Government Executive - Authors - Julie Sturgeon

Springing for Training

Julie Sturgeon — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Agencies find ways to promote learning without sacrificing time and money.

No agency managers in their right mind would say they don't want to provide training for staff. After all, training ranks high as a driver of employee satisfaction, says John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington think tank.

But in the real world, the spirit is willing, but the dollars are short. When Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, was researching whether to support training funds as a line-item in agency budgets in 2002, he surveyed 12 agencies and discovered that from fiscal 1997 through 2000, respondents spent an average of 1.99 percent of payroll on training. Meanwhile, private companies recognized for training excellence during that same time frame spent 3.6 percent. When Voinovich tried to update the information, 11 of the agencies said they didn't know what they spent on training and one wouldn't share its data.

Training dollars might be tight, but rules on how to spend them are generous. The Office of Personnel Management's training policy handbook says agencies are welcome to spend funds on certification and accreditation-including tuition fees, lodging and transportation. OPM even experimented with individual learning accounts at the start of the millennium and gave the program its stamp of approval. The program allows agencies to divide training dollars into accounts employees can access and spend at their own discretion. But the accounts aren't mandatory, and OPM doesn't appropriate an extra dime to fund them. So what's a poor agency to do?

Marc Drizin, director of workforce engagement at Performance Assessment Network, a workforce research firm in Carmel, Ind., looks for creative solutions. "I agree there is a cost to training and that it's not always easy to draw a direct link between training and some external benefit," he says. His data from 2004, however, shows that when you provide training and development, employees stay longer, work harder and recommend your organization as a good place to work.

Palguta suggests that managers ask employees to pony up some of the cash. The talk about moving from the General Schedule to performance paybands would mean that some agencies will base an employee's salary in part on professional development, he points out. His solution puts more responsibility on the employee for his career.

Reginald Wells, chief human capital officer and deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration, says he's almost embarrassed to admit how few dollars SSA spends on training. It's probably less than 1 percent of the budget, he estimates. Yet he considers employee development to be one of his best motivational weapons. His secret to bridging the dichotomy? Distance learning. SSA was one of the first agencies to adopt OPM's e-learning initiative, which includes the www.usalearning.gov Web site, where employees have access to tutors and course work.

E-learning might be one of the hottest tickets in the federal government. All e-learning can be customized, says Cathy Williams, a senior account executive with Ninth House, a leadership development company in San Francisco. And training companies are moving away from static page-turner presentations to Hollywood-quality productions featuring best-selling business experts and leadership gurus. In a 2003 test of Ninth House's situational leadership course, the Justice Department saved $2,500 per person over the cost of traditional classroom training. And each employee spent six hours learning the materials compared with 40 hours of instruction the old-fashioned way.

Says Williams, "It's a very exciting time to work with the federal government because [agencies] don't have to sacrifice anything to get what they want. There are solutions out there to scale to the organization and provide affordable, quality training."

]]>

Kicking In, Not Back

Julie Sturgeon — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Those in the trenches know how this impending departure can affect enthusiasm for the job at hand. Just ask Rosslyn Kleeman, who chairs the Coalition for Effective Change. During her federal career, her supervisor kept a calendar in his office to cross off his remaining days. "We have a lot of mid-level-and-up people who are close to retirement and going through the motions," she says.

Rosalene Glickman certainly sees it during her work as a motivational consultant with the Internal Revenue Service, Army and the Treasury Department's complaints center. "I have noticed that people rationalize poor performance by saying, 'I'll be retiring soon.' So they don't do their best," says Glickman, author of Optimal Thinking; How to Be Your Best Self (Wiley, 2002), and president of The World Academy of Personal Development in Los Angeles.

But she knows a secret: Baby boomers are receptive to internal motivation. "If you want to have the best retirement, practice now being your best on the job," she dangles before these workers. She asks them to write down five optimal questions to start the day:

What is ultimately important to me?
What are my important goals today?
What actions will be most beneficial for my self-confidence and self-respect?
What is the most productive way to achieve these tasks?
How can I be at my best right now?

The action is as simple as having the employee tape these questions to his desk. "It's a challenge that revitalizes them, and they all respond to it," Glickman says. She notes that this exercise is really about self-motivation.

