Dear Colleagues:

The Division of Extramural Activities Support (DEAS) will open for business on October 3, 2004, the first day of the new fiscal year. In its first year of operation DEAS will have approximately 637 employees, making it the largest Division at NIH. In this update, we provide the latest information about staffing for DEAS, the IT system for requesting and tracking work, training and DEAS outreach activities.

STAFFING UPDATE

Management Team
DEAS has a vacancy for a hub manager (Hub C). The position is being advertised through August 26 (see link under MEO Jobs at http://extramuralmeo.nih.gov). The rest of the management positions that have been advertised (DEAS manager, Hub A and B managers, and nine employee supervisors) are filled.

GS-9/11/12 Workload and Quality Control Specialists
Final interviews for the remaining workload and quality control positions were held the week of August 16. Selections will be made shortly.

GS-8 Task Leaders
Nearly all of the 56 task leaders have been selected and notified. DEAS managers are working to select candidates for the few remaining vacancies.

Reassignment of Staff in Grades 2–7
DEAS has collected information on hub and location preferences from in-scope employees in grades 2–7. They now are working with the Extramural MEO Transition Team to analyze workload data from the Institutes and Centers (ICs) and develop a staffing plan. The plan will accommodate employees' preferences as much as possible, and will move employees around as little as possible, since DEAS managers recognize that continuity of operations is in everyone's best interest. It is expected that employees will be notified of their hub and location assignments in early September.

External Hires for GS-4/5/6 Positions
DEAS needed approximately 250 more employees for GS-4/5/6 positions than were available among the NIH in-scope staff. As announced previously, two all-sources advertisements for the GS-4/5/6 positions generated a large number of applications. The NIH Office of Extramural Research, where DEAS is located, began hiring external applicants in July and has been temporarily detailing them to ICs with extramural support staffing shortages. The newly hired employees will be permanently assigned to DEAS when it begins operations on October 3. They will be assigned to hubs and locations after NIH in-scope employees are assigned, so that DEAS managers can accommodate the in-scope employees' preferences to the extent possible.

Opting for a Change to Lower Grade
In late July, in-scope employees in grades 8 and above who were not offered DEAS positions at their current grade received an e-mail asking them to consider four options, including a voluntary change to lower grade to join DEAS. The other three options were: take a buyout; obtain a new, non-DEAS position independently; or use NIH Transition Center services to obtain a new federal job. The deadline for choosing an option was August 16. The NIH Office of Human Resources held four information sessions during the first two weeks of August to counsel employees who are considering a change to lower grade.

IT UPDATE

The DEAS work request and tracking system, called ECARES (Extramural Customer Assistance Request System), is now undergoing beta testing by several ICs. An open beta-testing period, during which extramural staff from all parts of NIH can try out ECARES, will be held in early September (dates will be announced later). The system is scheduled to be operational in late September, in time for the October 3 DEAS startup.

The DEAS management team will meet with the extramural staff in the ICs (i.e., DEAS customers) to introduce ECARES and demonstrate how work will be requested and tracked in the new system. DEAS employees will receive formal training on the system after it has been refined based on beta testing. ECARES is a web-based, easy-to-learn system that will allow customers to request work and track its status in real-time and will help DEAS managers assign tasks and balance workloads among the staff.

TRAINING UPDATE

In addition to training on ECARES, all DEAS staff members will receive training in IMPAC 11 modules, Web QT, customer service and DEAS standard operating procedures. All DEAS staff members new to NIH or to extramural research will also receive training to help them understand the NIH grants process. The DEAS training curriculum and calendar will be announced soon; most training will take place before DEAS begins operations on October 3.

DEAS customers (extramural staff in the ICs) will be offered training to familiarize themselves with the DEAS standard operating procedures. They will also receive an orientation to ECARES.

OUTREACH UPDATE

DEAS managers have continued to meet with employees in the ICs, including impacted employees, the IC leadership, and grants management, program and review staff. There are still a few ICs that the DEAS team has not had an opportunity to visit; they will contact those ICs to arrange meetings in the next couple of weeks. All requests to meet with the DEAS management team should be e-mailed to deasmanagement@mail.nih.gov.