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Remarks Prepared for
U.S. Secretary of Labor
Elaine L. Chao
2007 Government Performance Summit
Omni Shoreham Hotel,
Washington, D.C
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Good afternoon! Thank you for the invitation to participate in this
important event.
As I look back on the last six years, I am proud of the tremendous
progress made by this Administration to improve effectiveness and
accountability in the federal government. In particular, widespread increases
in transparency and accountability in the public sector, as well as corporate
America, have strengthened confidence in the U.S. economy worldwide.
Today, our economy is among the strongest of the major industrialized
countries. We can compare U.S. growth with Europe, where there is basically
stagnant job growth. In particular, two countries — France and Germany
— have persistent unemployment rates close to 9 percent. And long-term
unemployment in France is three times that of the United States.
In the U.S., the unemployment rate is 4.5 percent, which is a full
percentage point lower than the unemployment rate of 5.7 percent in the decade
of the 1990s. Our economy is strong and continues to grow stronger. We have
experienced 40 straight months of job creation. And over 7.2 million net new
jobs have been created since August 2003.
High public confidence in our federal government and our elected
leaders is critical to maintaining our strong economy. Good government starts
at the top. And the single most influential factor guiding any agency or
organization is the quality of the organization's leadership and core values.
Leadership and values determine organizational culture. And a management
culture that puts a strong emphasis on performance is one that promotes
responsibility and accountability.
Over the past six years, we have seen firsthand the positive impact of
this philosophy on the delivery of Labor Department programs and services.
Our mission at the Department is to promote and protect the health,
safety, retirement security and competitiveness of America's workers. And as
stewards of the public trust, it is critical that we use the taxpayers' money
wisely and that our programs deliver value for America's workers.
Among our key initiatives over the past six years, the Department has
made a special effort to target enforcement of our nation's wage and hour laws
on industries that employ large numbers of vulnerable immigrants. And we have
recovered record back wages on behalf of workers.
The Department has also launched several successful information
campaigns designed to improve knowledge of and compliance with our nation's
labor laws by workers and employers. Those laws can be very complex. So, for
example, Labor law materials have been translated into multiple languages,
including Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean.
The Department has also launched numerous initiatives benefiting
workers from traditionally underserved communities. We are committed to helping
them access the education and training necessary to succeed in the 21st century
economy. And we are continuing our efforts to protect and promote veterans' and
service members' employment and re-employment rights.
Much of our success can be directly attributed to the Department's
ongoing efforts to improve effectiveness and accountability across our agencies
and organizations. We have built a culture of accountability
throughout the Department. And we have made sure that culture includes
everyone-from leaders to subordinates to career staff and political appointees.
We all work together as a team.
During the last six years, several programs and processes instituted
within the Department have contributed to building the culture of
accountability. Soon after my arrival at the Department, in August
2001, we established a Management Review Board to provide a forum
for addressing crosscutting management issues. The board is chaired by the
Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management. And its membership
includes the Deputy Secretary of Labor, the Chief of Staff and major Department
Agency Heads. The Management Review Board meets monthly and has served as a
launching pad for a number of key reforms. The board's first personnel
initiative revamped the Department's existing Performance Management
System. We recognized the need to establish a system that holds
all employees to the same high standard of accountability. And
the new system clearly links performance ratings for managers and members of
the Senior Executive Service to agency mission, goals, and outcomes. And this
is important — because organizations benefit when individuals have a
vested, recognizable interest in contributing to organization effectiveness.
We also implemented a Department-wide rating system to clarify
performance levels for all 16,000 employees. The previous system
had numerous rating levels and appraisal cycles. Employees located both in and
outside of the Washington, D.C. area were rated on different cycles scattered
throughout the year. The new system is structured so that appraisal periods for
all employees coincide with the fiscal year. That's just common
sense and good government!
By making personnel a top priority at the start of this Administration,
we were able to establish early on a strong culture of accountability across
the Department. And we have continued to strengthen that culture over the past
six years. The new Performance Management System continues to be
the foundation for many of our management successes.
And it is just one example of many key reforms established by the
Department's Management Review Board. A representative from the
Office of Management and Budget attends the monthly Management Review Board
meetings, and has pointed to the establishment of the board as key to the
Department's continued success in implementing the President's Management
Agenda.
