Government Executive - Authors - Brittany Ballenstedt

Around Government

Brittany Ballenstedt and Eric Katz — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:35:00 -0500

Sequestration Relief

The easing of spending caps could stave off more furloughs, at least for now.

Agencies likely won’t have to force employees to take unpaid leave in 2014, but accomplishing their missions could still prove difficult.

In December 2013, Congress finally came together to pass a bipartisan budget compromise, which includes a temporary rollback of spending caps put in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act—also known as sequestration. Lawmakers received praise for their efforts, which put a two-year hiatus on political bickering and gamesmanship that led to drags on the economy, credit rating downgrades and a two-week government shutdown.

The agreement, however, reduces the wrath of sequestration by only $63 billion over the next two years. The caps originally required the federal government to cut spending by $218 billion in 2014 and 2015. That means 71 percent of the cuts will still go into effect, which could help agencies avoid more furloughs. But they’ll probably have to continue to freeze most hiring, reduce training and restrict travel.

President Obama acknowledged this reality in a press briefing.

“It buys back part of these across-the-board cuts, the so-called sequester, but not all of it,” Obama said. “So we’re still underfunding research. We’re still underfunding education. We’re still underfunding transportation and other initiatives that would create jobs right now.”

Looking forward, it should not be forgotten sequestration is a 10-year program. Absent further congressional action, the full slate of cuts will resume in 2016 and continue through 2021.

- Eric Katz

Why Aren’t More Feds Teleworking?

About half of federal employees have been told by their supervisors that they are, indeed, eligible to telework, yet most aren’t doing it.

While infrequent telework can help agencies achieve certain goals, such as emergency preparedness, it’s generally understood that agencies will not realize the full savings from telework in areas such as real estate and energy unless more federal employees telework more frequently.

Forty-seven percent of feds were notified in September 2012 of their eligibility to telework, yet only 21 percent of those eligible did so that month, according to the Office of Personnel Management’s latest telework status report. In fiscal 2012, 30 percent of those eligible said they teleworked at least infrequently.

While the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act set firm requirements for counting eligible employees and drawing up telework agreements, it did little in terms of measuring results, according to Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics and the Telework Research Network.

“It’s easier to say employees are eligible than it is to make it possible for them to do it,” Lister says.

- Brittany Ballenstedt

Bots and Bytes

RoboSimian, a robot developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, demonstrates how it can traverse the rocky terrain created by an earthquake or other natural disaster at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Robotics Challenge trials in Homestead, Fla., in December 2013. The challenge pitted 17 robots against each other in a series of eight competitions focused on helping disaster survivors. RoboSimian is among eight finalists that will compete for a $2 million prize.

Big Data Saves Lives

The study “From Data to Decisions: Lessons From Early Analytics Programs” by the Partnership for Public Service assesses the impact of five programs that digest myriad indicators to predict everything from famine to health care needs.

Famine Early Warning Systems Network | USAID

Mission Share information on food security threats with government and humanitarian assistance organizations

Payoff Targeting as much as $1.5 billion per year in USAID Food for Peace assistance to those who need it most

PulseNet | CDC

Mission A network of 87 public health laboratories connect foodborne illness cases to detect outbreaks

Payoff An estimated $291 million in medical costs avoided each year

Automated Biometric Identification System | CDC

Mission Collect biometrics from non-U.S. citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify enemy actors and share intelligence

Payoff About 3,000 enemy combatants identified, 950 individuals captured or killed, 2,300 detainees denied early release, 190,000 added to DoD’s watch list

Agricultural Quarantine Activity System | APHIS

Mission Make risk-based determinations about which shipping containers at U.S. ports to examine for plant-borne pests

Payoff Reduced costs by 30 percent by replacing duplicative reporting tools with one system and redeployed staff

Care Assessment Needs Score; Patient Care Assessment System | VHA

Mission Predict the likelihood of hospitalization or near-term death to identify high-risk patients and coordinate patient-centered health care services

Payoff High-risk patients who were seeing assigned doctors were 10 percent less likely to be hospitalized or dieLessons From Early Analytics Programs” by the Partnership for Public Service assesses the impact of five programs that digest myriad indicators to predict everything from famine to health care needs.

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Telework Keeps People On the Job Longer

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Technology has been touted as a means for retiring federal workers to pass on their knowledge and expertise to tech-savvy new hires. But that may not be the only benefit it is having on knowledge transfer in the federal government. In fact, telework is playing a big factor in many retirement-eligible federal employees deciding to stay in their jobs – giving agencies an even longer window to capture their knowledge and expertise.

Andrew Krzmarzick, director of community engagement for GovLoop, writes in a blog post that telework may be a major driver of Baby Boomers deciding to stay in their jobs beyond their retirement age. He quotes a recent GovLoop interview with Nick Nayak, chief procurement officer at the Homeland Security Department, who noted that while 20-25 percent of DHS’ workforce is at retirement-eligible age or soon to be, DHS workers in 2012 did not retire as quickly as they have in the past.

“Teleworking is a big reason for that,” Nayak told GovLoop. “It allows employees the chance to work a more flexible schedule so they aren’t retiring as early as before.”

Are retirement-eligible Baby Boomers at your agency staying on longer than expected? Is telework contributing at all to this trend?

Maven Madness: Apparently Everyone's An Expert on Social Media

Maven. Ninja. Evangelist. Guru.

The Atlantic reports that these are all popular names that self-proclaimed social media experts are giving themselves, according to an analysis by Ad Age, which counted the most used social media titles on Twitter.

In January 2013, the number of Twitter users with “social media” as part of their bio has grown significantly, to 181,000, up from a mere 16,000 in 2009. “Maven” and “ninja” were nearly tied for being used the most – nearly 22,000 times. Other popular titles were “evangelist” (20,829), “guru” (18,363) and “consultant” (9,031). “At this rate, everyone on Twitter will soon be a social media guru,” Ad Age’s B.L. Ochman writes.

Since Twitter allows only 140 characters plus a url for users to explain even their bio, it’s interesting that so many Twitter users are reserving that limited space to tout social media expertise.

As is shown in a blog post I wrote yesterday on social media at federal agencies, as well as my Twitter feed, I most commonly refer to social media professionals in government as “gurus” or “mavens.” But because these titles are becoming so widespread, perhaps actual social media professionals prefer a title with a more professional tone.

How do you characterize your social media skills in your Twitter bio or on your resume? Do you prefer a more professional title?

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Should We Ban After-Hours Work Emails?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 02:00:00 -0500

Late last month, I wrote about some of the potential downsides to teleworking, particularly when it comes to work-life balance. And as workers kick off their 2013 round of career resolutions, it’s interesting to see that some companies are making at least one resolution for their workers as well: turn off those mobile devices.

The New York Times reports that companies such as German automaker Daimler and Empower Public Relations in Chicago are adopting new policies aimed at reducing the amount of time employees spend on their electronic devices, particularly during off-duty hours.

Employees at Daimler, for example, can have incoming emails automatically deleted during vacation so they do not return to a flooded inbox, while Empower has implemented a Blackberry blackout policy where employees are required to turn off their Blackberries from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays and completely off on weekends for work-related use, with some exceptions.