When Reginald Wells joined the Social Security Administration in 2002 as its chief human capital officer and deputy commissioner, he couldn't walk down the halls without agency veterans passionately relaying stories from their days in the field. He encourages this storytelling as a way of giving more experienced workers a valued status. "I want them to inspire a new generation of people on the front lines," he says. "Over the course of their careers, these people are keepers of the culture, essentially."

Mentoring has smoothed these waters and kept his older workers engaged. "Those approaching retirement view the challenge of passing their institutional knowledge to the younger workers as their way of leaving a legacy," Perkinson says. He credits this attitude for the quick advancement of apprenticeship program graduates into the fields of management, inspection and training.

She also recommends that managers connect long-term workers to volunteer opportunities that make the most of their expertise. Employee committees often liven up a wilting attention span. And Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 251 encourages agencies to follow a liberal policy in granting employees time off to work with associations relevant to their work.

]]>

Kicking In, Not Back

Julie Sturgeon — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Encouraging short-timers to keep their heads in the game.

Federal employees are picking up the pace on one career path that makes managers cringe-retirement. According to the Office of Personnel Management's five-year projection, 18.8 percent of the full-time federal workforce, a hard number of 281,000 people, will hang it up between 2002 and 2006, and at a rate of nearly 4 percent faster than folks exited over previous five-year periods.

What is ultimately important to me?
What are my important goals today?
What actions will be most beneficial for my self-confidence and self-respect?
What is the most productive way to achieve these tasks?
How can I be at my best right now?

The generation gap can cause headaches for leaders such as Darryl Perkinson, supervisory training specialist at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia and national vice president for the Federal Managers Association. The values of baby boomers and Generation Xers don't always mesh. Mentoring has smoothed these waters and kept his older workers engaged. "Those approaching retirement view the challenge of passing their institutional knowledge to the younger workers as their way of leaving a legacy," Perkinson says. He credits this attitude for the quick advancement of apprenticeship program graduates into the fields of management, inspection and training.

According to OPM, the average federal employee retires at 58 after 25 years of service. Supervisors with employees in this window should have a straightforward talk about future plans, says Kleeman. Once you discover their timetable, hand them a project with a deadline that corresponds to their planned exit date. She also recommends that managers connect long-term workers to volunteer opportunities that make the most of their expertise. Employee committees often liven up a wilting attention span. And Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 251 encourages agencies to follow a liberal policy in granting employees time off to work with associations relevant to their work.

]]>

Go, Team, Go!

Julie Sturgeon — Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Revving up the staff isn't easy, but government managers have an edge, if they'll use it.

Motivation, it seems, is about the soft stuff. Bosses, management experts and a mound of surveys agree that money alone won't bring out the best in employees. Instead, it's a mushy stew of good relationships with supervisors, involvement in big projects and important decisions, a sense of mission, an ethical environment, and formal and informal recognition that feeds workers' souls and nourishes productivity. Trouble is, the soft stuff is hard for most managers. Fortunately, government employees often sign up to make a difference, and that can make them more receptive to cheerleading-if it's done right.

Most Americans believe that government employees don't work as hard and are less productive than private sector workers. But Gregory B. Lewis and Sue A. Frank, professors and researchers at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, found a different story when they drilled into data from the 1989 and 1998 General Social Survey from the National Opinion Research Center in Washington. Public servants were more likely than private sector workers to say, "I make a point of doing the best work I can, even if it sometimes does interfere with the rest of my life," Lewis and Frank wrote in a 2004 article in The American Review of Public Administration.

The truth about civil servants' motivation and productivity undoubtedly lies somewhere between the stereotypes and the vows of dedication. "When you talk about a workforce of 1.9 million civilian employees-not counting the military and Postal Service-spread among 80 federal departments and independent agencies, you'll get a wide variability," says John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service in Washington. His group rated the best places to work in government, partly to attract more people to take jobs with Uncle Sam. But the research also gives Palguta and company fodder to preach the message that employees' engagement-their ability to find personal motivation and meaning at work-affects organizational success.

