MODERNIZING THE 

NUCLEAR SECURITY 

ENTERPRISE

Strategies and 

Challenges in 

Sustaining Critical 

Skills in Federal and 

Contractor 

Workforces

Report to the Subcommittee on Oversight 

of Government Management, the Federal 

Workforce, and the District of Columbia, 

Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate

April 2012

GAO-12-468

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-12-468, a report to the 

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 

Management, the Federal Workforce, and the 

District of Columbia, Committee on Homeland 

Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. 

Senate

April 2012

MODERNIZING THE NUCLEAR SECURITY 

ENTERPRISE

Strategies and Challenges in Sustaining Critical 

Skills in Federal and Contractor Workforces

Why GAO Did This Study

NNSA has primary responsibility for 

ensuring the safety, security, and 

reliability of the nation’s nuclear 

weapons stockpile. NNSA carries out 

these activities at three national labs, 

four production sites, and one test 

site—collectively known as the nuclear 

security enterprise. Contractors 

operate these sites under management 

and operations (M&O) contracts. The 

enterprise workforces often possess 

certain critical skills that can only be 

developed through a minimum of 3 

years of experience working in a 

secure, classified environment. 

Because NNSA could have difficulty 

maintaining the critically skilled 

workforces necessary to ensure the 

safety, security, and reliability of the 

nation’s nuclear weapons, GAO was 

asked to examine: (1) strategies NNSA 

and its M&O contractors use to recruit, 

develop, and retain critically skilled 

workforces; (2) how NNSA assesses 

the effectiveness of these strategies; 

and (3) challenges in recruiting, 

retaining, and developing this 

specialized workforce and efforts to 

mitigate these challenges. GAO 

reviewed NNSA’s and its M&O 

contractors’ human capital documents 

and interviewed officials.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that NNSA consider 

developing standardized definitions for 

human capital metrics across the 

enterprise to ensure NNSA and its 

M&O contractors gather consistent 

contractor data. NNSA concurred with 

GAO’s recommendation. 

What GAO Found

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its M&O contractors 

have developed and implemented multifaceted strategies to recruit, develop, and 

retain both the federal and contractor workforces needed to preserve critical skills 

in the enterprise. NNSA’s recruiting and retention efforts for its federal staff focus 

on attracting early career hires with competitive pay and development 

opportunities. Its development efforts generally rely on two key programs to 

develop its critically skilled workforce––one that identifies needs and another that 

identifies the qualifications necessary to meet them. For strategic planning 

purposes, NNSA is also undertaking a comprehensive reassessment and 

analysis of staffing requirements to ascertain future federal workforce 

requirements. M&O contractors’ recruitment and retention strategies vary from 

site to site, but each site focuses on maintaining competitive compensation 

packages. Their development efforts vary in approach and scope and face some 

challenges––particularly in preserving underground nuclear testing skills. 

To assess the effectiveness of its own––and its M&O contractors’––strategies for 

recruiting, developing, and retaining the workforces needed to preserve critical 

skills, NNSA monitors key human capital metrics. NNSA focuses on two key 

metrics in assessing its own strategies—the time it takes to hire a new employee 

and its attrition rates. To assess the effectiveness of its contractors’ strategies, 

NNSA monitors key human capital metrics using data that M&O contractors 

collect, including acceptance rates, attrition rates, comparability of pay and 

benefits with peer institutions, and the ability to fill a critical skills position within a 

certain number of days. M&O contractors assess key human capital performance 

measures, but these metrics do not have standardized definitions. For example, 

one of the M&O contractors’ key metrics—acceptance rates for offers of 

employment—may not be consistently measured across the enterprise. Without 

this information, NNSA’s ability to monitor the effectiveness of its and its M&O 

contractors’ strategies to recruit, develop, and retain the workforces needed to 

preserve critical skills may be hindered. In particular, without common 

enterprisewide definitions of human capital performance metrics, NNSA may not 

be able to collect consistent and comparable data across all eight sites in the 

enterprise. 

The enterprise’s work environments and site locations pose recruiting 

challenges, and NNSA and its M&O contractors face shortages of qualified 

candidates, among other challenges. For example, staff must often work in 

secure areas that prohibit the use of personal cell phones, e-mail, and social 

media, which is a disadvantage in attracting younger skilled candidates. In 

addition, many sites are geographically isolated and may offer limited career 

opportunities for candidates’ spouses. Critically skilled positions also require 

security clearances—and therefore U.S. citizenship—and a large percentage of 

students graduating from top science, technology, and engineering programs are 

foreign nationals. The pool of qualified candidates is also attractive to high 

technology firms in the private sector, which may offer more desirable work 

environments. NNSA and its M&O contractors are taking actions to address 

these challenges where possible, including streamlining hiring and security 

clearance processes and taking actions to proactively identify new scientists and 

engineers to build a pipeline of critically skilled candidates.

View GAO-12-468. For more information, 

contact Gene Aloise at (202) 512-3841 or 

aloisee@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

Letter 1 

Background 6

NNSA and Its M&O Contractors Use Multifaceted Strategies to 

Recruit, Develop, and Retain Their Workforces 9

NNSA Monitors Key Human Capital Metrics to Assess the 

Effectiveness of Strategies to Maintain Critically Skilled 

Workforces 23

NNSA and Its M&O Contractors Face Challenges in Recruiting, 

Retaining, and Developing Their Workforces 28

Conclusions 35

Recommendation for Executive Action 36

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 36

Appendix I Comments from the National Nuclear Security Administration 38

Appendix II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 39

Figure

Figure 1: Nuclear Security Enterprise Sites 7

Abbreviations

CHRD Contractor Human Resources Division 

DOE Department of Energy

KPP Knowledge Preservation Program

M&O management and operations

NNSA National Nuclear Security Administration

TQP Technical Qualification Program

Contents

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Page 1 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

April 26, 2012

The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka

Chairman

The Honorable Ron Johnson

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management,

 the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—a separately 

organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE)—has primary 

responsibility for ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of the 

nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.1 NNSA carries out these activities at 

eight government-owned, contractor-operated sites, which include three 

national laboratories, four production plants, and one test site. 

Collectively, these sites are referred to as the nuclear security enterprise. 

The enterprise, formerly known as the nuclear weapons complex, has 

been a significant component of U.S. national security since the 1940s. 

Contractors operate sites within the enterprise under management and 

operations (M&O) contracts.2

Historically, confidence in the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile 

was derived through a continuous process of designing, testing, and 

deploying new weapons to replace older weapons. In 1992, at the end of 

the Cold War, and in response to a congressionally imposed U.S. nuclear 

These contracts provide the contractor with 

broad discretion in carrying out the mission of the particular contract but 

grant the government the option to become much more directly involved 

in day-to-day management and operations.

 

1

NNSA was created in 1999 under Title 32 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 

Fiscal Year 2000, Pub. L No. 106-65, § 3201 et seq.

2

M&O contracts are agreements under which the government contracts for the operation, 

maintenance, or support, on its behalf, of a government-owned or -controlled research, 

development, special production, or testing establishment wholly or principally devoted to 

one or more of the major programs of the contracting federal agency. Federal Acquisition 

Regulation, 48 C.F.R. § 17.601.

 
 

Page 2 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

test moratorium,3

Currently, NNSA’s workforce is made up of about 34,000 M&O contractor 

employees that span the enterprise, and about 2,400 federal employees 

directly employed by NNSA in its Washington headquarters, at site offices 

located at each of the eight enterprise sites, and at its Albuquerque, New 

Mexico, complex. NNSA’s staff provide leadership and program 

management for the nuclear security enterprise and support and oversee 

its M&O contractors by providing business, technical, financial, legal, and 

management advice, including support for contractor workforce planning 

and restructuring, compensation, benefits, oversight of labormanagement relations, and the quality of contractor deliverables such as 

nuclear weapons components. Many workers in the enterprise––both 

NNSA’s staff and its M&O contractors––possess certain critical skills not 

readily available in the job market. These workers often have advanced 

degrees in scientific or engineering fields or experience in high-skill, 

advanced manufacturing techniques. In addition, certain critical skills are 

unique to the enterprise and, according to NNSA officials, can only be 

developed within its secure, classified environment. According to these

officials, it generally takes a minimum of 3 years of on-the-job training to 

achieve the skills necessary to succeed in most critical skills positions. 

Some nuclear weapons expertise can take even longer to develop and 

must be gained through several years of mentoring, training, and on-thejob experience. For example, according to officials at Los Alamos 

National Laboratory, it takes 5 to10 years to train a scientist or engineer 

with an advanced degree to be a fully qualified nuclear weaponeer.

the United States ceased underground testing of 

nuclear weapons, and adopted the Stockpile Stewardship Program as an 

alternative to testing and producing new weapons. The Stockpile 

Stewardship Program primarily relies on analytical simulations and 

computer modeling to make expert judgments about the safety, security, 

and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons. In addition, NNSA 

refurbishes weapons in the stockpile to extend their operational lives. 

Under current national policy, NNSA may also be called upon to resume 

underground nuclear testing at the Nevada National Security Site within a 

3-year time frame under certain circumstances, including the 

accumulation of uncertainties about the reliability of the nuclear stockpile.

 

3

The moratorium was begun pursuant to the Energy and Water Development 

Appropriations Act, 1993, Pub. L. No. 102-377, § 507 (1992). The Comprehensive Nuclear 

Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear explosions, was signed by the United States 

in September 1996 but has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. 
 