A study released last spring by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that while mobile phones are considered to make workers more productive, there are potential downsides, particularly when those devices are interfering with employee sleep patterns, thus having a negative impact on productivity. Pew’s survey of 2,254 adults found that 44 percent of cellphone owners slept with their phone next to their bed, and 67 percent had experienced “phantom rings,” where they checked their phone even when it was not ringing or vibrating.

As I wrote about last month, many feds agree that teleworking often equates to working more hours and having more of an “always-on” mentality thanks to mobile devices, but most are still extremely positive about the flexible work option and believe mobility and telework have led to increased productivity.

Cindy Auten, general manager at Telework Exchange, said in August that while improved work-life balance has been touted as a benefit of telework and mobility, it can have a negative impact as employees may have a difficult time establishing work-life boundaries. “As agencies roll out [bring your own device] programs, they should proactively communicate the expectations and performance measurement policies to ensure that employees do not feel on-call all of the time,” she said.

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GSA Offers Online Training in Conference Etiquette

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:00:00 -0500

This year has not brought the most positive of headlines for the General Services Administration, particularly after revelations agency officials spent excessively at an over-the-top Las Vegas training conference that featured a mind reader, bicycle giveaways and extravagant receptions.

But now the agency is using that “mistake” as a catalyst for an effort to train other employees on conference etiquette, a topic that will serve as one of the first courses of its new virtual training program set to launch in January, Lauren Concklin, a marketing analyst with GSA, said Thursday during a webinar sponsored by GovLoop.

“GSA underwent a huge travel mistake in the last year, and this is also another reason why we want to modernize our training,” Concklin said, noting that the goal of virtual training is to reduce travel mishaps and help agencies realize efficiencies and cost savings.

The agency has teamed up with the online learning platform Blackboard to provide Web-based training to federal employees across government. A manual and in-person process for registering for and attending classes is moving online, allowing feds to register, pay for and attend classes via Internet. The Blackboard platform also provides tools such as discussion boards to collaborate, Concklin said.

GSA plans to launch its first online course, “Travel Basics,” through Blackboard in January, Concklin said. Another course – “How to Attend a Conference” – will go live in February or March, she added.

“Thanks to the big mistake we had in the last year, GSA is using that as an opportunity to say, ‘here’s what we did wrong,’ and helping other federal agencies to learn from our mistakes,” Concklin said. “So ‘How to Attend a Conference’ is one course that’s going to be piggybacked off that theory.”

The new online platform also is enabling GSA to offer training in a more creative, game-like setting. “There is a difference in the way generations like to be trained, but one thing we know for sure is that the old click-style of PowerPoint training isn’t always the most effective, especially when it comes to training employees on things like travel,” Concklin said. “Doing it in a more integrated, creative way is more engaging.”

GSA also is trying to push a capability that will establish more uniform tracking of training courses for federal employees. This will involve a new system that will push out to agencies a tracking feature that enables training courses to automatically be updated in an employee’s personal file once completed, Concklin said.

GSA also hopes the new online training platform will provide federal employees with greater personal choice on training courses and allow employees to keep up with training, even despite travel and training budgets being cut by 30 percent. “Federal agencies are realizing that their people need to be trained on certain topics, and travel is definitely one of them,” Concklin said. “And by opening the door to these platforms, it’s giving us the opportunity to greatly reduce the price to our federal agencies and allowing more employees to take training and take moretraining in one year.”

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The Four-Hour Workweek Fantasy

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:00:00 -0500

The Social Media Explorer blog had some interesting thoughts on the future of work and the desires of younger, digital native workers to shift to ideas like the 4-hour workweek.

“I think there is a whole new workforce that is coming to life that a lot of our ‘corporate’ employers simply aren’t prepared for,” writes Nichole Kelly, president of SME Digital. “This isn’t about whether you are a Gen Xer or Millenial. This trend is rising up as a result of advanced technologies that allow us to work from anywhere, shifting business and personal priorities and books like The 4-Hour Workweek (Crown Archetype, 2009) that tell us we can live differently.”

Kelly writes of a near future where employees are free to work from anywhere, going so far as saying that companies could allow employees to take months-long “workcations” in different countries to learn the cultures and become fluent in various languages. In addition, this culture will allow organizations to hire the best person for the job, regardless of their location.

Other traditional aspects of work culture -- such as the 9-to-5 schedule and meetings in conference rooms -- also will become relics of the past as organizations embrace a “new corporate America.”

Still, while these proposals could bring positive changes for employees and organizations alike, there are still challenges, Kelly writes. For example, it will still be important for organizations to figure out how to facilitate those water cooler conversations in an online environment. Another challenge is determining how to effectively manage virtual teams, particularly if an organization or federal agency has hundreds or thousands of employees.

At the same time, I can’t help but question whether the changes Kelly describes are completely in line with the work culture that Millennials and Gen Xers want. Don’t get me wrong; as a mom and a military wife who has to follow my husband on a PCS move every few years, the ability to continue my work from anywhere and on my own schedule has been a blessing. But I’ll admit that I still miss the office culture and the ability to communicate and collaborate in-person with colleagues.

A recent visit to companies including Facebook and IDEO in Silicon Valley showed much of the same sentiment among Millennial and Gen X employees. While those employees noted that they wanted the flexibility to work where and when they wanted, most still commute into the office every day. What’s more important to them is having the ability to collaborate with other workers.

Still, a new corporate model is on its way, at least to some extent, and for federal agencies, this will represent a new way of working, collaborating and managing using technology. Is your agency ready?

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HR and Legal Implications of BYOD

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 02:00:00 -0500

More than half of federal information workers use their personal smartphones for work purposes, even though agencies have not fully fleshed out their BYOD or “bring your own device" policies, according to a new report by Forrester Research and Cisco.

Most government organizations issue mobile phones and laptops to employees: Sixty-two percent of workers are issued laptops with no choice of make or model, and 50 percent of workers are issued a standard mobile device, according to the report.

Still, despite being issued a device by their agency, more than 58 percent of information workers in government use a personal smartphone for work purposes without considering what their organization supports, the survey found. At the same time, most agencies are still in the research and pilot phases with BYOD policies, and very few government organizations have agencywide BYOD programs.

In addition, only 6 percent of smartphone users and 4 percent of mobile phone users who use their personal devices receive a subsidy, the report found.

Not surprisingly, IT decision makers are most worried about the security of applications and the data on personal devices. But concerns reach far beyond IT to human resources and legal departments, Cisco and Forrester found. For example, agency leaders are questioning liability issues in determining who is responsible in the case of theft or loss of a device. And HR leaders are concerned about how the use of BYOD blurs the line between work and life, possibly violating work rules imposed by some public-sector unions.

“Government IT decision-makers recognize the inevitability of BYOD and set out to define their terms,” the report stated. “But the BYOD trend has raised additional questions around the workforce and the workplace of the future – a broader spectrum of issues that government organizations will have to address.”

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James Bond and the Next Generation of Cybersecurity Experts

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 02:00:00 -0500

I was able to get out of the house over the weekend to see the 23^rd installment in the James Bond series: Skyfall. While my colleague Ross wrote an excellent post on Nextgov's Tech Insider last week about the real-world implications of the film, I couldn’t help but wonder if the movie could inspire and help to groom the next generation of cybersecurity leaders the nation so desperately needs.

