s 3
MS. LITTLE:
And the intern hire breakdown is in i
4 the last paragraph on that page, but not the applicants, l
l
-5 just the hires.
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
So you are going to t
7 give me the information about the applicant pool.
l 8
MS. NORRY:
Okay.
Next slide -- the rotational 9
program.
l 10 We have continued to use the rotational process to 11 enhance the career growth potential of our employees.
The 12 number of rotations decreased slightly from 238 to 215 by l
13 che number of minority rotations increased by 3 percent, 14 from 38 to 42.
Now the next slide.
15 The next area of emphasis is to enhance the pool 16 of minorities and women in supervisory, management, 17 executive and senior level positions.
i 18 In spite of the reduction in overall staff, the 19 number of minority employees in the feeder group, Grades 13 20 to 15, increased from 349 to 361.
The number of women in 21 this group held steady at 421.
The number of women and 22 minorities in SES and senior level positions increased 23 slightly.
Of the 38 employees in senior level positions, 12 24 are minorities or women.
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l 25 Minority women in the SES increased by two, l
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1 bringing the total to three, and the total number of women a
1 2
in the SES is now 21.
The number of minority men remained
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3 at 15.
'4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
And over what period of time
]
5 has that changed in terms of the number of women in the SES?
6 How is that tracked over time?
l 7
MS. NORRY:
When we say that we increased -- over 8
what period of time?
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9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You pick it.
Two years?
Five i
10 years?
l r
11 MS. NORRY:
For?
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
The increase in the number of 13 women in the SES.
l l
14 MS. NORRY:
Well, last year we were -- I mean it's j
r 15' been going steadily up --
i 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you have a chart that shows l
17 that?
18 MS..NORRY:
Do we have a chart that shows --
19 MR. BIRD:
I may have that --
20 MS. NORRY:
We were stuck in single digits for i
21 many years and then we made steady -- okay.
{
22 Okay -- so whe're does it say Women?
We had 13 --
l 23 MR. BIR'):
In
'94.
24 MS. NORRY:
13 in '94; 14 in '95; 15 in '96 -- and 25 then we made a big jump to 19 --
[
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1 MR. BIRD:
In
'97.
2 MS. NORRY:
No -- 20 in '97 and then 20 --
3 MR. BIRD:
In '98, 4
MS. NORRY:
in '98.
We have what, added one?
5 MR. BIRD:
Yes.
I 6
MS. LITTLE:
21 in '98.
7 MS. NORRY:
21 in '98, and so in '98 what you have 8
is 18 White women, two African American women, and one Asian 9
Pacific woman.
May I have the next slide, please, which 10 relates to the third area of emphasis, to enhance efforts to 11 attract, develop and retain employees with disabilities, i
12 An aggressive advertising campaign and liaison 13 activities helped us to attract and recruit persons with 14 disabilities.
A total of seven persons with such 15 disabilities were hired this fiscal year.
16 In addition, we were able to support several 17 employees requiring reasonable accommodations including 18 automatic door devices, special monitors for.the visually 19 impaired and telecommunications devices for hearing impaired 20 employees.
This type of support helps to improve the 21 environment and allow these employees to maximize their 22 productivity.
23 The next area of emphasis is to improve l
24 communication about EEO and affirmative action objectives, l
l 25 improve management responsiveness, and evaluate progress.
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referred earlier to the merit staffing brochure, which 2
should help in the communication of what merit staffing is 3
all about, and we are continuing to work with managers to provide honest and candid feedback to employees.
4 We have standardized the guidance to supervisors 5
6 and managers for addressing EEO goals, objectives and 7
achievements and we are continuing to work with the EEO Advisory Committees and joint Labor-Management EEO Committee 8
to address concerns through these -- raised through these 9
10 committees.
We believe these initiatives are all components of 11 in a 12 a healthy EEO program which provides equal employment 13 supportive work environment for all employees.
Irene Little will now provide highlights of other 14 1.5 recent accomplishments and new initiatives that suppcrt our 16 EEO program, and she will highlight issues addressed by the 17 EEO Advisory Committees.
Irene?
18 MS. LITTLE:
Thank you, Mrs. Norry.
If I could have the next slide, please.
I will 19 20 talk about three areas.
21 The first, the EEO program direction.
22 In an effort to improve the effectiveness of the 23 Agency's EEO program, and to communicate a clear message 24 regarding the program's direction, the Commission reviewed 25 recently
- and you, Chairman Jackson, signed -- the updated ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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NRC EEO and diversity policy and the Agency's affirmative 2
employment plan.
This affirmative employment plan provides 3.
the framework for managers and staff to work together to i
4 improve NRC's work environment and organizational 5
performance.
A copy of this plan has been provided to all 6
supervisors and managers, and will be distributed to all 7
employees within the next few days.
8 The EEO guiding principles that are spelled out in 9
'the affirmative employment plan are also included in 10-guidance to all supervisors and managers for completing the 11 operating plan.
This single focused guidance will assist 12 managers and supervisors in establishing specific EEO 13 objectives and in integrating EEO into their day-to-day 14 management of all activities.
It will also serve as a tool 15 for monitoring achievements in the EEO arena.
16 The second area that I will discuss is the area of 17 office directors who have come to the table, as we have two 18 here today, to talk about specific EEO goals.and activities 19 in their offices.
The offices that have come during the 20 past two briefings have provided us status on their 21 activities.
22 The Office of General Counsel came to the table in 23 October 1997 and discussed her commitment to enhance staff 24 development.
Since that time one African American woman in 25 a paralegal position completed studiec leading to a law
]
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degree, and in fiscal year 1998 was selected for an attorney 2
position.
Another African-American woman is currently 3
participating in the computer science development program to 4
enhance her information management skills, skills that are 5
in increasing demand throughout the Agency.
OGC's efforts 6
are continuing in this area.
7 Also at the table in October 1997 was the office 8
director, Office of Nuclear Materials, Safety, and 9
Safeguards.
The Director made a commitment to place 10 increased emphasis on focused recruitment in the LOCA area, 11 and since that time combined recruitment efforts have 12 resulted in the hiring of 15 permanent positions.
All of 13 these hires are minorities or women.
NMSS expects to fill 14 approximately 50 positions in fiscal year 1999.
Many of 15 these positions will be filled at the entry level, and the 16 expectation is the diversity of the applicant pool will i
17 remain the same -- be similar to what we've experienced in 18 the past.
I 19 Also at the table in October was the Regional 20 Administrator from Region III, who made a commitment to 21 increase the use of the individual development plan for l
22 career' development.
And since that time Region III 23 management has conducted special sessions to discuss skills 24 building for all employees.' Today approximately 40 percent l
l 25 of Region III employees have individual development plans in i
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place.
This effort is expected to continue and should 2
result in overall improvement of individual and regional 3
performance.
4 At the last briefing in June 1998 the Office 5
Director, Nuclear Reactor Regulation, discussed an increased 6
emphasis on communication throughout his organization, and l
7 increasing efforts to diversify the NRR work force through 8
entry-level hiring.
In response to these commitments, NRR l
9 has increased the frequency of its all-hands meetings to I
10 respond more effectively to employee concerns regarding 11 changes in the office.
NRR has also established an 12 entry-level recruitment program.
During FY 1998, six i
13 selections were made; five of these six were women or l
l 14 minorities.
l l
15 And finally, the Regional Administrator from l
16 Region I, also at the table in June, made a commitment to 17 enhance diversity of Region I's management staff.
There has 18 been no opportunity to fill permanent supervisory positions 19 in Region I for several years.
However, Region I's 20 management has used temporary promotions and rotational l
21 assignments to enhance the career potential of employees in 22 both technical and administrative pipelines.
In FY 1998, 23 two white women and two minorities were temporarily promoted 24 to supervisory positions, and four other women or minorities 25 were supported for rotational assignment.
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Also, the entire Agency has been focused on 2
reducing the underrepresentation of Hispanics in the work 3
force, and we'd make a noteworthy comment that of four 4
Hispanics hired in FY 1998, two of them were hired by 5
Region I.
6 The Office of Small Business and Civil Rights will 7
continue to work with offices and regions to provide 8
assistance in establishing realistic EEO goals in monitoring 9
these activities as they work toward these goals.
10 The third area I will discuss is committee 11 activity.
The EEO advisory committees and the Joint 12 Labor-Management EEO Committee have continued to play a 13 significant role in bringing EBO issues to the attention of 14 management, and in offering up recommendations to remediate 15 EEO concerns.
16 During the past fiscal year, the committees have 17 emphasized establishing upward-mobility positions to improve 18 opportunities for paraprofessionals.
The Joint 19 Labor-Management EEO Committee and the advisory committees 20 have both recommended that we conduct an assessment of the potential adverse impact of downsizing and reorganizing on 21 22 women,' minorities, and persons with disabilities.