Page 3 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

Over the last 20 years, in an effort to operate more efficiently and at 

reduced cost, DOE has sharply reduced its enterprise contractor 

workforce––from approximately 52,000 in 1992 to its current level of 

about 34,000. This decrease raised concerns about preserving critical 

skills in the enterprise. In 1999, a report from a congressionally mandated 

commission warned that unless DOE acted quickly to recruit and retain its 

critically skilled staff and M&O contractor employees—and sharpen the 

expertise already available—the department could have difficulty ensuring 

the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons.4 DOE, 

and later NNSA, took steps to correct these problems, and in February 

2005, we reported that these efforts had been generally effective.5

However, in February 2011, in a report assessing the extent to which 

NNSA has the data necessary to make informed, enterprisewide 

decisions,6

 

4

In 1997, the National Defense Authorization Act, Pub. L. No. 104-201 §3162 (1996) 

established the Commission on Maintaining U.S. Nuclear Weapons Expertise (known as 

the “Chiles Commission”) and directed it to assess and report to Congress on, among 

other things, DOE’s ongoing efforts to recruit and retain scientific, engineering, and 

technical personnel. The Commission’s 1999 report projected that large numbers of 

retirements over the next few years could further erode the experience and expertise of 

the critically skilled workforce. See Report of the Commission on Maintaining U.S. Nuclear 

Weapons Expertise: Report to the Congress and Secretary of Energy (Washington, D.C.: 

Mar. 1, 1999).

we found that NNSA did not have comprehensive information 

on the status of its M&O contractor workforce. In particular, we reported 

that NNSA did not have data on the critical skills needed to maintain the 

Stockpile Stewardship Program’s capabilities. As a result, we 

recommended that NNSA establish a plan with time frames and 

milestones for the development of a comprehensive contractor workforce 

baseline that includes the identification of critical human capital skills, 

competencies, and levels needed to maintain the nation’s nuclear 

weapons strategy. NNSA stated that it understood all of our 

recommendations in that report and believed that it could implement 

them. As of March 2012, NNSA had completed a draft plan and was 

incorporating stakeholders’ comments. NNSA officials said that they 

expect to complete the final contractor workforce baseline plan by May 

2012.

5

GAO, National Nuclear Security Administration: Contractors’ Strategies to Recruit and 

Retain Critically Skilled Workforce Are Generally Effective, GAO-05-164 (Feb. 2, 2005).

6

GAO, Nuclear Weapons: NNSA Needs More Comprehensive Infrastructure and 

Workforce Data to Improve Enterprise Decision-making, GAO-11-188 (Feb. 14, 2011).
 

Page 4 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

NNSA expressed concerns in its FY 2012 Stockpile Stewardship 

Management Plan about the state of both its federal and contractor 

workforces, stating that there was an urgent need to “refresh” both. In 

particular, NNSA noted that many employees have retired or are 

expected to retire soon. At the same time, NNSA’s mission has become 

even more dependent on high-level science, computer science, 

technology, and engineering skills as it has moved from underground 

testing as a means for assessing the safety and reliability of nuclear 

weapons to one dependent on advanced computer simulations, analyses, 

and nonnuclear tests. These changes make it even more important that 

NNSA and its M&O contractors preserve critical skills in their workforces. 

Additional concerns about human capital in the enterprise have been 

raised by the debate over––and eventual ratification of––the New Start 

Treaty,7

In this context, you asked us to examine NNSA’s human capital planning. 

Specifically, our objectives were to examine: (1) the strategies NNSA and 

its M&O contractors use to recruit, develop, and retain the workforces 

needed to preserve the critical skills in the enterprise; (2) how NNSA 

assesses the effectiveness of these strategies; and (3) challenges that 

NNSA and its M&O contractors face in recruiting, retaining, and 

developing this specialized workforce and their efforts to mitigate these 

challenges.

which commits the United States to reduce the size of its 

strategic nuclear weapon stockpile from a maximum of 2,200 to 1,550 

nuclear weapons. Reductions in the number of nuclear weapons make it 

all the more important that NNSA and contractor staff have the requisite 

critical skills to maintain the safety, security, and reliability of the 

remaining weapons. However, as the enterprise has contracted, NNSA 

officials note that training opportunities have been limited, leaving little or 

no redundancy in certain critical skills within the contractor workforce.

To address these three objectives, we conducted interviews with human 

capital planning officials at NNSA headquarters, the Albuquerque 

complex in New Mexico, and all eight NNSA site offices. We also 

obtained and reviewed NNSA information about recruiting and retention 

practices for critically skilled employees, as well as each site’s efforts to 

preserve knowledge needed to sustain critical capabilities. We visited six 

 

7

The U.S. Senate passed the resolution of ratification for the New Start Treaty on 

December 22, 2010. President Obama signed the instrument of ratification on February 2, 

2011.
 

Page 5 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

of the eight sites in the enterprise, including the three national 

laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National 

Laboratories in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

in California; two of the production plants, the Pantex Plant in Texas and 

the Y-12 Plant in Tennessee; and the test site, Nevada National Security 

Site in Nevada. We conducted telephone interviews with human capital 

managers at the two other production plants, the Kansas City Plant in 

Missouri and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. To examine the 

strategies NNSA and its M&O contractors use to recruit and retain 

critically skilled workers, we collected key workforce data from each 

facility, including NNSA and M&O contractor reports and other documents 

on the performance and progress made in meeting recruitment and 

retention targets. To identify challenges in retaining, recruiting, and 

developing the critical skills workforce, we sent a standardized set of 

questions about workforce planning efforts and challenges to each M&O 

contractor and NNSA site office, and analyzed their written responses. 

We also interviewed NNSA and M&O human capital officials at each site 

about site-specific workforce challenges and their efforts to address them. 

We reviewed two NNSA systems for managing human capital data; to 

assess the reliability of these systems, we interviewed knowledgeable 

NNSA officials to assess the reliability of these data and determined that 

they were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. We 

conducted this performance audit from December 2010 through April 

2012, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
 

Page 6 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

To ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s nuclear 

weapons stockpile, NNSA relies on contractors who manage and operate 

government-owned laboratories, production plants, and a test site. 

NNSA’s eight enterprise sites each perform a different function, all 

collectively working toward fulfilling NNSA’s nuclear weapons-related 

mission. Figure 1 shows the locations of the sites and describes their 

functions.

Background 
 

Page 7 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

Figure 1: Nuclear Security Enterprise Sites
 

Page 8 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

To provide support and oversight, NNSA locates between about 30 and 

110 NNSA staff in a site office at each facility, and also draws on the 

resources of NNSA staff in headquarters and the Albuquerque complex. 

According to NNSA officials, this support and oversight requires that 

some NNSA staff have critical skills comparable to the contractors they 

support and oversee. For example, NNSA staff may need technical 

knowledge and expertise to accept and review deliverables from M&O 

contracts and, when presented with options, be able to determine how 

best to proceed to meet contract goals, mission, and objectives. They 

may also need skills related to the safe operation of sensitive defense 

nuclear facilities such as expertise in occupational safety and fire safety. 

For example, according to NNSA officials at the Livermore Site Office, 

most of the staff in critical skills positions there are focused on ensuring 

safety at the laboratory’s nuclear facilities.

Maintaining critical skills within its workforce is not a challenge unique to 

NNSA. Every 2 years, we provide Congress with an update on GAO’s 

high-risk program, under which GAO designates certain government 

operations as high risk due to their greater vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, 

abuse, and mismanagement, or their need for transformation to address 

economy, efficiency, or effectiveness challenges. In 2001, GAO 

designated strategic human capital management across the entire federal 

government as a high-risk area, in part because critical skill gaps could 

undermine agencies’ abilities to accomplish their missions. We have also 

reported in the past that NNSA and its predecessor organizations’ record 

of inadequate management and oversight of contractors has left the 

government vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. 

Contract management at DOE has been on GAO’s high risk list since 

1990, the first year our high-risk list was published.8 Progress has been 

made, but NNSA and DOE’s Office of Environmental Management 

remain on our high-risk list.9

As of 2011, our most recent update of the high-risk list, significant steps 

had been taken to address some of the federal government’s strategic 

human capital challenges. Strategic human capital management was 

designated a high-risk area 10 years earlier governmentwide and remains 

 

8

GAO, Government Financial Vulnerability: 14 Areas Needing Special Review, OCG-90-1

(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 23, 1990).

9

GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-11-278 (Feb. 16, 2011).
 

Page 9 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

on the high-risk list because of a need for all federal agencies to address 

current and emerging critical skills gaps that are or could undermine 

agencies’ abilities to meet their vital missions. Specifically, across the

federal government, we reported that resolving remaining high-risk 

human capital challenges will require three categories of actions:

• Planning. Agencies’ workforce plans must define the root causes of 

skills gaps, identify effective solutions to skills shortages, and provide 

the steps necessary to implement solutions.

• Implementation. Agencies’ recruitment, hiring, and development 

strategies must be responsive to changing applicant and workforce 

needs and expectations and also show the capacity to define and 

implement corrective measures to narrow skill shortages.

• Measurement and evaluation. Agencies need to measure the effects 

of key initiatives to address critical skills gaps, evaluate the 

performance of those initiatives, and make appropriate adjustments. 

NNSA and its M&O contractors have developed and implemented 

multifaceted strategies to recruit, develop, and retain both the federal and 

contractor workforces needed to preserve critical capabilities in the 

enterprise. NNSA focuses on attracting early career hires with competitive 

pay and development opportunities, and the agency is reassessing future 

enterprisewide workforce needs. M&O contractors’ strategies vary from 

site to site, but each site focuses on maintaining competitive 

compensation packages.

NNSA takes various steps to recruit, develop, and retain a federal 

workforce with the necessary critical skills. NNSA’s recruitment strategies 

are focused primarily on students and recent graduates in science and 

engineering programs. NNSA generally relies on two key programs to 

develop its critically skilled workforce––one that identifies needs and 

another that identifies the qualifications necessary to meet them. Its 

retention efforts focus on competitive pay, flexible schedules, and 

development opportunities. NNSA is also undertaking a comprehensive 

reassessment to ascertain future federal workforce requirements.

