TABLE OF CONTENTS The organizations we reviewed used six key practices in the initiatives that we reviewed to empower and involve employees. Figure 1 identifies the practices and provides some examples of how the organizations used them.
Demonstrating top leadership commitment. Top leadership commitment is crucial in instilling a common vision across the organization and creating an environment that is receptive to innovation. Leaders of the agency organizations we reviewed envisioned needed changes, communicated openly with employees, and instituted organizational changes. For example, the Director of the FAA Logistics Center decided that the Center needed to operate more like a private sector business. He met in open forums with employees to discuss his vision and, with the help of employees and union representatives, reorganized the Center.
Engaging employee unions. Effective labor-management relations help to achieve consensus and solve problems expeditiously. In some cases the unions participated in pre-decisional discussions with agency management before changes were implemented. For example, IRS involved its employees' union in pre-decisional discussions a bout proposed new policies.
Training employees to enhance their knowledge, skills, and abilities. All five agencies provided formal or on-the-job training to employees to support the changes that were being made. For example, OPM provided on-the-job cross training to a retirement processing team so that the team could adjudicate retirement claims under both the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS).
Using employee teams to help accomplish agency missions. All five agencies used teams...
