Richie Taffet: Austin Project:

Richie Taffet presented the Austin Project to the group. It consisted of three main points:

1. Increased IC Involvement and Mutual Accountability (covering Branch Chief, Team Leader, and HR Specialists): ICs will share the responsibility for rating covered HR staff; ICs will be given an opportunity to rate customer service, responsiveness, accessibility, timeliness of actions, IC priorities, etc; and ICs will have the opportunity to participate in the recruitment and selection of covered staff

2. Improved Access to HR Staff: ICs will have the ability to co-locate HR staff within their own IC. A committee will study the best way to accomplish this given the many issues that exist, including space limitations, the fact that HR Specialists may serve multiple ICs, and issues surrounding servers, paperwork flow, and overall supervision.

3. Improved Management and Accountability: 1 -2 new GS-15 positions will be created within the Client Services Division in order to provide some supervisory relief to Richie Taffet and Ann Nucci who currently are responsible for the overall supervision of ~250 staff. The new supervisors will help with trans-NIH issues, ensure more consistency in the area of SOPs, and free up current Branch Chiefs to deal with IC-specific related issues. These additional positions will be provided within their current budget and FTE allocations.

An additional senior level supervisor will be hired to provide quality assurance oversight and leadership of the ~25 employees who are involved in delegated examining, EHRP, payroll and DFAS, actions processing, and classification.

The deadline for full implementation is July 2007 due to the impending HHS & OPM audits that will take place the entire month of July, and the A76 preplanning efforts scheduled to begin in September.

The July audits will consist of a review of the full spectrum of HR actions, including delegated examining, classification, pay setting, and personnel processing. OHR will try to maintain a satisfactory level of customer service while going through audits.

OHR will be hiring 10 additional Specialists in the next week. Positions will be allocated through the branches. The Management and Budget Working Group authorized the hiring of 22 additional FTEs within OHR, but funding was only available for 11 new positions.

A question was posed as to how OHR can predict appropriate staffing levels. Richie explained that it is determined by weighing multiple factors, including mission critical actions such as recruitment versus important IC actions such as awards. It also depends on the number of classification requests, recruitment actions, number of personnel actions, and the development of service-level agreements

PMAP - Open Discussion:

Richie Taffet stayed for the PMAP discussion to answer questions posed by the IAOG. The following questions were discussed.

Will ICs be able to determine the effective date (hold the QSI until a later date) of an employee's QSI beyond June 30, if a later effective date will be beneficial to the employee, and if so, how should the IC annotate the PMAP spreadsheet?

• ICs should annotate the QSI on the PMAP spreadsheet.
• ICs should forward the awards form for QSIs, Time-Off, and Special Act awards prior to the proposed effective date
• Richie Taffet will look into whether or not QSIs can be held after June 30. He will report back to the group.

What should an IC do if the proposed Performance Bonus is less than 2%, since the spreadsheet is automatically formulated to deal with percentage amounts? Should we determine the overall percentage and list it on the spreadsheet or can we just list the award amount?

• Discussion ensued that indicated that ICs can determine the percentage or just place the award amount in the appropriate column.
• Richie reminded us that ICs don't have to spend all of their awards budget at once, and should spread it throughout the year.

Should an IC prorate the award amount if an employee serves on a part-time appointment?

• Although a definitive answer was not provided, it was decided that ICs may prorate the award, but that they should also annotate the spreadsheet to show that the employee is part-time.

Should ICs round up the award amounts?

• ICs could round up the award amounts.

When should 2006 plans be finalized and when must the IC forward the finalized PMAP spreadsheet?

• All plans must be signed by the supervisor and employee by 2/15/07.
• The PMAP spreadsheet may be submitted at any time because OHR is concerned about being overburdened with all PMAP awards. QSIs will be given the priority over performance awards, as necessary.

How should ICs handle performance ratings and bonuses for IC Clinical Directors? There has been confusion as to whether or not IC CDs should be included on the PMAP spreadsheet since they are not technically covered by PMAP, and are now considered to be on executive plans for all of the Top 5. They are not covered under other performance bonus systems similar to IC Directors, Deputy Directors, and Scientific Directors. Some AOs have been told to include them, while others have not.

• Richie Taffet did not have a definitive answer, and recommended that Helene Noble be contacted. Linda Adams indicated that she would work with them to obtain an answer.
• Per Ellen Rolfes, she was told that you can list CD performance awards on the spreadsheet as long as the bonus does not cause the overall compensation to exceed $212K.

Jennifer Burton - "Spotlight" - OHR monthly Newsletter

Jennifer Burton from Strategic Programs Division, OHR attended the meeting to ask for feedback from AOs on what to put in the AO corner of newsletter in regards to the electronic systems (i.e. EHRP, PDs, QuickHire). The group indicated the following items/topics that they would like to see on the AO corner:

• Training courses listed on various topics on HHS Careers (add HHS Careers to agenda at next IAO agenda), as well as a list of HHS Careers covered series. For example, at this point, neither AOs nor HR staff have been sufficiently trained in how to use HHS Careers, or how to weight the questions.
• Help with navigating the OHR website
• EHRP enhancements (new and proposed)
• Notifications of systems updates

Jennifer indicated that they now have an 'Ask Iris' Section, where AOs can pose questions and obtain answers to a variety of systems issues.

