ML20249C728
| ML20249C728 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/25/1998 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9807010108 | |
| Download: ML20249C728 (88) | |
Text
ORlG N A I
V UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BRIEFING ON EEO PUBLIC MEETING 1
Location:
Rockville, Maryland 1
i Date:
Thursday, June 25,1998 I
l Pages:
1 - 77 i
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o 1
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on June 25, 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 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 informal 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.
e
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached description of a meeting l
of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
1 TITLE OF MEETING:
BRIEFING ON EEO PUBLIC MEETING PLACE OF MEETING:
Rockville, Maryland DATE OF MEETING:
Thursday, June 25, 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 typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company Transcriber:
l,N Reporter:(
J1Nks O'
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1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING ON EEO 5
6 PUBLIC MEETING 7
8 9
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Commission Hearing Room 11 11555 Rockville Pike 12 Rockville, Maryland 13 14 Thursday, June 25, 1998 15 16 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 notice, at 2:02 p.m., tae Honorable GRETA J. DICUS 18 presiding.
19 20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
21 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission 22 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of tre Commission 23 NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 JOHN MINNS, Selection Subcommittee 3
PETER BLOCH, Management Diversity Subcommittee 4
IRENE LITTLE, OSBCR 5
JOE CALLAN, Operations 6
PATRICIA NORRY, Management Services 7
JIM McDERMOTT, OHR 8
JEANETTE COPELAND, Paraprofessional Subcommittee 9
DAVID DIEC, PMS, APAAC 10 SAM COLLINS, NRR 11 HUB MILLER, Region I 12 13 14 15 j
16 i
17 I
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 J
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3 l'
PROCEEDINGS i
'2 (2:02 p.m.]
3 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Good afternoon, ladies and L
4.
gentlemen.
The Chairman has asked me to deliver the opening 5
and closing' remarks to the b:iefing today and to express her 6
very sincere' regret at being unable to attend unfortunately l-l 7
due to a recent death in her family.
She felt, however, 8
'that.it was important not to cancel or postpone this 9
briefing, even though she is away from the office today, and 10 she is attending a funeral.
I 11 The purpose of our meeting'today is to discuss the p
12 status of the NRC's equal employment opportunity -- the 13 EEO -- program for the period from July 1, 1997, through-14 March 31 of 1998.
15 As you probably know already, the EDO is to report i
16 to the Commission at semiannual public meetings on the 17 status of the EEO efforts, the progress of the program, and 18 any associated problems.
.The Commission held its last EEO 19 briefing on October 14, 1997.
As a result of that briefing, 20 the Commission requested that this briefing include a 21 presentation by the Director of NRR and a regional 22
. administrator on the implementation of EEO program policies, i
23' including statistical information on the number and types of l
24 advanced degrees that are held by the professional staff in l
25 NRR.
Therefore, the briefing today will include L
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presentations by Mr. Sam Collins, the Director of NRR, and 2
Mr. Hub Miller, the Region I Regional' Administrator.
3 The'SECY paper 98-137, copies of which are 4
available at the entrances to this room, contains additional 5
.information and data on the status of the NRC's EEO program, 6
the response to the Commission's SRM on the last briefing, 7
and activities of the EEO advisory committees,
'8 subcommittees, and the Joint. Labor-Management EEO Committee.
9-The paper represents the continuing cooperative 10 work of the Office of Small Business and Civil Rights,' Human 11 Resources, the EDO's office, the advisory committees, 12 subcommittees, and the Joint Labor-Management EEO Committee.
13 I encourage you to continue your efforts to work 14
.together to make improvements and accomplish clear results 15 in meeting our EEO goals.
16 Now on that note and on behalf of my fellow 17 Commissioners, I welcome the presenters and all employees in l
.18 the audience who have demonstrated by your presence an 19 interest in and commitment to the NRC EEO program.
I look 20 forward to hearing about the progress we are making and the 21 results that we have achieved in the EEO area, and I would l
22 like particularly to welcome a newly formed subcommittee, 23 the Paraprofessional Subcommittee, and I look forward to the 24 contribution they will make in the EEO process.
L 25 Clearly our goal is an equitable environment for ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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all our employees, and we will continue to respond to the 2
changing environment within government, and within the 3
industries we license and regulate.
These industry changes 4
include deregulation, restructuring, and utility mergers.
l l.
5 We must continue our efforts to be more efficient, to 6
streamline agency programs, and to reduce unnecessary budget l
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expenditures.
Always remember, however, that challenge is a 8
pathway to opportunity.
9 Would any of my fellow Commissioners like to make 10 a comment at this time?
11
[No response.]
12 Then given that, Mr. Callan, executive director of i
13 operations, if you will please proceed and introduce the i
14 people at the table.
1 15 Thank you.
16 MR. CALLAN:
Thank you, Commissioner Dicus, and 17 good afternoon everyone.
18 We are indeed pleased to be here today to provide 19 the Commission with information on the current status of the 20 Agency's EEO program.
As you pointed out, Commissioner 21 Dicus, this briefing will cover the period since the last 22 EEO briefing on October 14, 1997.
Joining me on my right is I
23 Patricia Norry, the Deputy Executive Director for Management 24 Services, and Jim McDermott, the Deputy Director, Office of 1
25 Human Resources.
Joining me on my left is Irene Little, I
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1 Director, Office of Small Business and Civil Rights.
Irene 2
will now introduce the EEO Advisory Committee 3
representatives.
4 Irene?
5 MS. LITTLE:
Thank you, Joe, 6
To my left is Peter Bloch, the chairperson of the 7
Management Diversity Subcommittee; John Minns, the 8
chairperson of the Selection Subcommittee; to Mr.
9 McDermott's right is Jeanette Copeland, who is the i
10 chairperson of the Paraprofessional Subcommittee, and David i
11 Diec, chairperson of the Performance Monitoring 12 Subcommittee, who is also chair of the Asian Pacific 13 American Advisory Committee.
These are the presenters who 14 will be speaking today.
15 Also participating in the briefing are several 16 people in the well.
I would ask that they would stand as I 17 call their names.
l 18 We have Sue Smith, EEO counselor; Elliott Greher, 19 chairperson of the Affirmative Action Advisory Committee; I
20 Raymond Holt, acting chairperson of African American 21 Advisory Committee; Paul Narbut, chairperson of the
'22 Committee on Age Discrimination; Charleen Raddatz, 23 chairperson of the Federal Women's Program Advisory 24 Committee; Jose Ibarra, chairperson of the Hispanic 25 Employment Program Advisory Committee; Mike Weber, 1
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chairperson of the Joint Labor-Management EEO Advisory 2
Committee.
Also joining us today is Peter Hearn, who's 3
president of the National Treasury Employees Union.
4 Thank you.
l 5
MR. CALLAN:
Thank you, Irene.
6 In addition to the commi* tee members, we have two 7
NRC managers participating in the briefing to discuss their 8
implements. tion of EEO program policies.
They are Sam 9
Collins, the director of NRR, and I believe next to him Hub 10 Miller, the regional administrator of Region I.
11 And before I turn the discussion over to Pat 12 Norry, let me just say that although the Agency continues to 13 operate in an environment of limited resources, the 14 objectives of the EEO program are and will remain relevant 15 as we carry out our management responsibilities.
I firmly 16 believe that the accomplishment of our EEO goals will 17 enhance individual and organizational performance, 18 contribute to the regulatory effectiveness of the NRC, and 19 help ensure that NRC remains a strong and viable 20 organization.
I believe the Agency is doing a credible job 21 of maintaining and in some cases enhancing work force 22 diversity, and we are taking specific actions to manage our 23 diverse work force more effectively.
24 And with that, I will now ask Pat Norry to provide 25 details about our progress and a summary of our response to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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8 1-the staff requirements memorandum.
.2 Pat?
3 MS. NORRY:
Thank you, Joe, Commissioners.
4 May I have the first slide, please.
5 I would like to briefly highlight our responses to 1
6 the information requested by the Commission in the SRM from 7
the last EEO briefing.
There is more detailed information 8
on each one of these items in the paper itself.
L, l
9.
First we gathered data and compared NRC strategy 10 for b-
'ng entry-level women and minorities for technical i
11-positions with the hiring strategies of DOE, EPA, and NASA.
j 12 We found that.our success in these categories is similar to 13 that of the other agencies.
With NRC's accepted status and 14 flexible hiring authority, and the fact that we use a 15 variety of recruitment sources, our efforts to attract women 16 and minorities for entry-level technical positions have been 17 relatively successful.
There's more information in the 1
18 paper on the specifics that are characteristic of the other.
19 agencies, but the comparison locks pretty good.
20 Secondly, we're in the process of enhancing our 21 merit selection tracking matrix to capture demographics of j
22 applicants on best-qualified lists, and we believe tnis 23 enhanced system will let us assess the selection trends and 24 patterns and develop better strategies for hiring.
-25 We were asked to look at the extent to which our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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contract with the Southwest Research Center requires 2
compliance with EEO regulations, and indeed it does, as do 3
our contracts, Federal Government contracts with all 4
entities doing business with the Government.
In the case of i
5 the Southwest Research Center, they have really gone beyond 6
what is strictly required and have an active minority 7
recruiting plan.
8 In order to enhance our recruitment efforts we've 9
used a variety of marketing strategies, including brochures 10 and display materials and ads.
What we're looking for there 11 is to show specifically the challenging technical jobs that 12 the Agency has, and we have a brochure which we'll be l
13 sending up for the Commissioners to look at when we get 14 developed, which should be fairly soon.
15 In addition what we do with the people who are 16 going out on recruitment trips, we give them very specific 17 details about the technical positions that are available so 18 that they're able to characterize them correctly.
19 We develop recruitment plans that show all of the 20 career fairs and the onsite campus interviews, and we 21 coordinate these with all the offices and with the regions, 22 and we try to get people to participate in these recruitment 23 efforts who can discuss the specific technical positionc 24 available.
25 We reestablished the technical intern program, and i
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that of course includes positions in both headquarters and 2
the regions.
We recently made employment offers to one 3
Asian male, one Asian female, one African-American male, one 4
African-American female, three white men, and four white 5
women.
6 One of the major challenges in our entire 7
recruitment effort is attracting and hiring and retaining 8
Hispanics.
That has been a major focus and will continue to 9
be.
We have advertised in newspapers and journals that 10 target Hispanics.
We maintain liaison with universities and 11 colleges, at institutions that have a high representation of 12 Hispanic students, and they have been helpful in identifying 13 candidates for us.
This year we have made four selections 14 of Hispanic employees, but more needs to be done.