Marc Drizin, director of workforce engagement at Performance Assessment Network in Carmel, Ind., has collected data and divides U.S. workers into the following three categories:

Fully engaged. These people are with an organization because they want to be. They feel they have a good relationship with their bosses, work for ethical organizations and are being trained for the long term. They have friends at the office, and believe that someone in the organization cares about them. Managers can rely on them to take care of the agency's business and stakeholders. According to Robert Tobias, director of the Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation at American University in Washington, an engaged workforce increases productivity by 20 percent.

So how do the fully engaged break out? In the private sector, they account for 46 percent of employees, and for federal government, it's 50 percent. "But that still means one out of two federal employees cannot be counted on to do the things that necessarily help their organization meet its mission, vision and values," Drizin says. "Better than lousy is just not where you want to be."

Unengaged. These folks are halfway out the door. They don't like their organizations; they are circulating their résumés, and as a consequence, are putting customer relationships at risk. They also might be acquiring sensitive agency information to take with them when they leave. In the private sector, 31 percent of employees are unengaged. For the federal government, it's 22 percent-the lowest by far of any industry.

Reluctant. These people are loath to work hard, yet they hesitate to leave for a range of reasons, including a belief that their skills are too specialized to find similar work elsewhere, unemployment is high in their field, or the agency chained them with golden handcuffs. "The government does the latter better than anybody else," Drizin says. Tenure for a government employee is 2.5 times greater than the industry average, meaning a federal worker stays in a job for 10.4 years on average, while a private sector worker stays just four.

"Most likely, you've not necessarily found fabulous human resource policies that would engender that difference," Drizin says dryly. "The feds basically pay you to stay. Yes, they have retention . . . because people have to stay, not because they want to. The difference in the verb makes all the difference in whether these employees will work harder, be a team player, go above the call of duty-those actions we want in any industry." In the private sector, 23 percent of workers are reluctant; in government, 28 percent.

The first two categories are no-brainers: Keep the engaged, kick out the unengaged. It's that soft belly in the middle where federal managers flounder, especially since the Supreme Court has declared that due process is required when separating federal employees from their positions, says Steve Nelson, director of policy and evaluation at the Merit Systems Protection Board. Replacing the unengaged is easier said than done. The next best solution is to motivate them.

High Expectations

Merit Systems Board Protection surveys show that federal employees trust their immediate supervisors most, but that confidence deteriorates as they move up the chain of command. Even at closer range, employees still can be wary, Nelson adds.

He blames the federal atmosphere for a chunk of that mistrust, pointing out that too many people move into supervisory positions because they were the best at a specific job, not because they exhibited management potential. "We need a little more [emphasis] on the softer managerial skills: conflict resolution; setting reasonable, realistic performance expectations; clearly articulating the organizational goals; finding solutions to problems; adapting to changing circumstances," Nelson says. These are in the top of the 60 important soft-side abilities he has uncovered.

In his opinion, the most vital managerial skill is the ability to transmit performance expectations. It's eight times more powerful than other strategies for engaging employees, Nelson says. Scratch a bit deeper and you find it's based on communication. "That's why a number of years ago many places went to written performance standards," he says. But written criteria aren't the be-all and end-all.

"When I talk with employees from other agencies, it's interesting how few of them use a performance feedback session as a tool for themselves," says Chris Mihm, managing director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office, which researchers often cite as a model in the motivation field. "A lot of systems don't give people permission to say, 'Here's what I need from you, boss.' That is absurd. You have to have the two-way stuff." What's more, he says, it needs to be continuous, not just during a formal feedback moment.

"Imagine back through your own career," Mihm says. "The times that you have been the most motivated, the most energized about coming in to work on a Monday morning have been those times when you had a sense that what you were working on was big, important and valuable. And it was probably some of the hardest work you did, some of the most stressful, but you were still juiced because it was something you clearly understood."

Take, for example, the efforts of Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va., to embrace lean manufacturing-a method of consolidating work flow and eliminating wasteful processes. The goal is a short cycle time, à la Toyota's famous automobile production system. According to Darryl Perkinson, the shipyard's supervisory training specialist and the national vice president of the Federal Managers Association, bosses took a tremendous step by asking employees for input on how to rethink processes. "That point of engagement somehow magnifies the result exponentially. Once employees see what they've done is worth something, it energizes them to think of more things to do," Perkinson says. During the past year, the yard has saved several million dollars thanks to this exercise. Of course, Perkinson admits, because of the facility's size, not everyone is on board. "But even if we're making baby steps, it's worth it to engage folks," he says.