NNSA and Its M&O 

Contractors Use 

Multifaceted 

Strategies to Recruit, 

Develop, and Retain 

Their Workforces

NNSA Focuses on 

Attracting Early Career 

Federal Workforce Hires 

with Competitive Pay, 

Flexible Schedules, and 

Development 

Opportunities 
 

Page 10 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

NNSA has several programs targeted toward recruiting students and 

recent graduates, primarily in science and engineering fields. NNSA 

began these programs within the past 7 years as a means of succession 

planning.10

• The Student Temporary Employment Program is a summer internship 

program for high school through graduate students of any discipline. 

Students participating in this program receive a salary while working 

at NNSA.

NNSA’s programs focused on recruiting students include the 

following:

• The Student Career Experience Program is a program for graduate 

students in science, engineering, and other fields. This program aims 

to persuade skilled graduates to pursue careers in NNSA. Participants 

work for NNSA full-time during school breaks and part-time the rest of 

the year. These positions can be converted to full-time competitive 

appointments when participants receive their degrees.

• The Minority Serving Institutions Program aims to strengthen the 

diversity of the applicant pool by exposing younger minority students 

to technical fields and NNSA work early in their educational careers. 

This program focuses on students beginning in junior high school and 

continues through college entry and has cooperative agreements to 

enhance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula 

at all levels at 29 minority-serving institutions. Since the program’s 

inception in 2007, 167 minority students have participated in hands-on 

research at NNSA site offices and laboratories.

NNSA’s key program for recruitment of recent graduates is its Future 

Leaders Program. NNSA established the program in 2005 to recruit 

recent U.S. citizen graduates of bachelor’s and master’s programs, 

primarily in engineering and science. The Future Leaders Program is a 2-

year development program that requires participants to complete 

classroom and on-the-job training, in addition to developmental 

assignments outside their home office. NNSA hires about 30 recent 

graduates into this program each year. Applicants are hired into the 

 

10Succession planning is an ongoing, strategic process for identifying and developing a 

diverse pool of talent for an organization’s potential future leaders. GAO, Diversity 

Management: Expert-Identified Leading Practices and Agency Examples, GAO-05-90

(Jan. 14, 2005).

NNSA’s Recruitment Strategies 

Focus on Students and Recent 

Graduates in Science and 

Engineering Programs 
 

Page 11 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

program offices where they will be permanently placed and are selected 

based on each program office’s skills needs. According to NNSA officials, 

approximately two-thirds of the 175 program participants hired from 2005 

through 2010 have engineering and science backgrounds that enable 

them to develop the technical critical skills NNSA needs to provide 

support and oversight of contractors. As their careers advance, some 

program participants are expected to become more focused on 

developing deep expertise in a particular technical area, and others will 

gravitate toward more senior management and leadership positions. 

NNSA officials told us they consider the program very successful because 

nearly 90 percent of all those hired into the program since 2005 remained 

at NNSA.

NNSA relies primarily on two programs to develop a federal workforce 

with the requisite critical skills––the Federal Technical Capability Program 

and the Technical Qualification Program (TQP). NNSA employees’ critical 

skills generally fall into two broad categories: (1) technical skills related to 

managing the safe operation of nuclear facilities, and (2) technical 

knowledge and expertise necessary to accept and review contract 

deliverables. To ensure that it has sufficient numbers of federal 

employees with critical skills to manage the safe operation of nuclear 

facilities, NNSA relies on the Federal Technical Capability Program11

 

11DOE O 426.1, Federal Technical Capability, Sept. 20, 2011.

––a 

DOE-wide effort to define requirements and responsibilities for meeting 

the department’s commitment for recruiting, developing, and retaining the 

technically competent workforce necessary to achieve this mission. To 

implement the goals of the Federal Technical Capability Program at the 

site level, NNSA senior managers conduct annual workforce analyses 

and develop staffing plans that identify critical technical capabilities and 

positions that ensure the safe operation of nuclear facilities. For example, 

NNSA relies on senior managers to identify the fire safety needs for the 

National Ignition Facility, a stadium size research facility at Lawrence 

Livermore National Laboratory and to identify how many fire protection 

engineers are required to meet these needs. To help meet these goals, 

DOE established the TQP, which sets technical qualification requirements 

for NNSA positions related to the safe operation of nuclear facilities and 

tracks federal employees’ progress in meeting these qualifications. More 

specifically, the TQP documents how NNSA:

NNSA’s Development 

Strategies Include Two Key 

Programs
 

Page 12 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

• identifies needed positions,

• tailors qualification standards for them,

• establishes time and duty limitations for qualification,

• describes the process to identify learning activities to achieve 

competency for the specific job duties, and

• establishes methods for evaluating qualification.

NNSA officials told us that only federal employees in positions related to 

managing the safe operation of nuclear facilities are required to 

participate in the TQP. However, NNSA managers may also subject 

employees who accept and review contract deliverables to TQP 

requirements to help ensure that they have the skills necessary to 

evaluate technical criteria of contract deliverables.

Beyond the TQP, according to NNSA officials, human capital managers 

rely on annual human capital needs assessments to inform subsequent 

recruitment and hiring efforts to ensure the requisite mix of skills is 

present in the federal workforce. These assessments consider attrition 

and other demographic data, succession planning, and education and 

experience requirements. For example, NNSA officials told us that in 

2011 its Office of Human Capital Management surveyed NNSA programs 

to identify needs for the Future Leaders Program. As part of this survey, 

they analyzed attrition in the federal workforce and used the information 

to assist in decisions about how many engineers to hire across the 

enterprise through the Future Leaders Program. Recruitment efforts in 

2012 will focus on finding replacements for these engineers.

NNSA’s retention strategies focus on offering new staff competitive pay, 

flexible schedules, and career development opportunities.

Competitive pay. According to NNSA officials, NNSA’s retention efforts 

place a high priority on preserving the agency’s capacity to offer 

competitive compensation. For example, for relatively new hires, such as 

those hired through the Future Leaders Program, NNSA can sometimes 

offer as much as $6,000 in lump sum hiring bonuses and up to $10,000 in 

student loan repayment in return for signing a service agreement. In 

some cases, NNSA is also able to offer retention bonuses of up to 25 

percent of annual salary to employees that might otherwise leave federal 

service. In addition, NNSA has the flexibility to offer particularly desirable 

NNSA’s Retention Strategies 

Focus on Competitive Pay, 

Flexible Schedules, and Career 

Development Opportunities
 

Page 13 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

applicants higher starting salaries and reward top performers with higher 

pay.

For more senior employees, according to NNSA officials, DOE and NNSA 

sought, and were granted, authorities by Congress to offer higher pay to 

staff primarily in certain engineering and science fields. Specifically, to 

help it retain more experienced competitive service employees with 

critical skills––that is, employees in regular civil service positions—

Congress granted exceptions to normal hiring regulations, including 

salary caps, under three excepted service authorities. First, under the 

Department of Energy Organization Act,12 the Secretary of Energy is 

granted special excepted service hiring authorities to hire up to 200 highly 

skilled scientific, engineering, professional, and administrative individuals 

to upgrade the department’s technical and professional capabilities. 

NNSA can use this authority in some cases to hire senior-level 

employees from outside the government or difficult-to-hire administrative 

staff. According to NNSA officials, there are presently 50 such individuals 

employed by NNSA. Second, under the National Defense Authorization 

Act,13 the Secretary of Energy is also granted special excepted service 

hiring authorities to hire up to 200 highly skilled individuals––typically 

scientists, technicians and engineers with skills related to and necessary 

for the operation of nuclear facilities. According to NNSA officials, there 

are currently about 100 such individuals currently employed by NNSA. 

Third, under the National Nuclear Security Administration Act,14 NNSA 

may hire up to 300 highly qualified scientists, engineers, and other 

technically skilled workers needed to support the missions of NNSA under 

similar excepted service hiring authorities. According to NNSA officials, 

NNSA has used this authority to hire and employ about 280 highly skilled 

individuals.15

 

12Pub. L. No. 95-91 §621(d) (1977).

NNSA officials told us that all of these flexibilities are useful 

and help NNSA compete with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 

national laboratories.

13Pub. L. No. 103-337 §3161 (1994).

14Pub. L. No. 106-65 §3241 (2000).

15For excepted service positions, each agency develops, within basic requirements 

prescribed by law or regulation, its own hiring system, which establishes the evaluation 

criteria to be used in filling these excepted positions.
 

Page 14 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

Flexible schedules. NNSA’s retention efforts also include a flexible 

schedule program that gives employees the opportunity to work a 

nontraditional schedule or vary their work hours from day to day. For 

example, employees with school-aged children may opt to work more 

than 8 hours some days and fewer hours other days in order to 

accommodate school early release days.

Development opportunities. NNSA offers some employees the 

opportunity to undertake career development opportunities such as 

rotational assignments and details. Integral parts of the Future Leaders 

Program are 30-day local rotational assignments and 60-day 

headquarters or field assignments away from their home locations. For 

example, a Future Leaders Program participant based in NNSA’s 

Washington headquarters who is interested in a program run by Sandia 

National Laboratories in Albuquerque might be assigned for 60 days to 

related work at NNSA’s Sandia Site Office or Albuquerque complex. In 

addition, NNSA has implemented a program called the In-Teach 

Program, which focuses on knowledge preservation and transfer by 

providing funding to train highly skilled senior employees to become more 

adept at transferring knowledge and skills to less skilled more junior 

employees.

