PILLAR AWARD RECIPIENTS 2001

OPM Director Kay Coles James presented the 2001 OPM Director's PILLAR Awards on August 28th at OPM's Strategic Compensation Conference in Alexandria, VA. The OPM Director's PILLAR Award is an honorary award established in 2000 to recognize and publicize effective employee performance management programs, processes, and practices that support alignment of employee performance management practices with organizational strategic goals as well as results-oriented and customer-focused performance. The name of the award stands for Performance, Incentives, and Leadership Linked to Achieve Results. The pillar represents effective performance management because it is the foundation that supports a structure, just as performance management is the foundation that supports good management.

OPM solicited nominations for the award in a March 29 memorandum for heads of executive departments and agencies. We received 40 nominations from 18 agencies. A panel of human resources experts reviewed the nominations and made recommendations to Director James, who made the final selections.

Award recipients

• U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining, Division of Compliance Management (DCM)for its Program for Empowered Performance. This employee performance management program bases employee performance expectations, appraisals, and recognition on strategic organizational goals that are cascaded down through the organization to the employee level. The program involved employees in the development of their individual performance plans, stressed the development of coaching skills for supervisors, introduced a 360-degree feedback mechanism for supervisors, broadened and enhanced communication of performance data, and stressed internal and external customer service.

  DCM has achieved excellent organizational results in a number of areas with accomplishment of some goals at record levels. Their organizational success has been reflected in their receipt of the Secretary's Excellence of Service Award.

• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), Los Angeles Regional Office (LARO) for its Visuals for Veterans program. The program uses a series of visual displays, including television monitors, to provide feedback that is updated daily. The data show progress made toward achieving goals based on the VBA's balanced scorecard. Goals are described at various levels throughout the organization from the overall regional goals through team goals. LARO also uses the scorecard results as the basis for distributing "share" rewards tied to the achievement of National, Network, and Station targets. The program is designed to communicate to each employee his/her performance contribution to the VBA's specific strategic goals and objectives for serving its customer, the veteran.  LARO is now the focal point of many visitors, both public and private sector, hoping to learn about Visuals for Veterans. A team from the General Accounting Office visited LARO for an upcoming study of "Best Practices" and the Work in America Institute has used it as a case study. LARO is often used as a model for the rest of VA, with station level scorecard results placing it in the top 15 out of 57 regional offices.

We want to acknowledge all the organizations throughout Government who took the time to nominate a performance management practice that contributes to achieving their mission and strategic goals.

Nominees

Department of Agriculture

National Agricultural Statistics Service
Washington, DC

Department of the Air Force

14th Medical Group
Columbus Air Force Base, MS

96th Air Base Wing
Elgin Air Force Base, FL

92nd Air Refueling Wing
Fairchild Air Force Base, WA

Customer Support Branch
Hill Air Force Base, UT

Landing Gear Division
Hill Air Force Base, UT

Materiel Systems Group
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH

Department of the Army

Strategic Planning Office
Fort Hood, TX

Strategic Systems Division
Fort McPherson, GA

Department of Commerce

Chicago Regional Office
Bureau of the Census
Westchester, IL

Department of Defense

Defense Language Institute
Foreign Language Center
Monterey, CA

Defence Contract Audit Agency
Eastern Region
Smyrna, GA

Defense Logistics Agency
Battle Creek Customer Support Center
Battle Creek, MI

Department of Energy

Bonneville Power Administration
Portland, OR

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Office of the Chief Procurement Officer
Washington, DC

Office of Departmental Operations and Coordination
Washington, DC

Department of the Interior

Office of Surface Mining
Pittsburgh, PA

Department of Justice

Immigration and Naturalization Service
Washington, DC

Department of the Navy

Human Resources Service Center – Northeast
Philadelphia, PA

Personnel Support Activity
Yokosuka, Japan

Department of Transportation

Federal Aviation Administration
Office of Human Resource Management
Washington, DC

Federal Aviation Administration
Eastern Region Airway Facilities Division
Jamaica, NY

Federal Aviation Administration
Office of the Associate Administrator for
Research and Acquisitions
Washington, DC

Department of the Treasury

Internal Revenue Service
Brookhaven Service Center
Accounts Management Branch I
Holtsville, NY

Internal Revenue Service
Accounts Management Division II
Baltimore, MD

Internal Revenue Service
Andover, MA

U.S. Mint
Washington, DC

Department of Veterans Affairs

VA Regional Office
Los Angeles, CA

Ann Arbor Healthcare System
Ann Arbor, MI

VA Regional Office of Personnel Management
Muskogee, OK

VA Regional Office and Insurance Center
Philadelphia, PA

VA Regional Office
San Juan, PR

Federal Election Commission

Information Division
Washington, DC

General Services Administration

Public Buildings Service
Office of Business Performance
Washington, DC

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Human Resources
Washington, DC

Railroad Retirement Board

Office of Programs
Chicago, IL

U.S. District Court

Northern District of New York
Syracuse, NY

Back to Top