Drizin emphasizes that personal relationships between employees and supervisors are critical drivers of engagement. His research also supports the notion of matching employees with the right agencies and jobs. But he also calls attention to a third set of drivers: ethics, diversity and safety. Only six in 10 federal workers say they feel their organization is highly ethical, and that disturbs him. "There's a bit of 'What would Jesus do?' when employees are faced with ethical dilemmas. Ethics is a top down, not a bottom up process, so if they think their leaders would put short-term concerns in front of long-term results, they will, too," Drizin says.

Palguta advises managers seeking to motivate their employees not to shrink from making difficult demands. The Office of Management and Budget made the Partnership's list of best places to work, even though it operates with only 500 employees and its visibility brings high expectations. "You can't stay there unless you are really engaged in the work mentally and in terms of devoting time and effort," he notes. "You produce, or you need to find some other place to work. I don't mean that in a threatening sense; it's just the fact of life there. People love it.

"Fear of being fired isn't a great motivator. That's the way you keep people from straying off the reservation and chained to their desk. Real engagement comes from the fact that I have a real job, real responsibilities, making good use of my skills and what I do is important to accomplish the mission," Palguta adds.

He also likes to get in a plug for what he calls mission matching-assessing and selecting the best people who fit with a specific agency. "Clearly, you can have wonderful leaders with all the great characteristics, but if you don't have employees capable of doing the job, that isn't going to work," Palguta says. "You can't hook up the tiny dog to a sled and try to win the Iditarod."

Early Influence

The Energy Department scored higher than average on the Office of Personnel Management's 2004 Federal Human Capital Survey, particularly when it came to answering questions such as "How well are my talents used" and "How satisfied am I in the work I'm doing." Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer Claudia Cross credits this to the fact that Energy makes its expectations clear from the top down. The secretary and the deputy hold staff meetings once or twice a week with senior managers to go over very specific messages about their expectations. "Not just programmatic issues, responding to Congress and those things, but 'Here's how we treat people. Here's what I expect performance management to be all about in the department,' " Cross explains.

And that's merely one facet. The other secret, she says, lies in giving junior-level employees the opportunity to influence big situations. After all, most employees gravitate toward federal positions because they're motivated to serve. Why not take advantage of that trait? Energy's formal mentoring program matching newcomers with veterans has many participants. The department's leadership program for promising new hires includes interviewing executives and tackling real-life challenges, which take the employees out of their comfort zones and into new thinking and decision-making situations.

Empowering junior staffers certainly worked in Cross' case. Her family tree doesn't include a single federal worker. She was the first when she was hired as an intern at the Navy's human resources division in 1975. In her second week on the job, she was allowed to talk to admirals about an important issue on the table. "I had a grown-up next to me, but I was at the table!" she says. "I had assumed I would shadow someone, but never that I'd be a point person. I started creating relationships right off the bat, and that's pretty heavy stuff when you're right out of college.

"I was hooked," Cross adds. She has just celebrated her 30th year in government. Among the employees at the GS-9 levels whom she has championed for the leadership program, none has failed. "And the stuff they come up with . . . it's amazing," she says. For instance, one team worked with the general counsel to develop ways to get private companies to subsidize programs for minority students who otherwise would not get any exposure to federal work. It's currently in its fourth year and expanding to other agencies.

Revved-Up Rewards

According to Rosslyn Kleeman, who heads the Coalition for Effective Change, a nonpartisan alliance of associations in Washington that represents federal managers, executives and professionals, and teaches a graduate class in workplace skills at The George Washington University, the more rewards, the better. And she's not talking about salary. Kleeman says, for example, that she would be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't enjoy seeing his name in a weekly e-mail, or plastered in a publication at the office. What's more, a provision in federal law allows managers to give people time off for outstanding performance. "But it's hardly ever used," she notes.