15 With respect to the priorities of our efforts in 16 the EEO program, there are four major areas.
They include 17 enhancing opportunities for women and minorities in 18 professional positions; expanding the pool of minorities and 19 women in supervisory management and senior positions; 20 enhancing efforts to attract and retain employees with 21 disabilities; and improving communication about the Agency's 22 EEO objectives.
23 While the NRC continues to be challenged by budget 24 and FTE reductions and mandates to reduce supervisory 25 ratios, these four goals remain the focal point of our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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activities.
2 May I have the next slide, please.
L 3
'The first area of emphasis shows that we made 59 L'
4 hires ~, and of those, 69 percent were white males, 7 percent i
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were white females, and 24 percent were minorities.
A total li of 11 positions were authorized for the technical intern 7
program.
Of the offers that I mentioned before, five so far 1L have been accepted.
And in addition, the Office of i
'9
' Administration has established and filled three L
10 administrative intern positions -- two black women and one l-
.11 white woman.
12_
Also, in order to enhance opportunities, qualified
~
13 graduates who~ participated in our historically black college 14 and university research program are being considered for 15 technical. positions at NRC.
16 May I have the next slide, please.
l 17 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The intern program has 18'
.been up and down, and our budgets unfortunately seem to be 19 headed down.
There's about a $16 million cut in the core 20 budget.aside-from DOE in both Houses, $16-$17 million.
Will i
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we have to reassess very shortly again the viability of the 22 intern program given a 4-percent reduction in our budget?
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'23 MS. NORRY:
I believe'the prevailing view is that J
24 we ought to. continue it; that'even though we are going down 25.
-in overall staffing, that:the intern program provides the-r ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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kind of skills and talents we're going to need for the 2
future, and that ought to be one of the things that gets 3
maintained.
That's the general thinking at this point.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Okay.
5 MS. NORRY:
May I next slide, please.
6 Even with the impact of downsizing and working 7
toward a supervisory ratio of 8 to 1, we have made some 8
progress in our goals.
The total on-board number of 9
permanent employees during this period decreased and the 10 total number of supervisory positions has declined, but the 11 number of minorities in the feeder group, which is Grades 13 12 to 15, has increased from 347 to 356 and the number of women 13 in SES and SLS positions has also increased.
14 May I have the next slide, please.
15 We have continued our recruitment and retention 16 efforts in this area.
We in addition to the recruitment and 17 retention efforts, we ensure that reasonable accommodations 18 are provided to employees as required by law.
19 For example, we recently installed additional 20 automatic door devices and special telephone services for 21 three hearing-impaired employees.
22 May I have the next slide, please.
This is the 23 one that focuses on improving communications about EEO and 24 Affirmative Action objectives.
In addition to incorporating 25 the EEO goals within each office's operating plan, we are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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also close to completing an updated Affirmative Action Plan 2
which will be distributed to the entire agency.
We believe 3
that these will go a long way toward communicating to all 4
employees what we are trying to achieve in the EEO program.
5 We have of course implemented a Managing Diversity 6
process in the agency and that has been completed in the 7
first stage.
We conducted sessions for supervisors and 8
managers in Headquarters and two of the regions and we will i
9 complete the other two regions shortly, then we will provide 10 a session for other supervisors in management in 11 Headquarters.
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12 The next steps will be on some more practical 13 information for all employees on how Managing Diversity can 14 work for them.
d 1
15 Now I would like to ask Irene Little to provide 16 highlights of the issues addressed by the EEO advisory 17 committees.
l l-18 MS. LITTLE:
Thank you, Pat.
The EEO advisory 19-committees and the joint Labor-Management EEO advisory 20 committee have continued their team effort with the Office i
21 of Small Business and Civil Rights and with Human Resources 22 to support the agency's overall EEO program.
l; 23 The committee's overall focus has been in four 24 areas:
improvement of the merit selection process; review 25-of career development initiatives; support for a Managing L
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Diversity Process within the agency; and assessment of 2
policies and practices that impact employees in clerical 3-support and paraprofessional positions.
4 The Managing Diversity subcommittee provided the 5-impetus and some input for the agency's Managing Diversity 6
process which'was mentioned by Pat earlier.
By the end of 7
this fiscal year, we should have completed our orientation 8
of managers and supervisors and in FY '99 we will initiate 9
'our orientation sessions for employees.
10 The Performance Monitoring subcommittee has 11 completed its review of the agency's career development 12 initiatives and has'made several recommendations.
13 One of the subcommittee's major recommendations 14 was restoration of the intern program.
Here again that 15 program has been restored.
16 We will continue our review and response to the 17 remaining recommendations made by the subcommittee.
18 The Merit Selection subcommittee developed several 19 recommendations that were included and discussed in the last 20 EEO briefing.
In response to one of their recommendations, 21 the Office of Human Resources is developing a question and 22 answer brochure to assist employees in gaining a better 23 understanding of the merit selection process.
A draft copy 24 of that brochure has been provided to the Selection 25 subcommittee Chairperson.
I I
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1 We have also provided the committee a draft 2
response to the remaining recommendations that were 3
submitted several months ago.
4 We will continue to work with the Selection 5
subcommittee to finalize both documents, the brochure and 6
the response to their recommendations and. report on the 7
outcome of this at the next EEO briefing.
8 A newly-formed Paraprofessional subcommittee has 9
'been established --
?
10-COMMISSIONER DICUS:
A question, please.
11-COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I don't want to make 12 this specific -- but have there been any allegations made in 13 recent months as I think there was at one of the previous 14 meetings about precooking the qualification' statements so 15 that it is tailored to a single individual or -- I mean that 16 is the heart of this issue, isn't it, this merit selection, 17 whether things get precooked to'a particular individual?
18 Then this brochure presumably is meant to help, 19 but what other steps are you taking to make sure that
'20 doesn't happen?
21 MR. McDERMOTT:
I think -- this is Jim 22 McDermott I think the -- and John, correct me if I am L23 wrong -
it wasn't so much precooking the announcements and j
i 24 things like that ahead of time as a view that in selecting 25 officials' minds there is a small subset of truly viable ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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candidates and people they don't know of haven't had the 2
exposure,-things like that, has somehow sealed off the
'3 process.
4 I don't want to mischaracterize what the views 5
were last time, so jump in if you feel that that is not 6
correct.
7 MR. MINNS-I will cover this when I give my 8
presentation.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Okay, I'll wait.
10 MS. LITTLE:
If I can add, one of the things we 11 did last time is we accepted based on the recommendation of 12 the Selection subcommittee a check-sheet that the HR 13 specialist utilized with the management official to make 14 sure that they are looking at broad rating factors to 15 prevent just this kind of narrowly-focused rating criteria.
16 We have had a couple of instances where that has 17 been brought-to my attention.
I discussed it with HR'and we 18 have resolved that issue, so yes, we have that in place and 19 1 believe it is in use throughout the HR community for all 20 of the postings.
21 MR. McDERMOTT:
We get a curious phenomenon in 22 some postings, where the results revealed only two kinds of 23 candidates, those not qualified and those graded A.
It's 24 not what you would think would be an expected distribution.
25 That gets to the issue that Irene is mentioning, where what ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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kind of a set of factors did we set up?
Where did we set 2
the bar and at what stage of the process is the bar set at 2
this or that level -- so we are looking at that.
4 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Let me follow up on that, to i
5 Commissioner McGaffigan's question.
Perhaps you want to I
6 address this when you do your presentation but in light of 7
that, when we have an unsuccessful candidate, a qualified 8
but unsuccessful candidate for a position because the other 9
candidate was better qualified, do we ever give to these 10 unsuccessful candidates on where they might be lacking in 11 their skills, knowledge, experience and what they might need 12 to do to fix that so that they may be successful in the 13 future?
14 MS. NORRY:
We tried to do that in cases where we 15 can see obvious problems with an application for instance 16 where.with just some additional help that application could 17 have been made a lot better, so we work with individuals.
18 We also encourage managers to talk with people who 19 were not selected and pass on any information that might be 20 helpful to them in trying to apply for future positions.
If 21 people contact HR and ask fcr 17 formation, HR will find that 22 information and try to share it with them, so -- we need 23 more of that though.
24 We definitely need more feedback.
It is very 25 frustrating when people are told no, there's nothing wrong ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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with you particularly -- you just haven't been selected for 2
the last 10 positions you applied for.
That is not helycul 3
and we work very hard with managers to try to steer away 4
from that.
5 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Maybe it would be helpful if 6
we are able to transmit the message to the employees that we 7
encourage this with the managers and maybe start tracking in 8
some way this becomes a program that we look at.
9 MR. McDERMOTT:
We developed fairly recently a 10 course for managers and quite honestly the impetus of that 11 was we've got to do a better job of talking to non-selected 12 employees and that course has been delivered around a number 13 of locations.
14 Some of the managers are -- Bill Kane and I have 15 talked and they are doing something very good in NMSS to 16 improve communication about the outcome of the selection 17 processes.
18 I hope to see this spread.
19 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Maybe encouragement is not the 20 right word -- there might be a better word to use that will 21 be more specific and will express our desires to actually 22 have feedback available to those people who do not make it 23 in a more -- just call it accountable manner.
24 MR. McDERMOTT:
Okay.
25 MS. LITTLE:
The fourth subcommittee that has been ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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established, recently established, has been the 2
Paraprofessional subcommittee and they have started to 3
review some of the practices that impact career advancement 4
of administrative staff, but they have not submitted to us 5
any recommendations at this time.
6 We certainly appreciate the time and effort that 7
the subcommittees and the advisory committees have expended, 8
identifying the issues and concerns, and making 9
recommendations that they think will improve the program and 10 have a positive impact on employees in general and we are 11 going to ask David Diec to give some additional comments 12 about committee activities.
He will be speaking on behalf 13 of the advisory committees.
David?
14 MR. DIEC:
Thank you.
Good afternoon, members of 15 the Commission, Executive Director for Operations, the 16 Office of Small Business and Civil Rights.
I am David Diec.
17 It is an honor for me to represent a diverse 18 background of NRC employees including African-Americans, 19 Asian-Pacific Americans, people who are concerned with age 20 discrimination, women, and Hispanic-Americans -- here today 21 to express our views and concerns regarding the Nuclear l
22 Regulatory Commission's Equal Employment Opportunity, EEO, 23 program.
24 The EEO advisory committee's report as indicated 25 in SECY 98-137 is structured in two parts.
First is the EEO ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 joint briefing statements including reports from the four k
/
2 subcommittees, and second is the individual statement from 3
each of the advisory committees.
4 Representatives from the joint subcommittees who 5
are at the table today, including myself, will answer any 6
questions you may have regarding the EEO joint briefing 7
statements and the subcommittees' reports.
8 The advisory committee chairs also are available 9
to answer questions relating to individual advisory 10 statements.