The Office of Small Business and Civil Rights will be conducting 23 24 this informal assessment and providing feedback in future 25 briefings on the results.
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In past EEO briefings, we have also discussed the 2
recommendations made by the Selection Subcommittee and the 3
Performance Monitoring Subcommittee.
These recommendations 4
have all been responded to now, and those subcommittees are 5
now absorbed into the EEO Advisory Committee structure.
6 To elaborate more on the EEO advisory committee 7
activity, Jose Ibarra will provide highlights.
8 MR. IBARRA:
Good morning, Chairman.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Good morning.
10 MR. IBARRA:
Good morning, Commissioners.
11 Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to 12 you on behalf of all the EEO advisory committees and the 13 subcommittees.
14 The cooperation has continued, very positive 15 cooperation with the Office of Small Business, Civil Rights, 16 and the Office of Human Resources.
The Performance 17 Monitoring Subcommittee and the Merit Selection Subcommittee 18 have completed their work, and we are very encouraged that 19 several of the recommendations of the Merit Selection 20 Subcommittee have been implemented by management.
The 21 Paraprofessional Subcommittee is progressing in its review 22 of issues related to administrative and clerical employees.
l 23 In this time of downsizing and reorganization, our 24 primary focus is the impact that this will have on 25 minorities, women, persons 40 years and older, and i
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individuals with disabilities.
It is critical that
-2 management provide support and constructive feedback to 3
employees and that they coach and mentor employees in this 4
environment.
The advisory committees want to be positive 5
and have a poeicive outlook, and we believe that this is a 6
time for employees to hone their skills, because of the 7.
large number of people that are retiring that will create 8
new opportunities for the people that do remain.
9 It is important for managers to communicate this 10 to their employees, especially minorities, and it's 11 important that they assist them in developing skills to 12 carry out the mission of this agency.
13 The advisory committees believe that in order to 14 enhance careers for individuals they need visibility and 15 exposure.
This can be provided by rotational assignments 16 and developmental assignments in high-visibility positions, 17 including the EDO's office and the Commissioner's offices.
18 In addition, the Agency needs to provide more upward 19 mobili.y for paraprofessionals, and they need to enhance the 20 focOsed recruitment of qualified minorities.
21 In the last briefing we mentioned the fact that 22 Hispanics -- we were having problems with retention of 23 Hispanics, and that does continue.
In this briefing period 24 in spite of being successful in hiring for Hispanics, today 25 we have 62 Hispanics versus 64 which were reported in the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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June briefing of this year.
2 Thank you.
3 MS. NORRY:
Thank you, Jose.
4 I would now like to ask Ashok Thadani to provide 5
highlights of the EEO program in the Office of Nuclear 6
Regulatory Research.
7 MR. THADANI:
Thank you, Pat.
Good morning.
8 I'm pleased to address the Commission today on the 9
EEO program in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
10 Research fully supports equal employment and 11 career-enhancing opportunities for all of its employees.
12 Research, like many of the organization's offices, is 13 managing its programs within a staffing environment that has 14 very limited options for hiring, especially from outside the 15 Agency.
)
16 Research currently has 165 employees; 23. percent 17 are minorities; 19 percent are white women; and 58 percent 18 are white men.
Currently Research supervisors are 19 represented by 12 percent white women, 20 percent Asian 20 Pacific men, and 68 percent white men.
During the last 21 year, white women were selected for two key positions in 22 Research:
Deputy Director of Research and Chief of 23 Radiation and Health Effects Branch.
An African American 24 man was selected for a secretarial position, and an Asian i
25 Pacific American man was selected for a materials engineer ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,- LTD.
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position.
2 Research is currently working with the Offices of 3
Small Business and Civil Rights and Human Resources to 4
identify targeted minorities to fill some anticipated future 5
research vacancies.
In view of significant losses the 6
office experienced in '97 and
'98, in '99 we anticipate 7
recruiting recent high-quality graduates and postgraduates 8
in certain key disciplines as risk analysis, nuclear 9
mechanical engineering, and Earth sciences.
10 I strongly believe in recognizing the 11 contributions and accomplishments of employees through the 12 use of incentive awards.
All awards are personally reviewed 13 by me and my deputy to ensure consistency and fairness in 14 the process.
Research initiated an employee of the month 15 program during fiscal year 1998.
This award recognizes 16 significant contributions by employees with instant cash 17 awards and citations; 57 percent of the employee of the 18 month awards were given to women or minorities.
19 Research has continued its efforts to improve 20 overall office performance and to help employees attain 21 their career goals through training and development.
Each 22 staff member is encouraged to attend training and 23 development each year.
In addition to training for 24 technical staff, several nontechnical research employees are 25 enrolled at area colleges to enhance their career ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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a 29 1
opportunities.
One f emal e line manager is completing course l
2 work at the University of Maryland in computer science and 3
accounting.
An African American female secretary is 4
completing course work at the University of Maryland in 5
business management.
And an African American male secretary 6
is enrolled at Prince George's Community College.
i i
7 Research also uses rotational assignments as an 8
effective method of enhancing career development and provide 9
exposure to staff to other offices outside of Research.
In l
10 fact, Research staff participated in 24 rotations, which is l
11 15 percent of the staff, during 1998, and 30 percent of all 12 rotations involved women or minorities.
13 Last year an African American female secretary who 14 had completed her degree in business finance at the 15 University of Maryland participated in a rotational 16 assignment in the Office of Administration and was later 17 selected for a paraprofessional position in that office.
18 Research has continued its strong support for the 19 mentoring program.
In 1998 Research had seven mentees and 20 five mentors.
I am a mentor, but I do not mentor the 21 employees of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
22 Research management supports the EEO program 23 through management and employee participation in EEO 24 activities.
Two SES managers participate on the Executive 25 Resource Board, EEO Review Group, to provide insights on the l
l l
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availability of highly qualified women and minorities for 2
merit selection process.
3 Research employees hold membership on three EEO 4
advisory committees.
One employee was appointed as an NRC l
5 EEO counselor.
l 6
Now these are challenging times for NRC, but we do 7
need to continue to pay close attention to EEO 8
considerations as well.
Research plans to reorganize the 9
office to achieve a supervisory-to-staff ratio of 1:8, 10 reduce the number of SES positions, align functions to be 11 consistent with Commission decisions on the fiscal year 2000 12 budget, and maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the 13 organization by grouping functions that require similar 14 staff technical skills.
i 15 As we proceed with these changes, we will involve i
l 16 the staff through the partnership as. appropriate and be 17 mindful of human resource issues.
18 I have also instituted quarterly all-hands i
19 meetings to enhance communication within the office.
These t
20 meetings are used to update the staff on recent 21 developments, discuss topics of interest to staff, and to 22 exchange views, ideas, and concerns.
i 23 I have provided more specifics in my statement in 24 the SECY paper.
Thank you.
i 25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
Let me ask you a I
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I couple of questions.
t 2
Although women and at least one minority group, 3
the Asian and Pacific American men, are well represented it 4
seems in your supervisory ranks, other minorities such as 5
Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans appear to j
6 be missing in those ranks and Hispanics and Native Americans 7
may even be missing in the employee ranks, and so I guess my 8
question is if they exist within your staff at all, what 9
opportunities are available to these other minorities to 10 prepare themselves for supervisory positions?
1 11 MR. THADANI:
First of all, Chairman Jackson, you 12 are quite correct.
We in the Office of Research do not have 13 much representation as a matter of fact of certain 14 minorities, so the first step is, particularly in the 15 professional field, the first step is to take advantage of 16 what I think are some opportunities we will have in 1999 and 17 target certain areas for -- in certain particular l
18 disciplines, technical staff.
19 Second -- in fact, Dr. Morrison, before I went to 20 the Office of Research, had developed a development plan for 21 each of the employees in the office, working with the 22 manager's not only technical development but other aspects of 23 development as well.
l 24 The base from whic'h we are operating in the Office 25 of Research and other groups is really very small and it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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needs to be expanded.
i 2
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you have'any Hispanic or 3
African American professionals in the Office of Research?
4 MR. THADANI:
We do.
We do.
And we have offered i
5 them training and development, yes -- but I have to say at 6
.the same time it is a very small number.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What specific steps is your i
8 office taking with the Office of Small Business and Civil 9
Rights and Human Resources to identify Hispanic, African i
10 American, and Native American and other minority and women 11 applicants for those supervisory and just general Research 12 vacancies?
It is a bit discouraging -- I think it is 13 impo-snt for the individuals but I noted when you were
[
c 14 desc.1bing various activities for career enhancement, I 15 didn t hear you really explicitly talk about any Hispanic 16 American employees, and the only African American employees 17 you talked about were in clerical positions.
