FAA recognized for excellence in management
The Federal Aviation Administration is racking up kudos for its management achievements.
On Monday, the California-based Association for Strategic Planning recognized FAA as an organization "at the leading edge of strategic practice" with its 2004 Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award. The prize honors continuing excellence in planning and stimulating innovation in the process.
Two days later, Administrator Marion C. Blakey told a forum of Mexican government workers and students how the Transportation Department--which includes FAA--came from behind to become a frontrunner among executive branch agencies in the race to "green" on goals spelled out in President Bush's management agenda. She was the only U.S. government official to appear at Mexican President Vicente Fox's Fourth Forum on Innovation in Public Administration Nov. 10.
"The FAA sets goals every year, and employee pay increases are tied to attaining them. This serves as a motivator for the employees, and it helps us to serve the public better," Blakey told an audience of at least 37,000 government workers and students-all but 5,000 of whom heard her remarks via satellite.
"We moved from close to dead last two years ago to being one of the top agencies across government in…getting to green on PMA," Blakey told reporters later Wednesday in a teleconference from Mexico City. "The fact that President Bush has been really championing this…has real resonance here with President Fox."
Mexico did not have a professional civil service until Fox began creating one about two years ago. According to FAA, the forum emphasized accountability, with the main objective of acquainting Mexican public administrators with worldwide best practices in government reform.
What earned FAA the strategic planning award was its Flight Plan 2004 - 2008. "This award and other recent recognition should change perceptions that it is not business as usual at the FAA," Blakey said in a statement issued Monday.
Updated yearly and matched to a specific budget, the five-year plan sets measurable goals and initiatives to achieve increased aviation safety, greater airspace capacity, international leadership, and organizational excellence. The plan supports Transportation's strategic plan and the President's Management Agenda .
On the most recent PMA score card, Transportation boasts four greens-for human capital management, competitive sourcing, electronic government and budget and performance integration. Like most agencies, it received an unfavorable red mark in financial performance.
FAA also did not meet all of its own performance targets this year. As a result, Blakey said, FAA employees will receive 90 percent of a hoped-for pay raise. Greater capacity and fewer operational errors were the targets missed. FAA's pay-for-performance plan is tied to governmentwide pay increases.