After being shot in Turkey while on top of a train and thought dead, Bond returns to an MI6 that has changed, with dozens of people working on computers underground after a security breach leads to an explosion at MI6 and the names of several secret agents are released. He later meets super sleuth Q, who Bond immediately writes off as being young and inexperienced. “Youth is no guarantee of innovation,” Bond says, to which Q replies, “I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.”

Hord Tipton, executive director of (ISC)2, said Tuesday that the film draws attention to the importance of having a cybersecurity workforce capable of preventing and responding to cyberattacks. “If one follows the trail that led to the breach, the file encryption was broken when the supervisor’s office was broken into,” Tipton said. “This only reinforces the fact that the human factor plays a significant role in defending against cyber attacks and often is a leading contributor to the exploit.”

And while the cyber threats portrayed in the new Bond film are very real, one of the greatest challenges for cybersecurity going forward is having the workforce necessary to effectively prevent and respond to such attacks. Still, Tipton noted that he hopes the movie will help draw attention to the urgency of cybersecurity and inspire more young people to enter the career field.

“The more we can present cybersecurity in an intriguing light, the more we will capture the interest of young people,” he said. “After all, there is hardly a better way to draw attention to an issue than to put Bond to task. I just hope that kids who are inspired by this film enter and proceed down the white hat path.”

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Bonuses for Federal Tech Workers?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

With President Obama’s reelection, federal workers are less likely to face steep cuts to their pay and benefits. Still, with the looming fiscal cliff, it’s unlikely that federal employee pay and benefits won't be involved.

In fact, an analysis released last week by the Congressional Budget Office noted several choices lawmakers have in reining in the government’s current trillion-dollar deficit, including reducing the annual across-the-board pay increase for feds or decreasing the government’s contribution to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Feds are currently under an extension of a two-year freeze to across-the-board pay raises until April at the earliest, provided Congress passes a budget. Fortunately, that pay freeze has not affected other forms of pay for feds, including within-grade increases, promotions, performance awards and bonuses. And that’s a good thing, considering the majority of tech workers in the private sector are expecting to see a bonus by year’s end.

According to this month’s issue of the Dice Report, 37 percent of technology professionals are expecting to see an increase in their bonus this year, while one-third (33 percent) project their bonus will be roughly the same as last year. Eighteen percent said they expect a decrease in their bonus this year, while 12 percent project they will receive no bonus at all, Dice found.

When it comes to receiving a bonus, having experience is key. For example, the key threshold for receiving a bonus is six years of experience, after which 50 percent of tech professionals said they were bonus-eligible.

Unlike the federal government, where bonuses are often determined based on an individual employee’s performance, private sector IT pros seem to be looking beyond that, Dice found. For example, many IT pros surveyed said they expect their company’s performance to influence their compensation. In fact, 16 percent of tech pros expecting a bigger bonus this year believe that switching companies was primarily responsible for the increase.

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Who Foots the BYOD Bill?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

There’s an interesting conversation going on at GovLoop about the blog post I wrote late last month on GovLoop’s recent report on bring your own device, or BYOD, policies and the ability of such policies to enable cost savings and boost employee productivity.

“I think that BYOD is inevitable because the current model of the government furnishing devices is just not sustainable and justifiable, given the high cost to the taxpayer,” one GovLoop member wrote. “The perk of a government-furnished phone and laptop will go the way of government cars, shuttles, free parking, travel and personal offices. The government of the future will be mobile, agile, flexible and creative.”

One of the major drivers of BYOD is the potential costsavings for federal agencies. At the same time, agencies face a major hurdle in determining how to reimburse federal employees to ensure they are not personally incurring the cost of increased data usage from work-related activities.

GovLoop Community Manager Andrew Kzmarzick notes in the report that agencies might consider overcoming this hurdle by looking at other ways in which government reimburses employees. “Many agencies already reimburse or defray the cost of using public transportation for work-related travel,” he said. “Could BYOD determine the average cost of an employee voice and data plan -- both on the enterprise and personal levels -- and include an allowance for employees to cover the cost of using their own device while reducing the agency’s expenses?”

Another major hurdle for BYOD at federal agencies going forward is ensuring employees not only participate but that both they and their managers can use it effectively, a sentiment shared by several GovLoop members. In fact, one GovLoop member compares the use of BYOD in government to that in the U.S. school system.

“One of the beefs of the local high schools with BYOD is the lack of expertise in combining the device with the classroom effectively, not to mention the far fewer than expected participation,” the member wrote. “Maybe in the case of government, if the agency and the employee could see eye to eye on the exact use, it would benefit each side more. … And I wonder if fear from lack of understanding by the teachers or in this case, employers, is another roadblock.”

What are your thoughts on these potential roadblocks to BYOD and their potential solutions?

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Six Desks for Every 10 Workers of the Future?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 02:00:00 -0500

A desk for every federal employee might soon become a relic of the past.

By 2020, U.S. organizations are projected to reduce office space by almost one-fifth and will provide just six desks for every ten office workers, with each of those workers accessing the corporate IT network from an average of six different computing devices, according to the new “Workplace of the Future” report by Citrix.

The report, which surveyed 1,900 senior IT decision makers across 19 countries, found that by 2020, one-third of employees will no longer work from their traditional office, instead basing themselves in other locations such as their homes (64 percent), field and project sites (60 percent) and customer or partner premises (50 percent).

Globally, one-quarter of organizations already have fully adopted the mobile workforce environment. By 2014, respondents projected that 83 percent of organizations will have fully adopted mobile work, Citrix found.

Meanwhile, most organizations also are looking to new programs -- such as bring-your-own-device policies -- to help expand their mobility options. For example, 83 percent of organizations said they will use BYOD initiatives to manage the growing number of devices workers use to access the corporate network. Most employees will choose and purchase these devices on their own, with 76 percent of organizations reimbursing the employee in part or fully, according to the study.

The mobile workplace also is providing a number of benefits to organizations and employees, the study found. For organizations, mobility is creating a more flexible, agile workplace (73 percent), lower employee-related costs (53 percent) and reduced real estate costs (48 percent), and it is attracting (47 percent) and retaining (44 percent) top talent. Employees are enjoying more flexibility (65 percent), increased personal productivity (62 percent), less commuting time (61 percent) and a better work-life balance (55 percent), as a result of mobility options, Citrix found.

In September, I visited some top companies -- incluidng Facebook and IDEO in Silicon Valley -- that have already fully embraced the concept of mobility. While most of these workers still commute into the office nearly every day, the flexibility they have regarding when and where they want to work is key. In fact, most employees at these companies do not have their own desk space, opting instead to work with mobile devices in the open, collaborative workspaces at these companies.

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Innovation Station

Brittany Ballenstedt — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 01:00:00 -0400

Three years ago, officials from the Office of Personnel Management< began visiting top Silicon Valley companies like Facebook and IDEO with one idea in mind: making government cool again. Now, OPM is embracing that cool factor by replicating some of the work habits and workspaces of those companies in designing an innovation lab in the sub-basement of its Washington headquarters.

“When we first visited these companies, we didn’t necessarily know we were going to build an innovation lab,” says agency spokesman John Marble. “We just knew that with the challenges we were facing that we needed to be more innovative in government.”