18 MR..TIUMDANI:
Currently I have had a discussion l
l 19 with both Irene and Paul Bird in terms of targeting certain
(
20 minority groups for hiring purposes.
21 In terms of supervisory opportunities have been 22 extreme'ly limited.
In fact, currently Office of Research is 23 going to be going down from 23 SES-positions to 13 SES 24 positions; 12 non-supervisory or non-SES, supervisory I
25 positions, to 9 supervisory non-SES positions.
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1 Quite frankly, the opportunities Just aren't there
)
t 2
at this time, but I would expect that in future there will
)
3 be some opportunities but last year, this year and perhaps i
4 next year would be difficult years.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
And in your overall workforce?
6 MR. THADANI:
We are doing --
l 7
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Professional workforce.
8 MR. THADANI:
Pro'fessional workforce -- we have 9
opportunities now, I believe, because we are down to 165 10 total and the professional forces is below our staffing 11 level for '99, as a matter of fact, so I think there are 12 some opportunities.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Please.
14 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
This under-representation of 15 certain minority groups, is this the case in fairly recent 16 history or was this made worse when Research was downsized 17 and personnel were moved into other programs?
18 MR. THADANI:
I believe that has been the 19 situation in the past but that is based on my general l
20 knowledge and I think it may have been made worse by some 21 losses.
22 Research suffered in 1998 about 8 percent 23 reduction of staff and while that has created some l
l 24 difficulties, yet I think that has also led to some
~25 opportunities for hiring.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you have any idea about 2
within the graduating student body including with advanced 3
degrees at the University of Maryland, UMBC, Georgetown, 4
George Washington, you know, what kinds of proportional 5
pools of people there are in these various groups?
6 MR. THADANI:
I don't know myself, but we would 7
be -- since this is, I think next year is the first 8
opportunity we are going to have, we are not only going to 9
target local universities but other selected universities as 10 well, but we will be getting that information.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Please.
12 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
This line of questioning 13 raises a couple of concerns.
It seems to me that there are 14 two -- it's not just directed toward NRR, sort of two areas 15 you have to focus on.
16 One is the extent to which we can bring more 17 people in, university level or elsewhere, into the NRC.
The 18 other issue is the extent to which we have people here anc 19 we don't lose them to other agencies, to the private sector 20 and elsewhere.
21 Obviously there is more that we need to be doing 22 in outreach both at local universities and elsewhere and I 23 am pleased to hear that that is going to be increasing.
24 I am curious in terms of the retention of the 25 people we already have, people we have trained, people we A12J RILEY & ASSOCIATES,' LTD.
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1 have gone out of our way to bring in who are minorities, 2
where are we in that?
Are we losing a lot of folks to other 3
agencies, to the private sector, and what kind of tracking 4
have we done to try to indicate what we may need to change 5
here to make it more attractive for people to stay?
6 MS. NORRY:
I think we have the data from exit 7
interviews to the extent that people share with us their 8
reasons for leaving, and some of them are leaving to go to 9
other agencies.
Some of them are leaving to go to private 10 industry.
11 What we clearly need to do a better job in is in 12 whether you call it mentoring, whether you call it 13 partnering, whatever -- when we have a promising new hire we 14 can't just put them in a corner and assume that everything 15 is going to be fine.
We have to target them for some 16 interest and make sure that their career is being followed.
17 We have had people who leave and say, well, I 18 don't think, I didn't feel that I had a career path.
- Well, 19 there is no reason for that.
If you have someone who is 20 good, and who is showing promise, they should never get the 21 feeling they don't have a career path, so that is an area 22 that we have already discussed that we have to put a major 23 emphasis on, which is called keeping the good people we 24 have.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
With respect to retention, I l
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have explicitly asked Mrs. Norry to get some data in terms 2
of how other agencies are doing relative to retaining 3
employees in those same categories.
That is number one.
I 4
I have asked her to further get data if we are 5
losing employees to other agencies, what is it that is 6
attracting them to those other agencies; for those agencies 7
that have better retention records than we do, to explore i
8 what it is they do to retain those employees; and finally to 9
have all of this predicated on understanding with greater
{
10 detail or a greater understanding why those employees who do j
1 11 leave, leave, particularly if they go to other agencies.
12 You know, competition with the private sector is l
13 one thing, but there is a real question when employees move 14 from one agency to another.
15 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
In just a follow-up to l
16 that, we have had -- I had some information about some very 17 promising minority employees recently who have left who are l
18 relatively young, and obviously those are the people we want l
19 to bring through and bring into our system so that they too 20 can eventually get up to the SES level, and I guess it
~
21 raises the additional issue of the relative age of folks 22 here in the agency.
23 Looking through some statistics, the percentage of 24 employees under the age of 40 has been steadily decreasing 25 here at the agency.
There's a variety of reasons for that.
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What steps are we taking to make sure that as our workforce l
2 ages or as we have retirements, we are continuing to have a 1
i 3
pool of people coming in,'particularly minorities, who will be in a position to replace them so we don't have a drop-off 4
i 5
at some point?
6 MS. NORRY:
Paul, do you want to talk about our l
7 entry level efforts?
8 MR. BIRD:
Yes.
To the extent that.we have been l
9 hiring, we have been working very hard to encourage all the
{
10 offices to focus recruitment basically at the entry level, graduate fellows.
We think that-11 whether it be interns, 12 intake is essential to the future of the agency and that is 13 where we should focus a lot of efforts.
14 A tendency when you are' downsizing is for people l
15 to hire back or try to hire back at full performance level.
16 I think for the large offices particularly that dialogue has
\\
17 produced some commitments, as you heard Ashok mention, to 18 focus more on entry level hires.
i 19 I think that is how this agency will build its 20 future, quite frankly.
21 I was looking at some data on this over the past 22 four, five years for under 40 and we have consistently lost 23 around 40 employees in that category each year on the j
24 average over those years, so the numbers haven't really 25 increased.
Of course, the base is coming down, so 40 out of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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a lower base is a bigger percentage.
2 One of the interesting things recently though is 3
the shift in the movement of the under-40 group from 4
transferring to other agencies to resignation to the private j
5 sector, so there has been some trend data and we are looking 6
at that but certainly if you don't replenish at the entry 7
level with younger people, you are mortgaging your future 8
and I think that -- again, I think there's been a lot of 9
dialogue on this and some commitment both in the regions and 10 the Headquarters among the offices to do that, and hopefully
\\
11 that will take hold and continue.
\\
12 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
And that gets us back to 13' the same point, and that is if we are putting the right 14 resources, which we should, in maintaining and being able to 15 bring in minorities at that level, to the extent that we 16 have a lot of individuals in that age bracket leaving, that 17 means a lot of people who who've been' successful at bringing 18 in may be leaving, and that is a concern.
19 MS. NORRY:
Just one other piece of information.
20 We had, we conducted approximately 125 exit interviews 21 during mostly fiscal
'98, and part of
'99.
They show that 22 12 people out of that group left to go to another agency.
23 By far the largest number was 40, which was to 24 private industry, and then a' variety of other things, but 25 next time we report on this, the number attributable to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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retirement will go way up -- but we need to do as Paul said j
I
\\
2 at the entry level and at the same time need to make sure we 3
are preparing people who are at the middle level to take the l
4 senior level positions that will be opening up.
i 1
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Shall we hear now from --
1 6
MS. NORRY:
Yes.
Jesse Funches.
7 MR. FUNCHES:
I am pleased to address the r
8 Commission today on the Equal Employment Opportunity Program j
9 as implemented in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer.
10 My staff and I are fully committed to equal l
11 employment opportunity for all employees and support the 12 agency's equal employment opportunity and diversity policy, 13 affirmative action objective, and initiatives.
14 I hope that the information I will share with you 15 and members of the audience will demonstrate that 16 commitment.
17 The Office of the CFO has 106 full-time and 18 part-time employees.
Sixty-nine percent of our staff are 19 women and 31 percent are men.
Thirty-three percent of our 20 staff are minorities with the remaining 67 percent have been 21 white.
22 The makeup of our managers and supervisors are 23 similar to the makeup of the staff and distribution.
24 During the past year we have been successful in l
25 bringing in minorities and women in terms of new hires.
For I
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example, minority made up 25 percent of the new hires.
This l
2.
included addressing one under-representation area, that is, t
3 hiring an African American man in our management ranks.
[
4 With respect to age, 73 percent of the staff is 5
over 40 years old and among the managers 82 percent are 6
currently over 40 years.
7 To achieve the agency EEO goal, I have directed 8
the office and we have taken certain steps which I will now 9
summarize.
10 To follow more closely the guidance as outlined in 11 the management directive on performance appraisals, we have 12 taken steps to provide a more realistic performance 13 appraisal to the CFO staff.
