Human Resources Service Questionnaire Reply Requested by November 16, 1998 Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998 10:45:04 -0500 To: "A - Division Chief and Staff", "B - Branch Chiefs and Offices", "DC - All District Chiefs", "AO - All Administrative Officers" From: "Alice A. Sabatini, Division Administrative Officer, WRD" Subject: Human Resources Service Questionnaire Reply Requested by November 16, 1998 Cc: "Kym Y Elliott, Secretary, Reston, VA " WRD Managers: Later today, a questionnaire developed by the Human Resources Roles and Responsibilities Team will be faxed or hand carried to your office. Please make copies as necessary to ensure that a questionnaire is received by each district chief, branch chief, administrative officer and WRD senior staff member within your office. This questionnaire is also being mailed to 75 WRD employees that have been selected randomly from a roster (1 in every 50 employees). The questionnaire should only take about 15 minutes to complete. Your opinion is important--please take a few moments to complete the survey and return it by fax to 703-648-5295 no later than Monday, November 16. Late responses cannot be used. You may clarify any of your responses with an attached narrative. The responses from the questionnaire will be used to identify service areas that are important but are not being done well. These areas will be explored further during focus group meetings and interviews conducted in Reston, Denver, Atlanta, Menlo Park, Tampa, FL, Madison, WI, Rolla, MO, and Flagstaff, AZ the first three weeks in December. Areas that are rated not important will be explored to determine if service can be discontinued. Please respond to the questions as they relate to human resources support services provided in the bureau, regardless of office or location providing the service. The team recognizes that there is a lack of understanding as to the service provider (OPS, division, region, cost center) for many of the HR services. We hope to clarify and perhaps redefine these roles as we evaluate the responses to this questionnaire, the information obtained during the focus groups and interviews, the resource utilization data, and as we benchmark best practices in other organizations. Please contact me if you have questions on the questionnaire or the work of the team. More information on the team and the questionnaire follows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- A Human Resources Roles and Responsibilities Team has been convened to examine human resources activities throughout the USGS. The team was chartered by the Operations Council and has been given wide latitude to identify how the administration of personnel functions, processes, and systems could be improved and streamlined; which personnel services or activities should be centralized or decentralized; where these personnel services should be performed in the USGS; and finally, the resources needed to perform them. The team is being led by a Senior Consultant from the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to bring a breadth of outside experiences and bench marking capabilities to our study. We are asking you to participate in the study by completing the attached survey. From the results of this survey, the study team hopes to gain a "snap shot" view from a cross section of the USGS workforce that will provide perceptions and opinions on the importance and performance of wide range of human resources activities and services. We will assess the responses from you and your colleagues and identify the human resources services that are most important to you and the actions that need to be taken to implement, improve or continue the successful delivery of these services. The next step will be to explore the issues identified in the survey with employees, supervisors and managers across the bureau during focus group interviews. Please complete the survey and by November 16, 1998. Your response should be returned electronically via fax (703-684-5295). If you have questions about the survey or the Human Resources Roles and Responsibility Study, please contact one of the team members listed below. Thanks for your participation. List of Team members: Bill Fordyce (703) 648 7443 wfordyce@usgs.gov Anne E. Gartner (650) 329 5106 aegartner@usgs.gov Marilyn Myers (303) 202 4030 mamyers@usgs.gov Alice Sabatini (703) 648 5027 aasabati@usgs.gov Greg Smith (703) 648 4074 gregory_smith@usgs.gov Laure Wallace (703) 648 6515 lwallace@usgs.gov Curt Dierdorff (202) 682 4010 cdierdorff@napawash.org