As part of the lab concept, OPM is embracing a practice already present in the private sector—human-centered design. It’s an innovative approach to problem solving that keeps the target audience in mind and could serve as a model for agencies looking to better serve taxpayers or other specific groups like veterans or federal workers, particularly when government is increasingly being asked to do more with less.

“The approach involves taking time on the front end to discover exactly what the problem is. And when you find that, it ends up saving money because you are applying resources to problems that you really do need to fix,” Marble says. “A lot of times, it’s like a math equation—you go in solving for X and realize you should have been solving for Y all along. It provides for better services in the end.”

Many top companies have combined human-centered design with workspaces that foster creativity and collaboration and can be manipulated depending on the specific project or challenge. For example, at IDEO, an innovation consulting firm, nearly every employee has swapped a personal cubicle or desk for an open workspace. Employees at Facebook have similar work areas as well as micro-kitchens, lounges, and trendy eateries and cafeterias. “Our belief is that the best ideas are not going to come from brainstorming in a conference room,” says Slater Tow, a spokesman at Facebook. “They’re going to come from two or three people sitting over lunch or dinner talking about how we can solve a problem.”

OPM incorporated those ideas into the design of its new $750,000 innovation lab, which boasts wheeled tables and chairs, whiteboards and chalkboard walls that can easily be rearranged as employees collaborate or break into groups to tackle projects. The hope is to re-create the “pressure cooker” environment of companies like Facebook, Marble says. “You walk into one of the open areas in Facebook and feel that pressure to actually produce,” he says. “We wanted to use the positive pressure of employees working together to achieve team results.”

OPM solicited employees to receive specialized training in human-centered design to facilitate sessions in the lab. Those 11 employees are all “naturally gifted facilitators,” and each of them perform those duties in addition to their regular full-time jobs, Marble says.

Projects require review by facilitators before employees are allowed to use the innovation space. The basic requirements are a “wicked” problem; a designated, diverse and/or cross-functional team; and a carefully planned agenda. A couple of groups from the Presidential Innovation Fellows program are based at the lab to work on governmentwide projects.

One work group is brainstorming ways to boost employee involvement in the health plan selection process during open season. The goal is to have more participants actively shopping among multiple plans, which would increase competition among plans and bring costs down.

OPM also is using the innovation lab to tackle challenges such as how to better train and integrate veterans into the federal workforce and finding a more efficient way to process service credit as part of employee retirement claims.

“It’s exciting to see the federal government take the time to listen beyond the Beltway and figure out what’s working throughout the country and incorporating that into Washington culture,” Marble says. “I think it makes us better serve the American public.”

Still, like any change in the federal government, creating a different workspace and collaborative process requires a culture shift. OPM is hoping to ease that shift simply by being transparent, in part by discussing the innovation lab at town halls for its employees and hosting open house tours of the workspace.

“One of the first things we did was destroy the notion of this ivory tower and actually build it as a place that is open to everyone at our agency,” Marble says.

The innovation lab already is having an impact on employees. Marble has seen examples of employees detailed from OPM and other agencies applying the principles they learned in the lab to projects in their own environment. “For workplaces no matter where they are—whether in the public or private sector—they tend to be static, so to see changes in work behaviors toward a more productive model is amazing,” he says.

But OPM cautions potential innovators not to view the lab as anything other than an enabler for collaborative, problem-focused work. That sentiment resonates with many of the lab’s Silicon Valley counterparts. “At the end of the day, it’s just a space,” says Yancy Widmer, director of experience at IDEO. “It’s more about the work and interaction that happens in it. But I also believe that the types of spaces you build and the experience you curate within that space are really fundamentally important to the work that actually happens there.”

Brittany Ballenstedt, a former staff writer for Government Executive , covers the IT workforce for Nextgov.

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Does BYOD Boost Productivity?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 02:00:00 -0400

The majority of federal employees want their agencies to implement a policy that allows them to use their own devices for work, with many arguing that doing so will lead to cost savings and improved productivity, according to a new survey by GovLoop and Cisco.

The survey of 108 GovLoop members found that 62 percent of respondents believe a bring your own device, or BYOD, policy would be desirable or extremely desirable at their agency. At the same time, only 20 percent of respondents indicated that their agency has implemented such a policy.

Still, many respondents indicated that despite their agency’s lack of a BYOD policy, they still use personal devices such as smartphones for work purposes. They use their personal phones for email (41 percent); social networking (21 percent); entering time, expenses and business functions (13 percent); and reading and writing (30 percent). The majority said they do not use their personal tablets for work purposes.

In addition, respondents were nearly split on whether the government should provide a device to employees. Fifty-six percent said the government should provide devices to employees, while 44 percent said the government does not need to provide devices.

Respondents noted several benefits of implementing BYOD policies at agencies. Among them was allowing people to work on the devices they find most comfortable (71 percent), improved productivity (58 percent) and cost savings (55 percent).

“One of the benefits is that if a person is very proficient on a device, they should take that proficiency into the workplace, rather than learning how to be minimally proficient with the government-provided device,” said Kimberly Hancher, chief information officer at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in the report. “I can’t overemphasize how important personal productivity is across the enterprise.”

While federal agencies are not required to implement a BYOD policy, the White House in August released a toolkit for expanding BYOD and other mobility options for employees, citing benefits such as improved productivity and work-life balance among employees.

The majority of respondents to GovLoop’s survey also agreed that BYOD policies could provide additional benefits to agencies in terms of recruiting and retaining workers. Fifty-six percent of respondents said that a BYOD policy could serve as a retention and recruitment tool, with some noting that it would demonstrate that agencies are forward-thinking and efficient, particularly to the Millennial workforce and teleworkers.

Still, several respondents noted roadblocks to BYOD implementation at their agency. The biggest roadblock was perceived to be a lack of organizational support (57 percent), followed by no IT infrastructure to support multiple devices (55 percent) and costs (19 percent). Respondents also cited security, reimbursement issues and inconsistent IT policies as other roadblocks to BYOD implementation.

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Looking for a Job? Use Social Media

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

More hiring managers are using social media websites like Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with potential job candidates, but not as many are taking full advantage of the tools as you may think.

According to a new survey of 1,500 HR leaders and hiring managers in six countries by Dimensional Research and SuccessFactors, social media and mobile devices are being used by 39 percent of those surveyed to communicate with job candidates. LinkedIn and Facebook were the most popular social media tools, each used by 17 percent of those respondents, followed by texting (12 percent), Skype (10 percent) and Twitter (10 percent).

Social media and mobile devices are being used more heavily by HR leaders and hiring managers to actually identify potential job candidates, however. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they have used such tools and devices to identify job candidates, with resume search sites (24 percent), LinkedIn (24 percent), Facebook (23 percent) and Twitter (12 percent) being the most popular tools, the survey found.

“The hiring process is no longer just about the face-to-face or phone interview. In some industries and regions, leveraging mobile, social media and online tools is a regular part of the recruiting process,” said Dr. Karie Willyerd, chief learning officer of SuccessFactors. “Companies that don’t embrace these tools risk being left behind and losing strong candidates, especially when trying to grab the attention of the Millennial generation.”