All of my managers and i
14 supervisors were reminded of their obligation to explain the 15 performance appraisal process and in the perceived changes 16 to the rating standards.
The performance review stressed 17 performance ratings that were consistent with the 18
. agency-wide standards.
19 We discussed the evaluation standards and the 20 value of an effective interchange of information between 21 each employee and their supervisor at an all hands meeting 22 with all employees.
I 23 I believe we have made substantial progress this 24 year.
However, we will examine the results of this year's
' 25 appraisal to determine what additional steps are necessary i
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e
l-4 l.
1 to make our appraisal a more effective interchange of i
2 information between the employees and supervisors.
3 My managers and I recognize that an effective 4
merit selection process is an integral part of an effective 1
5 EEO program.
To this end, prior to recruiting to fill a 6
position, our managers review the job description and l
7 performance rating to ensure no artificial barriers are 8
present to employment.
This includes making sure that the 9
rating criteria and the standards are as broad as we can 10 make them so that we can get the widest pool of applicants.
11 Additionally, we include women and/or minorities 12 as members of all our rating panel.
This helps us 13 accomplish two goals, First, stressing diversity in the 14 review panel assures that a broad cross-section of our staff 15 are exposed to the selection process.
Secondly, the 16 recognition of the acceptance of diversity helps Lccourage 17 all qualified minority and women candidates to consider 18 application.
19 Another area that we are emphasizing is training.
2C We encourage development of our employees through career 21 training and rotation of assignment.
During the past year 22 we have sponsored 18 rotation assignments internally within 23 the office.
This included one minority women, three white 24 women and four white men.
i.e are also have a minority 25 female in the agency computer science development program.
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42 We are using entry level professional positions to 1
2 enhance career development.
For example, two minority para-professional positions have been -- two minority women 3
I have been selected into para-professionalism positions at 4
I 5
the entry level in the accounting area.
We also have two entry level program analyst positions in the last stage of 6
i 7
the merit selection process.
8 Recognition of job achievement in the work force 9
is an important part of building an effective organization.
10 It is a team building and provides motivation.
I personally l
11 review all~ awards with my managers to make sure that they 12 are appropriate and are consistent with the make-up of our 13 staff.
During fiscal year 1997, we gave 58 awards, 31 l
14 percent was to minorities, 47 percent to white women and 22 15 percent to white men.
j 16 I encourage and support employees' participation 17 in EEO activities such as the advisory committees and as the 18 EEO council.
Such participation helps us advance the agency 19 and office EEO goals.
We have three employees -- during the 20 past year we had three employees serving on these
'portant 21 committees.
22 Overall, I am encouraged by what we have achieved j
23 in tne areas of EEO and affirmative action.
The office of 24 the chief financial officers, managers and supervisors are
)
23 aware and concerned about equal employment opportunities for t
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our employees.
In support of our efforts, I recently 2
developed, in conjunction with the Director of the Office of I
(
3 Small Business and Civil Rights, a new element and standard 4
that further clarified the EEO expectation of non-SES i
l 5
managers and supervisors.
l 6
As has been mentioned before, in the era of l
l 7
declining resources and streamlining, we recognize there l
8 might be diminishing opportunity for recruitment and 9
promotion, however, we recognize this challenge and will 10 manage to ensure that, as we move forward, that we keep a 11 balanced staff in the EEO area.
12 My managers and I are committed to fostering the l
13 right environment for continued support and to achieving 14 equal employment opportunity.
I appreciate the opportunity 15 to present this information to the Commission.
Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
Let me ask you a 17 couple of questions.
Are any of your women managers j
18 minority women?
19 MR. FUNCHES:
We have women minority at the first 20 level supervisors.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Each office seems to 22 have its own peculiarities, you know.
I questioned Mr.
23 Thadani about the Office of Research and the make-up of his l
24 staff.
In your office, Asian-Pacific and Hispanic employees 25 seem to be under-represented.
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MR. FUNCHES:
That's correct.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you have any efforts 3
underway to improve in that regard?
4 MR. FUNCHES:
Yes.
You are correct, we are short 5
on Hispanics and Asian-Pacific.
We have an active effort 6
underway now, participating with the CFO council in the 7
Hispanic area.
The CFO council across the government is 8
having the same issue with Hispanic,_and we had a special 9
meeting a couple of months ago, meeting with representatives 10 from the Hispanic community to see what could be done in 11 that area.
12 I think two focuses came out of that.
One was to 13 identify the universities where we could recruit and we have 14 a list of those and we are working with HR to pursue those 15 universities.
I think the second aspect was an effort to 16 try to make sure that those universities were aware of any 17 new government requirements in anticipation of training, 18 such that, if need be, they could adjust their curriculum or 19 make sure that they advise the students to get the 20 appropriate courses.
So we have that, we have not seen any 21 results of it yet.
22 The Asian-Pacific, we don't have any specific 23 effort, however, we are looking at, you know, the pool of 24 candidates that come in from the outside when we are able to 25 post outside, to try to identify if there are those and make ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,'LTD.
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1 sure that we, you know, give them opportunity for
!^
2 interviews.
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How many bridge positions did 4
you st?.ff in the last two years?
5 MR. FUNCHES:
In the last couple of years we 6
established two to get people from what I would call a 7
para-professional position into the accounting area, and we 8
are in the process of looking to see if we can establish We have encouraged our para-professional people to --
9 more.
10 there are'certain requirements that they have to have to be 11 qualified as accountants and we have encouraged them and 12 supported them in taking the appropriate courses.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How have the individuals who 14 have been selected fared in the end, and how have they been 15 of benefit to your office?
16 MR. FUNCHES:
I think in terms of benefit, they 17 have given us the technical capability that we need.
To the 18 best of my knowledge, they are performing, you know, they 19 are performing well.
We don't see any downside of doing 20 that, in the sense that have been able to move from they 21 were into -- they have moved into entry level positions and 22 we are committed as managers to work with them to ensure 23 that they succeed.
1 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: "Do you encourage your managers 25 in the use of individual development plans, or do you have i
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them encourage employees to use that?
2 MR. FUNCHES:
I have encourage'd my managers to use 3
individual development plans.
We do not have widespread use 4
within the organization, as widespread as I would like.
And 5
I think there's a couple of reasons.
In certain 6
' organizations, there's a lot of interest'by the employees in 7
moving forward, individual development plans.
In other 8
areas, there's not as much interest.
But we do, especially 9
if an employee wants to have an individual development plan, 10 we definitely will support that and advise the individual 11 how to do it.
12 I understand HR is looking at how, you know, what 13 are the steps we might want to -- the agency can take, and 14 we definitely will be supportive of that-.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you think there is an 16 opportunity with the agency, and I know this has come out 17 and I not soing to get into -- you know, give me signal, 18 Karen, if I am stepping off the cliff here.
You know, 19 people have a lot of concern, as we develop and deploy new 20 uses of information technology, and is there an opportunity 21' in that regard, both within your office, and in terms of 22 fungibility of people, to encourage people through IDPs in 23 those areas?
24 MR. FUNCHES:
The answer is yes.
As we move 25 forward with new systems such as Starfire, as we went ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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forward with like a new'TNA system in the past, we have 2-encouraged our people to make that transition and provided 3
them the training to make the transition.
I believe that 4
the people have the ability to make that transition and we 5
would make sure that they get the appropriate training such l
6 that they can participate in the new environment.
l 7
MS. NORRY:
I would like to ask Pete Hearn, the i
8 President of the National Treasury Employees Union, do you 9
have any remarks to make, Pete?
10 MR. HEARN:
Good morning.
Yes, I have observed so 11 far the pr'esentation seems to accent heavily on supervisory 12 management ranks, which lately have been limited because of t
13 the budget crunch.
I have heard terms mentioned that they 14 are trying to maintain past gains and might have even --
15 there's areas they actually made gains, which is pretty 16 difficult in an area that is shrinking.
17 One of the problems that we see is in the grades 18 14 and below.
There's a vast number of NRC employees who 19 are under the EEO statutes in those grade structures, and 20 there are logjams at different grade levels.
One, in 21 particular, is the GS-7 level.
There's a career path where 22 you can -- an individual can obtain the GS-7 level, but the 23 there's very few GS-8s.
And then in some offices, you will 24 go and you will see a few GS-8s, a few GS-9s, no GS-10s, no 25 GS-11s, then they go to GS-12s, GS-13s.
The career path is l
l I
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i l
1 disrupted.
2 With change there is usually opportunity, and with l
l 3
the streamlining and empowerment reducing the number of l
4 managers, these managers are all doing work, and that work, 5
a lot of that work still has to be done, and the way the 6
system is supposed to work is that work gets passed down to l
7 the lower levels.
