Sandia News

Human Resources, Finances and Legal


The Health, Benefits, and Employee Services Center implemented one new healthcare plan, Sandia Total Health, for nonrepresented employees and premedicare retirees. Sandia Total Health is a consumer-driven healthcare plan that includes an employer-funded health reimbursement account that promotes consumerism and a greater focus on prevention. Sandia also partnered with Extend Health® to provide retiree health benefit administrative services. These changes will significantly reduce future healthcare costs and liability for Sandia. Onsite, through lab-wide organizational health assessments, Health Services helps divisions design their own workgroup prevention programs. (3300) IES

The FY10 hiring target goal of 699 new Laboratory employees represented a five-year high. FY10 hires totaled 709. This aggressive hiring goal was obtained through hard work and teaming by the line managers and support teams, and Human Resources. In the midst of this hiring activity, a new PeopleSoft system was implemented on time and with minimal impact to the ultimate Labs’ hiring target. (3500) IES

The Controller’s Center was instrumental in developing solutions that will reduce future pension costs and help preserve the solvency of Sandia’s retirement plans. The decisions included revising the Retirement Income Plan benefit formula, making early contributions to the plan, updating actuarial assumptions, taking advantage of recently enacted legislative relief, and implementing overhead reductions to generate cost savings that can be used to support future pension contributions. The Pension Fund/Savings Plan Management and Indirect Financial Management Departments provided analysis of the alternatives considered, including the impact on Sandia’s fringe rate. (10500) IES

As good stewards, Sandia continues to review its business practices to enable the Labs to better meet its mission objectives. One of the benefits of this effort is the ability of the Labs to position itself to address future pension obligations. By assessing and improving how Sandia implements certain business practices, the Labs has been able to make early contributions to the pension fund in order to mitigate future costs. $50 million and $75 million were contributed in FY09 and FY10, respectively, that resulted from cost savings across many areas of the Labs, including approximately $4 million for equipment disposal cost avoidance, $1 million in savings due to changing the process for two-way radio maintenance, and $800,000 in savings through removing the vault-type room logging requirement. In addition, some of these savings were reported to SSO as part of the annual Performance Evaluation Plan, which requires a minimum of $15 million of cost savings or avoidance resulting from efficiency gains. (10600) IES

The Business Rhythm project, one of seven elements in the Business Reengineering corporate strategic thrust, is aimed at efficient planning processes in support of mission execution. Business Rhythm is a picture of how the Labs delivers value through its end-to-end business planning value chain, integrating the timing of policy procedures and organizational activities into a holistic, transparent business system for all members of the workforce. The model’s universal appeal and informative usefulness is acknowledged by its process owners and users alike. (10500, 10600, 10010, 10200, 3500, 1900, 200, 0040, 4200, 4800, 5200) IES


Each citation is followed by the center numbers of centers that contributed most directly to the effort described. An acronym after each accomplishment indicates which of Sandia’s strategic management units (SMUs) or strategic management groups (SMGs) the work most directly supported.

The SMG/SMU acronyms are:

  • NW: Nuclear Weapons SMG & SMU
  • DS & A: Defense Systems & Assessments SMU
  • IHNS: International, Homeland, and Nuclear Security SMU
  • ECIS: Energy, Climate, and Infrastructure SMU
  • IES: Integrated Enabling Services SMU
  • SPP: Sandia Partnership Projects