Executive Recruitments
The Division of Senior and Scientific Executive Management (DSSEM) completed 35 executive recruitments including three IC directors, five IC deputy directors, an IC chief financial officer, two executive officers, and two ARPA-H personnel. DSSEM also onboarded two National Institutes of Health (NIH) senior leaders in 2023.
DSSEM
Executive Position Management Tool (EPMT)
As part of the Office of Human Resources’ 2023 goal to continue to expand our data-driven culture and boost automation capabilities to enhance efficiencies, the Division of Senior and Scientific Executive Management (DSSEM) alongside the Compensation and Policy Division (CPD) developed the Executive Position Management Tool (EPMT), a digital tool for tracking and capturing data related to all Top 5 positions. This will serve as a backbone for operations in DSSEM and allow for greater reporting and tracking capabilities for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
DSSEM CPD
Spring Increase Tool
The Compensation and Policy Division (CPD) launched the Spring Increase tool, an automated tool that streamlines thousands of annual pay increases that previously required manual review during the annual spring increase process. This resulted in positive accolades from customers, reduced errors, enhanced efficiencies, and facilitates valuable historical data retention for Institutes and Centers to use in future pay increase requests.
CPD
Launch of Policy Knowledge Management App
The Compensation and Policy Division (CPD) developed DISCA (Decisions, Instances, and Storing Context App), a content storage app that serves as a knowledge management tool for the Office of Human Resources (OHR) divisions to store historical policy-related data for research and decision-making purposes. This app allows OHR staff to more efficiently store and search for information and historical and/or rare decisions to provide more informed and timely responses to customers.
CPD
8 Percent Rule Calculators for Title 42 and Title 38 PDP
The Compensation and Policy Division (CPD) released two Excel tools for calculating potential increases under Title 42 and Title 38 Physician and Dentist Pay (PDP) to assist Institutes and Centers (IC) in determining the maximum pay increases offered to scientific staff. The tools allow IC staff to enter pay-related information to determine the remaining allowable pay increase. The tools are intended for use in situations when employees remain in the same position and the 8% Cumulative Annual Increase Rule applies. Separate tools were created for Title 42 and Title 38 PDP to account for comparability adjustments, which differ between pay systems, and they include the rules and appropriate fields for the respective appointment mechanism.
CPD
Hiring, FTE Usage & Staffing
The Client Services Division (CSD) continued to support the ongoing recruitment and hiring needs of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As of an increase of employees, the workload in classification rose in 2023 by 22.8%. The Office of Human Resources (OHR) increased Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) usage without needing to increase our number of announcements from CY22 through shared recruitments and sharing of certificates resulting in a 0.3% decrease in Announcements. Additionally, FTE usage increased by 2.6% from 2022, which demonstrates NIH hiring continues to outpace separations. CSD continues to support all employees through the processing of personnel actions with 3,620 actions processed per month in 2023. OHR has leveraged Robotic Process Automation to create efficiencies in this area however still maintains a high volume of actions processed manually each month.
CSD
Leveraging Technology to Support HR Management
The Client Services Division (CSD) continues to seek new ways of leveraging technology to support the hiring and recruitment process across the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 2023, CSD implemented the following apps and online tools:
- Hiring Decisions Tool: Designed to move the signature process out of email, this tool allows hiring managers and CSD staff seamless access to applications in a central online tool complete with email notifications and centralized storage of vital candidate data.
- Certificate Request App: This app provides the NIH administrative community the ability to view dynamic certificate data across HHS available for sharing. This app replaces antiquated Excel spreadsheets that quickly become obsolete as data and availability changes.
- Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) App: This web-based app automates the FLSA data-collection process and reduces the need to email forms, which eliminates potential issues with larger files in Microsoft Outlook.
- Title 5 Exhaustion: Designed to capture all data centrally into a workflow, this tool automates the approval process of Title 5 Exhaustion requests.
CSD
Fellows Unionization
Following the December elections and certification, the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) now represents nearly 5,000 Fellows across the NIH resulting in an over 500% increase in our bargaining unit population. Throughout the elections process, the Workforce Relations Division (WRD) provided critical on-site support at multiple voting locations. Additionally, WRD has expanded its labor relations services to support supervisors and managers in 25 of the NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers that have bargaining unit employees.
WRD
Citizen Development Guidance
The HR Systems, Analytics, and Information Division (HRSAID) drafted Citizen Development Guidance for members of the Office of Human Resources (OHR) workforce with little to no developing/coding experience to learn to create applications, automations, and digital solutions. To support the workforce in these efforts, HRSAID developed overarching procedures and guidelines to ensure alignment with OHR’s business objectives. OHR citizen-developed apps continue to allow OHR to improve efficiencies and guarantee innovation when serving our National Institutes of Health customers.
HR SAID
Workforce Analytics Workbench Enhancements
The Workforce Analytics Workbench (WAW), developed by the Workforce Planning and Analytics Section of the Workforce Support and Development Division to present data visualization of current and historical National Institutes of Health workforce data, re-launched in November 2023 through the People Insights Analytics Portal (PIAP) with significant upgrades such as heatmaps and an intuitive Executive Summary – propelled by Power BI. Users can now view reports of overall FTE staff as well as subsets of staff filtered by factors such as Institute and Center (IC), organization code, supervisory status, job series, and more. Since the transition to Power BI, WAW has seen a 6% increase in registered users with representation in 97% of ICOs and four (4) ICs planning to deploy the dashboard across all of their supervisors.
Current approved users can access the WAW Dashboard in PIAP. New users can submit an access request using this link: Get WAW Access. For more information about the WAW, please reach out to WSDD’s Workforce Planning & Analytics Section at NIH-WORKFORCE-PLANNING@od.nih.gov.
WSDD
Pay Equity Efforts
The Compensation and Policy Division (CPD) focused efforts on the enhancement of pay equity in 2023. They conducted data collection exercises related to T42 pay-setting considerations to identify opportunities to improve training materials, reduce misinformation, and identify other areas of potential improvement. CPD expanded compensation and pay setting guidance in the Title 42 Information Hub to increase Institutes and Centers’ access to pay-related information and policy and to foster more equitable pay-setting practices across the NIH. The team also conducted numerous data analyses for IC customers to facilitate more equitable pay settings for new employees, and revised Spring Increase guidance to allow for more pay-related opportunities and greater flexibility for our IC customers.
CPD
NIH-Wide Training and Customer Education Efforts on Hiring and Compensation Policies
The Compensation and Policy Division (CPD) delivered several National Institutes of Health-wide trainings and information sessions such as town halls and brown bag sessions on a variety of Title 5, Title 42, compensation, and hiring policy topics to Institutes and Centers (IC) staff. Additionally, CPD created quick reference guides and performance management, hiring, and compensation content for NIH Top 5 officials on the Title 42 Information Hub, as well as additional content on Intramural Professional Designations (IPDs).
CPD