Nov. 15, 2011
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ARLINGTON, Va. - ERDC was recently named winner of the 2011 Research and Development (R&D) Laboratory Management Award by the U.S. Army Acquisition Corps (AAC).
Presented for the first time this year, the award cites the progress ERDC has made through its Human Capital Initiative, which focuses on hiring the best and fulfilling the life-cycle management of careers in a fair and transparent way to ensure the organization is well positioned to successfully replace particular talents in a proactive manner.
"The award recognizes that our human capital, program development and facilities initiatives are of the highest quality," said ERDC Director Dr. Jeff Holland. "The award also recognizes that ERDC has all the key pieces of a great organization—an exceptional team with outstanding technical, administrative, support, and management capabilities."
The R&D Laboratory Management Award is part of the yearly Army Laboratory of the Year competition. ERDC's win was based on the "major management accomplishment" submission for that event, which states that ERDC's people are its major resource and recognizes efforts to conquer two current social challenges in maintaining a high quality workforce: the retirement of "baby boomers" and the declining number of American college students who major in engineering and the sciences.
"After considering 12 highly qualified organizations, we selected Watson Wyatt (now Booz Allen Hamilton), one of the world's leading consulting firms focused on human resource development, to help us launch this initiative," Holland wrote in the submission. "We created an ERDC Human Capital Office to coordinate the design, development and the implementation of new processes across the full-career lifecycle of strategic, alignment, recruitment, integration, development, performance management, succession planning and separation."
In recent years, ERDC has placed a high level of importance on human capital, calling it ERDC's most important program.
The annual AAC awards are based on reviews and evaluation conducted by the Army Laboratory Assessment Group. Comprised of accomplished science and technology experts from a variety of fields, the group uses the annual assessments to make recommendations for award recipients. The Laboratory Management Award was accepted on behalf of ERDC by Deputy Director Dr. John Cullinane in a ceremony in Arlington, Va., Oct. 9. The award will be held by ERDC for two years.
"It is an honor to win the first-ever instance of this award—our win signifies that the Department of the Army places great confidence in what ERDC is doing and where it is going," said Holland. "The award signifies that ERDC has matured into an organization that is built to last."