By way of background, we have formed three 11 joint subcommittees with members from each of the advisory 12 committees as well as from SBCR and HR in 1996, as Ms. Pat 13 Norry alluded earlier, that to help the agency identify and 14 enhance opportunity for advancement for minorities and 15 women, expand the pool or minority and women for higher 16 positions as well as to attract, develop and retain 17 employees with disabilities as well as improve the 18 communication about the EEO and affirmative action 19 objectives.
20 The joint subcommittees are Performance 21 Monitoring, which I chair; Managing Diversity, which is 22 chaired by Judge Bloch; the Selection subcommittee, which is 23 chaired by Mr. John Minns.
24 Additionally, we have recently formed the 25 Paraprofessional subcommittee to address issues that may ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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impact the administrative assistant staff, which is chaired 2
by Ms. Jeanette Copeland, and Ms. Copeland will make a brief 3
statement pertaining to her work immediately after my 4
statements.
5 Commissioners, this is the fifth time that the 1
6 committee has consolidated those issues that have common 7
interests into a joint statement.
The committees in 8
consultation with SBCR and HR have continued a team approach 9
and have worked together to address and resolve the open l
10 joint statement issues and questions raised by the committee i
]
11 in the last EEO briefing, SECY 97-197.
12 We are pleased to report that steady progress has 13 been made in several areas.
We applaud the agency decision 14 to restore the NRC Intern Program.
We strongly believe that l
15 this program will continue to be an effective means of 16 providing opportunities for minorities and women.
17 We also believe that the agency's decision to 18 implement a Managing Diversity process will have a positive 19 payoff.
20 A number of recommendation made by the Selection 21 subcommittee either have been adopted by the management or 22 are under cooperative discussion.
Mr. John Minns will make l
23 a statement regarding the Selection subcommittee work 24 following Ms. Copeland's statement and finally Judge Bloch 25 will report to you his statement regarding accomplishments ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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22 1
about the Managing Diversity.
2 Members of the Commission, the mutual cooperation 3
and the open communication among the advisory committees 4
SBCR and HR are crucial and are generally effective in 5
resolving longstanding issues.
However, two issues continue l
6 to be of concern to our EEO advisory committees 7
collectively.
8 The first is an issue that has been raised several 9
times but little progress has been made.
It was first 10 raised with regard to Asian-Pacific Americans but appears to 11 affect all minorities and women.
That is, limited 12 representation in the SES and a longer than average time in 13 grade, particularly at the Grade GG-14 level.
14 The second issue is the potential adverse impact 15 on EEO-related activities, especially in the training area 16 during the downsizing and budgetary constraints.
17 In gather data for the analyses, and in talking to 18 our constituents, we continue to sense that NRC employees 19 are skeptical as to the fairness of the system intended to 20 provide equal opportunity for all, especially with the 21 current downsizing and budgetary constraints.
22 We are however confident that the recommendation 23 we proposed to resolve the issues, if fully implemented, 24 will continue to contribute to the development of the 25 effective policy alternatives and will lead to a more ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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oguitable system.
2 In conclusion, the EEO advisory committees 3
appreciate the attention that the Commission has given to 4
our concerns and with that I would like to --
5 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Some questions.
6 MR. DIEC:
Yes.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
You say if fully 8
implemented your concerns on these two issues could be dealt 9
with.
With the $16 million budget reduction facing us and 10 perhaps more in future years -- we were facing a $100 11 million budget reduction over two years a few weeks ago --
12 can they possibly be fully implemented, and with some of the 13 report language about management?
It sounds -- from the 14 House language they are even more concerned about too many 15 managers, which means presumably too many 15s and SESers, so 16 the whole system given the direction we seem to be getting 17 from the Congress is going to make it very difficult on both 18 of these issues, the training cutbacks.
19 It comes down to if you are not bringing very many 20 people in, and we may not be in order to avoid RIFs and that 21 terrible word, there isn't much -- you have ongoing training 22 for the people you have and you need to keep that up, but we 23 are in this terrible box and I don't know how soon we are 24 going to get out of it.
25 So are there -- it isn't really your task, but at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, IM, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C.
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.I 1
some point you all in order to get your initiatives 2
implemented are going to have to suggest other mechanisms 3
for observing cuts or something.
4 MR. DIEC:
Employees are aware -- are keenly aware 5
of the situation that the agency is going through.
We are 6
expecting to do more with less, and I think that we are all 7
prepared to do more with less.
8 However, having that as a constant reminder to our 9
later day activities, without opportunities for employees to 10 provide the best, or to do the best with the appreciation 11
.from the management, so that emplovees are -- feel 12 appreciated and needed.
13 The issue of having the opportunities for 14 employees to enhance-their' career or to move up in a career 15 ladder is important to everyone of us.
Having a system'in 16 line that allows everyone to fairly compete, regardless of 17 the number of opportunities.
If we have a lot of 18 opportunities, by all means, it is going to be great.
But 19 if the opportunities are far and few in between, however, 20 there are certain opportunities available regardless of his 21 situation.
If employees are having the ability to compete 22; squarely and selected for, and they are fully aware of their 23 limitation and capability, I think that is what we are 24 looking for, rather than having the system that we don't 25 really know whether or not or effort is going to be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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appreciated or opportunities are.
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Do we -- I'll direct 3
this to management, do we have an idea as to how many 15 or 4
SES level slots are likely to come available in the coming 5
fiscal year, given a $16 million reduction in our budget?
6 Is that something you -- and how soon do you know such 7
things?
8 I mean if you didn't know this October 1st, I'll I
9 give you an out, how would you publicize it then, that this 10 is realistically -- I mean because part of this is l
11 communication.
That sort of came out at this morning's i
12 thing that I watched on television as well.
Part of it is
)
13 just -- is communication, so that people understand what the 14 score is.
Because I think it was the 14 group which is 1
1 15 being talked about, which was one of the areas, I think they 16 came up red for job satisf action this or whatever this 17 morning.
18 So, and that's -- so, go back to my original 19 question.
When can you convey what the likelihood of 20
. opportunities are, knowing that there is going to be some 21 variation as the year goes on?
22 MS. NORRY:
I think, as you know, Commissioner, we 23 are looking now at how we can meet our goal of 8 to 1 in 24 supervisory ratio.
That is clearly going to require some 25 additional reductions at the top.
You can't get there ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C.
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26 1
entirely by reducing levels of supervision at the lower 2
levels.
We are looking at that now.
We are going to be l
3 getting some information out to the offices.
And once all l
4 that is sorted out, we will have a better feel.
5 We are communicating and we need to ask the office l
6 directors to continue to communicate with their staffs about 1
7 these necessary reductions.
And when we know how all this 8
is sorted out, we have to be sure that the word gets out.
9 But it is clear that we are going to have to 10 reduce in the upper level positions.
I think that this puts 11 greater pressure on us, as David said, to make sure that 12 what opportunities are available are done fairly and are 13 provided to all in a way that meet a merit selection 14 principles.
15 MR. CALLAN:
Just one point I would make, 16 Commissioner, and that is that only a fraction of the GG-15 17 positions are impacted by this 8 to 1 effort, because fewer 18 than half of our GG-15s are supervisors.
And we do not have 19 any overall effort to get the number or the percentage of 20 15s down.
We limit -- we try to limit the number of GG-14 21 positions and above to about 44 percent.
Is that right?
22 MR. McDERMOTT:
Fifty-five.
23 MR. CALLAN:
Fifty-five percent or -- yeah, 55.
24 So that's -- we are a very highly graded agency, that's a 25 very generous allocation of positions to GG-14 and GG-15 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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positions.
So that -- we don't see any reduction in that l
7@
2 percentage.
i
~d 3
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Can I follow up on that?
4 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Yeah.
5 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Do you get into trouble 6
with OPM or because we are an accepted agency, we have the t
?
flexibility to have that high a grade structure?
8 MR. CALLAN:
It's always a point-of contention, 9
isn't it?
10 MS. NORRY:
It is something we -- it is a point of l
11 contention, but we don't get in trouble with OPM.
We are l
12 required to let them know certain things about SES, of 13 course, because we do come under their jurisdiction for SES.
14 But the rest of it, they know we are highly graded and so 15 far they haven't made a fuss about it.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And we don't have -- I 17 mean one of my experiences in government as a fairly junior 18 foreign service officer was having -- I was in the White 19 House Science Office, I was trying to get my secretary a i
20 higher grade, and I had this young 23-or-so year old OPM 21 person come in and sort of audit her job to make sure that 22 she was worthy of this promotion.
That doesn't happen to 1
1 23 us?
24 MS. NORRY:
No.
25 MR. CALLAN:
We do it to ourselves, f
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(Laughter.]
2 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
I think we can move 3
on.
4-MS. COPELAND:
Hi, I am Jeanette.
I am Jeanette 5
Copeland.
I the Chairperson of the Para-Professional 6
Subcommittee.
7 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Could you speak a 8
little more into the mike, please?
9 MS. COPELAND:
Okay.
I am not used to this.
10 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
That's okay.
I 11 MS. COPELAND:
The subcommittee was formed in 12 November of 1997, so we really haven't voiced a lot of our 13
. issues, except what our goals are that we are planning.
And 14
~ one of the goals is that we are trying to review the 15 agency's awards, comparing the technical staff to the i
.16-para-professional staff, that's the administrative, 17 secretary, licensing assistants to see that the kinds of 1.
i 18 awards that they have received, the trends that have L
19' followed in the kinds that they have received.
20 We are also reviewing the administrative position t
l 21 descriptions because we are trying to determine if-the 22 administrative staff is compensated across the board 23' uniformly.
So we are trying to look at other agencies as j
24
.well as within our own agency.
i 25 Finally, we are looking at the administrative ANN.RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 opportunities and career paths, and would hope that the 2
Upward Mobility Program could be reinstituted.
We know that i
3 has significantly decreased, and because of the office I
4 technology coming in, more so into the agency, that the l
l 5
' administrative staff is feeling like they are being cut out 1
L 6
and that we feel-like they need more advancement and 7
training.
8 MS. LITTLE:
Okay.
Thank you.
Any questions?
[;o response.)
i N
9 l
i 10 MS. LITTLE:
All right.
11 MR. MINNS:
Thank you.
I 12 MS. LITTLE:
Thank you.
13 MR. MINNS:
I am pleased to be invited to address 14 the Commissioners today.
My subcommittee was formed to 15' address areas of concern jointly identified by the seven EEO 16 Advisory Committees.
The Selection Subcommittee comprises 17 NRC employees and knowledgeable managers from Human 18 Resources and Small Business and Civil Rights, who choose, 19 in addition to their jobs, to take on additional 20 responsibilities in the EEO area.
