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NHLBI Focuses on Employee Response to Reinvention

By Carla Garnett

(This is the fourth article in a summer-long series on reinventing government at NIH.)

On the Front Page...

On the wall behind her conference table, NHLBI Executive Officer Sheila Merritt has framed a telling quotation: "In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." As Merritt — a 22-year veteran in NHLBI administration, who also spent 9 years in its intramural science program — explains her institute's reinvention initiatives, it becomes apparent that the words of sociologist Eric Hoffer have true meaning in practice as well as theory.

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Attending to Detail

As early as 1989, NHLBI began streamlining its review processes by reducing the amount of material sent to advisory council members and changing how and when unapproved applicants were informed about the status of their applications.

About 4 years ago, NHLBI policymakers stepped up their streamlining efforts when they saw the reinventing government (REGO) handwriting on the wall: Federal agencies were being asked to get smaller at about the same time that a push to "improve customer service" was emerging. In essence, government was being required to do more work with fewer staff and resources. Although NHLBI had been engaged in innovation and streamlining of review and grants management processes since the late 1980's, Merritt recalls, REGO prompted the institute to look at a number of other processes. "We began changing the way we do peer review," she says, explaining the adoption of "triage"(prioritizing applications according to their probability of receiving funding).

As is normal when processes undergo thorough reexamination, nothing was overlooked. Everything from large scale revamping to what could be seen simply as detail was opened for review. As a result, NHLBI also began requesting that reviewers type their comments about the applications they read. In early 1993 NHLBI began to use typed but unedited reviewers' comments to communicate review results to applicants, eliminating the need for staff to revise and retype reviewers' notes. That change alone has freed up untold hours spent deciphering and, in some cases, decoding handwritten critiques. Between late 1993 and early 1994 the institute eliminated the use of site visits and reverse site visits as part of its initial program project reviews. This change has saved NHLBI more than $100,000 in administrative costs each year since then.

Forethought and Feedback

If efficiency has been the cornerstone of NHLBI's reinvention efforts, then forethought and feedback have been the bricks and cement holding it in place. "Technology has made a lot of things possible," Merritt comments. In another nod to technology's ever-increasing importance in the workplace, computer specialists at the institute put NHLBI's system on the fast track several years ago. That kind of planning has made all the difference, according to Merritt. "We are very much up to date in terms of hardware and software," she says, "because a few years ago we were given good long-range advice about our computer infrastructure. We have a 4-year turnover plan for computers and upgrades, which has worked pretty well for us."

Procedures polished and resources renovated, NHLBI then addressed the hardest part of any reinvention effort — restructuring and acclimating employees. "In mid-1994 we began restructuring to meet NIH and DHHS streamlining targets for reducing supervisor-to-employee ratios," she remembers. "We were, in effect, flattening the organization by consolidating a number of branches and sections. This process reduced supervisory responsibilities for some and increased them for others. Change is often difficult, but NHLBI staff have pulled together to make the new organization work. We are still making adjustments and will continue do so as new challenges emerge."

To ease the transition, NHLBI continues its institute-wide effort to sharpen leadership and workforce skills. "Like other government organizations we had been doing things one way for quite a number of years," Merritt explains. "Then all of a sudden, reinvention introduces a new paradigm of management and communication to the workplace, challenging us to address human resource issues in a different way. We realized that everyone — senior management included — needed support to adapt to these changes. We began — and are still involved in — efforts to provide this support to our workforce. We have used outside consultants to update leadership skills and to instruct employees in team-building and improved communications. So far, this approach has worked pretty well as a cost-effective way to train a number of employees.

"Besides saving money," Merritt continues, "we found that people were getting more out of sitting in some sessions with their colleagues than they would have by attending courses held off campus."

'BOLD' Faced Changes, Challenges

A major highlight of the NHLBI REGO effort, says Merritt, was the chartering of the BOLD committee by institute director Dr. Claude Lenfant. BOLD is made up of NHLBI's top scientific, program, and administrative directors who come together as a team to solve problems and discuss major issues and challenges confronting the institute.

Currently, NHLBI is putting in place a new performance and recognition program that more directly links performance plans to position descriptions. Many aspects of the new program are based on input from employee human resource management groups convened to advise management. The new program also seeks to streamline the recruitment process by standardizing basic position descriptions for similar jobs. For example, grade-7 secretaries will use the same basic PD across NHLBI. There will be flexibility to add a significantly specialized duty to the standard PD in the rare instances when necessary. In addition, NHLBI built into the new program a requirement for supervisors to recognize and award deserving employees across all occupations at all levels. As part of their performance evaluation, Merritt says, supervisors will need to show an active and balanced awards process.

"Overall, the NHLBI record on reinvention is very good," she concludes. "We have streamlined many processes, redelegated a number of authorities downward, restructured to reduce layering, and become a major player in the area of sharing resources and providing service center support to other NIH organizations. Although the jury is still out, I think we may regard the successful implementation of our new performance and recognition program as our most gratifying achievement because of the institute-wide teamwork involved in the process."