NNSA is currently undertaking a comprehensive reassessment and 

analysis of the staffing requirements for its federal workforce through 

2016 in headquarters and field locations. NNSA officials told us that the 

reassessment is needed for strategic planning purposes and will improve 

NNSA’s efforts to ensure that its federal workforce has the skills 

necessary to carry out its missions, including technical, support, and 

oversight capabilities. The reassessment includes the following four 

phases:

• Describing and identifying organizational core competencies, and the 

workforce required for NNSA’s future

• Analyzing the current workforce and gaps related to requirements for 

NNSA’s future

• Developing a plan to close gaps between future requirements and the 

current workforce

• Developing and implementing a workforce management system which 

is integrated with legacy Department of Energy human capital 

information technology systems

NNSA Is Undertaking a 

Comprehensive Reassessment 

to Ascertain Future Federal 

Workforce Requirements 
 

Page 15 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

NNSA officials told us they expect the reassessment and resulting report 

to be complete in fiscal year 2013.

M&O contractors’ recruitment, development, and retention strategies are 

site-specific. Generally, their recruitment efforts vary by the type of 

employee needed––particularly, whether the position requires an 

advanced degree. Their development efforts vary in approach but are 

also site specific and face some challenges––particularly in preserving 

underground nuclear testing skills. Their retention efforts focus on 

maintaining competitive total compensation packages––salaries and 

benefits––but their strategies to mitigate attrition vary from site to site.

NNSA’s M&O contractors have developed and implemented site-specific 

strategies to recruit, develop, and retain the workforces needed to 

preserve critical capabilities throughout the enterprise and accomplish 

NNSA’s mission. Accordingly, contractors have typically developed sitespecific workforce planning systems that enable them to identify the kinds 

of candidates they need to recruit, develop, and retain in order to align 

projected nuclear weapons-related work and budget resources. Using 

these workforce planning systems, site managers can anticipate the 

nuclear weapons-related work NNSA has contracted for, how it will be 

funded, how many staff are required, and what skills will be needed, and 

can avoid potential shortages in staff or skills. For example, in the course 

of their 2- and 5-year planning processes, managers at Sandia National 

Laboratories use a four-step workforce planning tool, the Workforce 

Acquisition Project, to anticipate critical skills hiring needs based on the 

expected lab-wide business outlook and attrition. This early assessment 

of critical skills requirements ensures that the contractor has sufficient 

time to identify and recruit new staff as necessary and give new staff 

time––generally 2 to 5 or more years––to develop their skills.

M&O contractors’ strategies for recruitment vary according to the kinds of 

employees they need to hire—in particular, whether the position requires 

an advanced degree. For example, the weapons laboratories, which 

include Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore National 

Laboratories, typically require highly skilled candidates with advanced 

degrees to replace physicists, engineers, and other experts who retire or 

leave for other jobs. M&O contractors at weapons laboratories thus focus 

their recruitment efforts on students and recent graduates of the nation’s 

leading graduate schools in science, engineering, and mathematics. 

Efforts to attract candidates begin with summer internship programs and 

continue with support for post-doctoral fellowships and direct offers of 

M&O Contractors’ 

Recruitment, 

Development, and 

Retention Strategies Vary 

but Generally Focus on 

Competitive Compensation 

Packages

M&O Contractors’ Recruitment, 

Development, and Retention 

Strategies Are Site-Specific

M&O Contractors’ Recruitment 

Strategies Vary According to 

the Types of Employees 

Needed 
 

Page 16 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

employment. Officials at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory told 

us that, in addition to these efforts to recruit students and recent 

graduates, they also recruit at the midcareer or higher level at 

professional meetings in science and technology fields and through the 

cooperative relationships with American universities and industries to 

broaden the prospective employee pool and enhance the intellectual 

vitality of its existing workforce.

According to M&O contractor officials, the critical skills needs at other 

enterprise production plants, such as the Y-12 National Security Complex 

and Pantex Plant, differ from those at the weapons laboratories, and their 

recruiting strategies reflect these differences. Unlike the weapons 

laboratories, production plants generally do not require candidates with 

advanced degrees; rather candidates typically need a bachelor’s degree 

or, in the case of manufacturing and skilled craft positions, an associate’s 

degree or skills in advanced manufacturing techniques. As such, M&O 

contractors at production plants can generally recruit regionally for the 

staff they need and have less need to recruit nationally. For example, 

M&O contractor officials at Y-12 told us that they recruit predominately 

bachelor’s level candidates––predominately engineers––from universities 

within a 300-mile radius of Oak Ridge, particularly from the University of 

Tennessee in nearby Knoxville. Production plants are also generally wellestablished within their communities and focus most of their recruitment 

efforts for skilled manufacturing positions on the local area. For example, 

M&O contractor officials at the Pantex Plant told us that they have 

developed strong ties with local community colleges over the years and 

typically look for high school graduates and community college students 

and graduates with some specialized, skilled training or work experience. 

Nevertheless, according to Pantex officials, they have also taken 

advantage of opportunities to recruit from outside the local areas, seizing 

opportunities to recruit automotive workers with machine tool experience 

and highly skilled plant workers from another nuclear security enterprise 

production facility, the Savannah River Site, in the wake a reduction in 

force.

M&O contractors told us their strategies for development are often linked 

to recruitment because appealing development opportunities can 

encourage candidates to accept job offers. As with strategies for 

recruitment, those for development are tailored to the specific needs of

each site’s workforce, but many of the M&O contracting officials we spoke 

with cited continuing educational opportunities and the option to move 

within the organization as appealing development opportunities. For 

example, M&O contractor officials at Sandia National Laboratories told us 

M&O Contractors’

Development Strategies Vary in 

Approach and Scope and Face 

Some Challenges 
 

Page 17 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

that offering continuous training opportunities and the opportunity to move 

to different jobs within different components of the laboratory was very 

appealing to entry-level hires. Accordingly, Sandia’s Corporate Learning 

and Professional Development Programs offer various training 

opportunities. Sandia officials told us that these opportunities help 

employees keep skills current, provide additional educational 

opportunities, and help laboratory management anticipate critical skills 

needs in the workforce. As part of these programs employees can also 

take training offered by Sandia’s technical and compliance training group, 

which is focused on skills currently in demand at Sandia, or participate in 

university graduate degree programs, which Sandia will pay for. The 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Education Assistance 

Program provides up to $50,000 in tuition assistance for coursework 

toward a higher degree.

Production plants also offer continuous learning and development 

opportunities. For example, the M&O contractor officials at the Kansas 

City Plant told us employees are encouraged to pursue higher education 

in areas where the plant has a skills gap. In such cases, the contractor 

will pay tuition and, if the employee attends school full-time, continue to 

pay 70 percent of the employee’s base salary. Kansas City Plant 

employees may also participate in developmental programs at the entry 

or midcareer levels that allow participants to undertake three rotational 

assignments to support their targeted and tailored personal development 

plans. In addition, the Pantex plant offers employees support for technical 

training opportunities with local colleges. The Nevada National Security 

Site also offers a number of developmental opportunities to its staff, 

including a voluntary mentoring program for all employees, assistance 

with career planning, various training and certification programs, and 

attendance at seminars and conferences. M&O contractor employees 

also have access to online courses and books as well as CD-based 

training sessions on a wide variety of topics, including supervision, 

management and leadership; computer skills and certifications; 

communication; and mentoring.

M&O contractors told us that, in their development efforts, they rely on 

knowledge preservation and transfer programs, including recording the 

performance of high-skill critical tasks, formal classroom training, on-thejob training, and mentoring programs to preserve critical capabilities in the 

nuclear security enterprise. Knowledge preservation programs are 

focused on the physical preservation or recording of critical information 

and knowledge––typically in paper records, microfilm and microfiche, and 

in various audio and video media. Knowledge transfer programs seek to 
 

Page 18 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

ensure that experienced laboratory or production plant employees 

successfully pass on the knowledge to replicate critical tasks to newer 

employees.

Knowledge preservation. All M&O contractors at nuclear security 

enterprise sites have taken steps to record critical knowledge. These 

knowledge preservation programs are broadly similar from site to site, 

whether laboratory or production plant. For example, Los Alamos National 

Laboratory officials report that their archives house information on 

weapons designs and experiments dating to the inception of the 

laboratory. This information is contained in documents and other media 

such as film, audio and videotape, drawings, and photographs. The 

information housed in the archives is still relevant and is used by 

researchers across the enterprise. It may also be used outside the 

enterprise by, for example, documentary filmmakers and occupational 

health researchers. More recently, in the 2000s, Los Alamos gathered 

and developed critical information in the course of the Reliable 

Replacement Warhead Program—a program that explored the possibility 

of developing new nuclear weapons designs. Los Alamos engineers and 

scientists documented all decisions in the Reliable Replacement 

Warhead design process through written and video documentation. The 

other weapons laboratories have also invested in electronic records and 

videos to preserve critical knowledge. According to Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory officials, Livermore maintains an extensive electronic 

archive of papers and reports, as well as tutorial lectures by experienced 

weaponeers on key areas of weapons knowledge. Sandia National 

Laboratories also has its Knowledge Management Streaming Assets 

Library program, which has recorded about 1,500 hours of classified exit 

interviews with retiring weaponeers and made them available to current 

staff.

M&O contractors at the weapons production plants report broadly similar 

efforts to preserve critical knowledge at their sites. For example, the Y-12 

National Security Complex has the Knowledge Preservation Program 

(KPP). Similar to Sandia National Laboratories’ knowledge preservation 

efforts, the KPP films retiring employees as they do their work and 

interviews them on how they do it, then archives the videos in an 

electronically searchable format. As employees approach retirement, a 

KPP video and interview is part of the retirement checklist. These videos 

are evaluated for accuracy by an expert before they are entered into the 

KPP system. Y-12 officials told us that other NNSA sites have created 

videos or archives for knowledge preservation but they are not as easily 

accessible. M&O contractors at the Pantex Plant have undertaken similar 
 

Page 19 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

efforts, including creating and maintaining what Pantex officials call 

“picture books” on weapons assembly, and interviewing experienced 

Pantex workers to capture their knowledge in areas such as high 

explosives and making these interviews available as a training tool.