21 Last year we made 23 recommendations concerning 22 the merit selection process.
Most of the recommendations 23 will help to improve employee communication -- will help to 24 improve the communication process between the employees and 25 managers.
In cases in which pre-selection is perceived, the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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merit selection process will serve employees as an informal 2
mechanism for bringing such perceptions to the attention of l
3 management.
)
1 4
Although we submitted these recommendations for 5
comments in May 1997, we have only recently received 6
responses.
One of the responses is the merit staffing at
)
7 the NRC, which represents HRS replies to one of our 8
recommendations.
The Selection Subcommittee plans to review 9
the responses in great detail in the coming weeks and will i
10 work with HR and SBRCR cooperatively to agree on changes 11 that will be made.
12 Our interest is to ensure that the tone and 13 content of these documents are in line with our 14 recommendation and they demonstrate full management support.
15 We want to continue our cooperative process because we 16 believe that communications and management skills will be 17 increasingly important as the agency downsizes.
That's all 18 I have.
19 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Thank yr-20 Commissioner, do you have questionst 21 (No response.]
22 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Thank you.
23 Mr. Bloch.
24 MR. BLOCH:
Thank you.
committee is Managing 25 Diversity Committee, and I want t.
begin by saying that it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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has been a joy working with the managers and' employees who 2
are diverse and working together to make this agency more 3
effective in EEO.
4 I would like to emphasize something that John-just 5
said.
He is talking about the pre-cooked positions in part, 6
and it is still a work in progress.
I think we are working 7
on it effectively, but the recommendations that came from 8
the committees have not yet been formally acted on by the-i 9
staff.
That's what we are hoping to work together with them l
10 on in the future.
l 11 We have been very pleased in the area of Managing 12 Diversity that the agency is starting a new initiative.
We 13 consider it a very important initiative, and the training of 14 the managers'and the planned training of the employees is 15 extremely important.
16 This initiative will be good for that agency 17 because we are in a terrible box, because this doesn't 18
' require hiring new people, it requires treating the people 19 we have better and making them more effective.
20' In this regard, I want to mention Dennis Rodman.
21 Dennis Rodman is mentioned because he is an example of a 22 rather odd character who would make most of us uncomfortable 23 if we were on the same basketball team, but without him the 24 Bulls wouldn't have won two world championships.
And the.
25 idea is that in our work place there are many people who ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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32 l
1 would make us uncomfortable because they are not of our i
2 background, they didn't grow up with us.
Maybe they don't 3
even have the same intellectual style that we have, but they 4
could add to the process if they were fully incorporated.
i 5
And the problem is that to do that, managers have 4
l 6-to be able to, very frankly, look at their own weaknesses in 7
dealing with people who are not like them.
That is not an 8
easy program to implement.
9 And I would like to mention that Commissioner 10
-McGaffigan and I were looking at the same TV program this 1
11 morning.
I noticed that there were a number of the findings 12 that seemed to be relevant to how well we are don't in using 13 people effectively right now.
l' 14 The most striking finding was question No. 33, 15 which is the management style that the NRC encourages 16 employees to give their best, and only 33 percent of our 17 employees said yes.
And that compares with a national norm 18 of 52 percent.
So there is room for improvement.
And if we 19 can improve in that area, my belief is that we are going to
- 20 improve job satisfaction in this agency and people are going 21 to know that if there are.more openings in the future, that 22 they will be treated fairly, because on a day to day basis 23 they are being used more effectively.
i 24.
I would just like to conclude that it is very 25 important that this program be implemented seriously, that j
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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it not become window dressing, as can easily happen in a 2
management program, and that there be a lot of management 1
-3 attention paid to it so that it will be as effective as all 4
of us dream it should be.
We all want a better agency.
5 Managing Diversity'is a way of approaching that.
6 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you very much.
7 Commissioner Diaz.
Questions?
8 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
No.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I think it is three 10 championships that Dennis has been --
11 (Laughter.]
12 MR..BLOCH:
A better basketball fan than I.
13 MS. LITTLE:
We need to have a brief change of 14 scenery right here.
Okay.
15 MS. NORRY:
Sue Smith is one of the EEO 16 counselors.
And I believe last time we came before you we 17 pointed out the tremendously vital role that the EEO 18 counselors play, and we thought it would be good to have one 19 of them come on behalf of all the counselors and talk about 20 their activities.
21 Sue.
22 MS. SMITH:
Thank you.
Commissioners Dicus, Diaz, 23 McGaffigan, the primary role of the EEO counselor is to 24 facilitate informal resolution of allegations of 25 discrimination between the involved parties whenever ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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possible.
The goal of the counseling process is to resolve 2
the complaint at the lowest possible level.
After meeting 3
with the complainant and conducting fact-finding, the 4
counselor will generally make contact with the first line 5
supervisor and move up the management chain, as necessary to 6
attempt resolution.
j 7
Individuals who feel they have been subjected to j
8 discrimination must contact an EEO counselor within 45 days 9
of the event giving rise to their allegation.
The EEO 10 counselor has 30 days to complete fact-finding and attempt 11 resolution.
And additional 60 days resolution -- excuse me, 12 an additional 60 days extension may be granted if the 13 employee and counselor feel resolution is imminent, j
14 If the issue is not resolved, the counselor 15 notifies the employee in writing, advising him or her of 16 their right to file a formal complaint.
If a formal 17 complaint is not filed, the counselor has no further role.
18 However, if a formal complaint is filed, the counselor 19 prepares a detailed report of counseling activities.
20 A significant amount of the EEO counselor's time 21 is spent in discussions with individuals regarding issues 22 that never materialize into formal complaints, and that is 23 my primary focus today.
I gathered information from several 24 EEO counselors regarding themes and issues that employees 25 bring to them at the informal stage but often do not raise ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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as. formal complaints.
2<
These include, No.
1, performance 3
Employees' perceptions that ratings across t;t _
. are
.4 being lowered to fully satisfactory without' good reason.
5 Two, pre-selections.
Employees still feel that 6
this is a real problem within the agency.
They feel that it 7
wastes the time of employees in filling out application 8
packages, of HR staff in' reviewing the applications and 9
arranging for panels and of management in interviewing those 10 applicants.
Employees would like to see greater use of
'11 accretion of duties when management already has someone in 12 mind for a vacant position.
13-Three, unfair distribution of awards, lack of 14-recognition for excellent and outstanding work, and
-15 favoritism by managers.
16 Four, lack of communication from managers, 17 especially during periods of change.
Change is anything 18 that departs from that which the employee has become 19 accustomed.
For example, the impact of, quote, "new 20 standards for performance appraisals," or going through a-l 21 reorganization.
These changes bring about insecurities l
-22
'among employees.
Employees would like to see management l
23 involve staff during the planning process, not just inform 24 them after plans have already been made to enact the 25 changes.
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1 Some of these issues are not issues of 2
discrimination.
My experience has been that EEO counselors 3
serve as a sounding board for many, many issues.
I have 4
been an EEO counselor for over eight years, and I find the 5
role of an EEO counselor to be a critical, challenging and 6
rewarding one.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
7 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
Let me ask you a i
l 8
question on this performance appraisal situation where 9
employees' perceptions that ratings.across the board are 10 being lowered to fully _ satisfactory without good reason.
Is 11 that perception or is that a fact?
Do we know?
12 MR. McDERMOTT:
In some offices it is fact.
Why 13 is that happening?
Joe and I talk about it, too.
We said, j
14 you know, we have -- we have been cruising along for many 15 years with 95 percent or more of our employees rated 16 outstanding or excellent.
You know, it was turning into a 17 pass-fail system.
Outstanding was pass, excellent was fail.
18 It was really not healthy in our view.
You didn't spread a 19 rating, and it was not good for employees because we are 20 lumping them too much.
21 And we talked about changing the systems.
We 22 talked -- we see a lot of people.
But one thing that fresh 23 eyes did was looked at -- and I am looking at Joe, looked at 24 the manual chapter, and he said, what if we would do what it l
25 says in this manual chapter?
As in apply the definitions of 4
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outstanding, excellent and fully successful, which is a 2
dirty word in the NRC performance appraisal -- the words 3
themselves aren't all that bad -- if we applied them more 4
exactly.
5 And if you did that, you know, sort of a code word 6
in outstanding is rare and exceptional contribution during 7
the rating period.
And nobody was getting anything well 8-done, everything was rare or medium rare in the prior 9
system.
10 So the answer is, yeah, it was a fact.
We looked 11 at those and some people whose performance level really 12 stayed the same found their rating down a notch in the last 13 rating year, and that was not applied uniformly across the 14 agency.
We said let's try it and see, and it had various
-15 results.
16 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
So what sort of plans do you 17 have in mind, or what sort of brainstorming have you done to 18 see that if this is the proper move to take, that it is 19 going to be done uniformly that?
Because that is 20 problematic if it is here and there.
21 MR. McDERMOTT:
Yeah, you got to do something 22 about it.
23 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
And I think this is helping 24 to lead to that problem.
25 MR. McDERMOTT:
First of all, level the playing ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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field across the agency.
And then -- and this is sort of --
t l
2 at present, I haven't unveiled this to Ms. Norry yet.
But 3
one of the things --
4
[ Laughter. ]
5 MR. McDERMOTT:
One thing that generates a lot of l
'6 heat about this is the uses to which we put performance 7
appraisal, and'particularly the performance appraisal 1
i 8
document.
Everybody wants it to be a vehicle for good, 9
candid, constructive communication, but then we say, but 10 we're going to use it in merit selection, same document.
So 11 employees are saying, you know, if you damn me with faint 12 praise, I'm dead, and employees have come to me and said, if 13 I don't get an outstanding, I'm out of the running in a i
14 merit competition.
15 So the point I want to revisit and review is, is 16 that really worthwhile or are we working against ourselves 17 when we say, you know, let's have good, straightforward 18 objective performance appraisals, and then, you know, try 19 and get that exactly even across the agency -- no way.
It's 20 like school -- there are some easy markers and there are 21 some hard markers, and there will always be both kinds of 22 markers.
23 So I want to get that kind of softened or --
24 soften the impact of that in the performance or in the merit 25 selection process.
I think it would take some heat out of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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it.
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I will say that based on 3
my experience in government, and my entire work experience 4
has been in government, although not very often in the 1
l 5
system in'which most of the employees work, I think it's 6
real important that you get away from a 95 percent O&E.
7 I had a terrible experience -- I didn't, but I 8
watched a terrible experience at Los Alamos a few years l
9 back.
They had essentially a pass-fail system.
You didn't 10 even have to write.
There was no communication with the 11 employees.
If you checked somebody fully satisfactory, that i
12 was the end, and if you found something wanting, you had to J
13 write a long report.
