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2nd Quarter Performance Excellence Awards Ceremony

Early in his tenure, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued a challenge to the entire Commerce Department to improve service delivery to the American public and to develop measureable standards by which each of the bureaus could judge their customer service and internal performance.  It is this vision that launched the Commerce Performance Excellence program, putting the department at the cutting edge of the Administration’s efforts to increase the return on investment of government programs.  The program supports the education of staff, recognition of significant achievements and the sharing of winning strategies to help the department become more engaged in improving processes to deliver more effective and efficient services.

On May 25, 2011, Secretary Locke recognized three exemplary employee teams from the Census Bureau, NOAA, and the Economic Development Administration with Performance Excellence Awards.  For the second time in less than one year, Commerce employees were honored for successfully implementing streamlined processes to better the administration and delivery of service to the American people.

In this video, Secretary Locke, Acting Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank and others discuss the program, the awards and why process improvement matters.

In addition to its efforts to identify and promote quality improvements by role model teams throughout Commerce, the Performance Excellence program also deploys a system of Balanced Scorecards, quarterly Performance Reviews, and team process improvements to all bureaus.  Employees can learn learn more about the Performance Excellence program and Award recipients as well as information on the Balanced Scorecard or how they can improve processes in their own office by visiting the Performance Excellence page on the Commerce Intranet.

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2nd Q Performance Awards

It would be helpful to list/explain what the awards were for so we can see how activities/processes improved.

The processes improved

During this 2nd quarter awards ceremony, three teams were recognized for successfully implementing streamlined processes to better the delivery of service to the American people.

The EDA Grant Application Process Improvement Team took on the restructuring of EDA’s grant process. Their goal was to enhance timeliness, competitiveness, and stewardship of taxpayer funds.

And they did it!

Funding decisions that used to take 128 days, now take only 20 days, and the best project options are systematically identified. The delay hindered the applicants’ ability to forecast and schedule financing. Also under the new grant process, applicants may submit an application at any time during the quarter and receive formal feedback on its technical and competitive merits within 15 business days.

As part of the Census Bureau’s improving operational efficiency program, the Census Enterprise Software Purchasing Team developed, documented, and piloted a new process that cut the cost of software and reduced the lead time for purchases. Their new process identifies opportunities to bundle purchases to take advantage of lower prices offered for multiple licenses. The first buy using the new process saved $318,000, compared to Census’ costs if the software had been purchased by individual directorates.

The NOAA SES Hiring Process Team successfully reduced the average cycle time for SES hiring by 10 percent. Using the new process the team developed, NOAA’s Human Resources staff can now meet OPM requirements because the team cut the average in processing time by nine days, and those in the SES hiring queue will get faster service.

home.commerce.gov site... an accessible intranet?

I periodically receive e-mails from broadcast@doc.gov telling me to visit http://home.commerce.gov for more information. I have never been able to get through to this site, either from work (noaa.gov) or from home (commercial ISP).

Access to Home.Commerce.Gov

Access to Home.Commerce.Gov is restricted to Commerce employees and is behind a firewall. If you work for NOAA, you should have access. Can you email webmaster[at]doc[dot]gov subject line: Access to Home.Commerce.Gov with your NOAA location? Then we can track down what is happening.

Access to Home.Commerce.Gov

I sent e-mail to webmaster@doc.gov on April 12 and again August 23 as suggested here. I have never received a reply. Still no access to home.commerce.gov.

Will look into it

We don't have any record of the email in our inbox, but we'll look again.