According to M&O contractor officials at the Nevada National Security 

Site, however, efforts to preserve critical knowledge regarding 

underground nuclear testing have faced challenges, as they have been 

limited and sporadic. These efforts have been complicated by two factors: 

(1) the need to protect vital national security information against 

unauthorized disclosure led to a practice of not keeping written 

documentation about the specifics of critical tasks; and (2) significant 

numbers of employees were laid off in the mid-1990s after U.S. 

underground nuclear testing ended. Until 2007, NNSA maintained a 

program that undertook substantial efforts to capture and record critical 

knowledge possessed by these workers, but NNSA and M&O contractor 

officials said these efforts were not comprehensive or systematic, and 

funding was discontinued.

Knowledge transfer. M&O contractors at the weapons laboratories rely on 

a range of approaches to transfer knowledge, while there is more 

similarity among the knowledge transfer programs of M&O contractors at 

production plants. Specifically, each of the three weapons laboratories 

uses a combination of classroom training, on-the-job training, and 

mentoring relationships to transfer critical nuclear weapons design 

information, but with varying reliance on each of these three components. 

For example, at one end of the spectrum, Sandia National Laboratories 

relies most heavily on a classroom-focused curriculum––its highly 

regarded Weapons Intern Program. According to Sandia officials, the 11-

month Weapons Intern Program succeeds in transferring such knowledge 

and experience through a blended learning environment, consisting of live 

and multimedia-based classroom instruction, individual and team 

research projects, hands-on activities, and off-site facility and operations 

tours and briefings. The live instruction is provided through a large 

contingent of subject matter experts in the various weapon technology, 

design, evaluation, production, operations, policy, and management 

areas.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is at the other end of the 

spectrum, relying mostly on mentoring programs and on-the-job-training 

opportunities to transfer advanced nuclear weapon design skills to new 

staff. According to Lawrence Livermore officials, their approach to 

developing critical skills expertise is to embed new employees into work 
 

Page 20 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

groups directly engaged in important work, with an experienced employee 

acting as a mentor. As new employees gain skills and experience and 

demonstrate their readiness, they are assigned tasks of increasing levels 

of complexity and responsibility. Laboratory officials stated that, in their 

experience, employees supporting the weapons program must be 

exposed to years of work in the field to acquire the needed knowledge 

and judgment to be a fully qualified weaponeer. An extensive electronic 

archive of papers and reports is available, as well as tutorial lectures on 

key areas of weapons knowledge, but Livermore officials told us there is 

no substitute for hands-on experience with weapons.

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s approach is not as classroom-focused 

as Sandia’s program, nor is it as dependent on mentoring relationships 

and on-the-job training as Lawrence Livermore’s. Specifically, Los 

Alamos officials told us that critical skills are being transferred through a 

combination of formal training opportunities, mentoring, and archiving 

programs. For example, the TITANS program, referred to informally as 

“nuclear design university” is a 3-year, credential-granting program with 2 

years of coursework and 1 year of thesis research and writing under the 

direction of a mentor. Thesis projects can either be focused on learning 

new modeling techniques or on mastering the simulation of above-ground 

experiments. For example, one knowledge transfer technique is to 

reanalyze old data from actual experiments to teach newer employees to 

use modern simulation techniques to estimate the results of real testing. 

The results of the student’s analysis are then compared to actual testing 

data. Los Alamos officials told us this practice is a very effective method 

for examining how well the student has mastered the use of computer 

simulation techniques—a very critical skill when live nuclear testing is not 

an option.

Knowledge transfer at weapons production facilities is focused more on 

having employees demonstrate that they can replicate specific tasks. For 

example, M&O contractor officials at the Pantex Plant told us that they 

are very aggressively taking steps to ensure that younger workers can 

carry on performing some of the same tasks after older workers retire. 

The centerpiece of the Pantex effort is the Retiree Corps. Through this 

program, recent retirees are brought back on a part-time basis—for a 

maximum of 800 hours a year, an average of a little less than 2 days a 

week—specifically to teach current Pantex employees how to do their 

high-skill critical task. Retirees host talks and seminars, provide a 

narrative to schematics of detailed procedures and photos, and are 

recorded and/or videotaped explaining their tasks. Pantex officials told us 
 

Page 21 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

they verify the knowledge transfer by requiring the trainee to demonstrate 

that he or she can replicate the task.

Again, however, the M&O contractor at the Nevada National Security Site 

faces some challenges. The site has an active on-the-job training 

program and specialized training on specific diagnostic and recording 

techniques relevant to underground nuclear testing. However, according 

to M&O contractors, funding for this program has been minimal for 

several years. In addition, according to Nevada National Security Site 

M&O contractor officials, it is challenging to preserve some of the critical 

skills necessary for underground nuclear testing when there is no 

opportunity to provide any direct experience with such testing.

NNSA officials and M&O contractors told us that maintaining competitive 

total compensation packages—that is, combined salary and benefits—is 

crucial for achieving their strategies for recruiting, developing, and 

retaining the workforce with the skills necessary to sustain critical 

capabilities in the nuclear security enterprise, but that other factors are 

also useful in both attracting desirable candidates and mitigating attrition. 

For example, M&O contractor officials at Sandia National Laboratories 

told us that offering the highest salary is not required to attract top talent, 

but offering pay comparable to peer institutions is a necessity. 

Accordingly, NNSA officials work very closely with M&O contractors to 

ensure that contractor compensation remains comparable to other 

enterprise laboratories and plants, private laboratories, companies, and 

other government entities that recruit and try to retain similar talent. M&O 

contractors undertake compensation studies every year and 

comprehensive benefits evaluation surveys every 2 years. This 

compensation study is done using survey data from recognized regional, 

national, and international surveys as needed. Based on these data, M&O 

contractors may seek permission from NNSA to pay certain employees 

more by submitting a special request in the Compensation Increase Plan. 

If the plan is accepted by NNSA, salaries will be increased. In addition to 

raising salaries for M&O contractors to keep them competitive, NNSA will 

also authorize and pay for sign-on and retention bonuses, significant 

monetary recognition and awards programs, and special compensation 

packages for especially difficult-to-recruit and retain critical skills 

specialties. The biennial benefits evaluation compares the value of M&O 

contractor workforce benefits to 15 peer competitors for the same talent. 

M&O Contractors’ Retention 

Strategies Focus on 

Maintaining Competitive Total 

Compensation Packages
 

Page 22 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

According to DOE policy,16

NNSA officials and M&O contractors told us that other factors are useful 

in both attracting desirable candidates and mitigating attrition. For 

example, the weapons laboratories in particular can offer scientists and 

engineers access to state-of-the-art equipment—such as the National 

Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—and the 

opportunity to do cutting edge research that cannot be done outside the 

enterprise due to national security restrictions. Similarly, for the three 

production plants located in relatively remote, nonmetropolitan 

locations—particularly Pantex, Y-12, and the Savannah River Site—

attrition rates are lower among candidates with ties to the local area. For 

example, M&O contractor officials at Y-12 told us that they recruit locally 

to the extent possible, because, historically, employees from nearby 

communities have been less likely to seek opportunities that would 

require them to relocate. These officials added that the local community is 

familiar with Y-12, and that about 35 percent of new applicants are 

employee referrals.

M&O contractors may offer benefits up to 105 

percent of the value of peer institutions’ benefits.

M&O contractors have broadly similar retention initiatives. While M&O 

officials at all sites in the enterprise told us that competitive total 

compensation packages—that is, salary and benefits—are ultimately the 

most important factors in employee retention, sites also typically offer a 

similar mix of other programs designed to encourage retention, such as 

work/life balance programs, flexible work schedules, and some form of 

continuous education and learning programs. In addition, some of the 

M&O contractors we spoke with told us that, to the extent they are able, 

they try to accommodate the desires and expectations of more recently 

hired employees for opportunities for faster advancement, meaningful and 

challenging assignments, and recognition of high performance.

 

16DOE O 350.1, Contractor Human Resource Management Programs, Sept. 30, 1996.
 

Page 23 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

To assess the effectiveness of its strategies for recruiting, developing, 

and retaining the NNSA staff and M&O contractors needed to preserve 

critical skills in the nuclear security enterprise, NNSA monitors key human 

capital metrics, including the length of time to hire employees and 

attrition. To assess the effectiveness of its M&O contractors’ strategies, 

NNSA uses M&O contractors’ data to monitor key human capital metrics, 

but these metrics do not have standardized definitions.

To assess the effectiveness of its strategies for recruiting, developing, 

and retaining the federal workforce with the requisite critical skills to 

support and oversee M&O contractors, NNSA focuses on monitoring two 

key metrics—the length of time it takes them to hire an employee and its 

attrition rates—and tracks employees’ progress toward completing the 

required training and certifications through the TQP. NNSA officials told 

us the length of time it takes them to hire an employee is a useful metric 

because it is an indicator of the efficiency of their human capital 

management processes. Attrition rates, especially for those leaving 

NNSA for reasons other than retirement are a valid indicator of the 

relative attractiveness of NNSA employment. Increases in the time it 

takes to hire employees and increases in the attrition rate would indicate 

a potential problem that would eventually make it more difficult for NNSA 

to attract and retain the workforce it needs to achieve its mission.