That's empowerment, and it starts a l
l 8
trickle down effect where you start -- the higher grades are i
9
' passing down higher duties to lower grades, and that enables 10 you to increase the number of the grade levels lower than a j
11 14.
f 12 The savings is your overall salary structure your i
13 goes down, but your average salary or grade is going to l
l 14 increase because you need these lower graded people to 15 enhance their skills and come up to a level where they can 16 do more with less.
And we don't see that being done or 17 planned, and we would like to start planning for that, 18 because this window of opportunity is there now, and we 19 think it would help the agency and also help the EEO 20 program.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Thank you.
22 MS. NORRY:
That concludes our prepared 23 presentations.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I have a few questions here.
25 Let me go back.
How are we progressing with recruiting i
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Hispanic employees?
Are we recruiting in areas of the I
2 country such as California or Texas where we might have a 3
high percentage in the college student population?
.Are we 4
using our regional resources?
And are there any 5
government-wide OPM strategies in this regard?
Can any and all of your speak to that?
6 7
MR. BIRD:
Yes, I think, you know, consistent with 8
the past, we do try to focus some recruitment efforts on 9
'high-population areas.
We have had some limited success 10 when we've done that in terms of offering opportunities for 11 mobility.
'But we continue to do that.
12 We focus schools, one example is Florida 13 International University, which we're about to visit, that i
14 has a very high Hispanic population.
And'again to the l
15 extent we've had entry-level opportunities, we have had good 16 results in terms of Hispanic applicants applying for our 17 jobs.
18 We do focus locally as well.
University of f
19 Maryland hae been, you know, quite a good source of 20 recruitment of engineers.
They have a reasonably good l
21 minority population available in those undergraduate classes 22 through Maryland.
23 I think if we try to look and compare to other 24 agencies, we've held our own in terms of recruitment at the 25 entry level.
More difficult, when we're again trying to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 recruit at a higher level of entry, we've had less success 2
there, less likelihood of an applicant pool developing.
3 MS. NORRY:
I believe that you also have had some 4
success in getting through the efforts of Jose and his t
5 committee getting some assistance in that recruitment.
6 MR. BIRD:
Yes.
i 7
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Mr. Ibarra, do you want to --
l 8
MR. IBARRA:
Yes.
We are recruiting in the right l
9 schools.
You know, if we go look at the number of 10 graduates, we are.
And as far as recruiting is concerned, 11 we're doing very good on that.
i 12 My concern would be that we're not recruiting 13 enough and more people are leaving.
As you can see, you i
t 14 know, we have a net loss of four, which means six people 15 left.
Okay?
So even though we can go ahead and enhance l
i 16 that., and we will enhance it, you know, we'll work with 17 Small Business and Civil Rights.
I don't have a big problem 18 with that.
I have the problem with the retention aspect.
i 19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you have specific ideas of 20 strategies to improve --
l 21 MR. IBARRA:
I am going to brainstorm with the
[
22 Small Business and Civil Rights people, because I did have j
23 the opportunity to talk to five of the last seven people 24 that have left, and, you know, everything is not negative.
25 I think a lot of people hated to leave, and I think that's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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very strong for us.
They really hated to leave.
And so 2
there has -- we can do some minor tweak'ng there, but I i
3 think we're not going to be able to retain everybody.
We 4
are going to lose people.
But I think we can keep some.
5 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Chairman, I had a 6
followup question for Mr..Tbarra on that.
l 7
Looking through the SECY paper that came out 8
recently, there was a statement from your advisory 9
committee.
They had a sentence in there that I wanted to 10 ask you about.
It said the NRC is a good place-to work.
11 However, some Hispanics left the Agency due to a lack of 12 supportive work environments and limited career advancement 13 and development opportunities.
14 I understand the second half of that question, but 15 I'm curious just to probe a little bit more what your 16 concern is about a lack of a supportive work environment, 17 and again, ways that we can improve that.
18 MR; IBARRA:
Well, there's a lot of good things 19 that this Agency does, and they must be doing good, because 20 they don't want to leave.
And the decision to leave is very 21 hard on them.
22 I had felt that somewhere along the line they did
-23 not get the right encouragement, not that they didn't get 24 encouragement, but there's a point where people need to to 25 be patted on the back, and they need to be shown that JJTN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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everything is not negative, that there will be 2
opportunities.
This coaching and mentoring might have been 3
lacking in some of these cases.
Okay?
Not to say we didn't j
4 do that.
But maybe.at the right time we didn't do it.
5 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Is that something you're 6
finding agencywide, or are there pockets?
For example --
7 MR. IBARRA:
Well --
8 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Are certain parts of the 9
Agency doing a better job at mentoring?
10 MR. IBARRA:
Well, I can only speak for Hispanics, 11 okay?
12 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Right.
13 MR. IBARRA:
And I can tell you that maybe there's 14 not enough of it.
I don't think we are going to lose all 62 15 Hispanics that we have in this agency today.
There's no 16 way, because there's a lot of people that have heavily 17 invested into this agency.
But we are going to lose the
[
18 people that we hired three or four years ago if we don't f
19 step up the efforts.
Okay?
Because these are the people we 20 tried so hard to hire, and we need to do something better 21 than to, you know, make them leave.
22 MS. LITTLE:
Chairman, we think that part of the j
23 solution to this is a mentoring program.
We have a 24 facilitated mentoring program, and maybe there are some 25 things that we can do to beef that up a little bit.
i i
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Just recently the Office of Small Business and 2
Civil Rights has become involved in the orientation of new 3
employees.
We meet with all new employees on their first 4
day here.
And we will be offering, not only to Hispanics 5
but to any new employee, the opportunity to engage them in 6
our facilitated mentoring program.
And we will be doing i
7 some followup with them and hopefully with their supervisors 8
to make sure that they understand that we value them here, 9
and if they need some help, to get some questions answered, 10 they can get questions answered and to make them feel a 11 little more supportive.
We think that that is part of the 12 solution to retention.
I l
L3 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
And I agree, and that's 14 important, particularly for the new employee, but addressing 15 the issue that you just brought up and the people who have 16 been here maybe four or five years, where this is a group 17 we're losing.
And it's important that the mentoring 18 continue or there is some other way that we can address this 19 issue of people who have been with the Agency, they've 20 invested some time in taa agency, they're reaching a point 21 to really be very productive with the experience that 22 they've gained that we don't lose those people.
I'm 23 concerned about that.
24 MR. IBARRA:
I am hopeful that we can retain l
25 people if we work at it.
The first thing we need to do is l
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54 1
identify those people and track them, and make sure -- talk 2
to them, find out what's happening.
3 DR. TRAVERS:
If I can just say one thing.
I 4
agree, Commissioner, with your comment.
I'm a mentor.
I 5
was a mentor before I came up to the 17th floor, and I am 6
one today.
And I found that very often the critical stage 7
for mentoring is -- it's important when an employee comes 8
aboard, but it becomes even more critical as they begin to 9
look for opportunities in their career.
And certainly 10 that's where at some point in time you begin to lose people, if you don't have a process that can assist in identifying 11 12 different paths.
And I found that mentors very often bring 13 a good perspective to the way the Agency works and the.
14 different opportunities that can be available that often are 15 not identified by an individual in a particular office, for 16 example.
So I agree entirely with your comment.
17 MS. LITTLE:
One other comment.
Jose referenced 18 that he would be brainstorming with the Small Business 19 Office.
We've already started that process, and he and I 20 havs talked about trying to link Hispanic employees with 21 members of the advisory committee and to facilitate some 22 mentoring through that approach as well.
23 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
I have just one quick 24 followup question.
When a new employee starts, do we offer 25 them the opportunity to have a mentor, or do we say this is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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the mentor we have assigned to you?
2 MS. LITTLE:
We've just initiated our involvement l
3 to talk about mentoring at the orientation sessions.
We did i
j 4
that a couple months ago.
We are talking to them about 5
anything that we can do to facilitate their pleasant stay 6
and progression in this agency.
7 It's not required.
We're not requiring that at 8
all.
We're hoping that the managers will make a subsequent 9
contact to us and reinforce that and offer and suggest that j
i 10 employees find a mentor and participate in that program.
I 11 know some of the office directors are doing that.
But we're 12 hoping to encourage the office directors to do followup 13 there.
Our office can't manage the entire program, but we 14 can certainly make a start.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
On a different tack, what are 16 employees expected to learn from the upcoming employee 17 sessions on managing diversity?
And will all employees 18 part.i cipate, or just a subset?
19 MS. LITTLE:
Our goal is to -- I don't know if we 20 plan to make it mandatory, but to offer it to all employees 21 including a session in each regional office, and what we're 22 hoping they will learn will be the role that they can play 23 to open up communications between them and their 24 supervisors.
25 If a manager is going to be an effective manager l
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of diversity, it's a two-way street.