So what did people do?
They checked 14 the box and the performance appraisal system lasted ten 15 minutes.
l l
16 Then they had to do a RIF, and they had an 1
17 informal system where everybody got in a room and rated 18 their. employees and figured out who was going to get -- 800 19 people had to get RIFed.
The amount of litigation was 20 unbelievable.
21 So I think you have -- you have to have a system, 22 I think, where the reputation of the person, the person who 23 gets asked at four o' clock on Friday to get the work done 24 that needs to get done or whatever lines up with what their 25 written appraisal does, and it has to be done on a uniform ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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basis across the agency, it can't be one part of the agency 2
doing it and another part not.
l 3
So I encourage the direction, but I think there's 4
all sorts of implementation problems when you fall into the 5-Los Alamos syndrome to work your way back out of it.
i 6
I had another lab in my state, Sandia, which every 7
year identified the bottom 25 percent, and they were 8
identified, they knew who they were, and that was a more j
9 industrial approach and it worked.
It was much better --
10 much better communication because people knew whether they l
11 were in the top 25 percent, middle 50, or the bottom 25, i
12 they knew where they were.
13 MS. NORRY:
And I would just add that one of the i
14 ways you get this done, in addition to -- last year was the j
i 15 first year we really made an attempt across the board, and l
L 16 you're going to have these kinds of problems.
But the 17 communication is key.
Some offices did a much better job of 18 that than others, and we have to make sure that that happens
)
19 uniformly.
20 The other thing is senior managers must be held 1
21 accountable for what the results and what's happening in 22 their offices.
They must be held accountable for that.
And i
j 23 that's built into the system against which people are i
24 appraised.
25 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Mr. Callan?
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MR. CALLAN:
I'm sorry.
I was just going to jump 2
in.
This is such an important subject, I don't make any 3
excuses for contributing to this discussion.
4 I would just make two points.
One is that much of 5
what we have heard so far this afternoon the way of 6'
concerns, frustrations, can be linked to the lack of an 7
honest and. fair appraisal process.
8 Our merit selection process breaks down if you 9
don't have honest appraisals, honest and fair appraisals; 10-our award program breaks down if you don't have honest and 11 fair appraisals.
So it's very important that we normalize
~
12 the agency and establish and honest and fair process.
13 It has been problematic.
You know, the effort to 14 get to that vision predates me here.
I was regional 15 administrator when we were trying in earnest to get -- I 16 think the regions made a lot of progress a couple of years 17 ago, and if I don't mind saying so, sort of led the agency 18 in a way, setting the example.
19 This year, for the first time, and I applauded the 20 staff not too 1cng ago, the senior managers, I think we have 21 made as much progress this year in getting all the offices 22 in the region fairly normalized, not where we need to be, 23 but it's as close as, I think, we have ever ben, at least 24 since I have been around.
So I'm encouraged by the progress 25 we made this year in that regard.
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COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Yes.
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Just going back on the same 3
issue, Ms. Norry,-you said that you have to make sure that 4
these things happen.
I think the question that we would 5
like answered is, how do you make sure that it happens?
In 6
other words, the issue is what implementation of what needs 7
'to be done, you know, this program,.this outline, is going
-8 to take place so when we get here six months from now, we 9
won't revisit this issue, which is a very important issue.
1 10.
Imd I think that Commissioner McGaffigan, you know, is quite 11 correct, it is the heart of how.we are going to address not 12 only one issue, but a multitude of issue, and I think it is 13 critical.
14 So might I encourage you to try to not say,-you-j 15' know, we're going to make sure, but we would like you to get 16 back with how are you making sure?
It's the how that's 17 important.
18 MS. NORRY:
Okay.
19_
COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Thank you.
20 MS. NORRY:
Yes.
21 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
22 MS. NORRY:
I would just like to point out that 23 these EEO counselors -- this is all volunteer time and they 24 all have regular full-time jobs, more than full-time jobs, 25 and they do a tremendous service in working things out so 4
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that many of these issues do not get to the stage where-they 2.
have to be filed formally.
3 So thank you, i
4 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
5.
MS. NORRY:
We will now have statements from Sam 6
Collins and Hub Miller.
7 Sam, would you go first, please?
8 MR. COLLINS:
Certainly.
Good afternoon, 9
Commissioners.
i welcome the opportunity to speak for the 10 NRR team on this important topic.
As indicated this morning 11 in various ways, people are our most valuable resource, and i
12 that's certainly true in NRR.
Personally, after being here 13 for a little over a year, I am certainly proud of the NRR-1 14 team and what we have accomplished.
~
15 Ms. Norry has covered many statistics.
I'm going l
16 to focus the majority of my presentation on process, because 17 I believe, as mentioned here earlier, the tools that we have 18 to work with-as far as the stated constrictions, if you will 19
-- in some cases, they're opportunities, but in today's 20 environment, they are, in fact, constriction, that we have 21 to manage our staff, and as Hub and I are here primarily as 22 representatives of offices that have to take the concepts 23 that were talked about here earlier and the guidelines and 24 actually apply them to very large organizations and diverse 25 organizations at that.
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NRR is committed to EEO goals and objectives.
We 2-are a product of many very talented individuals.
We have a 3
number of opportunities that arise over the course of the 4
year..Our staff is budgeted at approximately 645 5
individuals.
Just as a matter of comparison, it looks like a
6 that number is going down approximately 65 over the next l
7.
fiscal. year, although that's still to be worked out in 8
detail.
But those are the types of challenges that, day to 9
day, we face with implementation of the programs.
10.
Many of those individuals who are members of the 11 NRR staff were represented here today and spoke prior to 12-myself, and we are very involved in the process.
13 Of the total on-board number, which is closer to 14 630 right now within NRR, Hispanics represent 2 percent, 15 African-Americans represent approximately 8 percent, 16 Asian-Pacific Americans 15 percent, whites 75 percent.
17 Classically, over the past two to three years, the staff has 18 been composed of approximately 24 percent women and 76 19 percent men.
That's how the demographics work out.
20 We have been focusing heavily on communications.
21 That was mentioned here earlier.
We have instituted a 22 number of processes to try to work through some of the 23 communication barriers and layers, referred to as a clay 24 layer this morning, I think, in response to the survey
' 25 conducted by OIG.
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We have had approximately 25 responses to our 2
web-based SET process that we have where people can submit I
3 issues, including those similar to what we talked about 4
today to the NRR executive team, and we respond to those and 5
we put the answers back out on the web.
6 Many of those deal with hiring, they deal with 7
selections, they deal with organizational changes, and 8
that's a way of communicating specific issues up and down 9
the line.
10 We have regularly all-hands meetings, and we're 11 such a large organization, we have to break that up into two 12 meetings.
But we fill the vast part of the auditorium 13 approximately once every two to three months, and we have 14 topics which we speak to.
15 One of those, interestingly enough, was 16 appraisals, and we conducted these all-hands meetings 17 towards the end of last year's appraisal period, and the 18 very topic was, how do we ensure that people receive an 19 honest and fair appraisal?
We covered the manual chapter, i
20 we covered the definition of the words in the manual 21 chapter, we discussed the statistics for NRR, how they 22 compared with the other offices, and we actually ended up 23 working as a team with the staff, the bargaining unit 24 eligible staff, to determine how were we going to get from 25 where we are now, which was clearly not an appraisal system ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 which sent a meaningful message to individuals in most i
2 cases, to a point where we had a better gradation of 3
approach and a more honest exchange of views.
4 To the credit of the bargaining unit staff, they 5
said, just go ahead and do it, but ensure that it's done 6
equitably, and that people do, in fact, receive a meaningful 7
message.
I had a second session with the managers, and the 8
managers were much more reluctant.
9 But as a group, 57e did address at least in part 10 with last year's appraisal a shifting of those numbers so 11 that they were somewhat more representative of the overall 12 agency, and I think we have another slight adjustment to 13 make, perhaps.
But overall, the numbers have declined from 14 outstanding, have been grouped in the middle around 15 excellent, and there has been about a 3 percent increase in 16 the FS.
So I think we're achieving that goal and we have 17 done it in a way that perhaps is more responsive to your 18 question, Commissioner Diaz, for a program office 19 implementation.
20 How do we hold our managers accountable?
Each 21 manager has an attribute of their performance plan which 22 deals with rating employees, which deals with performance of 23 employees and addressing that performance of employees.
So 24 there is a mechanism by which senior managers can cascade 25 down through the organization to hold the first-line ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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supervisors, and then back up the line, individuals 2
accountable for those honest appraisals.
3 Is it always done?
Probably not.
Is it an area 4
we need to focus on more?
Yes.
And SES is no different.
5 We have been in a process by which, at least by the past two 6
years,.and I'm sure it took place to some extent before I 7
arrived, where we, in fact, ranked the SES as a prelude to 8
SES appraisals to ensure that the message that goes out is 9
not taken in a silo in a large organization.
10 In fact, we have input from each member of the 11 executive team on that rating because we see each other very 12 differently as we assess each other's performance and'the 13 various roles that we play.
And the ET comes to a consensus 14 on the overall stack up of senior executives, and then we 15 ensure that the' appraisals are graded that way.
16 We have had some problems.
Last year, we did a 17 post-performance appraisal review of SES and we found out we 18 still had inconsistencies.
When you looked at the highs and 19 lows within the rankings'and you looked at the words in the 20 system, they didn't always match.
So we have more work to 21
-do, but clearly we have a way to judge that and to measure 22 it, so we'll continue to do that.
23 I think it's perhaps a perception by the 24 individuals who are subjected to the general grading 25 performance system that we perhaps do not go to that level ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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of detail with in SES because it's an FS pass-fail type of 2-
. system, but, in fact, we do within the NRR organization.
3 Continuing on briefly, we have established a 4
number of working committees.
We have an awards 5
subcommittee that we use now.
We used to perform awards
.6 granting on a division level, in some cases on the branch 7
level.
Now we do it on an office level.
8 Those award packages are brought up in front of 9
the executive team for NRR and they are screened by each 10 division director.
Working with NTU, we provide the award 11-packages to NTU for them to review, and we receive some 12 meaningful comments from NTU on those award packages, having 13 to do primarily with consistency and whether the message is 14 appropriate given the award.
15 That process is working, at least to my mind, very 16 well, and I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to hear NTU's 17 opinion, but I think that's an opportunity we took advantage 18 of.
19 The same with training.
Because of the limited 20 amount of training funds and the opportunity to be 21 inequitable in that area, we're screening the awarding of 22 training funds -- in some cases, they're significant; paying 23 for advanced degrees, for example -- through the same 24 committee as we have for awards to ensure that we're 25 consistent and ensure that any appeals are approached ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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overall and there is equity within NRR.
