Human Resource Management Profile and Assessment of NASA - Case Study Example

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration popularly known as NASA is a public organization of the United States Federal Government whose main responsibility is the civilian space program. Although the agencies mission statement is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research; its influence goes further than just space exploration and includes research in diverse fields like aerospace engineering, aerospace medicine, computer science and acoustic physics amongst others. This is true to its vision which is "We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.” NASA is responsible for many technological breakthroughs since it was founded in 1958 (Meltzer, 2015).

NASA has facilities all over the United States and has a budget of around US$18.01 billion. With such a huge budget and infrastructure comes a large workforce of about 17,000. Their workforce profile reads as follows:

Full-Time Permanent

16,410

Part-Time Permanent

91

Term Appointment

74

Student

535

Other Non-Permanent

79

All Employees

17,189

NASA, being a premier research and development agency recruits their employees based on the principle that they only do those things that can’t be done if we did not undertake them. Furthermore, the work they do has to be done in a more efficient and effective way than what the academia and private sectors do. This therefore means they will recruit the best in each particular field. This said NASA strives for an effective mix of time-limited civil service appointees, contractor personnel permanent civil servants and individuals from the academic world (Meltzer, 2015).

NASA offers competitive salaries to ensure that they do not lose the highly skilled labor they have. The employees receive long term benefits, Health Insurance & Resources, Federal Long Term Care Insurance and Life Insurance. All these perks ensure that the workforce is highly motivated to continue working here. NASA also provides a conducive environment to work in. In fact it has been voted to be the best place to work in a survey by bestplacestoworkin.org. They also have award ceremonies that are periodically held to recognize the employees whose contribution to the agency has been outstanding. Friends and relatives are invited to these ceremonies held in the recognition of these employees. In addition to these ceremonies special award ceremonies are also held during the year when deemed necessary. The recognition received could also be in form of money, medals, and certificates amongst others. This kind of recognition ensures employees are highly motivated to reach greater heights (Meltzer, 2015).

For NASA to succeed in carrying out its missions it has to be able to meet or exceed the outlined goals in its performance and strategic plans. To achieve this NASA has to assess its workforce performance at all levels including individual employees, Strategic Enterprises, Functional Offices, crosscutting processes amongst others. To thoroughly assess performance NASA uses objective and verifiable performance metrics, review processes and regular management insights or other comparable tools. Performance targets are set for each level, performance evaluation is done against those targets and the result is reported. If the evaluation is implemented with carefully and thoughtfully chosen measures then it can be used as a way of identifying areas with problems and improve the management and organizational effectiveness of the agency (Meltzer, 2015).

NASA has adopted only the best Human Resource Management policies and practices. It has installed a Human Resource Management System (HRMS). With this system in place NASA is able to process payroll for its employees. Various reports about the employees can be generated with system like the demographic and strategic employee data. The system can also track the enrollment of employees and those due for benefits. It is also with this system that NASA HRM is able to track job applicants as well as training schedules for employees. Last but not least the HRIS also keeps tabs on the performance of all employees (Armstrong, 2006).

• Furthermore NASA HRM has guidance on pre-employment and employment tests. The test is administered without regard to color, national origin, race, sex religion or disability. They are also tests validated properly for the positions and purposes they are meant for. NASA HRM is always abreast with changes in job description and updates selection procedures and test specifications accordingly (Armstrong, 2006).

Human Recourse Management at NASA also has a policy on Talent Acquisition. With the United States labor force at the beginning of the “workforce meltdown” where the demand for skilled and qualified workers is on the rise and their supply is short, NASA HRM has employed several techniques to keep their skilled labor as well as attract more to their agency. They have arrangements with employees where they keep nontraditional time of work i.e. working other hours apart from 8 to 5. Flexible work arrangements have also been made where one can work from home. Furthermore they have increased budget for new recruitment of highly skilled employees as well as luring former employees back with higher salaries and perks (Armstrong, 2006).

When it comes to health care benefits it is NASA's HRM policy to keep their workforce healthy and happy so as to have them working at their peak performance at all times. By keeping alert on what its competitors are offering their employees in terms of health benefits they ensure that they do not lose any employees. They conduct employee surveys to find out which insurance plan has the best features for each employee. They also ensure that the benefits they offer are comparable to what is offered by competitors (Armstrong, 2006).

• Through Recognition, Rewards, and Incentives NASA is able to keep its highly sought skilled labor. With most economies in recession and cost cutting the order of the day recognizing and rewarding employees ensures that workers are compensated for increased workloads and frozen salary increment. Furthermore incentives in terms of bonuses are used to gain favor with employees. These are given in many forms including monetary terms holidays and paid leave (Armstrong, 2006).

Its NASA's HRM policy to recruit only the best skilled workers in their respective fields and it achieves this through Recruitment and Applicant Tracking. To be able to locate the best candidates to fill the job vacancies there are several tools NASA HRM employs. These tools include referrals from other employees. If the refereed candidate is hired the employee gets a bonus. They also use the internet to source for cheap skilled labor from other countries. They recruit from campus. Though its time consuming and costly they are able to get talented and ambitious workers for entry level. NASA also recruits from military especially for highly talented and disciplined workers like pilots who later become astronauts (Armstrong, 2006).