Debbie Fountain - NBS release - Feb 20th

Debbie provided an NBS update to the group.

• Training for Wave 1 (Supply functions) is taking place now
• Central Stock planned downtime - Feb 9 - Feb 20
• Standing stock orders will continue to be delivered during the shut down
• NBS begins Feb 20th
• ***No current standing stock orders will be transferred to the NBS. ICs will have to reenter all new standing stock orders beginning Feb 20. Linda Adams recommended that this information be shared with IC Advocates immediately.***
• Contractors are now allowed to be Internal Requisitioners. ICs will need to submit a list of contractors to the NBS team by 2/2/07. Training sessions are now limited though.
• New training sessions for Wave 1 will not be available until May, when it transitions to the NIH Training Center
• HPOCs from current Wave 1 training may be able to train ICs in private sessions as needed
• Hardware/Software review - NBS registered printers seem to be okay for Wave 1
• Training for Wave 1 is ½ over as reported by ICs
• Wave 2 training is to begin 3/21/07 and will go live May
• P-card training to take place throughout June
• A question was posed as to whether or not contractors can be credit card holders? Per Linda, while this was approved government wide, it has not been approved at NIH

Jeff Domanski - IAO Retreat:

Jeff explained that the IAOG was considering an AO Principal retreat. He submitted a retreat proposal for consideration. Possible retreat agenda:

• Establish the mission and/or charter of the IAOG? Who are we? What is our role? Are we a resource to the greater NIH community or just an end user? Do wish to be recognized as an administrative leader or advisory committee to the EOs, SDs, Colleen Barros?
• Should we have subcommittees to review new policy proposals, for example? A suggestion was made to recommend junior-level participation on subcommittees to provide mentoring and an opportunity for professional growth.
• Discuss the results of the PI survey.
• Come up with a plan or an agenda for the year.
• Establish the purpose of the IAOG meetings. Are the meetings mandatory? Should there be accountability for attendance at IAOG meetings. Should we establish business rules?

Two agenda subcommittees will be formed to do preliminary work on the IAOG charter and the IAOG retreat agenda. Volunteers are needed for the Charter Group and the Agenda Group. Jeff to send out an e-mail asking for volunteers by Friday.

Retreat Logistics will be arranged by a contractor. The agenda committee proposed a 1.5 day retreat in mid to late May. Attendees would include Principal AOs and Deputy Principal AOs.

It was agreed that in order to ensure an effective retreat, we must obtain buy-in from the SDs and the EOs.

Linda Adams - PI Survey

Linda reported that the PI Survey was completed on Monday, January 30, 2007. 524 PIs responded (25-35% response rate). Results were constructive, and they even received volunteers to serve on the focus groups. Dr. Gottesman plans to present the results to the IAOG at a future time. This could potentially be a topic to be discussed at the retreat.

Tim Tosten - Admin Fellows Program (AFP)

Tim informed the group that most ICs submitted their number of committed slots for an AFP fellow. A total of 18 AO positions, 6 Grants positions, and 5 Contract positions, for a total of 29 slots. ICs can request more slots at a future time.

NIH will recruit at local colleges/universities, job fairs. Recruitment 101 was recently held with a great turnout.

Interview Panels will consist of 3 people per panel. They will receive an alphabetical list of qualified applicants. After Interview Panel selects applicants, the ICs will have an opportunity to interview highly qualified candidates Selection will be tied to the AO competencies.

Fellows are projected to start in May/June following an orientation.

Brown bags will be conducted with fellows throughout their fellowship.

Official mentoring relationships will be established. ICs may allow AFPs to pick mentors (outside of IC). A suggestion was made to have a 'Mentoring Job Fair' (social event), so fellows will have an opportunity to interview and select mentors.

General Discussion:

Tim updated the group on the status of the Title 42 recommendation memo. The memo was approved in theory, and Mimi Blitz's office is working on implementation of the proposals. Everyone agrees that changes are needed to NIH's Title 42 policies.

Tim updated the group on the Roles/Responsibilities of AOs and HR. The spreadsheet is near completion with issues almost resolved. When completed, the spreadsheet will be placed on AO/HR portal.

Tim brought up the idea of establishing AO Brown Bag Lunches to share ideas. He is hoping for volunteers to coordinate the first brown bag, and to identify the first discussion topic. He hopes to have the first brown bag by late February.

Linda Adams discussed the status of HSPD12. According to John Ericson, many exciting and positive changes will be made to NED. It will connect to other databases including EHRP, DIS, ITAS, etc. It may require that HR enter information into NED (they will be given access). This will then serve as the notification to the ICs, eliminating the need for the ITAS e-mail notification.

Tim Tosten reminded the group that the next DDM Seminar Series will be on 2/8/07. It will be hosted by Tim and Camille Hoover. A reception will follow the seminar. He wants great attendance at the seminar and encouraged the group to spread the word.