NRAP Culture Teams

What is a NOAA Rotational Assignment Program (NRAP) Culture Team?

The Office of Organizational Excellence (OOE) created the first NRAP Culture Team in 2017 to educate and activate a group of field staff on culture. OOE created two NRAP culture teams in 2018 to build off the success and expand the network of individuals throughout the organization that are talking and taking actions on culture. In 2020, OOE launched the third iteration of the NRAP Culture Team that explored culture and developed projects through late 2020.

As of 2021, the NRAP program was replaced with NOAA’s L·A·N·T·E·R·N (Leveraging Abilities, Needs, Talents, Energies & Resources Network) program, a development program to promote employee growth, networking, and collaboration. For more information, visit the NOAA L·A·N·T·E·R·N site here.

NRAP Culture Team Objectives:

    • Encourage culture change via small, personal actions and as members of smaller “subgroup” project teams;

    • Engage Field staff as culture change agents;

    • Further team member personal and professional growth;

    • Heighten Field team member’s understanding of how NWS headquarters operates, strengthening ties between HQ and the field; and,

    • Increase team member’s awareness of and ability to identify “good” culture practices within their offices.

NRAP Culture Team Project Overviews:

NRAP v3 (2020)

The NRAP v3 Culture Team subgroups worked on the following projects:

    • Making the Case for Culture: Broadened awareness of culture across NWS and leveraged NWS data (FEVS, OHI etc) to demonstrate the importance of culture for mission delivery, summarizing their analysis and findings in this slide deck. Please also see this short presentation for more information.

    • Culture Resources for Managers: Developed documentation with 1) culture-focused interview questions and topics and 2) common management pitfalls and how to effectively address them to improve managers’ impact on office culture and morale. Please see this short presentation for more information.

    • Resources for Local Office Culture Teams: Built and piloted a Culture Team Toolkit to help local offices establish culture teams and improve office culture. Please see this short presentation for more information.

    • Culture Mentoring: Proposed a framework for assigning a “sponsor” to each new employee and created a Welcome Packet and Facilitation Guide to help sponsors support the acclimation of new employees. Please see this short presentation for more information. Note: These documents are being updated/modified as part of a broader framework for the launch of local mentoring programs across the NWS. This framework is expected to launch in Fall 2021.

    • Supporting Families and Caregivers: Created a repository of resources for NWS parents and caregivers to promote greater understanding of caregiver challenges among NWS employees and managers. Please see this short presentation for more information.

NRAP v2 (2018-2019)

Please see this slide deck for an overview of all NRAP v2 projects. Below, you can find more details about each Culture Team subgroup's project:

    • Managers Team: Compiled a Organizational Culture Guide for Field Managers, which includes onboarding tips for new managers, best practices, a guide to hiring, and more. Please see their whitepaper and full presentation.

    • Innovation subgroup: Spoke with partners and outside agencies to understand culture best practices; produced a deck to share and prompt discussions at local offices. Please see their whitepaper and full presentation.

    • Team Building subgroup: Wrote a statistical analysis of factors which contribute to a positive culture and encourage collaboration within or between offices. Please see their whitepaper and full presentation.

    • Training subgroup: Worked with OCLO to update the culture portion of the New Hires training course. Please see the updated culture section of the New Hires training and associated workbook.

    • Implementation subgroup: Produced a whitepaper outlining an “infection model” concept to maximize the Culture Team’s outputs and reach those interested in improving office culture. Please see their whitepaper and full presentation.

NRAP v1 (2017)

Example projects from the first iteration of the NRAP Culture Team:

    • Created this “Culture Portal” site with information and resources about organizational culture.

    • Collected best practices from offices with high culture scores (based on OHI results).

    • Proposed improvements to NWS Evolve (change process) communications and transparency.