5: Management Excellence
Enabling the mission through sound management Other Information:
The Department’s strategic themes and goals will be accomplished not only through the efforts of the major program offices
in the Department but with additional effort from staff offices that support the management of the programs in carrying out
the mission. DOE is committed to integrated management and is taking steps to ensure that this is one of the critical initiatives
that will assist the Department’s leadership in achieving the strategic goals. DOE will endeavor to make sure it has the necessary
skills available to carry out the mission and to continue bringing in talented and qualified resources for the future. As
DOE strives to meet the needs of the Nation in the area of scientific discovery and innovation, and the needs of its employees,
cost-effective upgrades, renovations, and replacements will be made to aging and outdated facilities. One of most important
keys to managing the Department is financial stewardship and one of the top priorities for DOE is continually improving its
financial performance and accountability over the resources entrusted to it by American taxpayers. Management Excellence Challenges
-- DOE is an organization of diverse programs. While this structure has its advantages, it often hampers integrated management
of core functions across the Department. In addition, there are economies of scale and improvements in service that could
be attained by implementing a common Department-wide approach to core services utilized by all internal stakeholders. This
can be difficult to attain in a program-centered approach to the work. However, DOE also faces near-term challenges that are
more fundamental. A significant portion of the Department’s budget is awarded to contractors each year and achieving excellence
in the Department’s management of contracts remains a significant challenge. The average age of the workforce is increasing,
and the number of skilled employees eligible for retirement suggests an impending knowledge and capability gap in the next
three-to- seven years. The Department is implementing a new resource management system that ties together data from various
functional disciplines into a single enterprise-wide network. The implementation of this system combined with recent audit
challenges requires the Department to adopt new financial and business practices. The Department currently facses accrued
under-funded contractor pension plan and post-retirement benefits liability in the billions of dollars. Finally, DOE’s infrastructure
is aging, which creates both safety and security concerns.
Objective(s):
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