The National Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA) is one of those government agencies where
the mission couldn’t be more critical. Tasked with the security of
nuclear weapons, components and nuclear materials, as well as providing
nuclear counterterrorism measures and emergency responses, the agency
was launched in 2000 under the Department of Energy umbrella. In the
past 10 years, NNSA has grown to be an important part of national
security
in a time when that mission is more important than ever before.
In other words, it’s
an agency in need of ongoing, committed leadership. And that’s where
learning comes online.
As chief learning
officer
for the NNSA, Jeffrey Vargas knows the value of leadership, sharing
and collaboration to the agency’s mission. With staff positioned around
the country at eight different sites, including three national
laboratories,
providing top-notch learning is definitely a team effort.
So now meet Mary
Cummings,
a program analyst on the NNSA learning team. Jeff and Mary have been
working together about three years now, with one of her project areas
being the agency’s mentoring program. Things are stepping up in that
regard now, with a recently announced initiative to help ensure
knowledge
and skills transfer in the agency.
That’s especially
important now, with the NNSA having an average employee age of 48, and
average on-the-job-experience levels of about 18 years. Also, with 2,300
employees, including some agencies with about 65% having master’s
degrees, the agency has a lot of smart employees at the top end, which
means a need to pass important batons to a changing workforce. There’s
knowledge to be captured, skills to be communicated, and in general
a mandate to build, execute, monitor and evaluate agency-wide mentoring.
“It was really a
collaborative effort with management,” Jeff said.
“Mentoring is one
of the ways we’re tapping into our in-house talent,” Mary said.
The actual idea for
the mentoring program came from Michael Kane, associate administrator
for ther NNSA’s Office of Management and Administration and one of
the NNSA’s senior leaders. The basic desire from the program was passed
to Jeff and Mary, who came up with the details of the initiative. Jeff
said May set out to create a non-traditional type of mentoring program
that’s dynamic and agile.
“It works because
people from across the country and actually now internationally are
able to get into an online systems where create a profile. So we can
connect people outside the normal network by using technology,”
Mary said. “It’s based on what people need. Doing some minimal,
basic needs assessment that’s what we were hearing. People wanted
other ways of learning besides sitting in a classroom.”
Operating similar to
an online dating program like match.com,
the mentoring platform allows
mentors to connect with mentees, and vice versa, based on aligning needs
and skills. All mentees are urged to “interview” mentors before
making a selection to ensure great fits.
“We’ve set this
up to be a mentee-driven process,” Jeff said. “From a generational
perspective, it really answers the mail where young folks want to be
involved. We also have given the mentors the option of selecting to
mentor just one level down or two levels down. So the mentor feels
comfortable
about how he or she is being selected. They know they’re the ones
who are going to be asked to dance.”
The next question,
then, is how many will be dancing. For the purposes of kick-off and
benchmarking, Mary and Jeff expected to have about 50 people sign up.
However, in the first few weeks of the new mentoring program nearly
twice who have taken up the challenge. About 25 percent of those are
at the senior management levels, including Thomas Paul D’Agostino,
the NNSA’s administrator.
“That’s what we’re
promoting, that everyone at every level does have something to offer
someone else or the organization,” Mary said.
The mentoring plan,
of course, won’t just benefit those involved. The program will
essentially
offer the learning leaders some deep views into what people are working
on, the types of resources they need and the amount of value supplied
through those collaborations. That, Jeff said, will allow the learning
teams to design more effective operational plans for organizational
development.
“We’re really proud
of the program,” Jeff added. “We do believe this will help us transfer
knowledge. We see this as one of many kinds of learning engagements
our employees should be involved in to help them develop themselves
professionally and to help us raise our organizational profile. The
more we know about what each other have as responsibilities, and we
share that, the better the likelihood that we’re going to be able
to work together and follow in each other’s footsteps no matter who
stays in the workforce and who leaves.”
The work Jeff and Mary
have kicked off is likely to go beyond the borders of NNSA sites. Other
federal agencies, including NASA, are interested in the program and
Mary will be presenting information to her governmental colleagues.
“Mary just went from
busy to super-busy,” Jeff said. “The government, we love to share
best practices with each other so we’re all more effective. This is
one from an organizational perspective we’re all very proud of.”