Employees at NASA retire honorably through the Retirement Benefits scheme. Due to the classified nature of the work done by NASA, their retirement policy is in a way phased. Phased retirement takes forms which include reducing gradually the working hours of the employee. Jobs are shared between older workers. They also recruit retirees for discreet projects as part time consultants. The older workers are moved to less demanding jobs (Armstrong, 2006).

NASA does not tolerate any form of discrimination including performance appraisals. Under this policy the NASA HRM ensures that no discrimination occurs during performance appraisal. Discrimination of an employee’s evaluation because of nation of origin, sex or religion is prohibited. Employees with disability are also protected from being judged harshly. Basically all forms of discrimination are done away with including age discrimination (those above 40 years) (Armstrong, 2006).

The Health and wellness of employees at NASA is very well catered for. NASA HRM goes a step further in their bid to keep employees healthy by employing a policy where the employees’ participation in wellness programs is mandatory. These programs are varied to ensure that all employees are catered for. Some of the wellness programs include Checking of blood pressure and cholesterol levels voluntarily. For smokers they get health insurance surcharges. They also provide gyms with discounted memberships as well as providing weight management programs. Counseling and personal finance education is also availed (Armstrong, 2006).

Despite its secretive nature of its work, NASA is level headed when checking the backgrounds of employees. Despite the classified nature of NASA missions, the Human Resource Management has a tailored policy for screening applicants as well as employees for criminal record. This ensures there is no discrimination in the workforce. These procedures include using available evidence to identify and determine criminal offenses, identifying the actual circumstances and essential requirement in which jobs are done, doing an individual assessment to determine the exclusion duration for criminal conduct according to the evidence availed and keeping a record of the policy and procedure justification.

The Human Resource Management at NASA has its policies spot on when it comes to dealing with major issues arising from its highly skilled workers. In alignment with the organization's philosophy of recruiting the very best in each field of interest the Human resource management has put in place an internship program. In this program around 100 interns are hired. It hires interns from high school and college students. Early-career college graduates are hired too. This ensures that the skilled labor that it so much requires in its missions is tapped from an early stage in their careers. The interns are rotated through all business operations (HR Operations, Employee/Organizational Development and Recognition, and Employee Morale/Welfare and Recreation, Workforce Planning and Human Resource Information Systems). They are also exposed to experts in diverse areas like legal, finance and procurement to attract and develop talent. They also have a NASA mentoring program (Meltzer, 2015).

Furthermore, the agency was once faced by a human resource crisis when the human space program involving the space shuttle was winded down .NASA decided to lay down around 7,800 aerospace workers. It was up to the Human Resource Management to find these workers jobs in a difficult economy. The NASA HRM developed and managed human resource policy and services including training, planning and also career development for the laid down workers.

To find jobs for the regular and contract workers the NASA HRM hosted a virtue job fair where over 48 employers participated and made available more than 600 jobs. They also hosted individual employers who showcased job opportunities. They also held live job fairs where 47 representatives of employers and over 3100 employees of the space center participated. They also encouraged businesses to start to the Brevard County so that they can take advantage of the highly skilled workforce there as well as the Kennedy’s developed technology, infrastructure. The businesses also had high tech partners available.

Other than finding jobs for these workers the NASA HRM had the unenviable task of helping the long term employees with both emotional and other personal issues that come with losing a job. Many of these employees had spent their entire careers at Kennedy Space Center either as civil servants or in the private sector. They were provided with one on one service through the workforce transition offices as well as being educated formally in the classroom on how to look for jobs, write resumes and how to prepare for interviews. These efforts were a supplement to another comprehensive service that was being provided for by Brevard County aerospace workforce transition team that was in partnership with employee assistance program from NASA. Some of the services offered include: career counseling, skills assessment, financial planning, job-search and resume-writing training, real estate planning, job-loss counseling and stress management. Moreover a website was created where the laid off employees find the latest information about the transition as well as register for services.

The constellation program was to replace the shuttle program. There arose another major Human Resource issue. This issue entailed keeping the highly skilled people in the workforce because the future of the constellation program was uncertain. It had to await the decision of the Congress and president to decide on their budget. To ensure that this skilled labor was not drained to other employers, NASA HRM designed comprehensive retention packages for many of the contractors. These packages included completion bonuses, severance pay and critical skills retention. They also had a business development office whose sole purpose was to provide the private industry with the maximum possible opportunities to do business with the space centre (Meltzer, 2015).

NASA Human Resource Management has achieved a lot but it could improve its policies by having a Strategic workforce recruitment plan. The Agency will need to know the competencies it requires and recruit a workforce that is concentrated in those competencies. These recruits have to be world class employees and they have to be retained. This can be achieved by conducting competency gaps assessments periodically and using the results in development activities and to target new recruitment. NASA can also utilize its fulfilling and exciting work not only to attract but also retain employees that have the competencies required. Furthermore it could also facilitate leadership strategies that support its values.

More improvement in their human resource management could be achieved by promoting learning in the workforce. NASA should promote a climate of openness and continuous learning and improvement. Sharing of knowledge should also be encouraged. To promote personal and professional growth, the culture of sharing relevant knowledge so as to facilitate the best practices as well as avoid failures should be adopted. This can be achieved through strategically investing in training and development opportunities, mentoring, coaching and encouraging continuous learning and improvement. The agency could also provide a process whereby knowledge within the agency is captured and exchanged.