2006 Winner -- The Office of Acquisition Management (OAM) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) OAM provides contracting and acquisition services to EPA program offices nationwide. Determined to improve their performance, OAM's 300 employees underwent a rigorous training program and transformation process in 2001. There were three goals: to respond more quickly to frequent changes in government acquisitions and contracting; to strategically address reduced budget and staffing; and to regain lost business by providing outstanding internal customer service. OAM redefined its mission and strategic goals, streamlined business processes to reduce red tape, implemented measures to gauge performance and empowered its workforce. Employees received training in technical contracting, business skills like negotiating and problem solving, and executive coaching. Although OAM worked with a reduced budget, the results are positive. Employee satisfaction has risen dramatically, and turnover has fallen. Customers are also more satisfied and, importantly, former customers have returned. Past Winners 2005 Winner -- Naval Surface Warfare Center Faced with the prospect of substantial attrition of senior managers due to retirement, in 2001 Port Hueneme launched a rigorous Management Succession Program. An established training institution delivered a series of training courses to primarily first-level supervisors, focusing on problem solving, conflict management, leadership and communication skills. Action-learning components required teams to address real issues likely to face the future leadership. Teams gathered facts and presented plans to senior management to build their competencies. Participants learned by experience how to effectively build coalitions and affect organizational change. Graduates of the first class have already achieved concrete results. In just three years these individuals hold more than 20 percent of department head or equivalent positions. The Center expects further organizational gains as graduates of future classes advance to senior management positions. 2004 Deming Award Winner -- U.S. Navy, Human Resources Academy for Excellence, Human Resources Service Center, Northwest (HRSC, NW) To improve customer service delivery and create a common business model, the HRSC, NW developed a training initiative -- the Human Resources Academy for Excellence. The Academy implemented a three-track system with leadership, service delivery and functional modules. The program begins at the leadership level and teaches team leaders to focus on the key products and services that are important to the customer. To assess the effectiveness of the teams, leaders determine delivery standards and measures. This plan becomes a leadership grid, which incorporates marketing, staff development and positive reenforcement. After the initial training session, leaders continue to develop their work teams in a six-month follow-up plan. In the service delivery module, leaders and teams learn how to deliver excellent customer service and manage workloads efficiently. The Academy designed functional modules to guide human resources specialists on how to communicate performance standards and gather information essential to job performance. Because of the Academy's efforts, HRSC, NW has classified and filled jobs faster than ever and streamlined its efforts to "delight the customer" -- the stated organizational goal. The program has met with such success that the Navy's Office of Civilian Human Resources is deploying it throughout the other seven regional human resources centers. 2003 Deming Award Winner -- The Learning and Education Division of Strategic Human Resources: Internal Revenue Service The Learning and Education (L & E) Division of Strategic Human Resources at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has embarked on a multi-year program to establish a technology-enabled learning and performance support system. By developing and deploying advanced learning technologies, the e-Learning program can achieve significant savings in time and cost while substantially advancing the professional skills of IRS personnel in serving the public. This year L & E launched a comprehensive e-learning strategy that included the implementation of a Learning Management System. L & E first targeted for customized Web-based development the required briefings for all 120,000 IRS employees and courses supporting the operations of the Customer Call Center, which involves 28,000 employees. These initial deliveries saved more than $5 million in travel costs, thus proving the e-learning strategy effectiveness. The IRS L & E community is supported by the E-Learning Development Resource Center (ELDRC), which provides standardized technical development of curricula, online resources for project managers and a central repository for program documents. The e-learning success was achieved through an internal governance forum and by forging partnerships with education institutions. The employee-centered approach of the e-Learning strategy has encouraged continuous personal and professional development. 2002 Deming Award Winner -- Air Force Audit Agency As a result of its own quality improvement process, the Air Force Audit Agency (AFAA) -- the independent agency which appraises the economy and efficiency of the Air Force worldwide embarked on a training initiative to provide 600 auditors instruction in Computer Assisted Audit Tools and Techniques (CAATTS). This has achieved remarkable results. Employing these automated CAATTS, auditors can analyze large databases or file reports to identify transactions that appear unusual, anomalous, wasteful or possibly fraudulent. They can then focus on those transactions. In a unique partnership between AFAA's training division and its field supervisors, instructors became expert consultants, assisting their students during audit applications and then using the data obtained by course graduates to continually improve and upgrade the course -- a closed loop system. Students use the extracted data when they return to their field offices, where a select group of CAATT auditors mentor and coach the new graduates. Potential savings from CAATT's auditing are growing rapidly -- in 2000: $220 million; in 2001: $340 million. |
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