Among employees who are hired, 82 percent ask for additional perks and benefits, including tech devices. For example, 17 percent of employees had requested smartphones and tablets for personal use, while other popular perks requested were free drinks (18 percent) and time off to volunteer (16 percent).

Meanwhile, the study identified several differences among the three generations in the workplace. For example, Millennial job candidates (those age 33 and younger) were most likely to request job training (40 percent), job perks (33 percent) and flexible work hours (23 percent), while Millennial employees were most likely to request mentoring opportunities (42 percent), training (35 percent) and non-scheduled bonuses (28 percent).

Generation X job candidates, however, were most likely to ask for higher pay (36 percent), hiring bonuses (29 percent) and higher jobtitles (24 percent), while Gen X employees were more likely to request promotions (44 percent), flexible work locations (39 percent) and non-scheduled bonuses (38 percent). Baby Boomers’ requests reflected their stage in nearing retirement, with the most popular benefits requested being more vacation time (12 percent), hiring bonuses (7 percent) and flexible work hours (7 percent) by job candidates. Boomer employees were most interested in reduced work hours (14 percent), extended leaves of absence (14 percent) and flexible work locations (7 percent).

Budget Uncertainty Breeds Workforce Challenges

Workforce challenges are among the top difficulties facing the federal IT community over the next five years, largely because of the high degree of uncertainty about the future of technology spending, according to a new report from the government-industry group TechAmerica Foundation.

The latest forecast projects agency IT spending will rise slightly from $73.5 billion in fiscal 2013 to $77.2 billion in fiscal 2018. But those numbers represent a slight decrease in IT spending when adjusted for inflation.

In particular, budget uncertainty is amplifying IT transformation challenges, and this uncertainty is sure to cause some difficulty in recruiting, retaining and managing the federal IT workforce. An uptick in federal retirements, extended pay freezes and decreases in training opportunities, for example, could have an impact on agency IT programs over the next five years, TechAmerica found.

At the Defense Department, integrated training for military, civilians and contractors also is needed, and the department should require that its workers maintain a lifecycle training schedule and obtain the appropriate certifications, the forecast noted.

How important are training and workforce issues to your agency IT shop over the next five years?

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Federal IT Workers Have Cause for Pay Envy

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Federal employees already know they will not receive an across-the-board pay increase until at least several months into 2013, a deal made official with President Obama’s signing of the continuing resolution. And even if federal workers do see an across-the-board pay increase next year, it’s not likely to be higher than Obama's proposed 0.5 percent.

Unfortunately, for federal IT workers, the lack of a solid pay increase contrasts starkly with private sector counterparts, who are slated to see an average 5.3 percent increase in their salaries in the coming year.

According to the new 2013 salary guides by Robert Half International, starting salaries for information technology professionals in the coming year will show the largest pay increases among all the fields researched, including accounting, finance and administrative fields.

“Many hiring managers are struggling to ‘crack the code’ when it comes to finding and keeping the best technology talent,” the guide states. “Money may not be all IT employees consider when choosing to join or stay with your firm, but it’s certainly one of their key benchmarks.”

While IT professionals overall are expected to see average pay increases of 5.3 percent next year, some specific IT positions will see even higher pay increases, Robert Half found. Mobile applications developers will see an average pay increase of 9 percent, for example, while network engineers, data modelers, data warehouse managers, portal administrators and Web developers also will see average pay increases of more than 7 percent.

It’s important to note that while federal workers have been under a two-year pay freeze that has been extended to the first few months of 2013, that freeze does not apply to other forms of pay increases – such as performance awards and bonuses, promotions, within-grade increases, quality step increases and other forms of incentive pay.

How does your earning potential in 2013 stack up against your private sector counterparts?

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Teleworking, Silicon Valley Style

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:00:00 -0400

Telework has been expanding across the federal government, in large part thanks to the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act. But several studies, including the Office of Personnel Management’s most recent status report on telework, have noted that cultural barriers to it still exist, in large part because managers are reluctant to trust that their employees are working, not shirking, outside of the office.

This may be one of many areas where government could learn a lesson from Silicon Valley. I visited companies such as Facebook and design firm IDEO last week, and every employee I talked to spoke about how managers at these companies have an implicit trust in their employees, and that is a major factor not only in their job satisfaction but also in their drive to perform their jobs well.

At Facebook headquarters, for example, take a look at their video game spots, Zen garden, skateboarding benches and trendy lounges and cafeterias, and you may wonder how employees there get any work done. In addition, Facebook employees have no set hours, meaning they can come to work and leave when they want.

At IDEO, employees are free to work in whatever environment is best suited for performing the job they are doing that day – whether that is at home, in a coffee shop, in their trendy café or in one of their many open collaborative workspaces.

Yet when visiting both of these companies, I sensed this “pressure cooker” environment where the positive pressures of collaborating combined with the implicit trust that managers have for their employees is producing significant results.

“I think traditional companies would seize up when they saw our work space,” said Slater Tow, a spokesman for Facebook. “But slacking isn’t tolerated. Silicon Valley is full of overachievers, so you have all of these overachievers who all want to do the best work. And the sense of joy here comes from the work.”

While there’s no silver bullet when it comes to improving federal employee performance and improving the ability of federal managers to effectively manage their employees regardless of their location, the lessons from Silicon Valley are powerful.

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IT Workers Are Staying Put Longer

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Late last month, I wrote about a report that found a disconnect between federal HR leaders and IT operational managers over effective measures for bringing on the next generation of IT leaders.

But as agencies look to hash out how to effectively roll out succession plans for the IT workforce, it may be helpful to know that many technology workers are staying in their jobs longer than workers in other fields, Dice.com reports.

According to data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national median for employee tenure at their current employer rose from 4.4 years in January 2010 to 4.6 years in January 2012. But in the computer and electronic products industry, the median employee tenure rose from 5.9 years in 2010 to 7.7 years in 2012, BLS found.

Telecommunications employees also are staying put, going from a median tenure of 6.6 years in 2010 to 7.4 years in 2012.

Still, the BLS data suggest that succession planning may become more challenging as more and more younger employees enter the workforce. BLS found that the overall median tenure for employees age 65 and over was 10.3 years in January 2012, compared with 3.2 years for workers age 25 to 34.

Meanwhile, TechRepublic has a list of 10 strategies IT leaders can use to keep their staff from jumping ship.

Telework Savings Calculator

Are you looking to make the case to your manager that telework would be beneficial to you or your entire team? HP and GovLoop have teamed up to create a new calculator that can help you make a solid case for telework to your reluctant manager.

The new calculator, which launched last week as part of GovLoop’s online Government Innovation Summit, allows federal employees to calculate their annual total cost savings -- such as the real estate and vehicle savings -- as well as productivity gains and the environmental impact they or their team could have if they telework a certain number of days per week.

For example, an employee with a 60-mile round trip commute in an SUV who teleworks two days per week could save a total of $5,852.68 annually. This employee also would add 139 hours of productivity, resulting in an additional $4,749.33 in time savings, according to the calculator.

Christina Morrison, public sector marketing manager for HP, said Wednesday that it should cost employers no more than $200 per month to keep a fulltime employee in a telework environment, versus $1,000 per month to keep that same employee in a cubicle in an office building. “The real estate savings are huge to any employer,” she said. “There’s also the green effect of less vehicles on the road and that has a huge impact on the government – from savings on transportation, roads, traffic and law enforcement.”

