Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise: Strategies and Challenges in Sustaining Critical Skills in Federal and Contractor Workforces
Released: 2012-04-26T00:00:00


Highlights: section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: 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.

section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: 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.

section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: 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.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: 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. 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. 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.

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  test moratorium,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.   the United States ceased underground testing of  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 labor- management 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-the- job 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.

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. DOE,  and later NNSA, took steps to correct these problems, and in February  2005, we reported that these efforts had been generally effective.  However, in February 2011, in a report assessing the extent to which  NNSA has the data necessary to make informed, enterprisewide  decisions, 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.

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, 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.

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.

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  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.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: 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.

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. Progress has been  made, but NNSA and DOE’s Office of Environmental Management  remain on our high-risk list.

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  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.

section_title: NNSA and Its M&O Contractors Use Multifaceted Strategies to Recruit, Develop, and Retain Their Workforces
paragraphs: 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.
subsections: section_title: NNSA Focuses on Attracting Early Career Federal Workforce Hires with Competitive Pay, Flexible Schedules, and Development Opportunities
paragraphs: 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 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   NNSA’s programs focused on recruiting students include the  planning.following:

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.

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  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 Program––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:  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  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, 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, 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, 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   NNSA officials told us that all of these flexibilities are useful  individuals.and help NNSA compete with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and  national laboratories.

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

Developing a plan to close gaps between future requirements and the

Developing and implementing a workforce management system which  is integrated with legacy Department of Energy human capital  information technology systems  NNSA officials told us they expect the reassessment and resulting report  to be complete in fiscal year 2013.

section_title: M&O Contractors’ Recruitment, Development, and Retention Strategies Vary but Generally Focus on Competitive Compensation Packages
paragraphs: 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 site- specific 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  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 well- established 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  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-the- job 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  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  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  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  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.

According to DOE policy,percent of the value of peer institutions’ benefits.

M&O contractors may offer benefits up to 105  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 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.

section_title: NNSA Monitors Key Human Capital Metrics to Assess the Effectiveness of Strategies to Maintain Critically Skilled Workforces
paragraphs: 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.
subsections: section_title: NNSA Monitors Key Human Capital Metrics for Its Staff
paragraphs: 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.

section_title: NNSA Monitors M&O Contractors’ Human Capital Data, but Some Metrics Do Not Have Standardized Definitions
paragraphs: 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 benefits comparability––whether benefits are competitive with peer ability to fill a critical skills position within a certain number of days–– usually 48 to 90 days.

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  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,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.

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  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.  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  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.

section_title: NNSA and Its M&O Contractors Face Challenges in Recruiting, Retaining, and Developing Their Workforces
paragraphs: 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.
subsections: section_title: NNSA and Its M&O Contractor Work Environments, Site Locations, and High Costs of Living Pose Recruiting Challenges
paragraphs: 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  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 on- the-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  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.

section_title: NNSA and Its M&O Contractors Face Shortages of Qualified Candidates, an Aging Workforce, and Variable Funding
paragraphs: 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.

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  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  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.

section_title: NNSA and Its M&O Contractors Are Addressing Their Current Human Capital Challenges, Where Possible
paragraphs: 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  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-but- uncleared 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  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.

section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: 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  time to explore establishing common, uniform definitions for the human  capital metrics used in this system.

section_title: Recommendation for Executive Action
paragraphs: 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.

section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: 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.

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.

section_title: Appendix I: Comments from the National Nuclear Security Administration

section_title: Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact

section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: 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.


Question-summary annotations: questions: question: Why does the NNSA monitor key human capital metrics?
answer: 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.
child_questions: question: What metrics are being focused on?
answer: NNSA focuses on two key metrics in assessing its own strategies—the time it takes to hire a new employee and its attrition rates.

question: How does the NNSA assess the effectiveness of its contractors’ strategies?
answer: 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.

question: What issues are there is assessing key human capital metrics?
answer: M&O contractors assess key human capital performance measures, but these metrics do not have standardized definitions.
child_questions: question: What is an example of this inconsistency?
answer: For example, one of the M&O contractors’ key metrics—acceptance rates for offers of employment—may not be consistently measured across the enterprise.

question: Why might the missing information hinder the NNSA?
answer: 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.
child_questions: question: What is a specific issue likely to occur?
answer: 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.

questions: question: What challenges does the work environments and locations pose?
answer: 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.
child_questions: question: How does disconnection play a role in recruitment?
answer: 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.

question: How does isolation play a role in recruitment?
answer: In addition, many sites are geographically isolated and may offer limited career opportunities for candidates’ spouses.

question: How does citizenship play a role in recruitment?
answer: 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.

question: What often happens due to the undesirable conditions?
answer: The pool of qualified candidates is also attractive to high technology firms in the private sector, which may offer more desirable work environments.

question: How is the NNSA addressing the challenges regarding recruitment?
answer: 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.

questions: question: What are some of the NNSA's primary responsibilities?
answer: NNSA has primary responsibility for ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
child_questions: question: How does the NNSA carry out these responsibilities?
answer: NNSA carries out these activities at three national labs, four production sites, and one test site—collectively known as the nuclear security enterprise.

question: How are the NNSA's sites managed?
answer: Contractors operate these sites under management and operations (M&O) contracts.

question: What qualification does the workforce need to develop?
answer: 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.