They have to 2
communicate with employees, and employees have to at some 3
point trust the manager and open up to the manager.
So 4
we're hoping that they will understand that concept and be 5
more willing to do that.
6 DR. TRAVERS:
It's required for managers?
7 MS. LITTLE:
We did not put it out as a 8
requirement for managers.
We put it out there, and many of 9
them attended.
Some of them probably --
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, perhaps you should have 11 it as a requirement, since you're talking managing 12 diversity.
Why don't you start with the people whose job it 13 is to manage?
14 MS. LITTLE:
Okay.
We've done the sessions to 15 initiate the start of the process with managers.
Maybe we 16 need to look at doing some more sessions and requiring --
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, maybe we ought to put it 18 in our SRM.
19
[ Laughter.]
20 MS. LITTLE:
Sounds good to me, Chairman.
21' CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Let me ask you, what's 22 the difference between the career counseling and life planning activities that were provided to all employees who 23 24 wished to participate in the individual career counseling 25 program?
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1 MR. BIRD:
I've looked at that, because you had 2
mentioned that earlier.
That basically is one single 3
course.
There is a substantial workbook associated with 4
that when you do your career planning, one section of which i
l 5
is devoted to life planning or life goals, if you will.
l 6
It's not a significant part of that particular course.
But 7
that is one course associated with the career development l
8 training that we do offer here for individual employees.
So 9
it may have been a little misleading when we used the word 10
" life planning" as if it was parallel, because it's a part 11 of this, but it's not a key part of the career planning.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How many SLS are there overall, j
13 and what's the breakdown between Commission offices and 14 non-Commission offices?
15 MR. BIRD:
Currently there are 42 SL positions l
l 16 that are filled, 18 by Commissioner assistants and 24 other.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I note that the SECY paper says 18 that NMSS is in the process of filling approximately 50 19 technical, positions.
Can you tell me where NMSS is 20 recruiting for those 50 positions?
21' DR. PAPERIELLO:
I'm sorry, could you repeat the 22 question?
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, the SECY paper states 24 that NMSS is in the process of recruiting -- filling l
25 approximately 50 technical positions.
l r
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DR. PAPERIELLO:
Right.
2-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Where are you looking to fill 3
those?
4 DR. PAPERIELLO:
We have a program for recruiting 5
at local schools.
That has been only partially successful.
6 In part we're told our salaries are not competitive with the r
7 private sector for entry-level engineers and the like.
8 That's been a problem.
We are recruiting through Human 9
Resources, the intern program.
And we have -- at least I've 10 signed off in the last couple weeks four or five requests of s
11 Human Resources to hire entry-level interns.
12 We have about 20 vacancies right now, and we 13 anticipate, based on losses over the last three years,~that f
14 we will probably lose somewhere between 25 and 30 people.
15 We do not have a program to turn around and say we're going t
16 to visit, you know, schools outside of the local area in the 17 coming year.
I mean, I don't have a program to do that.
I 18 have taken a technical member out of my staff to assist 19 Human Resources to review the applications we get in so I 20 can get them in the pipeline faster.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you and the regions ever i
22 work-together in terms of outreach and reaching a larger 23 base of people?
l l
24 DR. PAPERIELLO:
No.
I 25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well --
l l
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$6 1
DR. PAPERIELLO:
It's an idea.
I just haven't --
i 2
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Maybe it's an idea whose' time i
j 3
has come.
4 DR. PAPERIELLO:
Right.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Thanks.
6 Let me have a question for NRR.
Maybe you could 7
go to the...
i 8
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
The paper, the SECY paper, 9
' speaks about NRR successes in hiring at the entry level 10 women and minority employees.
11 Can you flesh out a little more for us the steps 12 that NRR is taking toward encouraging or preparing women and-i 13 minorities for supervisory, management, and executive 14 positions?
15 MR. COLLINS:
Is that question targeted towards 16 the entry level or overall?
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
No, I am saying you talked 18 about the success at the entry level and now I am interested 19 in career progression in terms of what specific steps you 20 are taking toward the encouragement or preparation of 21 employees in these groups for movement into supervisory, 22 managemsnt, and executive positions.
23 MR. COLLINS:
That question is probably at least 24 at this point more appropriate for the Intern Program.
The 25 entry level program is a fairly new concept based on the l
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1 transition from hiring individuals who are in the j
2 organization for longer term development, say two to three 3
years, as opposed to hiring individuals who are.placed at an 4
entry level position and are coached in a specific 5
discipline and fill a permanent slot.
6 In regards to the Intern Program, we have been 7
very successful in the Intern Program in the past.
We have 8
some statistics which perhaps are outside the scope of the 9
Commission paper, but that show overall we have been able to 10 retain at least greater than 50 percent of the interns, and 11 a number of those have been individuals who have been 12 targeted towards the office goals.
13 Those individuals, I don't have the statistics in 14 my head as far as their progression, but many of them right 15 now are in 13-14 positions.
16 They are perhaps a grade away from entering into 17 the supervisory ranks.
In a generic sense, the best 18 opportunity for those individuals are with the agency l
19 development programs, which are specifically the women's 20 leadership development program and a longer term that would 21 be an SES development program.
22 In a practical sense, the best way to develop 23 individuals in the 13 position, more appropriately the 14 24 position, is in details and acting assignments.
25 We have had a number of those opportunities.
I l
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chink we have taken advantage of those but again I think it 2
is probably one to two years early for the Intern Program to l
3 rise up to be a class that is eligible for the majority of 4
those.
5 Generally I would say, just to close out, that the 6
quality of staff that we are seeing from the Intern Program i
7 is fairly remarkable in their ability to accommodate not 8
only adjustments to the NRC but also to demonstrate their 9
proficiency as high performers.
It's been a very successful 10 program.
I 11 The entry level program we probably have to wait 12 and see since it is new, but the types of individuals we 13 have attracted are commensurate with that.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay, thank you.
15 Let me ask if there are any further comments from 16 the Paraprofessional Committee, from -- well, you talked 17 about the Selection Subcommittee -- or any of the Advisory 18 Committees.
Are there any additional comments that anyone 19 would like to make?
Yes, please -- go to the podium, the 20 microphone.
21 MR. NARBUT:
Thank you, Chairman and 22 Commissioners.
23 Today I-heard a lot of discussion about goals and 24 accomplishments for women, minorities, and people with l
'25 disabilities.
The subject of our aging population wasn't l
t l
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mentioned at all, but it is one of the keystones of the EEO 2
program.
3 The word " age" wasn't mentioned for a full hour 4
and it was only mentioned twice in all the discussions we 5
had today, so I would ask -- first of all, I will say that I 6
worked with the Small Business and Civil Rights group to get 7
these aging issues on the table and I would ask your help in 8
the upcoming year to get those issues on the table.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What are they?
10 MR. NARBUT:
The issues are under development and 11 I think it is probably premature to talk about them, but we 12 do have in our writeup in your package two statistical 13 studies that show that persons of age over 55 seem to be l
14 statistically -- I don't know how to say this politely --
l l
15 perhaps discriminated against in terms of promotions and i
16 their performance ratings.
Those are real issues we would 17 like to look at.
18 The demographics that.were discussed today left i
19 age out and there are a lot of issues there. The nation is 20 aging.
It is becoming an issue for the nation.
I am sure 21 it is going to become an issue for this agency and it 22 deserves some focus.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But I guess the real challenge, 24 it would seem to me, is if there are specific concerns and 25 you may have heard me in previous meetings.
It is very ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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difficult for the Commission to deal with anecdotes and so 2
it is very important that if there are particular concerns 3
that they get expressed and that there is the --
4 MR. NARBUT:
We intend to go forward with that.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
-- data.
An aging population 6
in an agency or in a nation has any number of things i
l 7
associated with it but the question becomes if there are 8
specific concerns that you in fact bring it to the l
l 9
Commission and you bring it in a non-anecdotal fashion.
10 MR. NARBUT:
Well, in all fairness, it hasn't been 11 brought forth to the Commission but it has been, working l
12 with small business and civil rights, we have gotten data on 13 the population.
We have analyzed that data statistically 14 with our statisticians and the results are valid.
They show l
l 15 that there is a problem.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
We need to see what that is and 1
l 17 that is all I am really trying to say to you.
18 It's not that I don't believe the Commission is in 19 any way unsympathetic, I mean some of us falls into that 20 category ourselves, is in any way unsympathetic to concerns 21 that members of our community may have who are in that 22 category but we have to hear about them before we can know 23 something and do something about it, but thank you.
24 Are there any other concerns?
Yes?
Please.
t 25 MS. COPELAND:
Good morning.
I am part of the 1
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Paraprofessional Subcommittee and of course the 2
paraprofessionals are --
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Could you speak more --
1 4
MS. COPELAND.