The President's Management Agenda, as many of you know, focuses on
improving five areas of government-wide management:
- Strategic Management of Human Capital;
- Competitive Sourcing;
- Improved Financial Performance;
- Expanded E-Government;
- and Budget and Performance Integration.
In Fiscal Year 2005 and 2006, the Labor Department achieved
Green status scores for all five government-wide
initiatives of the President's Management Agenda. In fact, the Department is
the first — and so far the only — Department or Agency
to accomplish this goal.
Of course, the President's Management Agenda is not just about
Getting to Green. It's about using management excellence to make
our programs more effective so they can better serve America's workforce.
The Department also instituted Agency PMA Scorecards.
Building on the President's Management Agenda, these scorecards rate the
improvements made by each of the major Labor Department agencies and components
as measured against OMB's guidelines. These scorecards have helped motivate the
individual agencies and improved accountability across the Department.
Another key to our success has been our focus on human capital. Four
years ago, in support of the Department's succession planning and human capital
management initiatives, we revived the Senior Executive Service, or SES,
Candidate Development Program. This program is designed to attract,
train, and develop future candidates for the Senior Executive Service within
the Department. This is so important because the federal government is facing
an unprecedented wave of retirements. Over the next 10 years, 60
percent of the federal workforce will be eligible to retire. So it is
critical to plan now for this retirement wave.
Also, in an effort to attract more MBAs to the Department, we launched
the MBA Fellows Program. The program will start its
sixth class this summer. It provides a unique opportunity to
learn about the Department through a two-year development program and to apply
business skills to government decision-making. To date, 77 MBA
Fellows have come to the Department — and 85 percent
have stayed on after completing the program.
MBA degree holders bring a unique skill set to any organization. And
during the last six years, we have tripled the number of individuals with MBA
degrees within the Department — today there are over 330!
Over the last six years, the Labor Department has taken significant
steps to improve our management processes and to train and develop future
leaders. And I am very proud of the results.
Also, we have done more with less. The Department's FY 2007
discretionary budget request is the lowest for the Department since
1997. Between 2001 and 2007, the Department's discretionary budget declined by
a cumulative 8.7 percent, the second largest reduction among all
major federal agencies.
Yet we have one of the strongest enforcement records in departmental
history. In fact, back wages collected for workers have risen by more than
30 percent since 2001. Overall recoveries on behalf of workers
subject to employment discrimination are up 78 percent since
2001. And in FY 2006, through its enforcement of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act, the Department restored over $800 million in
assets to retirement plans and benefits for individual workers — an
increase of more than 200 percent over FY 2001.
In November 2006, the Department earned its tenth consecutive
clean audit opinion on its financial statements, one of the best
records of any federal agency. President Bush has placed significant emphasis
on obtaining clean audit opinions as part of his President's Management Agenda.
The Department's continued commitment to fiscal integrity and responsibility is
reflected in this decade-long series of opinions. And these positive reports
relay to Congress and the American people that we are using our resources
effectively and efficiently on behalf of American workers.
The Department has also received four President's Quality
Awards. These awards recognize management excellence. They are
presented to Executive Branch agencies that are driving specific management
changes as outlined in the President's Management Agenda.
In December 2005, we received the President's Quality Award for
Performance in Integrating Management Systems. This is the highest
award given to Executive Branch agencies for management excellence related to
the President's Management Agenda. The Labor Department was the first
Department to receive this honor.
And in April 2006, George Mason University's Mercatus
Center released its seventh-annual performance report
scorecard. The scoring process evaluates the performance and
accountability reports required of government agencies by the Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993. Each report is evaluated on the
basis of transparency, public benefit, and leadership. And in fiscal year 2005,
for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year, the Labor Department's report was
ranked number one — out of 24 federal reports. In fact, the Department set
a new record, receiving 51 out of a possible 60 points in the review.
I am proud of these accomplishments, and of the men and women of the
Labor Department who worked so hard to earn these well-deserved recognitions!
All of our achievements over the past six years have been possible
because of a concerted, Department-wide effort to work together and to hold our
programs and our employees accountable. And by incorporating stronger measures
of responsibility and accountability into our processes, we are better able to
serve the taxpayers and workers who rely upon us every day.
So thank you for inviting me here today. And thank you for everything
you are doing to ensure that the principles of good management and the
principles of good government work together to better serve the American
people.
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