Advancing Workforce Diversity and Workplace Culture at the DOE National Laboratories
The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Science (SC) believe that creating a diverse workforce and a respectful and inclusive workplace culture that values and celebrates a diversity of people, ideas, practices, cultures, and educational backgrounds is essential for establishing the creative and innovative work environments necessary for the success of the DOE National Laboratories and continued delivery on DOE’s vital missions.
The Department of Energy’s 17 National Laboratories are delivering on DOE’s mission in discovery science, clean energy and energy independence, national security, and economic prosperity and global competitiveness by performing leading-edge research, using multidisciplinary research capabilities and large-scale scientific tools that are the envy of the world. The DOE National Laboratories collectively employ over 50,000 people. In addition, the DOE laboratories are host to over 45,000 visiting scientists, students, and users of its scientific user facilities each year.
As leading institutions in transformative science and innovation, the DOE National Laboratories believe that success depends on the unique insights and perspectives enabled by a diverse workforce.
The DOE National Laboratories are each engaged in a number of efforts to promote workforce diversity and inclusive workplace cultures at their laboratory and to continuously assess the effectiveness of their policies, procedures, and practices for cultivating safe, inclusive, professional, and respectful work environments. DOE Laboratory efforts are focused on:
- Creating an inclusive work environment where a variety of differences and talents are leveraged to advance world-class science and innovation;
- Advancing the recruitment, development, and retention of a diverse and talented workforce;
- Preventing discrimination, bias, and harassment; and
- Expanding the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) talent pipeline through STEM training programs and outreach.
They also collaborate in key areas to collectively advance these efforts across the DOE laboratory complex.
The Office of Science works closely with the ten DOE National Laboratories that it stewards to support and encourage their efforts to recruit a retain a skilled, diverse workforce and foster safe, respectful, inclusive workplace cultures within their organizations. In recent years, SC has instituted new processes to strengthen SC oversight, provided expert feedback and guidance to improve their supporting programs, processes, and activities, and increased laboratory accountability. SC continuously seeks opportunities to work collaboratively with all of the DOE National Laboratories to develop and promote successful strategies.
Collaborative SC Oversight of Laboratory Workforce Diversity and Workplace Culture Strategies
DOE National Laboratories’ management and operating (M&O) contracts include requirements that the DOE laboratory contractors establish laboratory plans supporting a skilled, diverse workforce and create inclusive workplace environments and update their plans annually. SC has established uniform guidance for the content structure of their plans to improve the consistency and quality with which each lab communicates to SC its vision, strategy, and major actions for advancing workforce diversity and workplace culture at their laboratory and for assessing the effectiveness their efforts. SC reviews the laboratories’ activities and provides feedback on an annual basis.
External Peer Review of SC Laboratory Workforce Diversity and Workplace Culture Strategies
In FY 2020, SC conducted the first external peer review of the ten SC National Laboratories workforce and workplace culture strategies. SC empaneled a group of reviewers representing subject matter expertise that ranged from leadership in managing large research organizations or departments; operations management, including human resources and civil rights compliance; social science research in diversity, harassment, and workplace civility; and professional leadership in promoting diversity in science and engineering fields. The reviewers were charged with evaluating whether the SC National Laboratories’ strategies will enable the laboratories to: 1) competitively attract, develop, and retain a diverse workforce of talented staff, and 2) cultivate equitable and inclusive laboratory cultures that are critical to building the creative and innovative work environments needed to deliver on the DOE mission.
The SC National Laboratories were provided with the feedback from the reviewers, which included a summary of SC laboratory-wide strengths and opportunities for improvement, as well as laboratory-specific strengths and weaknesses. The peer review also informed improvements to SC’s approach to the annual laboratory diversity and inclusion plans and feedback process, identified areas where SC can work with the DOE laboratories to further advance their efforts, and encouraged SC to conduct future external peer reviews of the SC laboratories’ efforts through onsite reviews every three to five years. In 2023, SC initiated a triennial external peer review process for the 10 SC DOE National Labs. SC now externally peer reviews 3-4 labs each year as part of a triennial review cycle.