Overall responsibility for maintaining a federal workforce with the 

necessary critical skills to carry out NNSA’s mission resides in NNSA’s 

Office of Human Capital Management, located at NNSA headquarters, 

and its site offices are also responsible for closely monitoring changes in 

their workforces and keeping NNSA headquarters informed of any 

changes. They also have direct responsibility for making sure that site 

office employees are maintaining the technical certifications required to 

perform their duties. NNSA’s Office of Human Capital Management 

Services, located at the Albuquerque complex, may also assist both 

headquarters and site office staff in monitoring these issues.

NNSA Monitors Key 

Human Capital 

Metrics to Assess the 

Effectiveness of 

Strategies to Maintain 

Critically Skilled 

Workforces 

NNSA Monitors Key 

Human Capital Metrics for 

Its Staff
 

Page 24 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

To assess the effectiveness of its M&O contractors’ strategies for

recruiting, developing, and retaining their workforces, NNSA monitors key 

human capital metrics using data the contractors collect. M&O contractors 

assess key human capital metrics, but these metrics do not have 

standardized definitions.

NNSA generally gives M&O contractors the primary responsibility for 

identifying their workforce needs and taking the necessary steps to 

ensure they maintain workforces with the skills to meet the responsibilities 

outlined in their M&O contracts with NNSA. Accordingly, NNSA officials 

told us that, in 2005, they discontinued a requirement for M&O 

contractors to report on efforts to recruit and retain staff with critical skills, 

as well as more formal reporting requirements for workforce and 

succession planning. More specifically, according to NNSA officials, M&O 

contractors expect NNSA to instruct them on what they are required to do 

and what the contract deliverable and timeline is, but expect to be able to 

determine on their own how to meet their contractual obligations, 

including how to recruit, develop, and retain staff with the requisite critical 

skills.

Nonetheless, M&O contractors collect data on key human capital metrics 

for their workforces and provide these data to NNSA directly from their 

own human resource data systems. All contractors also undertake some 

level of workforce and succession planning, although there are no formal 

or specific requirements directing how they do so. According to NNSA 

officials, these metrics vary from site to site, but generally provide the 

same key information, including

• acceptance rates for offers of employment, which are benchmarked 

on a site-specific basis but are typically around 80 percent;

• attrition rates, both for retirement and non-retirement reasons, which 

are also benchmarked on a site-specific basis;

• pay comparability—whether salaries are competitive with peer 

institutions;

• benefits comparability––whether benefits are competitive with peer 

institutions; and

• ability to fill a critical skills position within a certain number of days––

usually 48 to 90 days.

NNSA Monitors M&O 

Contractors’ Human 

Capital Data, but Some 

Metrics Do Not Have 

Standardized Definitions

M&O Contractors Are 

Responsible for Managing Their 

Workforce Needs but NNSA 

Monitors Key Human Capital 

Metrics
 

Page 25 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

According to NNSA officials, these five metrics are tracked very closely by 

M&O contractors at all sites, and attrition, employment acceptance rates, 

and pay and benefits comparability data are systematically collected at 

regular intervals enterprisewide. If any of these metrics indicate a problem 

in retention, for example, NNSA officials told us, action would be taken to 

address it. For example, these metrics were monitored very closely by 

NNSA and the M&O contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory and 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory during their 2006 transition to a 

new M&O contract with less generous retirement and medical benefits. 

There were concerns that this change could lead to a spike in attrition 

among highly skilled staff that could in turn lead to difficulties in the 

laboratories meeting deadlines on project deliverables. Similarly, NNSA is 

now carefully watching the same metrics at Sandia National Laboratories 

because the M&O contractor substantially cut future retirement benefits 

that took effect for those employees who remained at the lab beyond the 

end of 2011. If the metrics indicate greater attrition than expected, the 

laboratory could adjust its recruiting strategies to hire more staff.

NNSA also maintains close, cooperative working relationships between 

its federal and contractor workforces. Much of NNSA’s expertise in M&O 

contractor human capital issues resides in its Contractor Human 

Resources Division (CHRD) at its Albuquerque complex. According to 

NNSA officials, the work of CHRD is both critical and central to how 

NNSA manages human capital issues with the M&O contractors. CHRD 

staff are in day-to-day contact with the M&O contractors on a wide range 

of human capital issues, including those related to recruitment, 

development, and retention of employees with critical skills. For example, 

if an M&O contractor is having difficulty recruiting staff with particular 

critical skills, it can submit a supplementary Compensation Increase Plan 

to the NNSA site office for authorization to offer candidates higher 

salaries. When this occurs, NNSA headquarters and the relevant site 

office largely rely on CHRD to review, analyze, and make 

recommendations to senior management on whether to accept, amend, 

or reject such a request. Because most sites do not have full-time human 

capital subject matter expertise in residence, NNSA site office officials in 

particular rely heavily on CHRD both for such expertise and to monitor 

M&O contractors’ human capital performance metrics at all nuclear 

security enterprise sites. For example, officials at the Sandia Site Office 

told us that there is no full-time subject matter expert on human capital 

issues at the site office, so the office relies heavily on a CHRD staff 

member to inform the office’s oversight of Sandia National Laboratories 

on this issue. According to NNSA officials, if NNSA had concerns about 

what a contractor was doing or had doubts that the contractor was going 
 

Page 26 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

to be able to continue meeting its contractual obligations because of 

weaknesses in its recruitment, development, and retention strategies for 

critically skilled workers, NNSA would raise such concerns and require 

that corrective actions be undertaken.

However, as we noted in our February 2011 report,17

Accordingly, NNSA officials told us that they are developing the 

Enterprise Modeling Consortium––an initiative to, among other things, 

develop the needed skills data and models necessary to help NNSA 

manage its contractor workforces in a more proactive manner. The 

consortium is designed to help NNSA undertake more integrated, 

enterprisewide M&O contractor workforce reporting and analysis and 

NNSA lacks 

comprehensive information on the status of its M&O contractor workforce. 

Specifically, the agency does not have an enterprisewide workforce 

baseline of critical human capital skills and levels for the M&O contractor 

workforce to effectively maintain the capabilities needed to achieve its 

mission. NNSA officials said this is primarily because NNSA relies on its 

contractors to track these critical skills. As a result, we recommended that 

NNSA establish a plan with time frames and milestones for the 

development of a comprehensive contractor workforce baseline that 

includes the identification of critical human capital skills, competencies, 

and levels needed to maintain the nation’s nuclear weapons strategy. 

NNSA stated that it understood all of our recommendations in that report 

and believed that it could implement them. NNSA has taken some actions 

toward this recommendation. As of March 2012, NNSA had completed a 

draft plan and was incorporating stakeholders’ comments. NNSA officials 

said that they expect to complete the final contractor workforce baseline 

plan by May 2012. While contractor efforts may be effective at a specific 

site, these efforts neither ensure long-term survival of these skills across 

the enterprise nor provide NNSA with the information needed to make 

enterprisewide decisions that have implications on human capital. NNSA 

officials told us that they have determined that, as the responsible federal 

oversight agency for its M&O contractors, they recognize that they need a 

comprehensive and enterprisewide outlook regarding M&O contractor 

workforce data, particularly the identification of the critical skills needed to 

maintain and sustain future capabilities, and to verify that strategies are, 

indeed, in place to meet future requirements.

 

17GAO-11-188. 
 

Page 27 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

identify the skills and competencies needed by the workforce, as well as 

the necessary staffing levels, based on the known and projected 

integrated program requirements needed to implement the Stockpile 

Stewardship Management Plan and associated budgeted programs for 

NNSA, DOE, and other federal agencies. NNSA officials told us that 

NNSA provided $400,000 to the Enterprise Modeling Consortium in fiscal 

year 2012 to fund further research and development on modeling. 

However, according to these officials, there is significant work left to do 

on the Consortium and they cannot provide an estimate for when the 

Consortium will be completed.

Each M&O contractor collects key human capital performance data; 

however, we found that there are no specific, enterprisewide definitions of 

these data. NNSA officials told us that they have not asked M&O 

contractors to standardize these definitions because they believe their 

current system is effective. We previously reported that the lack of 

standard definitions for performance measurement data can significantly 

hinder agencies’ ability to use such data in planning and reporting.18

 

18GAO, The Government Performance and Results Act: 1997 Governmentwide 

Implementation Will Be Uneven, 

NNSA officials also told us that they believe M&O contractors have 

effectively used the flexibilities provided in their contracts and have 

demonstrated that they can identify specific critical skills needed and take 

the steps needed to, by and large, sustain them. However, NNSA is now 

considering developing a more comprehensive enterprisewide system, 

the Enterprise Modeling Consortium, to track M&O contractor human 

capital performance metrics and other workforce data and common 

definitions of performance metrics may become more important. 

Specifically, without common enterprisewide definitions of human capital 

performance metrics, NNSA may not be able to collect consistent and 

comparable data across all eight sites in the enterprise. For example, one 

of the M&O contractors’ key metrics—acceptance rates for offers of 

employment—may not be consistently measured across the enterprise. 

Human capital staff at one national laboratory told us they participated in 

a program they compared to “speed dating,” whereby candidates at a 

career fair may be interviewed for multiple positions and given offers of 

employment on the spot. However, job applicants may receive multiple 

offers of employment in a single day and may accept more than one offer 

to negotiate for a better salary or to have more time to consider their 

GAO/GGD-97-109 (Washington, D.C.: June 2, 1997).

M&O Contractors Assess Key 

Human Capital Performance 

Measures, but These Metrics 

Do Not Have Standardized 

Definitions
 

Page 28 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

options. In such a situation, the employment offer to a candidate could be 

counted as an acceptance even if that candidate never became a 

laboratory employee. When asked about this scenario, NNSA officials 

stated that it was their understanding that M&O contractors were only 

counting as accepted offers those who ultimately reported for work, but 

acknowledged there was no NNSA standard definition and that they did 

not know for certain how such offers were counted.