2 Moving on, we have a number of challenges, and j
3 some of those were articulated earlier today concerning the 4
eight to one, concerning the staffing reductions.
I think 5
as we work through that process, communication is going to 6
be very important.
7 I intend to involve the staff as well as the l
8 bargaining unit in these areas because I anticipate that
-9 it's going to push us into potential reorganizations and 10 into different lines of responsibilities and perhaps into l
11 different supervisory levels where we will be entertaining
)
I 12 less SES first-line supervisors and perhaps more GG-15 13 first-line supervisors, and that will be the subject of more 3
14 discussion with our partners.
l 15 We have had some opportunities in SES.
Two new 16 SES -- one white male, one white woman -
have been.
17 appointed.
One African-American woman and one Asian-Pacific 18 woman were selected for 14 positions, and two 19 African-American women were selected for GG-12 20 administrative positions.
21 We had a question earlier.
Commissioner 22 McGaffigan, you asked about the intern program.
We have 23 termed that program the entry level program within NRR.
24 There are some differences having to do with the number of 25 rotations and the types of rotations that individuals are l
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50 receiving, and we have a number of detailed statistics in 1
1 2
that area.
3 There is an error in the SECY paper, and I would L
l 4
like to just clarify that for you.
We have actually made 5
twelve offers, not eight, for the entry level program, and 6
we have had seven people accept that.
Of the people who
'7 have accepted, we have 57 percent minorities, and that 8
number is four, one white woman, two white men, for a total l
9 of seven.
And we have a number of declines, which include 10 one minority, two women, and two white men.
So we are 11 having some success in that area.
We anticipate continuing 12 that.
l 13 The primary difference between the intern program 14 and the entry level program is that we target specific 15 technical disciplines.for the entry level program, and those 16 individuals are assigned in that discipline area right from 17 the initiation of the program rather than serve rotations 18 throughout the agency and then choose an area of expertise 19 in concert with agency needs at the end of an intern i
20 program.
So it's more targeted towards focused areas as 21 well as immediate contribution.
22 Let me go on to address one of the other areas 23 that was an IOU.
Let me find the right section here.
That 24 has to do with advanced degrees.
Carl Paperello got me in 25 this box last SEO meeting, and working with Katherine Green l
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1 and Susan and Jennifer in the NRR team, who works in this 2
area of-recruiting and EEO.
We have probably more 3
statistics than you care to hear, but let me just briefly A
4 tell you where we are with advanced degrees.
5 We have 86 percent degree holders in NRR.
6 Forty-five percent of those are advanced degrees, and I have 7'
a breakdown of those if anyone is interested.
For the 8
professional staff, 98 percent of individuals are degree 9
holders and 53 percent have advanced degrees.
Of the 10 administrative staff, 57 percent are degree holders and 11 seven are advanced degrees.
Of the clerical staff, 4 of 66 r
12 are degree holders and one'of those individuals has an 13 advanced degree.
14 So within the NRR, we are very highly educated by-15 degree, and I think that shows in the quality of the work, 16 and we'll continue to reinforce those.
17 We have done that in the past through the 18 accommodation of training funds for advanced degrees, and we 19 have had to cut back somewhat in that area this year, and I l
20 think we have heard some of the feedback from that 21 discussion.
I think that's either an area we need to focus 22 on given the priorities of where we spend the funds or it's 23 just reality given where we are with the budget, or a 24 combination of both.
25 I'm going to cut short my presentation.
If there ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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are any questions, I'll be glad to respond to those now or 2'
at the end.
l L
3 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Commissioner Diaz?
l 4
COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
No.
5 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Commissioner McGaffigan?
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The one piece of news I l
7 think you've -- there's a lot of news, but the one piece 1
8 that maybe people stopped on was the notion that you were 9
going to go down from 645 to 580, which is 50 below your 10 current on board.
11 How do you do that while managing all of these 12 issues that we talked about with.the first panel?
It just 13 strikes me that it makes life very difficult, because you're 14
-- when we deal with budgets, we deal with things like, you 15 know, 2500 hours0.0289 days <br />0.694 hours <br />0.00413 weeks <br />9.5125e-4 months <br /> versus 2700 hours0.0313 days <br />0.75 hours <br />0.00446 weeks <br />0.00103 months <br /> for core inspection, and 16 there are some FTE associated with that, but then when you l
17 have to get down to managing, say we go to 2500 hours0.0289 days <br />0.694 hours <br />0.00413 weeks <br />9.5125e-4 months <br />, 18 advancing that a year, there are real FTEs in some region 19 that have to be managed somehow.
20 MR. COLLINS:
Right.
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
So how do you reduce 50 l
22 from your on board --
23 MR. COLLINS:
Right.
24 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
-- and fit it within all i -..
25 these other boundary conditions?
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MR. COLLINS:
I understand the question.
2 Just to clarify, of course, the budget process is 3
working through, as well as the Commission approval.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I understand.
5 MR.-COLLINS:
But as an illustration --
6
[ Laughter.]
7 MR. COLLINS:
Or adjustments.
We have options.
8.
Working with Hub, because certainly the program 9
office, along with defining the programs and procedures and 10 processes, work with the regions for implementation.
So we 11 can't divorce ourselves from the impact on the regions, and 12 that's a very real issue because that's our product in most 13-cases.
14 I'm going to cover probably two areas briefly.
15 One is attrition, and attrition is not an insignificant 16 factor when you have an office the size of NRR.
The 17 statistics would show, as brought to me by Katherine and her 18 team, that we lose about two pecyle per pay period.
So 19 that's about 52 per year, and that's fairly. consistent over 20.
the past years.
21 So the numbers are not as significant of a 22 challenge perhaps as the type of individual and the 23 expertise of the individual that we have as a mix to wo::k 24 with within NRR to achieve our program goals, and therein 25 lies somewhat of a challenge given a very real concern that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C.
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1 has been expressed not only this morning, but perhaps today 2
in that we have people who have a long history, we have a 3
lot of technical expertise within the agency.
We have to 4
have a balance of entry level programs and those who are 5
mature, knowledgeable regulators and program office staff to 6
meet our goals.
1 7
So the mix is the issue.
How do you maintain a 8
robust system of turnover yet some semblance of stability to 9
ensure that we can' meet those goals?
10 Reorganizations are the second area I would like 11 to acknowledge, and we -- it probably seems to Pete that we 12 do that continually, and to the staff somewhat also, and 13 it's a truism.
14 I.think these numbers, though, that we are 15 potentially looking at and that we looked at as part of the 16 appropriations committee reviews force us to look into 17 options in that area, and we can gain some efficiencies and 18-some effectiveness, I think, by looking at the way we have 19 historically been structured first if we are to look at some 12 0 of these numbers in the future, how we need to be structured i
21 to do the work, and we can gain some efficiencies there.
22 So I don't have as much of a' concern about getting 23 to the target number as I do ensuring that working with that 24 number, we have the right grades of individuals, the right 25' types of individuals, and they are in an organization that t
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provides support to get the work done, and that's the 2
business of all of us here at the able, working with the 3
' bargaining unit staff, to ensure that we get from point A to 4
point B.
5 MR. CALLAN:
There is one nuance to these FTE 6
numbers that's impcrtant, I think.
7 This supposed or hypothetical 50 FTE cut that 8
we're talking about is being driven not by FTE ceilings 9
imposed on us, but by dollar ceilings.
So in order to 10 realize the dollar savings that we need to realize, those 11 losses have to occur early'in the fiscal year.
12 For example, ideally, 25 people would walk out 1 13 October, and then you would realize that dollar savings for 14 the entire year.
So it's really a very complex equation in 15 terms of realizing a dollar savings.
We're not targeting an 16 FTE goal by 30 September; we're trying to realize money.
17 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
If NRR -- I'm sorry.
18 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
No, go ahead.
19 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
If NRR attrition is two people' 20 per pay period, what is the attrition rate in the entire 21 agency?
22 MR. McDERMOTT:
Right now, the attrition rate is 23 about 5.6 percent, and it will probably come out to no more 24 than a tenth of a percent off that one way or the other.
25 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Five-point-six percent.
, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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MR. McDERMOTT:
Yes.
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Per year?
3 MR. McDERMOTT:
Yes.
4 4
MR. COLLINS:
There was one other brief area that 5
we committed to discuss, and that was how were we addressing j
6 the Hispanic -- the need to have Hispanic opportunities l
7 within NRR and the Hispanic opportunity program that we 8
have.
9 We have been working in that area fairly 10 aggressively for this past year.
Our HR staff, working with 11 Paul Byrd and Jim, have been attempting to attract qualified 12 individuals.
We had four -- we have four Hispanics among 13 our 77 graduates for the intern program.
That's the formal 14 intern program, if you will.
We had a Hispanic intern 15 program who was a former Region IV employee who is here 16 today attend a Society of Professional Engineers Job Fair.
17
-That was a Hispanic-sponsored organization.
She met with 18 representatives of the National Achievement Awards, and 19 we're developing new relationships with universities.
1 20 So I think we're out there looking for 21
. opportunities in those areas.
Our success rate is an area 22 that continues to be a challenge, I believe, and I think l
23 that's indicative more of-are we competitive, are we E
24 offering the right types of positions and the right type of I
25 attractions.
We have more opportunity for success in that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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area at the entry level and the intern than we do at the 2
more mature staff just because of some of those challenges 3
with what it takes to hire experienced people.
4 But we'll continue to work in that area, but I 5
anticipate that will be a continuing challenge for us.
6 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
7 MS. NORRY:
Okay.
Hub?
8 MR. MILLER:
Good afternoon.
I appreciate as well 9
the opportunity to talk about Region 1 and our EEO efforts.
10 We're working hard to increase diversity and to 11 sustain an equitable work environment in the region, and 12 this afternoon, I would like to just touch upon a number of 13 the initiatives that we have undertaken, describe to you 14 some of the challenges that we face, and then finally share
'15 with you also results.
16 Let me begin with recruitment and hiring, because 17.
one of the biggest challenges we have faced this past two i
18 years has been filling a large number of reactor inspector 19 staff vacancies.
This has been an extensive effort.
20 We screened over 700 resumes, interviewed 135 21 people, and to develop a high quality, diverse candidate I
22 pool..we did a number of things, quite a'few things:
placed 23 advertisements in various engineering publications and web 24' sites with substantial minority and women readership; we 25.
renewed contacts with historically Black colleges and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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universities as well as African-American and Hispanic 2
student groups and professional organizations.