Morrison said she hopes federal employees will use the calculator to make the personal and business case for telework, particularly as agencies continue to expand their telework programs as part of the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act.

“By 2013, hopefully we’re going to see a change in more federal employees being able to telework because the infrastructure has been rolled out and put into place,” she said. “If people start changing the telework conversation away from simply working from home to focusing on the business benefits, we’ll start to see more executives on the IT side and the management side opening up their minds a little more to this change.”

Still, it will take more to make telework a success than just agency telework coordinators implementing the rules and guidelines, Morrison said. It also will require some training for federal managers on how to effectively manage teleworking employees, she said.

“My manager now has five employees in five different time zones” Morrison said. “It’s a challenge. But there’s ways to figure out how to make everyone feel incorporated and part of the team … [Telework] will help managers figure out ways to motivate based off of performance and not the amount of time an employee is sitting at their desk.”

Will the new calculator help you make the business case for telework to your manager?

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Are Advanced Degrees Must-Haves?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Holding a Master’s degree is often considered a must-have for young job seekers if they have any hope of landing a federal job. But according to a recent survey by Dice.com, the majority of IT workers aren’t seeing these advanced degrees as critical to their careers.

The survey found that just 32 percent of IT workers think that having an MBA will be important to future tech careers, while 52 percent said an MBA is unnecessary. Sixteen percent of IT pros had no opinion on whether an MBA degree mattered for the future.

Meanwhile, those who saw the value in an advanced degree cited the benefit of combining business knowledge with technical skills, the additional career marketability and greater likelihood of advancing into management, Dice found. Those IT pros who saw no value in an MBA mostly agreed that technical expertise would continue to outweigh the benefits of having general business knowledge.

Among those IT pros who hold an MBA (9 percent of respondents), higher pay was the top reported impact of their degree, just ahead of “no impact,” Dice found. Technology professionals with an MBA said the degrees helped them move into management or obtain employment at their preferred organization.

And for those tech professionals without an advanced degree, only 19 percent said they plan to get an MBA in the future.

What are your thoughts? Are MBAs critical to obtaining an IT job and getting ahead at your agency? What does this mean for the future, particularly if IT pros see little value in obtaining an MBA?

Telework Choices

The 2010 Telework Enhancement Act is changing the work lives of many federal employees, but many federal managers still need convincing that employees are working, not shirking, outside the traditional office space. A new study by Stanford University might help. It concludes that not surprisingly, telework can lead to increased performance, improved work satisfaction and decreased attrition rates, Fast Company reports.

For the study, Stanford researchers looked at a 13,000-employee Chinese multinational company, where call center employees who volunteered to work from home were randomized into home or office working for nine months.

The study found that teleworkers had a 13 percent increase in performance, of which about 9.5 percent was from taking fewer breaks and sick days and therefore working more minutes per shift and 3.5 percent was from making more calls per minute because of the quieter working environment.

Teleworkers also reported improved work satisfaction and their job attrition rate fell by 50 percent, the study found.

After the 9-month experiment, the Chinese company rolled out telework to all employees, allowing them to choose between telework or office work. Surprisingly, however, only half of the volunteer group decided to continue to work at home, with the other half opting to continue office working.

“After allowing employees to choose, the performance impact of [teleworking] more than doubled, highlighting the benefits of choice alongside modern practices like home working,” the Stanford report noted.

In July, I wrote about how while every job is not necessarily a good telework candidate, not every employee is a good candidate either. The Stanford study is a good example of why giving employees choices when it comes to telework can lead to greater productivity and outcomes. At the same time, managers need to be proactive about letting teleworkers know when the arrangement just isn’t working out.

What are your thoughts on the study? How important is “telework choice” to the success of the work arrangement at your agency?

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Feds fight back against claim they work less

Brittany Ballenstedt — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:08:00 -0400

Federal employees are arguing that a new study by the Heritage Foundation is flawed in its conclusion that they are not only overpaid but also underworked when compared with their private sector peers.

A study Heritage released Tuesday found that federal employees work an average of 38.7 hours per week, roughly three hours less than the private sector average of 41.4 hours. That means that in one work year, federal employees work about 153 hours less -- or one month less -- than their private sector counterparts, the report stated.

Heritage used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey from 2003 to 2010.

But nearly every federal employee who commented on Nextgov's story about the report argued that Heritage relied on faulty data, in part because not only are most federal employees not eligible for overtime pay, but most are required to document no more than 40 hours per work week, regardless of whether they worked any overtime. Most argued that they do work additional hours each week, whether in the office or teleworking.

“My staff routinely works 40+ hours per week,” one commenter said. “None of this is captured in the official records because we’re only allowed to charge 40 hours per week. I’m not aware of anyone in my organization who routinely shorts the government in their work hours and I know more than a few who routinely go over and above – to the point of teleworking during their vacations.”

Another noted: “This so-called study only looked at what federal employees are entitled to take, not what is actually taken. Many federal employees have thousands of hours of sick leave saved up; some employees lose leave each year because they exceeded the max carryover; and many employees donate leave to their co-workers who have a medical emergency and need even more leave than they have. This study took none of those things into account.”

Heritage noted that it did not control overtime pay in its report, which is often more available to private sector workers than public workers. The think tank claimed that including this control is “not directly relevant,” since the purpose of the report “is to measure work time in the public and private sectors, not to speculate about how much government employees might work if employment policies changed.”

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry argued against the Heritage report’s claims, noting that federal employees are increasingly doing more with less. When Lyndon B. Johnson was president, there was one federal employee for every 92 Americans, but today, there is only one for every 145 Americans, Berry said.

“To suggest that the federal workforce is unproductive is plainly wrong: every day, our workers defend our country, protect our food, our water, our air and our borders,” Berry said. “They care for our returning veterans, they represent America’s values at outposts around the world -- and as we remembered yesterday -- they put a man on the moon. These are the most dedicated, committed, hardworking people I’ve ever had the pleasure to serve with.”

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Government Employees on Thursday released a statement blasting the report, noting that the Heritage Foundation had again manipulated data to way public opinion against government workers.

“The differences Heritage cite evaporate if one adjusts for firm size and length of service -- the two most important factors determining hours of work and paid time off,” AFGE President J. David Cox said. “The Heritage Foundation’s attempt to mislead the public and denigrate the work of public employees is all part of their campaign to dismantle vital government services. We must celebrate the work performed by public and private sector employees with the understanding that work connects us all.”

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Job Interviews By Video

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

According to a new survey by staffing service company OfficeTeam, 63 percent of human resources managers said their company often conducts employment interviews using video. This is up from just 14 percent one year ago.

In addition, 13 percent of HR managers said their organization will use video more frequently to meet with applicants in the next three years, while 85 percent said they anticipate the number of video interviews to the be the same, the survey found.

Has your agency moved to conducting job interviews virtually? If not, can you see this happening in the near future, particularly as agencies look to further cut spending and more employees shift to working outside oftheir traditional office?

