Every month, my organization picks one of our 26,000 outstanding or just plain interesting employees to profile in our internal newsletter. I took pride of place in the August 2016 “Why I Work Here” feature, along with a 1985 photo of me and this quote:
“I still love the mission and the people! We have the best folks in the Navy and working with them and seeing their dedication makes the hours pass by.”
My love for the mission and people remains undiminished even as federal service has changed since I joined the predecessor organization of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport.
Competition for highly skilled personnel is growing, and the pace of technology change means we need to hire the best and get the most out of the people that we hire. Yet by some measures, public perceptions of the federal government and workforce have declined, making us a less-attractive employer and contributing to lower levels of job satisfaction.
Pay freezes and a record-setting partial government shutdown have further affected workforce morale and made public service appear less appealing. So, what do we do?
In some respects, the Naval Sea Systems Command’s Naval Surface and Undersea Warfare Centers are in a unique position. As a working capital fund activity, we do not receive direct congressional appropriations, so while the shutdown had an indirect impact on us, we were able to continue operating in support of the U.S. Navy fleet.
Our mission is to steward the Navy’s intellectual base for the navies of today, tomorrow and the future, so the warfare centers are our people. While our unique facilities could be duplicated at significant cost, we can never replicate the people and the knowledge they’ve built over hundreds of years. They are the Navy’s technical insurance policy, demonstrating time and time again a willingness to go above and beyond to respond to urgent fleet needs around the globe, 24/7.
Attracting enthusiastic, top talent … is mission critical.
We also look out for one another, like the folks at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Division Panama City, who formed the “North Lagoon Navy” in the wake of Hurricane Michael to assist more than 155 local families, perform wellness checks for more than 220 people and deliver supplies to those in need. They did this while their own installation was closed to all but essential personnel.
For us, and for our colleagues across the federal government, attracting enthusiastic, top talent such as this is mission critical.
We are using every available option to reach people with both traditional and nontraditional skill sets. We’re fortunate that as science and technology reinvent laboratories, we can use a pay-for-contribution system specifically designed to attract and retain high-performing employees, and we have unique authorities to shape our workforce with more flexibility than most government organizations.
Some of the options being weighed, such as hiring skill sets rather than technical degrees, certainly could be useful in our efforts to harness the brightest minds in novel and constructive partnerships.
We’re also ensuring that personnel already onboard get training and experience in a variety of skills and in cross-disciplinary teams, which helps us accelerate employee learning and product-delivery timelines. We’re taking an unflinching look at the environment in which our people work and are pursuing changes that will allow diversity and inclusion to thrive, which is critical in our battle for talent.
We cannot leave any stone unturned to attract, train and retain the very best workforce America can put forward.
I understand that there will always be peaks and valleys in our jobs, often through no fault of our own. But I also believe that we all have a role in creating the kind of environment that is productive and challenging in all the right ways. As federal employees, we have a unique responsibility for federal resources, and even during those times where we may feel we are in a valley, we draw on our sense of patriotic duty to do what’s right.
People like those in the “North Lagoon Navy,” who are leading at all levels and are willing to go above and beyond in service to their country and fellow Americans, are indeed the reason why I still work here.
Donald F. McCormack is executive director of the Naval Surface and Undersea Warfare Centers, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and Newport.