Five Reasons Core Competencies are Important to Employees

Five Reasons Core Competencies are Important to Employees STORY BY ANNA TAYLOR • PUBLIC AFFAIRS SPECIALIST PHOTOS BY SHAYNE HENSLEY • NNSY PHOTOGRAPHER The workload at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) continues to surge both in scope and significance. Many departments are coping with the loss of skilled workers and the resulting experience gap created by Reductions In Force (RIF) in the 1990s and retirements.

Propelled by the Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), changes are being made to ensure the shipyard’s young and energetic workforce is sufficiently equipped to execute the mission of America’s Shipyard, and the new core competencies and workforce development pipelines are perhaps the most integral part of the system.

There are five reasons why the new core competencies, workforce development pipelines, and annual assessments are important to shipyard employees.

1. BUILD YOUR CAREER PATH Competencies are knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors an employee needs to adequately perform a job. In less than two years, more than 40 percent of the shipyard’s workforce will have five years of experience or less, which means many of those competencies will be underdeveloped. “We’re over the hump, we’re at the downslope,” said Jim Duke, Employee Development Branch Head (Code 228), alluding to the oft referenced “double hump” graph depicting the age and experience levels of NNSY’s workforce. “We have to define the paths to develop our employees and make sure they are getting what they need.”

In the past, departments at NNSY were able to pair up young employees with their more experienced counterparts. Because of the influx of new workers and high rates of attrition, the shipyard is struggling to preserve the traditional mentor model.

“I started nine years ago, and there used to be a lot of senior engineers around, and we don’t have that mentor relationship as much anymore,” said Matt Hamrick, Process Controls Division (Code 220A). “For new employees, the core competencies give them a path; it gives them some clarity so they can see what development looks like for specific areas.”

2. EMPOWER YOURSELF Workforce development pipelines delineate a potential career path for employees across the shipyard, regardless of trade or expertise.

Options for training along the way are outlined, and expectations are clearly defined to eliminate surprises and guess work.

“This allows you to take ownership of your career,” explained Duke. “Who else is going to be your best advocate?”

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The new pipelines allow for a certain amount of shared accountability between the supervisor and employee. Instead of relying on a supervisor to initiate training or request an Individual Development Plan (IDP), the employee is now empowered to make decisions about his or her future.

“I think having something like this is beneficial because, when you’re new to the shipyard, you have no idea what to expect,” said Linda Lugo-Mundy, a Structural Group (Code 920) Administrative Assistant.

“These pipelines show the career paths and what employees need to start thinking about in order to get themselves to those goals.”

To Shipyard Commander, Capt. Scott Brown, empowerment is second to none when it comes to the importance of process improvement. “It starts by establishing clear expectations and accountability in our daily operations,” he said. “As for our deck plate mechanics, there should be no question how your priorities align with your project team and the shipyard as a whole.”

3. KNOW YOUR OPTIONS For craftsmen like Ray Smith, a Shipfitting Shop (Shop 11) Mechanic, having access to the development pipelines creates peace of mind that wasn’t always available before. “It makes you feel more comfortable,” he explained. “When new employees get to the shipyard, they’re uncomfortable. [The pipelines] introduce employees to the work in a way so they feel more confident and competent. So they go out to the waterfront and are able to perform better.”

Scott Saunders, Code 920’s Nuclear Surface Craft Director, has worked at the shipyard for 37 years and knows firsthand the frustrations associated with an unclear career path. “The visual mapping is a lot better. Having been here for so many years, from the start, nobody had anything that showed you the career progression,” he said. “We used to just be sent to training with no explanation. So now when you look

Submarine Mechanical/Piping Branch (Code 265). “I think this will be a very valuable resource for new employees and a great way to visualize their progress over time.”

at the pipeline, you can see the things you need to learn between point A and point B. It’s a flowchart, it’s a road map, it identifies the different arenas of work you might get qualified to do.”

4. CREATE OPEN DIALOGUE WITH YOUR SUPERVISOR The development of these new pipelines has been a multi-shop collaborative effort, and when all is said and done, core competencies will be a standard tool across the shipyard. For the employee, it’s a way to understand personal and professional development from an entirely new angle, and it’s a dynamic way to encourage open dialogue with supervisors.

“It is important because you cannot expect to hold someone accountable for their performance if you have not clearly communicated your expectations,” said John Veal, Electrical Group (Code 950) Superintendent. “You should be having this dialogue to get your employees’ feedback on whether your expectations are reasonable and achievable.”

According to Hamrick, one of the biggest barriers will be getting supervisors to stop the daily firefighting and allow for time to discuss opportunities with employees.

“I think it will help boost morale for mechanics because you’ll understand where you’re going and why you’re going there,” said Matt Hall, a Nuclear Welder in Shop 26. “Coming in from the apprenticeship, we just went where they sent us without knowing the reason. This will clear all of that up.”

The intent is not to burden supervisors or employees with additional work, and understanding the importance of workforce development pipelines may require a new approach to the traditional model of goals and assessments.

“When I first came on, I looked for something like this to try to get an idea of what I needed to know for the job,” said Rebecca Whitworth,

5. INSTITUTE CHANGE AT AMERICA’S SHIPYARD The key to success is flexibility. As the new protocol becomes commonplace at the shipyard, and as young employees begin assuming leadership roles in the coming years, the core competencies and workforce development pipelines will become second nature. Required proficiencies will grow and change as the workload fluctuates and technologies transform.

“I tell brand new employees when they come in the shipyard, 'you have value the minute you show up on the deckplate,'” says Duke.

New employees, whether they are engineers or machinists, look at the shipyard with fresh eyes. “They’re going to see things for the first time and say, ‘why don’t we do it this way instead?’ And that’s extremely valuable to me as a supervisor to be able to see we have a better way of doing something. We need to use the collective intelligence to move forward. So I’m excited to have that open dialogue that enables us to use those ideas, to let the employees help us improve as an organization.”

One of the first steps to this overhaul was identifying employees’ core competencies at the department level to set the foundation and plot the developmental continuum. The shipyard’s goal is to have workers aligned and progressing through the pipelines by the end of Fiscal Year 2016, an aggressive but achievable end.

“Looking back at my first five years at the shipyard, there was no such program,” said Mike Zydron, Code 200 Engineering Planning Manager. “You got dropped in where the biggest need was, there was very little planned training, there was no career path established, and it was mostly on-the-job training, coaching, and mentoring.

Fast forward to the vision now, we actually give folks the ability to see a clear path to becoming full performance level. We owe this to our employees. We owe them the path to success to become subject matter experts in the areas we need them most. We’re accelerating the change, so we’ve got to accelerate our efforts.”

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