Perhaps that's because federal managers have doubts about the motivating power of rewards. Only 30 percent of respondents to OPM's 2002 Federal Human Capital Survey agreed with the statement, "Our organization's awards program provides me with an incentive to do my best." A depressing 45 percent flat-out disagreed. Drizin's research isn't any cheerier: Slightly more than half of federal employees believed they were treated with respect and appreciation. "So it's not surprising that less than one in two feel fully engaged," he says.

Yet Reginald Wells, chief human capital officer and deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration, has no intention of axing his rewards programs. Currently, his agency is expected to increase productivity by at least 2 percent per year-a goal it has exceeded consistently this decade. Meanwhile, SSA hosts an annual gala to honor its best and brightest. The faces change each time.

"If they didn't, it would probably start to be less effective," Wells admits. "I think the impact lies in it being a quality event. It's not about offering flashy plaques, but making [em-ployees] feel special, getting their photos taken with the commissioner." During the Washington shindig, Commissioner's Honor Awards are presented for individual accomplishments, group accomplishments and length of service. Throughout the year, headquarters and field offices host employee recognition events, and managers and supervisors are encouraged to run with those spur-of-the-moment thank-you mementos.

For Palguta, a reward program's success doesn't hinge on such details. Instead, it's all in whether you recognize people who truly deserve the extra attention. And recognition should not be confined to tangible rewards. "When I was a manager, I used to tell my supervisors that it wasn't hard to find someone screwing up to jump on. My challenge was to catch people in the act of doing something good and give them a verbal pat on the back," he says. Without the informal, the fancy awards ceremony won't offer a good return on investment. "If I had to choose between the two, I'd take the daily positive communications," Palguta adds.

Energy's Cross chose exactly that when she championed the popular FISH! philosophy, a motivational program that hinges on having fun at the office. The program goes far deeper than merely playing, of course, or it wouldn't have survived eight years in the private sector at $850 per training session. It walks participants through important daily practices in the workplace: Be there, play, make their day and choose your attitude.

Cross sees this as permission to keep rubber balls and chocolate at her desk. "I refuse not to have fun, because it would just zap too much of my spirit away. To be creative, I think you have to be a little crazy, and having fun will give you those kinds of pop ideas that don't come into your head when you're thinking linearly," she explains. She even presented the FISH! video at a conference of fellow HR and training directors, some of whom went on to implement it. Still, the government doesn't have a reputation as a fun, playful atmosphere among potential employees.

Perkinson's shipyard is working to change that. He, too, believes private sector motivation gimmicks have their place in the federal arena. When a team at Norfolk enjoys a success, employees celebrate with a picnic. After a successful overhaul, they shoot off an old ship's gun as a salute. "These activities work well and we do them a lot," he says.

Count MSPB's Nelson among the advocates of fun, but only as long as managers keep the real goal in sight. "There has to be a feeling that what you're doing matters," he says.

Julie Sturgeon is an Indianapolis-based journalist with 20 years of professional writing experience in business and trade.

]]>

Power Pencils

Julie Sturgeon — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Chief financial officers shed yesterday's bean-counter image to become executive power players.

When Linda Morrison Combs accepted the chief financial officer position at the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001, she strolled into the building on Pennsylvania Avenue with a curious goal: to make hers the most respected CFO operation in government. Not the best, or the greenest on the President's Management Agenda, but the most respected-however that played out.

"One was to get a clean audit opinion. So we did that. Another was to have no material weaknesses. We did that," she ticks off the list. Monitoring and correcting reportable conditions as diligently as material weaknesses added prestige, so her team did that. The effort propelled the EPA to the first green for a Cabinet-level agency on that all-important score card-a model that eight of 24 agencies have followed.

"It was one of my proudest moments," Combs says. "I didn't know exactly what it meant when I first articulated this goal, but I knew if we kept working and refining what respectability meant, we would get there."

To borrow a phrase from NASA, it was one small step for the EPA, one giant leap for federal CFOs. Success catapulted Combs in June 2005 to become controller at the Office of Management and Budget, her fifth presidential appointment confirmed by the Senate. And the accolades helped elevate CFOs to an even more powerful seat at the management table.

Some see it merely as their due. "In the private sector, well-run companies make no business decisions without the support and consultation of the financial community," says Sandra L. Pack, who was appointed assistant secretary for management and CFO of the Treasury Department in August 2005. "That is becoming more and more true in the federal government as well."