The paraprofessionals are concerned 5
about the new technology that is coming into the agency and 6
what will happen to them.
7 We have gotten some very good help from HR and 8
Small Business and Civil Rights, and are getting some 9
statistical data on the three issues that we had brought 10 forth to the agency regarding the awards compared between 11 professional and the paraprofessionals, and we have the 12 statistics and the Commission paper.
13 We also were concerned about the secretarial 14 positions within the other agencies compared to NRC and we 15 have also looked at that and we have made the statement that 16 we are basically on the same kind of lines as the other 17 agencies compared to what we do here at NRC.
18 The last thing we are looking at, position 19 descriptions, and we haven't completed that and we hope to 20 bring forth that at the next briefing.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Thank you.
Please.
22 MR. THOMAS:
Good morning, Chairman Jackson, 23 Commissioners and audience.
24 The ACAA has three items that they would like to 25 stress, and we have stressed these in past years.
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l 1
First, I would like to say that I believe that l
l 2
this is a living document and I can hear and see changes i
3 that have taken place.
I think I have been to about four or five or these meetings and it seems to be a very progressive 4
5 document.
6 Our first item was to develop more specific and 7
substantial criteria for evaluating managers and 8
supervisors.
I see on page 6 that there is an encouragement 9
to Directors, Office Directors, to clarify EEO expectations 10 in supervisor elements and standards.
That tells me that 11 maybe this element exists.
12 ACAA has recommended or is recommending that a 13 separate EEO supplement be included in managers' performance 14 appraisals.
15 We look at things that are taking place today.
16 Everything is on performance measures.
The agency has 17 performance measures.
We budget the dollars and et cetera, 18 so we think that supervisors, to maintain or. perform under 19 the EEO, should have some standards that they are measured 20 by, and it can't be something that is just willy-nilly, 21 let's say, so we are looking forward to -- we would like to 22 see that standard or standards if we may, because from page 23 6,
we believe it says " Clarify EEO expectations and 24 supervisor elements and standards" so the standards must 25 exist.
l l
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, I appreciate your comment 2
and I can certainly do something about those employees that 3
report to me and maybe by the trickle-down theory it can 4
affect the other management.
5 MR. THOMAS:
My second element is increase the 6
number of African American women in SES supervisory, 7
management and senior level positions and the number of 8
women in the feeder groups for these positions.
9 We recognize that, in the paper we talk about 10 there are three minority women in the SES positions and we 11 know that two are African Americans and this is a recent
'12 event, over the last year.
13 Our concern is that as we move into the downsizing 14 that we don't lose any of these positions, and I heard today 15 that assessments are ongoing to make sure that things stay 16 somewhat, if they can, in proportion and that there will not 17 be any losser made, so that is very encouraging.
18 Our last main concern is to encourage the 19 establishment of upward mobility positions for 20 paraprofessional, jobs to provide opportunities for the 21 advancement of African Americans and other minorities.
22 I will leave that alone but I just wanted to say 23 that we do support this and the Paraprofessional Committee 24 just made that statement of'their concerns.
25 I heard something earlier that was encouraging.
I i
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67 heard General Counsel had taken a position that was I guess I
2 paraprofessional and the person moved into a lawyer's job.
3 I have seen this happen in our organization, and I am in 1
4 OCFO and I don't see that to patronize my Director,-my 5
Office Director, but I have seen a voucher examiner move to 6
an accountant position, which is good, but more of that has 7
to be done, and I think that if there was and there may be a 8
database'that shows the level of attainment by a given 9
individual -- I am talking about degrees -- who are sitting l
10 in place that we could tap that and say why would I hire an 11 accountant entry level when I have one sitting over there 12 and that person is a secretary right now because when I look 13 at the NRC News, Review and Comments document neriodically I 14 will see what person has attained an accomplishment, so why 15 would I go out and hire an accountant at entry level when I 16 have one sitting in a secretary's position.
What I need to 17 do is go out and hire a secretary and move that secretary 18 into the accounting position.
19 Thank you very much.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
l 21 (Applause.]
i 22 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
I would like to make a j
23 comment regarding that, regarding your last point, because I 1
l 24 think it is a very good one.
We have a very well trained 25 staff here, and to the extent that we can encourage people, l
i s
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where they have gone through self-help and education to move 2
up through the ranks, I think we should.
I mean I say that 3
-- I have got a personal issue in there.
When I worked in 4
the United States Senate, I went to law school at night and 5
was able to do something like that, similar --
6 CHAIRMAN GACKSON:
And look what happened to you, t
7 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
And look what happened 8
to me.
9
[ Laughter.]
10 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Some might not think 11 that is a good thing.
But, anyway, I think that is very 12 important, because you have individuals who have been here 13 at the agency who know how things happen, and to the extent 14 that we came move them up through the ranks, or through 15 their self-help efforts, they are a more valuable commodity 16 to us than someone we hire at that same level from the 17 outside.
No two ways about it.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Very good.
r 19 MR. GREBER:
I represent the Affirmative Action 20 Advisory Committee.
I wanted to draw your attention to what 21 I think is the most important page in the document you 22 received for this meeting, and that is Table 1 on the 23 Attachment No.
5.
24 I am not going to go into detail in analyzing this 25 particular table, but I think all the information you want ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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to hear about affirmative action is pretty much summarized 2
in that particular table and the tables that follow it.
3 But to get down to a person ;tand on this, I 4
really feel that if we have 116 hires in a year, if on.ly 5
five of them are interns, that's not enough.
Now, I know l
6 the people who did the work on hiring those five, and the 7
results are excellent.
The work was excellent, the results 1
8 are excellent.
But the total number is kind of poor.
And 9
we are never going to get any better in this agency in terms 10 of EEO profile if that is the kind of number we are seeking, 11 five a year.
12 The same thing is true for the DARE positions, 13 which has been an issue that two of my colleagues have 14 spoken about.
When we only have seven DARE positions in a i
l 15 year, that is not enough to bring the numbers up in various i
(
16 rankings, 14s versus 7s, SLSs or SESs.versus non-managers.
17 We have to do a better job in that DARE program to bring 1
j 18 people who are capable, people who even get degrees at l
19 night, if you will, or whatever, up to the positions that 20 they can hold in the professional ranks, in the technical 21 ranks.
Thank you very much.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you very much.
i 23 Are there any other comments?
Please.
i 24 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Just one quick thing.
One
\\
l 25 piece of data th<.t I nad a question about, and it is in 1
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It is'a chart and it says i
l 2
best qualified -- data regarding the best qualified in grade 3
14 or above.
And it is broken down by gender and also i
4 ethnic background, and the curious thing, one piece of data 5
on that chart, is that 22 percent of the best qualified 6
chose to exercise their right not to indicate an ethnic i
7 background, which is fine, if that is a voluntary thing to
{
8 do.
9 But of'the 22 percent that chose not to, none of i
10 them were selected, and the only other place there was zero l
11 selections was where there was less than 1 percent of the 12 best qualified list.
So 22 percent chovi not to indicate 13 and none were selected, and it brings the question up'--
I t
14 what does this piece of data mean and are we consciously or 15 subconsciously selecting against someone who chooses to 16' exercise that right not to indicate background, or this data j
17 have some other meaning?
I would just be curious as to your t
18 response to it.
19 MR. BIRD:
I am not sure exactly why you would get 20 that data outcome.
If we did this again, or looked at it in
[
21 a different timeframe, I think it might come out --
i
- 22 MR. McDERMOTT:
There is a simple answer.
We know 23 what box to put selectees in.
So any of the people who were 24 unknowns at the time became known and so that is where there L
25 are zero selectees.
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71 1
COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
I wonder then why you 2
put that in?
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Don't put it in.
It confuses 5
4 it.
5 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you for the 6
explanation.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Don't confuse the issue with f
8 facts.
Commissioner.
j 9
COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
I had a question.
It 10 wasn't -- it is related to the EEO issues, and that is 11 veterans.
There is a veterans preference for federal 12 hiring, and I think, but I am not certain, there may be even f
13 a subspecialty of that for Vietnam era veterans And by way 14 of curiosity, what have we been doing to fulfill those 15 preferences?
i 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You mean in our hiring 17 practices.
18 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
In our hiring practices.
19 MR. BIRD:
We have some focused programs on l
20 veterans hiring.
We do have an outreach program that is l
21 aimed at that.
There have been some recent legislative l
22 changes in the law pertaining to how you treat veterans.
We
(
23 are trying to sort that out and I think that will add
~
24 another dimension to that.
25 We specifically target veterans with disabilities i
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[
1 and try to recruit at sources where we believe we have a 2
fair availability of that, and we have had some success with 3
trying to do that as a focused recruitment effort.
