Anonymously contributed:
*** NNSA could soon face workforce gaps but struggles to monitor them ***
NNSA faces challenges in recruiting young workers
May 1, 2012 - By Molly Bernhart Walker
The National Nuclear Security Administration and the contractors who operate the national lab sites for NNSA may soon face a workforce shortage, according to an April 26 Government Accountability Office report (.pdf).
NNSA's hiring and retention efforts have typically focused on "attracting early career hires with competitive pay and development opportunities," but the positions may not be appealing to today's young workers, say report authors....
read more....
http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/nnsa-could-soon-face-workforce-gaps-struggles-monitor-them/2012-05-01
Comments
As a side benefit, employee contributions to TCP1 would become pretax, which would increase worker's take home pay.
If the politicians still want their Bechtel contributions, let the Lab pay a management fee to Bechtel if we have to, but LLNL should go back to being a non-profit org.
You are seriously confused. "LLNL" was never an organization unto itself, non-profit or otherwise. Before the contract change, the only "organizations" were UC and DOE/NNSA. LLNL was simply a name of a laboratory facility wholly owned by DOE/NNSA and run by UC under a contract. You were a UC employee, NOT a LLNL employee. The only thing that has changed is that you are now a LLNS (NOT Bechtel) employee. The award fee that LLNS (and therefore Bechtel, UC, and other parent organizations making up LLNS) receives from DOE/NNSA for running LLNL have absolutely nothing to do with how much LLNS pays its employees. If the contractor running LLNL reverted to non-profit, those fees would be substantially reduced, but that would simply mean savings to the government. They wouldn't still exist to be paid by the contractor as salary.
Don't worry though, there are unfortunately still many folks at both LLNL and LANL whose heads are in the sand like yours.
NNSA labs have been erratic in attracting and retaining top talent in these fields, as measured by top talent from top schools.
It is not clear that anything other than mid-level performers are needed for most positions. Not much new is being done.
NNSA and the Republican party has survived with barely qualified bottom of the class types.
MIT and the Deoocratic party are inhabited by much better credentialed people, yet can show little substantial from the credential orgy. Witness O'bama and Krugman, laureated scolds and little more.
The recent additions are short-sighted functionaries, who parrot whatever short-term words they are told to say.
May 10, 2012 12:58 AM
Look, this is getting really stupid. LLNL doesn't need, or have, either for-profit or non-profit status. LLNS has for-profit status. LLNL is not an institution in its own right. The budget you speak of is not LLNL's budget, it is LLNS's budget. You are not employees of LLNL, you are employees of LLNS. Maybe the difference is just to subtle for all you brilliant scientists.
May 10, 2012 5:26 PM
There is no way in hell I would work for LLNS or LANS. Just trying to inject some clarity and truth into the discussion. I notice you didn't dispute anything I wrote. There are just too many people at both LANL and LLNL who are still, after 7 of 8 years of corporate management, convinced that the labs are still part of some university, or stupider still, that they are somehow not really corporate employees. They need to wake up.
At a contract R&D firm, you only put in the hours that are paid for, and logged in 15-minute increments, because it's a violation of the rules to put in unpaid evenings and weekends. Plus, the combination of high lab overhead and lower DOE funding means you're going to be split across 5-10 contracts, which is going to discourage the kind of focused effort required for high quality science. The DOE labs are for-profit, contract-driven, short-term-focused entities now -- not an environment which brings in top talent. Pension plans are the least of the worries.
The restrictions such as no cell phones, no mp3 players etc do not play well with the talent pool. The lack of a mission at the labs is a sticking point. Now add to that an uncertain job stability, a 401k rather than a very nice Defined Benefit plan and you have a formula the will result in a dismal recruitment.
May 10, 2012 9:46 AM"
I agree the scientists at the labs are clueless know-it-alls. We would all do better if they got rid of all the scientists from the labs and put in real people that can get the job done and not whine and bitch all the time. These people amaze me at times, just wait for the dollar to collapse and see where all their "brains" gets them when they cannot hunt or fish. 9.46AM and I get it and we will be just fine.
I agree that as a young Ph.D just out of college what most interested me was doing exciting science. However, after a few years it's natural to look around and compare your job and long-term career prospects at LLNL with those offered by other high-tech employers. Things such as work-live balance, pay, and yes pensions start to matter more than when you're a single young Turk fresh out of college. So while exciting science is important for initially attracting talent, other factors such as pensions are important for retaining talent.
Previously, with exciting science AND a good retirement benefits package LLNL had what it takes to both attract AND retain talent. Now with the changes brought on by the Transition, it falls short in both attracting and retaining talent.
It increasingly appears as if LANS LCC was hired by NNSA to slowly shut Los Alamos down and mothball the facilities. Just look at what's happening and the plan will be clear. Oh, and please remember to follow Director McMillan's sage advice to "follow the money" into those highly paid Bechtel-ized upper management positions! What a tool.
May 11, 2012 6:55 AM
9:46 am here. Please leave me out of your lame "hunting and fishing" rants.
That's not what the time card regulations actually say.
May 11, 2012 8:57 AM"
You seem to have the same profoundly anti-intellectual and anti-social viewpoints combined with plenty of incoherence. The hunting and fishing guy is at least honest about his motivations in that he may sincerely believe that hunting and fishing are relevant future skills. You on the other hand seem to just be repeatedly lashing out in anger and extreme bitterness from you past failure.
May 12, 2012 8:36 AM
I don't see how you get "anti-intellectual and anti-social" from one snide comment about "brilliant scientists." It turns out I am a scientist myself (Ph.D. physicist), and had a quite successful 30+ year career at the lab, now retired with a great UC pension. I am many things, but "failure" isn't one of them. In any case, are you certain the "anger and extreme bitterness" you sense isn't your own?