Secrets to Six-Figure IT Salaries

Several studies have attempted to make the case that feds are either over or underpaid, but the jury’s still out on which of those studies is the most reliable, accurate picture of federal vs. private sector pay.

If you work in IT, however, there are a few jobs that are paying six figure salaries, according to Dice.com’s 2012 Salary Survey. The key to six-figures, Dice found, is to move up in management. IT managers ($113,162), information architects ($112,670), systems architects ($111,985), data architects ($108,961) and IT project managers ($104,398) all commanded six-figure salaries this year.

If none of those jobs apply to you, there are also some key IT skills that can bring in six-figures: advanced business application programming ($109,157); service oriented architecture ($108,210); extraction, transformation and loading ($106,521); Weblogic ($103,702); Java database connectivity ($102,630); unified modeling language ($102,579); JBoss ($102,184); and Websphere ($100,348), Dice found.

Where do your skills and salary stack up?

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'Bring Your Own Device' for Beginners

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Telework is rapidly changing the way the federal government works, and now federal agencies have a few new tools to expand mobility options for employees, thanks to the new “Bring Your Own Device,” or BYOD, guidance released by the White House on Thursday.

The guidance, which is part of the White House’s now three-month-old Digital Government Strategy, includes recommendations from a working group that studied the benefits of BYOD based on lessons learned from successful BYOD programs launched at agencies.

Some of those benefits include improved productivity and work-life balance among employees as well as significant cost savings. At the same time, BYOD presents agencies with a myriad of security, policy, technical and legal challenges, the working group found.

The guidance makes clear that agencies are not required to implement a BYOD strategy. But for those agencies that think the positives of BYOD outweigh its challenges, the new toolkit is a great place to start, Cindy Auten, general manager at Telework Exchange, said Friday.

“Just as with telework programs, each agency must evaluate its specific mission and business objectives to determine how to best design the program to ensure maximum benefits – the same goes for a BYOD program,” Auten said. “Agencies must evaluate if and how it makes strategic sense to implement and this toolkit provides a checklist of sorts to run through when making that decision. It also offers examples of how several agencies have already tackled the issue.”

One of those examples includes the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which implemented a virtual desktop that allows a BYOD solution with minimal policy or legal limitations. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also has implemented a BYOD pilot that allows employees to opt out of the government-provided mobile device program and install third-party software on their own smartphones that enables use of their personal devices for official work purposes.

Auten recommends that agencies looking to implement BYOD begin by finding a solution that works and determine if there is a need or demand for a BYOD program. “Determine which devices your workforce is already using or wishes to use – will those meet the needs of the job functions and roles of the agency?” she said. “What policies and solutions will you need to put in place to ensure employees have the right amount of flexibility and security?”

Another issue agencies need to consider is work-life balance, Auten said. For example, while improved work-life balance has been touted as a benefit of telework and BYOD, it can produce potentially negative results as well, particularly as employees may have a difficult time establishing work-life boundaries, Auten said. “As agencies roll out BYOD programs, they should proactively communicate the expectations and performance measurement policies to ensure that employees do not feel on-call all of the time,” she said.

Finally, Auten noted that BYOD is likely to be a way of the future for federal agencies, particularly as it becomes more widely accepted and potentially yields positive results.

“As we continue to see budgets get cut, new IT consolidation requirements and increased mobility among the workforce, BYOD could become the norm,” Auten said. “Eliminating duplicate IT tools and allowing employees to securely use the devices that they are already most comfortable with seems to extract the best of two worlds colliding.”

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HR and tech managers aren’t on the same page

Brittany Ballenstedt and Amanda Palleschi — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:46:54 -0400

There is a disconnect between federal human resources officials and information technology leaders over what measures are effective for bringing on the next generation of IT leaders, according to a new report.

While federal HR leaders say they have put succession planning efforts in place, many agency IT operational managers have developed their own internal succession planning amid a perceived lack of HR support, according to “Bridging the Gap in Federal Succession Planning,” which was released Tuesday by the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council.

In addition, all IT operational managers surveyed said their agency’s succession planning program and ongoing HR management strategy were only partially or poorly developed or non-existent. Seventy percent of IT managers said they had not been asked to participate in any agency-level succession planning discussions, ACT-IAC found. “The human capital practitioners felt as though they are delivering succession planning programs as they are required to do by the Office of Personnel Management,” said Susan Grunin, a chair of the group that conducted the study. “However, one of the key results we found is that many IT operational managers are not aware these programs exist in their areas. If they are aware, many find them to be ineffective at producing managers capable of executing agency initiatives.”

The study, based on document research and interviews with federal human capital executives, also said leaders “do not always ensure that their agencies include succession planning as strategic initiatives.” It added: “Internal communications in this area are often ineffective.”

ACT-IAC also found that while some agencies have effective succession planning programs in place, intra-agency succession planning does not consistently take place. The findings come on the heels of another recent report from the Partnership of Public Service that concluded IT issues are a key concern to chief human capital officers, as jobs in science, technology and engineering are considered “mission critical” occupations and agencies have seen hiring delays and a lack of funding to fill vacancies in those areas.

The new report details successful succession planning efforts, for instance at the Commerce Department and NASA. Some successful plans use in-person interviews rather than written applications when making management development choices, since that can more easily indicate potential leaders’ ability to think on their feet and effectively communicate. Other plans conduct “bench strength forecasting” -- looking at current strengths as a way to decide where to invest in resources for leadership development.

ACT-IAC recommended agencies commit to determining why succession planning is not better linked to overall strategic plans. The report also recommended that succession plans include rotational assignments to help foster cross-communication among agency managers, and that training for all new agency leaders include succession planning. OPM also could boost its role in overall succession planning efforts, in part by creating an in-person or virtual education platform and by developing a website with discussion groups, the report said.

(Image via cozyta/Shutterstock.com)

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Work-Life Balance Goes Mobile

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 02:00:00 -0400

Mobile devices increasingly are changing the way federal employees work. And this is especially good news for information technology workers, as the use of mobile devices has allowed for a lot more flexibility and even greater work-life balance, according to a new survey by Solarwinds.

The survey of 184 public and private sector IT administrators found that all respondents use at least one mobile device for work, with half saying they use two devices for work. The most popular devices among IT professionals were the iPhone, iPad, Android phone,Blackberry and Android tablet.

Nearly half of IT professionals said they spend between six and 15 hours per week working after hours or on their own free time. The majority (55 percent) of these workers solve after-hours problems from home using their mobile devices, while 40 percent said they work after hours using their mobile devices at another location.

This flexibility has enabled IT workers to be more productive at their jobs, the study found. For example, 77 percent of IT pros said they save time each week by working from their mobile devices, with 62 percent saying they save about 5 hours per week and 4 percent saying they save more than 10 hours per week.

Cyber Crash Course for Your Career

With the looming threats of tighter budgets, pay cuts and sequestration, federal employees -- whether working in information technology or other fields -- may be looking for a career change. And if you consider yourself a creative problem solver, the in-demand, high-paying field of cybersecurity might be right for you, according to one expert.

Eric Cole, a senior fellow at the SANS Institute, said Monday that SANS is hosting a new training session next month that provides participants with little to no knowledge of cybersecurity with the basic foundational knowledge to get started on a cyber career.