The region's 3
EEO advisory committees helped us out quite bit in this L
4 regard.
i
'5 As a result of our efforts, we were able to hire l
6 25 highly qualified technical and professional people, which
'7 is quite a few people for an office the size of this region, i
8 In that group were.five women and minorities.
l 9
We frankly found, and this echoes a bit what Sam 10 said, difficulty in competing with private industry when it 11 came to attracting experienced minority engineers.
So as 12 the recruitment efforts proceeded, it became clear that l
13 being successful required us to focus at the college i
14 graduate intern level, and I'm happy to report, in fact, 15 that these efforts recently paid off in the hiring of a 16 Hispanic engineer who just joined us this past week as an 17 intern.
18 Intensive as our recruitment efforts were, they i
19 were just first steps, and we knew that.
Equipping this 20 relatively large group of new hires with knowledge and 21' skills to do an effective job posed a significant challenge L
22 for us.
HSo we structured a form of matriculation program 23 that went beyond the normal required training, technical 24 training that is'provided to entry -- new entry or new 25
-hires.
We conducted numerous special training sessions.
In L
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fact, these sessions were delivered by mid-and senior-level 2
managers in the region.
3 Where appropriate, we extended work assignments in 4
reactor -- or in resident inspector offices were provided to 5
give the new hires practical site experience very early on 6
in the matriculation process, which is important.
7 We instituted a mentoring program to assure 8
specific needs of individuals were given attention, and as a 9
result, eleven of the 25 candidates have already been 10 selected for resident inspector positions, and this includes 11 two of the five minorities that I talked about.
12 Six individuals have already completed the 13 rigorous -- and it is very rigorous -- rigorous inspector 14 certification process, and excepting our new intern, all of 15 the remaining members of ~,his group will be certified by the 16 end of the year.
17 I have focused a lot to this point on new 18 recruits.
A different but equally important challenge, of 19 course, relates to continuing staff development.
Much, in 20 my mind, depends upon individual initiative when you talk 21 about this, but to me, supervisors have to exercise a great 22 deal of leadership.
The staff development must be an 23 abiding concern of all supervisors and managers.
This 24 involves many things.
It involves, of course, listening to 25 staff aspirations, career goals, but also, very importantly, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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providing honest, constructive feedback on performance, and 2
this is something we give great attention to in the region.
3 We have clearly communicated our expectations, I 4
believe, to management.
Staff development is a major focus 5
area of all of our management retreats in the region.
6 Virtually all the managers in the region have completed 7
cultural diversity and merit staffing training.
8 We had some problems early on in the recruitment 9
effort with respect to the interviewing techniques, and so 10 we provided techniques on interviewing that apply not just 11 to new hires, but also to people in the advancement process.
12 It's a big part, I think, of dealing with the issues 13 relating to pre-selection.
14 I must also add that we have as a practice in the 15 region for all selections, managers talk to individuals who 16 are not selected to provide feedback and give constructive 17 help on what they might do to be more competitive in future 18 promotions.
19 We have emphasized rotational assignments.
In the 20 past two years, 30 individuals have been given various 21 assignments in headquarters offices, in the resident 22 inspector offices, team leader positions, and very special 23 projects, and nearly half of those participants have been 24 women and minorities.
25 Training funds, as Sam said, are limited, and the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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resources are limited, and we have established a training 2
council in the region to, among other things,. review all 3
specialized training requests and monitor the status of J
4 required training, but beyond that, to look forward to i
5 identifying new training opportunities, limited as they are, 6
to identify those.
! 7
'Perhaps the biggest challenge we face in the 8
region in the EEO area relates to the regrettable fact that 1
9 there are currently no women or minorities in permanent 10 management positions in the region, and this situation is 11 made especially difficult given the number of positions that 12 we have had to eliminate to get to the current eight to one 13 ratio, supervisors to staff, that we are currently at.
As a 14 result of this, there have been no permanent management 15 position.-- management promotion opportunities in the past 16 tow years in the region.
17 Having said that, I believe it is vitally 18 important that we provide opportunities to the staff to 19 develop management skills, to equip staff to compete for and 20 effectively fill these positions when they open up, and at 21 some point, they will open up.
22 Also on the positive side, I want to emphasize 23 that largely due to special needs in the region to focus on 24 a number of troubled plants, we have had a number of 25 temporary promotion opportunities, seven in fact, and three f
l 4
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women have filled those positions and one Asian male were 2
selectees for those seven temporary positions.
3 I have to tell you in preparing for this and 4
recently asking for staff feedback, got feedback that was 5
similar to some of what you heard this morning, and that is 6
that there is concern on the part of the staff about what 7
the future holds -- declining budgets, the limited 8
opportunities that exist with the downsizing for promotion, 9
in our region closure of some plants.
Among other things 10 are the things that lead to this.
And so I think more than 11 ever before we have to concern ourselves with creating a 12 positive, supportive work environment.
13 There are many things that you can talk about in 14 this area, but we are doing a number of things largely that 15 relate to quality of life and to creating a family-friendly 16
-work environment.
For example, on numerous occasions we 17 have supported work at home and modified --'and other 18 modified work-schedules to support individuals facing 19 illness and other special personal needs.
We are working 20 with the regional affirmative action advisory committees to 21 obtain their ideas and help in this area, and one recent one 22 perhaps small but I think still helpful was the Bring Your 23 Child to Work Day that we plan to have later this month, 24 because I think this is the kind of thing that tends to 25 build esprit de corps and a sense of teamwork amongst the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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63 1
staff and management, i
2 With respect to awards, I think this is an 3_
important thing.
We also established an awards board to 4
assure that we are handling that in an equitable way.
And I 5
guess -- this is a broad area, and we could talk at length 6
'about it, but it's' clear to me from the feedback I've gotten 7
in the' region and listening this morning that a big part of 8
what we have to do at this difficult time is communicate, 9
and I expect to be working with the partnership and with'the 10 advisory committees toLstep up.
We do a lot of 11 communication in the regions through seminars, the l
12 inspector's seminars and the like, but I think this is an 13 area where as events unfold here and there are the cuts that i
14 are coming and the like we have to redouble I think our 15 efforts in this area.
16 And so with that I'll be glad to answer any 17-questions, l
18 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
19 Commissioner Diaz?
20 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
No.
21 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Commissioner McGaffigan?
)
22 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
No.
23 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Thank you.
24 MS. NORRY:
Okay.
Thank you, Hub, and thank you, 25 Sam.
This concludes our prepared presentations, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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64
~1 Commissioner Dicus.
2 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Commissioner Diaz, I 3
think you wanted to make some comments.
4
. COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
See, this'is our kind of all 5
over the place, because I was writing as we went on.
I 6-think first, going back to Commissioner McGaffigan and Joe 7
Callan's comment, I think we're well aware, and it keeps 8
coming up, that the Agency might not be growing, and in fact.
19.
it might downsize.
I think it is obvious that we all are 10 emphasizing that even while that is happening.we must 11 maintain our focus on these efforts.
It should not be an 12 excuse to just s?.ack back or fall into some complacency, 13 that it's vital te what we're doing.
It cannot be an 14 excuse.
Reduced resources might actually be an opportunity 15 to get better performance appraisals, to do all of the good 16 things that we should do well.
17 I wrote a series of things as we were going down 18 For example, we keep hearing that accomplishments will 19' enhance or initiatives will enhance.
I believe that at some 20 time, hopefully in the near. future, we will hear
- 21 accomplishments have enhanced and initiatives have resulted.
22 Because what I see-is that we have a very good 23 infrastructure to implement EEO programs.
We have really 24 gone the mile in establishing a lot of very good things.
We 25 have the right people.
We have the right, rou know, ideas.
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We have, you know, the right hopefully resources.
2 The bottom line is how they get implemented.
And 3
that issue is deeper than infrastructure.
It is a cultural 4
issue that we need to face time and time again.
And that is 5
the issue that these people that might not have the same 6
color have the same right as anybody else if they're fully 7
qualified to the same positions or to the same, you know, 8
opportunity to enter.
And that is something that is, you 9
know, it has to be realized.
l 10 There is no doubt in my mind that blatant 11 discrimination is really not the issue.
That we can take l
12 care of without an EEO program.
It's the more insidious l
13 discrimination, the one in which people don't even 14 consciously realize they are discriminating.
That needs to 15 be fought by initiative from the Commissions and by EEO l
16 programs.
17 Those are the hard issues.
Those are the ones 18 that need to be faced.
Those are the ones that need a 19 cultural change.
Those are the ones that when it happens, l
20 then you will attract the right people.
You will be able to 21 keep the'right people.
There will be no question because 22 people will feel that this place really wants them and that l
23 they are respected and that their civil rights are foremost.
24 I see no reason why Hispanics are lagging behind 25 or were already lagging behind thing.
It's, you know, and, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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COMMISSIONER DICUS:
At this time I would like to 2
inquire as to whether the National Treasury Employees Union i
-3 representative would like to make a comment.
4 Please go to the podium.
5 MR. HEARN:
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'd like l
6 to make some comments on what I've seen at this meeting in 7
years past.
For a starter, on the handout, on page 2, you 8
list the EEO program goals, and there seems to be a lack of 9-goals for the new Paraprofessional Subcommittee.
I think i
10 that should be modified and goals that they see needed.
11 Another issue I'd like to address is empowerment.
12 We've talked about the budget crunch, and that hurting l
13 upward mobility.
We have a large percentage of minorities 14 in the NRC who are in what I call logjams.
They're at a I
15
. grade where there's very little opportunity to go to the L
l 16 next grade.
And through empowerment, which there's an 17 executive order out to implement that, I think we have to 18 strive harder to implement it.
-19 You have to bring down functions from the SES down 20 to the 15s, and they in turn, it doesn't stop there, they in 21 turn have to turn over the.ir lower-graded functions to the 22 14s, and eventually you have people turning lower-graded 23 functions down to the grade levels from 8 to 12, and you're 24 going to be creating new paraprofessional positions, and 25
.they're sorely needed, as.I'm sure Janet can attest to.
e ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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you know, I don't want to make it an issue because I am 2
Hispanic. 'But I think it is ar obvious thing that is not 3
only a national but is a case in here.
When we say 4
something like we are similar to cther agencies and that is 5
taken as a measure of success, I think it should be taken as 6
a measure of lack of success, not as a measure of success, 7
because the other ones are not doing, that doesn't mean that 8
we should not be doing.
9 What should never happen in this Agency, what is 10 not acceptable, is that any one minority, being woman, 11 African American, Asian, Hispanic, not be given the 12 opportunity to obtain a job when they are qualified for it.
13 And that's what an equal, you know, opportunity means.
It 14 doesn't mean a lot of programs and a lot of initiative, but 1
l 15 it means implementation.
Because the iss,a always is what 16 you do at the bottom line, and not what words you put out.