But 4
that, you know, along with other targeted hiring is one of i
5 the things that we do look at and try to target and pursue.
[
6 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
I had a comment.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
8 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Do you want me to say it 9
now or later?
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Sure.
11 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Since I am the newest l
12 member and just gone through the practice of hiring my own 13 staff, I wanted to relate something.
When I used to work up f
t 14 in the United States Senate, this agency had a generally 15 known. reputation of having a very high quality staff.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It still does.
17 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
And still does.
And so I
18 that was the way that I entered here, was with that 19 knowledge.
Having gone through the hiring process and 20 having well over a hundred folks, a hundred individuals from 21 the agency apply to be part of my staff, and having 22 interviewed almost 40 of them, I can say a couple of things.
23 The degree of variation of the quality of excellence in this
?
24 agency is very low, meaning it is a very high quality across L
5 25 the board.
And I think, you know, all too often, perhaps f
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73 1
that fails to get translated.
But at least from my 2
standpoint, I want people to know how incredibly impressed I 3
was with the degree of excellence in this agency of the 4
people I interviewed, and I just wanted to make sure that 5
people knew that.
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I am glad I gave you a chance 7
to comment.
8 Well, let me, first of all, thank all of the 9
participants, both those at the table and everyone else, for 10 very informative, very insightful, very frank comments.
I 11 think, over the time I have been here, that is a movement 12 that I have seen that I appreciate.
You know, I am frank 13 with you, so I think it is good for you to be frank with the 14 Commission.
15 I do believe you have a commitment and have taken 16 action towards realizing an environment where all our 17 employees are provided an equal and fair opportunity to 18 demonstrate their talents and to advance when there are l
19 opportunities, and to contribute to our mission.
20 You know, in the end, we are always in an 21 optimization game, but we have to remember that everybody.
22 matters.
And during a period of continued, heightened focus 23 on addressing challenges, the challenges of effectively i
24
-regulating the nuclear power'and nuclear materials 25 industries, in the midst of agency downsizings, 4
i 2
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l 74 1
reorganizations and Congressional interest, it is very, very 2
important that we don't lose sight of what the goals of 3
achieving and maintaining a diverse work force really are, 4
and they are that all people with talent should have the 5
opportunity to contribute to our mission.
6 That means that we have to ensure that whatever 7
career opportunities there are, however limited they may be, 8
are available to all our employees on an equitable basis.
9 As we work together, we, one strong NCR, work 10 together, there are roles that all of us can play.
And to 11 the supervisors and managers, and particularly the 12 executives -- you are executives and you are meant to be 13 leaders, and so you have a responsibility, it has to start 14 with you, to ensure that employees are all assessed fairly 15 and objectively, to encourage, in fact, the use of 16 individual development plans.
I mean, because there are 17 changes, and there are changes to the nature of the jobs 18 people are being asked to do, and, so, now, more than ever, 19 for all the employees, that is a cr.itical thing, to 20 recognize that, you know, employees need opportunities for 21 training, development, rotational and aadow assignments.
22 But to employees, yourselves, I do continue, as 23 you have heard me in the past, to ask yourselves, when you 24 Fee the changes that you know are occurring, how much E--
25 you reaching out to catch ahold of the wagon before it goes ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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on down the road?
And so I encourage you to set your own-l i
2 goals and objectives and to aim as high as you can.
3 I think we have a responsibility at the Commission 4
to respond to that.
If you then, a-Commissioner 5
Merrifield,.who I am finding to be a very wise man, you 6
know, if you go to that extra effort, then we need to go to 7
the effort of looking carefully at you and what that may l
8 mean for internal opportunity.
That is not to say that l
9 every time there is going to be a one-to-one match and that 10 every job is going to be filled that way, but we need to 11 look at th'at.
12 And to employees who have advanced in your 13 careers, I do encourage you to give back something by 14 volunteering to serve as a mentor to those who haven't quite 15 gotten to where they would want to be, and to share your L
16 experiences so that net-net, you know, we gain for the I
17 agency.
18 In the end, as particularly the folks at this 19 table hear always from me, it is results or outcomes that 20 matter.
You know, I often said, well, one of these days,
~
21 somebody will write a tombstone for me that says she tried o
l l
22 and she died.
And I would actually like to see a little I
23 more in between, and, so, I think all of us should strive to l
24 do that in good faith.
i
'25 Unless there are further comments, the briefing is i
i 1
- dHI RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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76 i
1 1
adjourned.
1 t
2 Before you disappear, please let me know read a l
3 note from Commissioner Diaz expressing his degree of l
1 4
interest and commitment, he says, "Please express my regrets 5
for not being able to participate in the last 1998 EEO j
i 6
Commission briefing, and my strong support for the
{
l 1
7-continuation and enhancement of the programs needed to l
L l
8 support the employment opportunities for our staff.
With l
9
'best regard to all, Nils Diaz."
We are adjourned.
10
[Whereupon, at 11: 56 a.m.,
the briefing was L
11 concluded.]
l 12 j
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CERTIFICATE t
l l
l This is to certify that the attached description of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
i I
i TITLE OF MEETING:
BRIEFING ON EEO PROGRAM PUBLIC MEETING PLACE OF MEETING:
Rockville, Maryland i
DATE OF MEETING:
Tuesday, December 8, 1998 was held as herein appears, is a true and accurate record of the meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof taken stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to i
typewriting by me or under the direction of the court i
reporting company I
i Transcriber:
John Ulmer Reporter:_ Mike Paulus i
i e
s 4
1 4
1 J
gn reg h
Ab 4
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%**+
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY BRIEFING Patricia G. Norry Deputy Executive Director For Management Services December 8,1998
I STAFF REQUIREMENTS MEMORANDUM
- 1. STEPS BEING TAKEN TO ACHIEVE AN HONEST AND FAIR ASSESSMENT OF INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE ACROSS ALL NRC OFFICES
- 2. STEPS TAKEN TO ELIMINATE PRE-SELECTION OF INDIVIDUALS FOR ASSIGNMENTS AND ENSURE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL EMPLOYEES CONSISTENT WITH MERIT SELECTION PRINCIPLES
- 3. DISCUSS BACKGROUND FOR ESTABLISHING AND UTILIZING THE COMMISSIONER ASSISTANT CANDIDATE POOL,!TS STATUS, AND A RECOMMENDATION REGARDING ITS CONTINUATION 2
b i
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.EEO AREA OF EMPHASIS
- 1
- 1. ENHANCE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN AND MINORITIES IN PROFESSIONAL l
POSITIONS.
i
'
- 71 professional hires were made: 21 were minorities, l
and 7 were non-minority women.
- The Intern Program was reinstated. Five interns were selected - 2 Asian Pacific American men, 1 Hispanic man,1 Asian woman, and 1 White woman.
3 l
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f l
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1 EMPLOYEE ROTATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS BY GENDER / ETHNICITY i
Fiscal Year 1997 Fiscal Year 1998 Number Percent Number Percent Total 238 100 %
215 100 %
White Men 132 55 %
120 56 %
White Women 68 29 %
53 25 %
j Minorities 38 16%
42 19%
i i
i 4
J
~
(
l EEO AREA OF EMPHASIS
- 2
- 2. ENHANCE THE POOL OF MINORITIES AND WOMEN IN SUPERVISORY, MANAGEMENT, EXECUTIVE, AND f
SENIOR LEVEL POSITIONS.
- Minorities in grades 13-15 increased from 349 to 361.
I
- Minority women in SES increased by 2 bringing the l
total to 3.
- 7 White men and 2 White women were selected to
(
SLS positions.
f s
i f
EEO AREA OF EMPHASIS
- 3
- 3. ENHANCE EFFORTS TO ATTRACT, DEVELOP, AND RETAIN EMPLOYEES WITH DISABILITIES.
- 7 persons with disabilities were hired this fiscal year.
Reasonable accommodations included automatic door devices, special computer monitors, and telecommunication devices for the hearing impaired.
l i
6 v-y Wue u
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+ "
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i EEO AREA OF EMPHASIS
- 4 i
- 4. IMPROVE COMMUNICATION ABOUT EEO AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION OBJECTIVES, IMPROVE MANAGEMENT RESPONSIVENESS, AND EVALUATE PROGRESS.
9
- Merit Staffing Brochure was issued to all employees.
- Standardized EEO Operating Plan Guidance developed for managers and supervisors.
l
- Continued to work with EEO Advisory Committees to address EEO related concerns.
7 I
i l
i h
EEO ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND t
NEW INITIATIVES:
t i
- 1. NEW EEO PROGRAM DIRECTION i
- 2. OFFICE DIRECTORS' PROGRESS IN IMPLEMENTATION OF EEO PROGRAMS l
l
- 3. EEO ADVISORY COMMITTEE ACTIVITY l
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