“In five days, we’ll get them to understand the terminology so they can go into the workplace and understand how to communicate with other cybersecurity professionals, ask the right questions and effectively learn the technical skills,” Cole said.

Cole said that not only is the training event drawing interest from professionals in various fields, like lawyers and accountants, it’s also drawing a diverse age group. For example, some parents have enrolled their children in the course in hopes of getting them excited about a cybersecurity career, while other participants are professionals in their 30s looking for a career change or workers nearing retirement who simply want to learn something new so they can be protected at home, Cole said.

“Students will walk into this class with no knowledge of cybersecurity and walk out with knowledge and roles they can use to be effective in the information security space,” he said.

And despite tight budgets and potential cuts to pay and benefits at federal agencies, cybersecurity is one field that’s growing. A quick search for cybersecurity positions on USAJOBS yields more than 4,500 results, 700 of which are in the Washington area, Cole said.

For more information on the training, click here.

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Treating All Types of Workers Equally

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Long before the Defense Information Systems Agency began embracing telework, the agency knew a thing or two about managing a remote workforce. Now, the agency is taking those same lessons and applying them to its top-notch telework program.

Nathan Maenle, acting director of manpower, personnel and security at DISA, said Wednesday during a webinar by Telework Exchange that about 51 percent of the agency’s 16,000 civilian, military and contractor workforce is located outside of the headquarters at Fort Meade in about 75 operating locations around the world. This means that regardless of whether employees are teleworking or at a DISA field office, managers have grown accustomed to managing remote workers, he said.

“I have people at many of the locations around the world, and I can’t sit and watch them every day,” he said. “So we have tools and feedback mechanisms built in to measure their performance.”

That means regular office workers and teleworkers are held to the same performance standards, he said. All employees are required to file an activity report each day to detail their work plans and accomplishments, he said, adding that this also helps foster cross-communication throughout the agency.

Still, despite DISA’s progress in bringing managers on board with telework, many other agencies are still struggling with the concept. A poll taken of participants in Wednesday’s webinar found that 29 percent encounter resistance from top-level managers, while 23 percent encounter resistance from mid-level managers. Other participants (14 percent) said they have encountered resistance but are unsure at what level.

Telework training opportunities also appear to be somewhat lacking, as more than half (59 percent) of webinar participants said their organization does not offer information and training on performance management expectations for teleworkers. Collaboration tools, however, appear to be off to a positive start, as 59 percent of participants said their agency offers collaboration tools for remote workers.

Meanwhile, DISA encountered another telework success story on July 2, when a string of major storms knocked out power in the D.C. area for days, Maenle said. Because DISA requires all teleworking employees to take their equipment home with them every night, more than 2,200 employees were able to continue workingthat day, he said. “When they have to telework in an emergency situation, they always have their equipment with them, and they are able to continue accomplishing the mission,” he said.

Maenle said teleworkers at DISA also sign a telework agreement that outlines several requirements, including where they’ll be working, what hours and a safety checklist that ensures they are working in a safe environment. Teleworkers also agree to only working on government-issuedequipment, he said, noting that DISA currently does not have any plans to embrace a “bring your own device,” or BYOD strategy anytime soon.

“At this time, the agency is looking at government devices only,” he said. “It’s a security issue for us, and we’re making sure we are protecting the information that’s entrusted to us. Where the future takes us is unknown at this point.”

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Does Tech Cost More Than It's Worth?

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 02:00:00 -0400

Despite the federal government’s goal to expand telework, mobility and other information technology initiatives for the federal workforce, IT doesn’t seem to be a top priority for most federal executives, according to a new study.

Meritalk’s “The Customer is Always Right” report, which is based on a survey of 279 non-IT federal managers, found that the top priorities for agencies are streamlining and modernizing business processes (52 percent), cutting waste (39 percent) and increasing accountability (32 percent).

In addition, less than half (46 percent) view IT as an opportunity, while 32 percent view it as a cost. Executives said IT mostly goes to support daily operations (56 percent), improve processes and efficiency (49 percent), enhance security (46 percent) and improve communication (42 percent).

And despite new investments in IT, many federal executives are skeptical about whether those investments will drive better performance outcomes, the study found. Just more than half (52 percent) of federal executives said they believe new models to support teleworkers and mobility will drive performance. Respondents were even more skeptical about the ability of other IT investments – cloud computing (42 percent), data center consolidation (40 percent) and big data (34 percent) – to drive performance.

Still, federal executives were optimistic about the opportunity to use IT to better support their mission, particularly when it comes to adding new tools to help meet work objectives (54 percent), overhauling outdated IT systems (54 percent), and providing new tools and services for the mobile workforce (37 percent).

Respondents noted that agency leadership could help IT better contribute to the agency’s mission by clarifying goals and priorities, involving IT personnel in meetings and decisions, and encouraging more collaboration between IT program designers and end users.

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The WordPress Example

Brittany Ballenstedt — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Speaking at the Next Generation of Government Conference on Friday, WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg said his company currently employs about 120 people spread out across 90 cities, meaning most employees work from their homes and do not have a colleague in the same geographic location. “The advantage is you can hire the best people in the world regardless of geography,” Mullenweg said. “The disadvantage is that there is something particularly powerful around brainstorming or how bandwidth collaboration works best when you are in person.”

In order to overcome that disadvantage, Mullenweg noted that the money the company has saved in office costs thanks to telework ends up getting spent thanks to travel costs. The company has created cross-functional teams of five to nine employees -- whether designers, engineers or business experts – to work on projects. “Everything within that team is self-contained,” he said. “By keeping the teams small, it enables them to meet up physically a couple times a year. And it costs about the same to send them to Houston as it does to Athens, Greece, so we let them go wherever they want.”

Jon Carson, director of public engagement at the White House, said many federal agencies are embracing flexible work schedules, deskless offices and more common work spaces. “That’s a place where the government is going to be a leader, and as a father of two young kids with a wife who has a job even busier than mine, I am all for as much as we can do on that front,” he said.

Perhaps most importantly, Mullenweg stressed to federal leaders to measure an employee’s actual output rather than whether they are in the office or putting in a certain number of hours of work. “How often we are at our desk doesn’t necessarily correlate and certainly doesn’t have an effect on how much we are working on and how good of a job we are doing,” he said. “A more holistic approach is probably one of the biggest sort of changes I see happening in work in general, not just in technology but across all fields, because the results matter.”

Meanwhile, Mullenweg stressed to young attendees to not always listen to what other people say when working to get a new technology, initiative or other idea off the ground. “When WordPress began, people told me that the market for blogging software was already saturated. There was no room for anything new,” he said. “And so that’s probably a good example that you shouldn’t always listen to people – especially when they tell you what cannot be done.”

Mullenweg added that he hopes the government increasingly will embrace WordPress and other open source technologies, noting that while WordPress powers about 16 percent of the top million websites, it powers only about .2 percent of government websites. One great example is ConsumerFinance.gov, he noted, which is doing well and running WordPress, he said.

“Just personally as a taxpayer, it breaks my heart when I read about some agency spending millions of dollars for a website, and I visit it and it’s not very good,” he said. “A lot of the benefits that the broader Web population has seen from WordPress, [government] can experience as well, and I hope along the way save a ton of money and make way better websites.”
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