May 12, 2012 11:39 AM"
Am I am calling bullshit on you. You have said this same thing before but it really makes no sense. If you doing so well and are retired with your so called great benefits than why are posting at all? The stuff you say sounds a lot like the garbage that Chris Mechles who is one of the most bitter people out there. The lab always has a few of these failed scientists who blame everybody but themselves. In any case it is rather transparent what is going on with you.
May 12, 2012 1:04 PM
Well, you are certainly quick to "call" bullshit (How can you do that unless someone appoints you referee? Do you have a special little flag for that?) on a situation you simply refuse to believe can exist: A happy retiree who still cares about the lab and about many of his former colleagues and the garbage they have to endure because of a few vocal misfits who refuse to accept that they are now corporate employees who need to act like it if they want to survive the new environment. The "transparency" you imagine is just that; your imagination. I am real and so are my situation and my opinions. The fact that your brain can't get it just reinforces my point.
No buying it, it so far...far removed from all the attitudes of the retirees that I know. The comment "few vocal misfits" shows that you so disconnected that either you are a fake or just really really out of it. Judging from your repeated insults of scientists I would say that you not being honest about your agenda or who you are, so the judgement of calling BS on you stands. The best test is to state your name if you really are this retired happy person than you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. However you are not going to do this ;)
May 13, 2012 10:09 AM
No one has asked you to "buy" anything. It is obviously your right to believe whatever you wish. However, I'd suggest you may have me convoluted with a few other posters. In any case, I know who I am, therefore I know you are wrong. You, on the other hand, have only your suppositions and anecdotal knowledge on which to base your belief that I am lying. I really don't care whether you "buy it" or not. Your need to see everything in black-and-white, adhering to your rigidly defined categories of thought, must be incredibly stifling to your career.
May 13, 2012 1:00 PM"
"The best test is to state your name if you really are this retired happy person than you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. However you are not going to do this ;)"
Well that was easy. Told ya so.
May 13, 2012 2:08 PM
You have no idea what I'd have to lose. Do you go through life on baseless assumptions?
This blog is a great example of phase space attractors. No matter what the subject, after N posts, the blog degenerates into some sort of idiotic McMillan/Knapp/Bechtel riff, or a riff on management in general, or on the general collapse of mythical lab culture due to transition. Again, independent of the initial post---it could be about the SF Giants and it would collapse to one of these attractors. Perhaps we should put a student on the historical blog record to plot the distribution of N.
May 13, 2012 8:56 PM
Only those who didn't live through it believe the earlier lab culture was "mythical." Actually the change began with the cessation of nuclear testing. The erosion of the nation's nuclear weapon expertise began then. The rest is (sad) history. IMHO, we have Wen Ho Lee to thank for the rise of the security/safety hegemony and the resultant transition to for-profit contractors. Fait accompli.
May 13, 2012 7:20 PM
How about your credibility.
May 15, 2012 6:25 AM
Uh, it's an anonymous blog. No one here has any credibility.
May 14, 2012 2:32 PM
and then raided the benefits of their employees in order to make ends meet. Forcing many to retire before their time. Ha! Go away Sandia shill!
The little squiggly red line under the word you type means it's misspelled.
May 16, 2012 7:17 PM"
OMFG you brilliant scinetists make me sick. You think you are better than other people becuase you can spell better. Wake up you are in coperate American now and if you are going to survive than you better drop that "tude" real quike. Note that I care I am happy leaving off my benifits and had a great carrier. You malecontents our only making the rest of us suffer.
I guess you are "living off" your benefits, not "leaving off" them. Also I bet you think you had a great "career" not "carrier," and that not all discontented people are "male." (Are you trying to be funny here?) You believe that everyone who thinks spelling is important is a "brilliant scientist"? How about your fourth grade teacher (who obviously failed)? Was she a "brilliant scientist" or just someone who cared abut language and education? Note that there were other mistakes I didn't mention. Was your fourth grade teacher that lenient? Again, watch the little red squiggly line; it is your friend.
"A more mobile workforce. NNSA and M&O contractor officials noted that a general shift from defined benefit retirement systems offering pensions to a defined contribution retirement system has made employees much more mobile and, therefore, harder to retain. A defined contribution retirement system makes employees much more mobile because, once the employee is vested––typically after a few years––their contributions to their retirement accounts are portable, therefore they no longer depend on tenure with a single employer. According to NNSA officials, M&O contractors no longer expect newly hired employees to spend their entire careers in the enterprise; rather, they expect them to work for a national laboratory or production plant for an average of 5 to 10 years."
That's not what the time card regulations actually say."
we welcome your correction :-)
May 17, 2012 12:27 PM
This makes no sense. 401k's are portable. The market is going to do what it does regardless. Why stay waiting for something that is probably years off, since the real crash is just now beginning with the collapse of the euro-zone. If they are waiting for better job prospects elsewhere, recent history shows that's not particularly well correlated with the market.
You really have nothing better to do than to look for mistyped words on a blog site? If so, than just read, don't vomit your brain content back on to the blog thread.
Are you volunteering to help me do that? If so, let me know. If not, I do not have time for log beautification.
May 18, 2012 12:36 PM
Hey, just trying to strike a blow for English as a language. And it's not "mistyped"; these people really don't know how to spell. Otherwise I'd assume they'd care about the "red squiggly line." Just trying to be helpful. What's got your panties in a twist? Think correct language is "vomit"? Just a little defensive about your lack of elementary education, I'd say. Any chance you're under 30? HeHe.
we welcome your correction :-)"
Um, still waiting on the correction?