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The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) Office of the Command Information Officer (OCIO) has developed a new application, Segment Eight Applicant Tracker (SEAT), designed to improve the civilian hiring process at all four Navy shipyards. Built in the Microsoft Power Apps platform, SEAT is a model-driven application that consolidates all data in one secure location to increase visibility and communication between all parties and is hosted in the OneNAVWAR Digital Innovation Nexus environment.
The idea of developing an application to support the shipyards originated in Program Executive Office Digital and then was passed onto NAVWAR to execute. The project started with a site visit to the Puget Sound shipyard in Washington in 2023, where people from OCIO met with representatives from all four shipyards to review existing systems and ascertain needs and priorities to drive the development of the new application. The shipyards noted an ongoing issue during the hiring process where Segment Eight of external hiring was taking much too long to onboard employees, leading prospective hires to drop out.
As a result, shipyards were struggling to meet their hiring quotas, leaving them inadequately staffed. This was impacting their ability to repair ships and submarines, resulting in the vessels remaining in maintenance for longer than necessary.
Segment Eight is part of the government job hiring process, where applicants are required to pass a series of contingencies, like a physical exam, drug test and more, before they are permitted to onboard. Each shipyard must coordinate and schedule each appointment that the applicant requires, which can lead to numerous delays and missed communications.
By using SEAT, data and coordination required to complete applicant processing will be consolidated and integrated into one secure application, with tasks easily tracked to see which have been completed and which still need to be. The goal is to reduce this part of the hiring process to 10 days.
Within SEAT, the applicants’ data is securely stored in Microsoft Dataverse, with Business Units (BU) allowing for the segmentation of data so users cannot see any personally identifiable information outside of their designated BU. There is also a centralized email communication system that sends automatic email notifications and tracks emails, including both sent and received messages. SEAT allows HR and the hiring command to track hiring metrics and consolidate other hiring materials, like job descriptions and individuals’ cover letters and resumes, into one convenient location that can be easily accessed.
“The SEAT team at NAVWAR has done an excellent job of meeting the shipyards' needs with this new application,” said NAVWAR Commander Rear Adm. Doug Small. “As SEAT is implemented this year, I hope we continue to see the positive effect that digitalization will have on readiness and enabling the fleet as a whole.”
The four shipyards across the nation —Kittery, Maine; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Portsmouth, Virginia; and Puget Sound, Washington—are under the jurisdiction of Naval Sea Systems Command and Fleet Forces Command and are a vital component for the maintenance of all Naval vessels. When ships and submarines are undergoing maintenance in dry dock or pier side, experienced professionals like engineers and tradespeople are needed to conduct repairs, like redoing the cabling, reinforcing the hull, etc. Ensuring shipyards are appropriately staffed, through a more efficient hiring system like SEAT, reduces the amount of time vessels are left in repair waiting to be serviced.
SEAT’s development directly ties into the “Lead Naval Digitalization” objective of NAVWAR’s Strategic Vector, which is a document that outlines how NAVWAR can continue to be the preeminent provider of information warfare capabilities through key objectives and goals.
“SEAT exemplifies how NAVWAR is a driving force of change as the Navy’s technical leader of digitalization by innovating how data can be processed and displayed to improve archaic systems,” said Amanda Plante, leader of the team developing SEAT.
While initially developed for the Naval shipyards, SEAT can now be used to support Segment 8 hiring authorities at other commands as well.
About NAVWAR:
NAVWAR identifies, develops, delivers, and sustains information warfighting capabilities and services that enable naval, joint, coalition and other national missions operating in warfighting domains from seabed to space and through cyberspace. NAVWAR consists of more than 11,000 civilian, active duty and reserve professionals located around the world.
| Date Taken: | 03.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 03.19.2024 10:29 |
| Story ID: | 466520 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 281 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NAVWAR Application Modernizes Naval Shipyard Hiring Process, by Lily Chen, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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