Successful human capital management and workforce planning depend 

on valid and reliable data. These data can help an agency determine: 

performance objectives, goals, and the appropriate number of employees, 

and can help develop strategies to address gaps in the number, 

deployment, and alignment of employees. However, NNSA has not 

identified or considered the potential inconsistencies in these human 

capital metrics; therefore, decision makers are relying on information that 

may not be consistently reported.

NNSA and its M&O contractors face challenges in recruiting, retaining, 

and developing their workforces and are using several tools to address 

these challenges. NNSA and its M&O contractor work environments, site 

locations, and high costs of living pose recruiting challenges. NNSA and 

its M&O contractors also face shortages of qualified candidates, an aging 

workforce, and variable funding. NNSA and its M&O contractors are 

taking actions to address their current human capital challenges, where 

possible.

Officials from NNSA site offices and M&O contractor work sites reported 

that their secure work environment and location make recruitment of 

advanced science and technology candidates more challenging. Due to 

the sensitive nature of nuclear weapons work, NNSA and M&O contractor 

sites must be more secure than most private sector laboratories or 

commercial plants. To meet this security requirement, laboratories and 

plants in the enterprise tend to be restrictive environments, isolated from 

security threats by geography and classification protocols. In addition to 

these potentially undesirable traits, in the view of some candidates, some 

sites are further constrained by a high cost of living.

Restrictive environment. Officials from most M&O contractors reported 

that the restrictive environment required for nuclear weapons research 

and maintenance is a disadvantage in recruiting new staff with the 

NNSA and Its M&O 

Contractors Face 

Challenges in 

Recruiting, Retaining, 

and Developing Their 

Workforces 

NNSA and Its M&O 

Contractor Work 

Environments, Site 

Locations, and High Costs 

of Living Pose Recruiting 

Challenges
 

Page 29 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

potential to become weapons experts. Staff typically need to acquire and 

maintain high-level clearances and must often work in secure areas that 

prohibit the use of personal cell phones, personal e-mail, and social 

media. In particular, they told us younger candidates typically expect to 

stay continuously connected to their peers via cell phone and social 

media. Furthermore, any research completed in classified work can only 

be seen within the classified community; for researchers who desire 

broader recognition of their work and opportunities for wider collaboration, 

academia or private industry may be more attractive. Because of these 

restrictions, most M&O contractor human resources staff told us that it 

was more difficult to recruit younger scientists and engineers.

Isolation. An isolated location may be desirable for building or maintaining 

nuclear weapons, but it may not appeal to some desirable candidates 

with advanced degrees in science, technology, and engineering. For 

example, Los Alamos National Laboratory officials told us that the 

laboratory’s relative isolation––nearly 100 miles from Albuquerque, New 

Mexico–– may make it less appealing to some candidates. In addition, the 

relative lack of other types of employment opportunities nearby may pose 

challenges for candidates with spouses in careers outside of science, 

technology and engineering. Officials at two of the three weapons 

laboratories told us they focus on recruiting top candidates nationwide to 

gain a wide breadth of thought and opinion among their staff. The 

laboratories track the proportion of job offers accepted but cannot always 

ascertain or be sure of the reason a candidate rejects an offer because, 

according to officials at Lawrence Livermore, candidates may simply state 

they declined an offer for “personal reasons.” 

In addition, some of the production plants and the test site are also in 

isolated locations and face some of the same challenges as the 

laboratories. However, these sites require fewer candidates with 

advanced degrees and can generally rely on the local workforce to fill 

other types of critical skills positions. For example, Savannah River Site 

and Pantex are also both located far from other large cities. However, 

because of their relative isolation, they are among the biggest employers 

in these areas, and many local candidates are qualified and eager to 

accept positions in weapons manufacturing and maintenance. Pantex 

officials reported that they do not have difficulty finding most workers to 

perform weapons maintenance, which requires a shorter amount of onthe-job training than weapons design but nonetheless requires a set of 

critical skills. However, site staff have had to develop strategies to attract 

candidates to fill those positions that require advanced degrees. Unlike 

the laboratories, officials at all of the production plants told us that they 
 

Page 30 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

focus their recruiting efforts for these positions at local and regional 

colleges and universities. Officials at Y-12, for example, have identified 

competitive science and engineering programs at universities within 300 

miles of their plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Y-12 officials reported that 

they have better results in both recruiting and retaining critically skilled 

workers when those workers have personal ties to the area. In contrast, 

M&O contractor officials from the laboratories told us that they needed to 

recruit from the top academic programs across the country.

High cost and competition. Two enterprise sites are located in areas with 

high costs of living, which can deter qualified candidates—Los Alamos 

and Lawrence Livermore. NNSA and its M&O contractors have flexibility 

to offer higher compensation for some critical skills, but some candidates 

are unwilling to live in high cost areas. For example, housing in Los 

Alamos is expensive and scarce. According to Los Alamos National 

Laboratory staff, some employees commute nearly 100 miles each way 

from Albuquerque every day partly due to cost of living constraints. Los 

Alamos Human Resources managers reported that high housing costs 

are a concern among current and prospective employees. Lawrence 

Livermore National Laboratory, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, is 

also a high cost area. NNSA has authorized higher salaries for some 

critically skilled M&O contractor employees but delays during the hiring 

process can give private sector recruiters an advantage with critically 

skilled candidates. Lawrence Livermore uses the flexibilities it has to 

negotiate competitive compensation, but a candidate interested in 

weapons work may be drawn to another site with a lower cost of living, 

such as Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque or one of the 

production plants.

Further complicating NNSA’s recruiting efforts is the demand for qualified 

candidates in the private sector as well, and private sector jobs may offer 

a work environment that many candidates may find more desirable. The 

same pool of candidates who can excel in engineering, modeling, and 

simulation tasks is also attractive to high technology firms. For example, 

according to M&O contractor officials at Lawrence Livermore National 

Laboratory, a web-based provider of DVD rentals and streaming media 

uses computational scientists to predict consumers’ preferences for films, 

which is the same skill set the weapons laboratories would use for 

modeling and simulation. However, this company does not have the 

constraints that a federal contractor has with compensation limits and a 

restrictive work environment.
 

Page 31 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

NNSA and its M&O contractors are making workforce plans, but face 

shortages in qualified critically skilled candidates and an aging workforce. 

In addition, uncertainty about future funding makes long-term workforce 

development initiatives challenging to execute.

The laboratories have not yet experienced any critical shortages of 

critically skilled workers, but they all reported that finding candidates with 

the appropriate qualifications is a growing recruitment challenge and that 

a more mobile and aging workforce is a retention challenge.

Shortages of qualified candidates. NNSA officials told us that qualified 

candidates are in short supply and that competition from science and 

technology-related companies in the private sector poses additional 

challenges. Candidates for most critical skills positions at national 

laboratories must meet certain criteria, including (1) an advanced degree 

(master’s or doctorate) in a scientific, technical, or engineering field; (2) 

the ability to obtain a high-level security clearance, which requires U.S. 

citizenship; and (3) an interest in and willingness to learn weapons design 

work. The requirement for U.S. citizenship in particular is becoming an 

increasingly difficult criterion to satisfy in the recruitment process. 

National laboratory officials told us that a large percentage of students 

graduating from top science, technology, and engineering programs are 

foreign nationals. M&O contractors can hire foreign nationals to work 

outside of weapons-related areas, but the citizenship requirement for 

working on programs supporting U.S. nuclear weapons is not 

negotiable.19

In addition, national laboratory recruiting staff noted hurdles finding 

candidates with an interest in and willingness to learn weapons design 

work. For example, officials at Sandia National Laboratories told us 

younger candidates with the necessary qualifications are often more 

interested in fields that contribute to improving the environment. In 

addition, because of the sensitive nature of weapons work, civilian 

graduate programs cannot teach weapons-specific skills, so would-be 

weaponeers may not know whether the work suits them until after they 

 

19To work with weapons, all candidates must be able to obtain a Q-level clearance, which 

has similar requirements to a top secret clearance in other defense-related agencies.

NNSA and Its M&O 

Contractors Face 

Shortages of Qualified 

Candidates, an Aging 

Workforce, and Variable 

Funding 

Qualified Candidates Are in 

Short Supply and the Current 

Workforce Is Aging
 

Page 32 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

have invested significant time working in the enterprise. Even if 

candidates accept a position, they do not actually have the authorization 

to design nuclear weapons; current policy allows them to refurbish 

components within the existing stockpile, and then only when funding is 

appropriated for that specific activity.

A more mobile workforce. NNSA and M&O contractor officials noted that 

a general shift from defined benefit retirement systems offering pensions 

to a defined contribution retirement system has made employees much 

more mobile and, therefore, harder to retain. A defined contribution 

retirement system makes employees much more mobile because, once 

the employee is vested––typically after a few years––their contributions to 

their retirement accounts are portable, therefore they no longer depend 

on tenure with a single employer. According to NNSA officials, M&O 

contractors no longer expect newly hired employees to spend their entire 

careers in the enterprise; rather, they expect them to work for a national 

laboratory or production plant for an average of 5 to 10 years.

Aging workforce. Many of the critically skilled employees currently filling 

these positions, both at the national laboratories and other NNSA sites, 

are at or near retirement age, which adds additional uncertainty to the 

projected human capital needs of the enterprise. NNSA officials told us 

that they are aware that many critically skilled employees are at or near 

retirement age, and they are tracking those retirements closely. Human 

capital staff from NNSA and its M&O contractors told us that it is difficult 

to anticipate retirement trends, especially during an economic recession. 

