How Happy Are You at Work? Tell Us.

• By Tom Shoop
• March 13, 2013
• comments

Our crack research team at Government Executive is in the midst of the largest study they've ever conducted. It involves assessing employee engagement across the federal government -- that is, how involved employees are in their work and how enthusiastic they are about it.

Here's where you come in: We want to make sure that all agencies are represented in the survey, and that means getting a lot of people to participate. Already, more than 15,000 employees have completed the survey.

If you're one of those people, then thanks for your help. If you're not, we'd greatly appreciate it if you would take five minutes and fill out the survey. The higher the participation rate, the more useful conclusions we can draw from the data -- and share with you.

Click here to complete the employee engagement survey

(Image via Caroline Eibl/Shutterstock.com)

Is Filibuster Reform Still Possible?

• By Charles S. Clark
• March 13, 2013
• comments

Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s recent performance of the first in-person Senate filibuster in the YouTube era may leave  Senate Democrats regretting they didn’t achieve stronger reforms of Senate rules for the process back in January.

Republicans have succeeded in delaying votes to confirm John Brennan to head the CIA and Chuck Hagel to run the Pentagon. And they're still blocking a vote on Obama appeals court nominee Caitlin Halligan and recess-appointed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray.

But irked Senate Democrats appear stuck on whether to try to counter the GOP’s tactics by launching another effort to curb  filibusters. The problem is that rules changes traditionally are done only on the first legislative day of a new Congress.

Michael Earls, a spokesman for the pro-reform advocacy coalition called Fix the Senate Now, says legal opinion is divided over whether a mid-session change in Senate rules is feasible. One precedent occurred in 2005, when, after years of feuding over stalled confirmation votes on judicial nominees in the George W. Bush administration, an agreement brokered by the so-called Gang of 14 senators was put in place long after the Senate’s first day.

“The cleanest way to ...

How to Find Your Next Job

• By Tom Shoop
• March 6, 2013
• comments

If you’ve been following GovExec.com closely over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed a new link in the upper right corner of every page on the site. Its one-word description pretty much says it all: “Jobs.”

The link leads to our new job listings section, featuring a wide range of current opportunities for which those with experience working in government are likely to be qualified. Some of the openings are in federal agencies. Others are at the state and local level, and still others are in the private or non-profit sectors.

The job board is not intended to compete with USAJobs, the official federal job website. Rather, it’s designed to highlight opportunities in various sectors that might be appealing to members of our audience. Current jobs include everything from consulting positions at major federal contractors to chief information officer jobs at different municipalities. More are being added all the time, and the section will evolve based on how users interact with it.

To create the job board, we partnered with the folks at JobTarget, a firm that specializes in creating employment sites for niche audiences. They work with thousands of trade and professional associations ...

Obama: 'We Can Manage Through' Sequester

• By Tom Shoop
• March 4, 2013
• comments

President Obama had a new message about sequestration Monday, in the form of a challenge to federal agencies: This may be difficult and nobody's idea of sound public policy, but "we can manage through it."

Prior to a meeting with his Cabinet -- including new members Jack Lew of Treasury and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel -- Obama said Topic A at the meeting would be implementing the sequester.

"Obviously, we’re going to be spending some time talking about the potential impact of the sequester on all the agencies and missions across the board," he said. "It is an area of deep concern and I think everybody knows where I stand on this issue.  We are going to manage it as best we can, try to minimize the impacts on American families, but it’s not the right way for us to go about deficit reduction."

The president pledged to "make sure that our agencies have the support they need to try to make some very difficult decisions" about how to make $85 billion in cuts.

"But," he added, "we can manage through it, and we’re going to rely on the outstanding leadership of all these agencies to make sure ...

The Real Problem With Sequestration

• By Tom Shoop
• March 1, 2013
• comments

Happy Sequestration Day, everybody!

What was once unthinkable has now taken on an air (maybe stench is a more appropriate word) of inevitability. And here's what people will be talking about: whether President Obama overplayed his hand politically, the extent to which cuts actually will be felt by Americans and (a distant third) the impact this will have on federal employees facing furloughs.

But here's what won't be talked about much at all: The overall effect of implementing a sequester on the operations of government. Because that's rarely, if ever, part of the conversation.

So let's try to at least start the discussion. It begins with acknowledging the dirty little secret: Can government absorb $85 billion in  cuts without widespread ill effects on people other than agencies' own employees? Probably. It wouldn't be easy, or painless, but a genuine  exercise in identifying areas to cut or put off new spending could identify savings. Better yet, political leaders could sit down and have a serious conversation about what programs we simply must live without until our fiscal house is in order.

That, of course, is not what's going to happen. Instead, the Obama administration ...