The biggest goals at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) during 2020 are improving employee Quality of Work Life (QOWL) and increasing dependable mission delivery to support the warfighter. These goals are aligned with the NAVSEA Campaign Plan to Expand the Advantage 2.0, with NNSY at the forefront in meeting the NAVSEA mission to “design, build, deliver and maintain ships and systems on-time and at cost for the United States Navy.”
As viewed through the paradigm of the employee-developed C.O.R.E. values of Care, Ownership, Respect and Excellence, improving Quality of Work Life in America’s Shipyard includes “developing people, decentralizing command, holding ourselves accountable for results, embracing diversity and inclusion, and ensuring a safe workplace for our workforce,“ said Shipyard Commander Capt. Kai Torkelson.
In effort to develop a more unified approach to workforce development, more than 2,300 employees and production supervisors were surveyed, with feedback leading to implementation of a Fundamentals of People Development course. This new course has been provided to more than 100 supervisors since launching in July 2019, held in conjunction with First Level Supervisor High Velocity (1LSHV) training, and is being separately provided to those who had already completed 1LSHV. The course includes instruction in right thinking, coaching and mentoring, civil treatment, overcoming barriers and effectively addressing poor performance.
Other important workforce training efforts in the past year have included Force Multiplier training, which emphasizes the importance of the shipyard mission during today’s great power competition spanning the globe. NNSY has committed to providing 3,000 employees Force Multiplier training by the end of 2020. There was also the command-wide Team of Winners 2 training, which reinforced the C.O.R.E. values of employees being safe and empowered to express their concerns about potential hazards on the job. For shipyard leaders, Emotional Intelligence awareness training was provided on effectively and empathetically handling work relationships.
In improving dependable mission delivery, the Shipyard Leadership Team (SLT) has centered on three focus areas for 2020: clear implementation of a Balanced Command Plan, enhancing workforce efficiency to increase productive capacity, and improving staffing and development of NNSY employees.
The Balanced Command Plan helps to ensure resources are properly allocated and workload is managed across the shipyard. This will help meet the NAVSEA Campaign Plan declaration that ships must be completed on-time, and with “the requisite capability, quality and safety” needed to support the demands of combatant commanders. “The Balanced Command Plan is managed as an integrated system that requires a collaborative team effort across NNSY departments, other shipyards and contractors to manage the health of the shipyard by actively maintaining a balance between workload, workforce and budget,” said Torkelson.
In the area of productive capacity, NNSY is working to increase the number of mechanics on the deckplates, and enhancing “bang for the buck” via employee development and training. Initiatives being implemented on this front include ensuring mechanics have all required resources at the ready to support nonstop execution of work, and reevaluating hiring plans in critical shops to attain the needed number of mechanics. NNSY has also begun skill-based training in the shops, providing a mix of classroom instruction and on-the-job training for specific skillsets. “As NNSY continues to work on proficiency of the workforce to increase productive capacity, the NNSY People Development Team and individual codes will work toward identifying new opportunities and improving existing ones for our people to learn and excel,” said Torkelson.
There are also plans to codify the staffing and development of shipyard employees from recruitment to succession planning. NNSY has revamped and expanded its New Employee Orientation to six days, “showing our new employees how valued they are and exposing them to the opportunities their lifelong career at NNSY will provide them,” said Torkelson. Several actions are also being taken to strengthen performance management to enhance productivity, improving Individual Development Plans to ensure employee understanding of career paths, and leveraging leadership coaching across the shipyard to spur behavioral change and fully develop employees.
All these areas of improvement in combination with each other are intended to support both the current and future needs of NNSY. Torkelson challenged the NNSY workforce that “in our shops, in our departments, and across our organization, we need to identify the challenges that remain in front of us and attack them with vigor. The Chief of Naval Operations said we need a stronger, more capable and more innovative Navy in the 2020s, not the 2040s. Through the craftsmanship of our mechanics, the diversity of thought among our 11,000 employees, and the innovations we’ve been pursuing to bring out of the lab and onto the deckplates, we’re at the forefront in meeting that challenge.”