17 It is important that as we get into an area in which we're 18 going to require more efficiency,-we realize that whether it l
19 is in the inspector program, or whether it is what we're l
20 doing here, the bottom line is implementation.
We ha.a 21 everything we need.
What we need to do is implement it.
l 22 Thank you, Madam Chair.
23 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
.Thank you very much.
24 Commissioner McGaff'igan?
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
No.
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There are people down there that have got degrees, l
2 they're getting degrees, they're very well qualified.
3 There's'a new field, information technology.
I'm not up on i
4 it, but I know it deals with transfer handling, cataloging 5
information.
And we have 15s doing that.
They could 6
probably pass that down, and I know there's some secretaries 7
that have degrees or are taking college-level courses to 8
learn this.
And you could probably move them up into these 9
new-grade jobs.
10 One of the mentions, David mentioned the problem l
11 with having the Asian Pacifics spend a lot of times at the 12 GG-14 grade.
The IG's briefing this morning, he had a chart 13 which had different characteristics in it, and the grade 14 that stood out the most as being the most unhappy were the 15 GG-14s.
And that's because they're frustrated that they 16 can't get to the 15.
But the, like I said with the l
17 empowerment, you would expand some of the work in the 15' 18 area.
Also, as 15 leave, you shouldn't lxa hiring from the 19 outside.
You should have a total freeze on the higher j
20 grades, and you should have the managers project where 21 they're going to need'the expertise in these higher grades, 22 and then they should motivate the lower-graded professionals 23 to enhance.their skills and training to fulfill these 24
. grades.
l 25 Another thing ~to observe is with the streamlining ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 69 1
and budget cuts the total numbers go down, the total 2
salaries go down, total number of people go down, total 3
number of 14's and above go down.
But the average grade 4
goes up.
The average salary goes up.
You have people who 5
are going to do more with less.
That means they have to 6
enhance their skills, enhance their performance.
They'need 7
an enhancement in pay to do that.
l 8
That's about the end of my comments.
9 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Thank you very much.
10 MR. HEARN: --Thank you.
11 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Would there be any further 12 comments from the subcommittees?
13 MR. NARBUT:
Just one, Commissioner.
14 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Would you please go to the 15 podium.
{
16 Thank you, i
17 MR. NARBUT:
This is not part of the agenda.
I'm 18 Paul Narbut with the CAD.
But one thing I did notice in 19 today's hearing is that we heard the word " age" mentioned 20 twice, both in introductory statements, and I guess I'd ask 21 that the future briefings include at least some discussion 22 of age-related issues.
We have an aging society.
We have 23 an aging work place here in NRC.
And we need to address 24 those issues.
And I guess the central thought that I have 25 is-that we need to keep our ag' ' employees motivated.
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There's always a danger of thinking you've reached the end 2
of the trail, and there's no place to go.
3 And that's the end of my statement.
4 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Thank you very much.
5 I would also like to offer the opportunity for 6
comments from our other committees.
The Affirmative Action 7
Advisory Committee?
8 MR. GREHER:
My name is Elliott Greher, &nd I'm 9
chairman of the Affirmative Action Advisory Committee.
I 10 wanted to place an emphasis on the training and training 11 funds.
We've cut them starkly.
That's not what we should 12 do in this kind of environment.
If anything, we should 13 raise them.
When we have a proportion of people who let's 14 say are hydrologists who lead disproportionately to the 15 number of problems, and I'm just picking on that particular 16 area, without any knowledge about it, and we have to train 17 other people to move into that area and to help out, we need 18 training funds.
19 In almost all the issues that were presented 20 today, training funds would be a way of helping solve a 21 problem, and we don't seem to -- instead of cutting the 22 training funds.
So I very strongly support increasing 23 training funds both for all of the employees in the NRC and 24 for those people who are women or minorities of various 25 kinds, including the handicapped, who could use those funds ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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to advance more surely and to provide for them a feeling of 2
great satisfaction on the job in their own role.
3 Thank you.
4 4
COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
5 Comments from the Advisory Committee for African 6
Americans?
7 MR. HOLT:
No.
8 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Any further comments 9
from the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee?
10 MR. DIEC:
There is one additional comment that I 11 would like to contribute, is that we would strongly 12 encourage the management to look into rotation of assignment 13 opportunities for employees, especially in the area that we 14 don't have much of opportunities for promotions.
In doing 15 that I think that it's not only enhanced the employees' 16 ability to prove that they are worthy of doing more of the 17 important projects or assignments, but also help them to put 18 together a perhaps impressive resume for opportunities when 19 the Agency has opportunities available.
And that is perhaps 20 one of the most important things that we are hoping that 21 will happen for all, so that we can have the ability to 22 compete squarely and fairly.
23 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay.
Thank you.
24 The Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee?
25 MS. RADDATZ:
Thank you, Commissioner.
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I was very happy to hear Hub say that he's using 2
family-friendly work place. issues as a way of addressing 3
some EEO concerns.
As you may have noticed from the Federal l
4 Women's Program statement in your package, we've kind of l
5 departed from our traditional role of providing an analysis 6
of the statistics'to saying that we probably aren't going to 7
be able to have a great impact on the amount of hires or 8
even promotions given the environment in which we are.
9 So what we would hope is that management could 10-help to focus on making our jobs more desirable, to make us 11 enjoy what we're doing more than we are, more than we do 12 now..And thi's sort of thing can be done by things like the 13 work at home program, by offering the kinds of things that i
14 we've done with the Federal ~ women's program, the Bring Your 15 Kids to Work Day and that sort of thing.
I'd also like to 16 see the Agency encourage things like organ donation and 17 other-family-oriented sorts of things.
' 18 -
COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
19 And the Hispanic Employment Program Advisory
(
20 Committee.
21 MR. IBARRA:
Thank you.
We are concerned and you 22 all talked, there was a lot of' talk today about how hard it
-23 is to hire Hispanics and yet we have lost a lot of l
~
24 Hispanics.
Last year we lost like four.
-25 We need'to concentrate on the ones of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Hispanics that are here.
We need to make more opportunities 2
for them and if we are going to recruit, I think all 3
Hispanics at this agency are willing to go and recruit and I 4
think we are very good salesma7.
I think we know our 5
culture, our people, and I think we can make a difference.
1 6
COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
The Joint 7
Labor-Management Equal Employment Opportunity Committee.
8 MR. WEBER:
Good afternoon.
I will be brief.
9 We have had a lot of meaty discussion this 10 afternoon, got a lot of progress to make.
It's interesting 11 and exciting and challenging for all of us to be a 12 participant in that process.
13 I would call your attention to the recommendations 14 that the committee has in the paper.
One in particular that 15 is directly relevant to the Commission is the committee's 16 recommendation that the Commission decide what will happen 17 to the Commissioner Assistance Pool.
That is a program that 18 has been in place for some time, and the committee felt that 19 that was a good opportunity to go forward and make progress I
20 in the EEO area and we don't want to dictate to the 21 Commission by any means what the Commission would like to do 22 with that but we certainly would like to call it to your 23 attention.
24 One other thing that I would offer is all the 25 committees it. a way work for the Commission, and so if there I
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are out of this great assemblage of meaty issues particular 2
issues that the Commission is interested to hear from the 3
committees on, I am sure the committees would be happy to
.4 entertain those topics.
5 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay, thank you.
6 Actually, I want to make a comment about the j
7 Commissioners Assistance Pool or maybe it's the allegeo 8
Commissioners Assistance Pool -- I am not quite sure which 9
-it is, but I think it would be important.
10 I would ask you -- I.would like to have a history 11 of that pool and where it was started, what happened, where 12 it is now, are we using it.
I don't think I used it and 13 does it have validity and should it continue or no.
If it 14 continues, should it continue in some different format.
-)
15 I think it would be useful for us to.have that 16 information.
'17 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I could add to that.
18' I.was aware of the Commissioner Assistance Pool 19 when I came.in, about two years ago, and I think I ended up 20 interviewing 43 people for the various positions in my 21
. office -- the Famous Forty I think we called them -- but in 22-my own judgment there were some good people in the pool and 23 there were some very, very good people who weren't in the 24 pool.
I don't know quite how the competition to get in the 25-pool had been run prior to my' arriving and how old the data l-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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at the pool was when I arrived but I think we do need a 2
recommendation, as Commissioner Dicus has suggested, as to 3
whether it is viable but it was remarkable some of the 4
people who interviewed with me who made known their desire 5
to -- some of them got jobs, some of them didn't -- but 6
there were many who were not in the pool who were very, very 7
good.
8 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Commissioner Diaz.
9 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
On a similar subject, I think 10 I would like and I am sure the Commissioner would benefit 11 from having a sanitized best qualified list in which 12 positions are matched against selections without names -- no 13 names of anybody -- but where we could see what position was 14 here, who were the in best qualified list, was there any 15 minorities, and who got selected.
No names -- but actually 16 so we can see how the process is working, how many 17 minorities are getting in the BQL and how many are being 18 successful.
I think that certainly would help.
19 MR. McDERMOTT:
We have that kind of information.
20 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Thank you.
21 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Well, in closing again I very 22 much would like to thank all of the employees in attendance 23 here and those of you who are listening for your interest in 24 these very important topics, and I would like to thank all 25 of the participants for your views, your comments and your ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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suggestions.
2 Clearly these briefings are comprehensive and it's l
3 a very complex subject, and I think our conversations today, A-4' during these conversations we have heard of our many
{
5 successes and I think we have some opportunities.
They
.6 don't call them failures, they are opportunities -- so these
]
7 are clearly in the performance appraisal..
It is core to so 8
many of our activities and I think it is clear this needs
~9 some attention -- clearly in recruitment, diversity, 10 fairness, fairness in representation, fairness in selection, 11
'and we have to do all these things in a changing environment 12 as we go forward.
13 As external and internal pressures will continue 14 to challenge us as an agency, we are all responsible -- we 15 have responsibilities in creating and promoting an 16 environment in which all employees are provided an equal 17 opportunity to display their talents, to compete for 18 advancements, free of real or perceived preselection, and to 19 contribute to the agency mission.
20 First, I again urge managers and supervisors to 21 ~
continue to evaluate your employees fairly and objectively, 22 to. recognize those employees that demonstrate superior 23 performance, and to provide opportunities for training and 24-for development.
25 Second, I would like to thank again those of you 9
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who serve as EEO counsellors, providing a very critical 2
function in this very important area, and I encourage you to 3
continue your excellent performance.
4 To all employees, the Commission thanks you for 5
your efforts and we appreciate everything you have given to 6
this agency.
7 Now unless there are any other comments, then we 8
will stand adjourned.
l I
9 (Whereupon, at 3:53 p.m.,
the briefing was 10 concluded.]
l l
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 l
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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