By Adolph A. Mitchell and Renee Hatcher
NAWCWD Public Affairs

An employee from Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) at Point Mugu earned the first employee referral award for the successful referral of a candidate he referred for a job at Point Mugu.

James Kim, a computer scientist from code 45P100E, earned the option to elect either $1,000 in cash or 18 hours of paid time off. Kim elected to receive the $1,000 award for his candidate referral of Christine Han. With the successful referral of a job candidate this election is available to the remainder of the NAWCWD work force under the new Employee Referral Award Program recently announced to assist NAWCWD in securing the intellectual capital needed to continue successfully supporting our Sailors and Marines.

“I found out about this program from reading the all-hands email bulletin that I actually deleted,” Kim said. The deleted email had the information that discussed the procedure but he said it wasn’t until a co-worker brought it to his attention that he re-visited the email to get the needed information.

“My co-worker knew I was looking to refer Christine for possible employment so he told me that this program might work for us,” Kim said. He then got the necessary forms from his secretary, filled out and signed his portion, got his supervisor Thomas Yang and his new prospect Han to sign theirs and the process was on the way.

Han, the new electronic engineer who was successfully hired by Kim’s referral is no stranger to Point Mugu. “I worked here for 13 years before leaving to accompany my husband on a new assignment to Korea,” she said. “We worked in Korea and Singapore for several years before returning to the U.S.”

Once back in the area, Han contacted Kim about the possibility of returning to Point Mugu. It just happened that Kim’s department was in need of engineers, so this turned out to be the right person at the right time in the right place, using a program that was recently initiated to hire new employees.

With the advent of baby boomers heading into retirement in the coming years, employers will need to fill positions that will be vacated by the mass exodus of employees heading out the gate. NAWCWD is no exception. The employee referral award program began June 1, and was established to encourage current Weapons Division (WD) employees to recommend highly qualified candidates to fill positions that support test, evaluation, acquisition, research and development of weapons and weapons system capabilities for the U.S. Navy.

“This is our first referral example of how the workforce gets involved in helping WD achieve success in meeting our recruiting challenge,” said Scott O’Neil, NAWCWD executive director. “We are fortunate to employ the best and the brightest people working hard for our nation. They deserve to be rewarded for their efforts and I look forward to more in the future.”

The sense of urgency to employ and train qualified employees is particularly evident in the federal government as well as private industry. WD is facing potential shortages of highly specialized employees as baby boomers head into retirement, and due to the previous hiring constraints imposed by the Navy’s need for downsizing.

“Our number one source for good candidates is our own work force because they know the work, and through their various associations, have a strong network of qualified people,” said Richard Cracraft, NAWCWD’s Human Resources director. “The retention of people referred by your own employees is also significantly higher than from other sources.”

The NAWCWD employee referral program award form, a current list of occupations for which referral awards apply, and more details are available through each competency’s Total Force Consultant or online at https://wingspan.nawcwd.navy.mil/tfsm.

“To ensure the Weapons Division provides weapons for the warfighter today and into the future, we must meet the challenge of having the right size work force with the right skills, technical and administrative, to get the job done,” O’Neil said.

PHOTO CUTLINE

Photo by Adolph A. Mitchell

Capt. Mark Storch, NAWCWD vice commander, presents James Kim, an electronics engineer at Point Mugu, with a $1,000 check as a reward for being the first employee to successfully refer an employee hired by the Weapons Division.