M&O contractor human resources staff said that they have found fewer 

staff retiring than they would have projected, due to uncertainties about 

their financial investments. These economic factors may have helped to 

preserve some critical skills within the enterprise, but officials are 

concerned that when the economy rebounds, eligible staff may retire at 

higher-than-projected levels. Such levels of attrition could leave a skills 

gap that would take years to replenish.

Knowledge transfer activities in the nuclear security enterprise tend to 

require multiple years to complete, but contractors have been challenged 

to plan and maintain these development efforts because funding varies 

from year to year. NNSA officials typically do not dictate whether or how 

much funding goes toward knowledge transfer within contractor 

workforces, except for specific programs at Sandia, because NNSA 

prefers not to fence funding for particular contractor activities. Contractors 

use what NNSA calls science campaigns—which, among other things, 

fund research to improve the ability to assess warhead performance 

Variable Funding Can Impede 

Workforce Development 

Efforts
 

Page 33 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

without nuclear testing and help to maintain the scientific infrastructure of 

the nuclear weapons laboratories—and life extension programs—which 

ensure weapons’ readiness and extend the life of existing warheads 

through design, certification, manufacture, and replacement of 

components—as a means for knowledge transfer, where more 

experienced weaponeers can train newer staff on weapons design and 

maintenance. Both science campaigns and life extension programs 

require long-term planning to ensure that the necessary resources are 

available.

According to NNSA and M&O contractor officials, funding for science 

campaigns and life extension programs has varied over the years. M&O 

contractor officials at both plants and laboratories told us their knowledge 

transfer plans have been adversely affected in years when funding has 

been reduced. In recent years, plans for certain life extension programs 

and science campaigns have been scaled back after plans have been 

made and contractor resources allocated. According to M&O contractors 

at the laboratories, reduced funding for life extension programs 

diminishes their opportunities to give their newer weaponeers hands-on 

experience. For example, weapons staff at Lawrence Livermore National 

Laboratory told us that they made knowledge transfer plans based on 

their approved warhead life extension projects, and that when those 

projects were sidelined; newer weaponeers were denied significant 

training opportunities. However, because funding decisions are beyond 

the M&O contractors’ purview, M&O contractor officials told us there is 

little they can do to prepare for or mitigate this challenge.

NNSA and its M&O contractors reported that they are taking actions to 

address their human capital challenges where possible. Specifically, 

NNSA and M&O contractor officials told us they engaged in workforce 

planning to avoid potential critical skill gaps in the enterprise. NNSA-wide 

workforce plans are not expected to be completed until 2013 according to 

NNSA officials, but certain components are already in practice at various 

sites, such as streamlined hiring and security clearance practices and 

“pipeline” building for critically skilled employees.

Streamlined hiring and security clearance processes. NNSA and its M&O 

contractors have streamlined human capital processes to attract and hire 

new critically skilled workers. In the past, federal hiring processes have 

caused longer waits, both for candidates awaiting a decision and for 

human capital officials awaiting security clearances for new hires. M&O 

contractor staff reported that delays had previously allowed strong 

NNSA and Its M&O 

Contractors Are 

Addressing Their Current 

Human Capital Challenges, 

Where Possible
 

Page 34 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

candidates to find other opportunities, or if candidates were hired and 

waiting for a clearance, they could lose interest in the position before they 

started. M&O contractor staff told us that finding work for hired-butuncleared staff to complete was frustrating for both the new staff and their 

supervisors. NNSA has made reducing cycle time a priority, and officials 

from several sites reported that they have been able to hire and obtain 

clearances for employees more quickly in recent years.

Building a pipeline of critically skilled employees. Both NNSA and its M&O 

contractor officials acknowledge that, due to the long period required for 

developing some critical skills employees, they need to anticipate their 

critical skills needs for multiple years in the future. All sites have recruiting 

and development plans to preserve critical skills in their workforce, which 

they refer to as a pipeline. Sites use pipelines in two ways to avoid critical 

skills gaps. First, they use training and project assignments to ensure that 

critical skills are being developed and preserved in newer employees. For 

example, Lawrence Livermore has assessed its employees’ skill sets and 

experience, so it knows which are currently performing essential 

operations more than 25 percent of the time––called core employees––

and which are being prepared to perform those operations––called pipe 

employees. They can augment a pipe employee’s expertise in an area if 

management sees a shortage of core employees in that skill set. Second, 

in recruiting activities, human resources staff may maintain information 

about potential future candidates for weapons programs, either with 

contacts made in internship, fellowship, and coop programs or by keeping 

records of interested candidates who were not hired. For example, 

Sandia is building a database of potential candidates, so that in the future 

it is not relying exclusively on that year’s graduating class from the top 

science and engineering programs.

Succession planning can also inform pipeline decisions. M&O contractor

officials at some sites said that they have begun to analyze potential skills 

gaps if a specific retirement or separation were to occur. Those M&O 

contractors who are undertaking these analyses can rely on managers’ 

assessments of their employees or software packages designed to 

facilitate succession planning. M&O contractors told us that this kind of 

planning is currently used in management or leadership capacities, but in 

the future it could be applied to other areas such as critical skills 

capacities. Each M&O contractor has a unique way of implementing its 

pipeline, but M&O contractor officials from all sites told us they all realize 

the need to consider future retirements and mission requirements in their 

current hiring and development plans. For example, a senior M&O 

contractor manager at Sandia National Laboratories responsible for 
 

Page 35 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

building the laboratories’ talent pipeline told us that Sandia is facing 

unprecedented hiring needs due in part to expected increases in 

retirements. He expects to experience 33 to 50 percent attrition in the 

next 4 to 5 years, while the total number of Sandia employees will need to 

remain about the same. Accordingly, Sandia officials told us they expect 

to have hired approximately 3,100 new employees in the 3 years ending 

in 2012—about 800 in 2010, 1,100 in 2011, and 1,200 in 2012.

Some of the human capital challenges facing the enterprise are beyond 

the control of NNSA and its M&O contractors, and in these cases, NNSA 

has authorized increased compensation to help the sites acquire or retain 

the personnel they require. The site locations are fixed, and site staff 

cannot change the number of U.S. citizens completing graduate science 

and technology programs. Similarly, NNSA and its contractors have no 

choice but to adapt to the increased mobility of their staff resulting from 

the shift to a defined contribution retirement systems. To mitigate these 

challenges, NNSA and its contractors continue to offer financial incentives 

to recruit and retain critically skilled employees, with competitive starting 

salaries. The scale of these financial incentives can vary by location and 

position, but NNSA reported that this strategy has thus far been adequate 

for recruiting and retaining the talent they need.

NNSA and its M&O contractors have taken a number of useful steps to 

sustain critical skills in the enterprise in the face of several challenges. 

NNSA has begun to implement the recommendation we made in our 

February 2011 report to establish a plan with time frames and milestones 

for the development of a comprehensive contractor workforce baseline 

that includes the identification of critical human capital skills, 

competencies, and levels needed to maintain the nation’s nuclear 

weapons strategy. However, while contractor efforts may be effective at a 

specific site, they do not provide NNSA with the information needed to 

make enterprisewide decisions that have implications on human capital. 

Without this information, NNSA’s ability to monitor the effectiveness of its 

and its M&O contractors’ strategies to recruit, develop, and retain the 

workforces needed to preserve critical skills may be hindered. In 

particular, without common enterprisewide definitions of human capital 

performance metrics, NNSA may not be able to collect consistent and 

comparable M&O contractor human capital data across all eight sites in 

the enterprise. Since NNSA is now considering developing a more 

comprehensive enterprisewide system to track data on critical skills 

through its Enterprise Modeling Consortium, this may be an opportune 

Conclusions 
 

Page 36 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

time to explore establishing common, uniform definitions for the human 

capital metrics used in this system.

To improve NNSA’s ability to monitor the effectiveness of its strategies––

and its M&O contractors’ strategies––to recruit, develop, and retain the 

workforces needed to preserve critical skills in the enterprise, we 

recommend that the Administrator of NNSA take the following action:

As it develops its Enterprise Modeling Consortium and other

enterprisewide systems for tracking M&O contractor human capital 

performance metrics, NNSA should consider developing standardized 

definitions across the enterprise, especially across M&O contractors, to 

ensure they gather consistent data using human capital metrics with 

consistent, uniform definitions.

We provided NNSA with a draft of this report for their review and 

comment. NNSA provided written comments, which are reproduced in 

appendix I. NNSA stated that it appreciated GAO’s recognition of the 

significant challenges NNSA faces in sustaining critical skills in its 

workforce and the efforts NNSA is taking to identify critical human capital 

skills, competencies, and levels needed to maintain the nation’s nuclear 

weapons strategy. In addition, NNSA stated that it agreed with the GAO’s 

recommendation that NNSA should consider developing standardized 

definitions for human capital metrics across the enterprise to help ensure 

consistent and comparable data. NNSA also provided other additional 

technical information, which we incorporated where appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Energy, the 

Administrator of NNSA, the appropriate congressional committees, and 

other interested parties. The report also is available at no charge on the 

GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. 

Recommendation for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 37 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact 

me at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 

page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report 

are listed in appendix II.

Gene Aloise

Director

Natural Resources and Environment
Appendix I: Comments from the National 

Nuclear Security Administration

Page 38 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

Appendix I: Comments from the National 

Nuclear Security Administration
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 39 GAO-12-468 Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise

Gene Aloise, (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Ned Woodward, Assistant

Director; Dr. Timothy Persons, Chief Scientist; Don Cowan; Hayley 

Landes; and Kevin Tarmann made key contributions to this report. 

Yvonne Jones, Alison O’Neill, Cheryl Peterson, Rebecca Shea, Kiki 

Theodoropoulos, and Greg Wilmoth provided technical assistance.

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(361248)
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