HR garners Secretary appreciation

by Lisa Meiman

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu presents Frances Telles with the Secretary's Appreciation Award, Nov. 21.

Western’s Human Resources Office received the Secretary’s Appreciation Award for management and operational excellence from Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at the Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C., Nov. 21.

Frances Telles, Human Resources Manager at the Corporate Services Office, received the award on behalf of Western for its successful efforts to reform the hiring process in line with DOE, Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget initiatives.

"This award is a Western achievement. It is a reflection on everyone that was involved in the hiring process throughout [Fiscal Year] 2011," said Telles. "This award represents the One Western team effort and reflects well on our ability to pull together and support each other through numerous changes."

Western was nominated by the DOE Human Capital Office for its notable achievements in expedient hiring and surpassing DOE hiring targets for certain groups in FY 2011.

"We wouldn’t have received this award without the substantial effort from the HR advisors and administrative officers in the regions, buy-in from management and cooperation and motivation from the hiring officials," said Telles.

Streamlining the hiring process
In response to a May 2010 presidential memorandum to improve the Federal hiring process, DOE established a 100-calendar-day benchmark for FY 2011, which starts at the beginning of the recruitment process and ends at the new hire’s arrival on site. DOE’s FY 2012 goal further constricted this goal to 80 calendar days.

To comply, Western streamlined its hiring process in September 2010, implementing the 5-Step Hiring Process and some of DOE’s 17 action items. Fifteen of the 17 have been implemented since the program’s inception.

"Mini-training sessions for supervisors and managers were held throughout FY 2011. We standardized the position descriptions for Wage Board and Administratively Determined positions, revamped the vacancy announcements to make them more user friendly and started the 5-Step Hiring Process, which has been received positively by both hiring officials and the applicants," said Telles.

In FY 2011, Western’s average hiring time from recruitment to new employee arrival was just 78 days for 184 hiring actions, far below the DOE goal and DOE FY 2011 average of about 101 days. This was a significant improvement over the 108-day average for FY 2010.

Expanding diversity
DOE also instituted metrics for hiring disadvantaged groups, such as veterans and people with disabilities.

In FY 2011, Western more than doubled DOE’s disability hiring goal of 7 percent with a rate of 17.5 percent. Also, Western exceeded DOE’s veteran target and doubled the disabled veteran target with 31.7 percent and 14.2 percent, respectively. DOE’s corresponding goals were 21.4 percent and 6.6 percent.

"It took a lot of individuals to exceed the goals. Hiring officials were open to using the various recruitment options and special hiring authorities offered by Western’s hiring process," said Telles.

Western’s HR office tracks hiring statistics on their web page under HR Metrics – How are we doing? Its last award was a DOE HEROS Award given to the Western Workforce Planning Team in 2007.

"This is a great success for many hardworking people here at Western," said Chief Operating Officer Tony Montoya. "Their work to surpass DOE’s expectations is nothing short of stellar. This is just another example of Western being a ‘best in class’ organization."

The Secretary Appreciation Award is given to individuals and groups as recognition for going above and beyond in their work endeavors.