Yet the position has been official only since Congress passed the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act, which at that time was the most comprehensive and far-reaching financial management improvement legislation in more than 40 years. It handed OMB broad new authority to direct financial management, modernize systems and strengthen reporting. At 23 agencies, the CFO would be a presidential appointee who reported directly to the agency head on a host of responsibilities: accounting and financial management systems, policy guidance, budgets, personnel recruitment and training, assets management systems, and financial execution.

The CFO is primarily the principal financial manager in an agency. Their functions usually range from planning and budgeting to financial control to internal control (including systems) to accountability, which includes both financial audits and performance information. Not every CFO performs all these functions and a few lack authority in some areas.

"A good CFO will be a true partner with the program manager," says Edward DeSeve, OMB controller during the Clinton administration. DeSeve also has served as OMB's deputy director for management and CFO at the Housing and Urban Development Department. "They will help the program manager evaluate the financial resources available and the means of allocating them in a timely way. They will also help to design information systems that provide the program manager and senior management with timely, relevant data upon which to make operational and strategic decisions.

"For example, I am sure that Jennifer Main [CFO at the Small Business Administration] counsels the programs about the ability to make loans given various default rates and various levels of congressional appropriation," he adds.

DeSeve says agency audits should be part of a broader accountability report that meets multiple statutory tests and provides real information to external parties. Program managers need this information even faster and should have it in many forms in almost real time. Such information as the status of appropriated funds, patterns of outlays and the activity level of their programs can all be gained from properly designed financial systems.

Combs, then assistant secretary for management at Treasury, was among those who drew up the CFO job description. "That was a threshold moment," she recalls, "to step up to the plate and say, 'Folks, we really need to do something different.' The risk of not doing something was far greater than the risk of doing it."

The pioneers' intent centered on moving government from a cost-based accounting standard, which recognizes expenses when they are paid, to an accrual-based one, which recognizes expenses as soon as the agency is obligated to pay them. Using accrual-based accounting, agencies would be able to develop financial statements that could be audited and obtain clean opinions. Today, 18 of 24 departments have achieved clean audits. Internal control weaknesses have decreased 70 percent since 2001. Reporting is done in 45 days following fiscal year's end instead of five months. "We've come a long way," Combs says.

"Some people look at that and say, 'But it's been 15 years.' Government is a very large entity. As long as we are making progress, I think we are doing good by the people's money. That alone says an awful lot about how CFOs have stepped up to the plate at appropriate times and continue to do that," she explains.

Today, practitioners such as NASA's CFO, Gwendolyn Sykes, are grateful for the flexibility of the 1990 legislation. "It gave you certain organizational things and things you needed to do, but it wasn't prescriptive as far as how you provide value to your customers," she says. "The excitement for it is because I am able to craft this position and be on the ground floor of shaping that for the future."

Most important, the profession took steps to police itself rather than let external events buffet them into forced oversight, as its private sector colleagues did when they brought the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act down on their heads. And a profession assigned to oversee numbers compliance knows what it takes to police effectively. But that's still not enough for Samuel Mok, Labor Department CFO.

"We want to be like the Tokyo policemen, who don't carry guns," he says. "I always believe when a policeman has to draw a gun, he has failed, because they are enforcing law through intimidation, not because people respect or listen to you. I want my staff to be people others come to because they want to, not because they have to."

Private vs. Public

Presidential appointments often inject into agencies CFOs with impressive résumés from the private world. Yet the two worlds don't match up. According to Mok, government CFOs are more compliance-driven while private sector CFOs focus more on managing the bottom line. On the other hand, templates such as the 1982 Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act, the 1996 Federal Financial Improvement Act and OMB Circular 123, revised in October 2005 to reflect Sarbanes-Oxley, give newbies a roadmap. "If you know how to read English, you know the requirements, and if you have a finance background you know how to go about applying methods to comply," Mok says. "Actually, [starting as CFO] in the federal government is a lot easier than the start as a CFO in the private sector of comparable size."

Jack Martin, CFO at the Education Department, notes that federal chief information officers need to understand both budgetary and proprietary accounting. Proprietary accounting shows actual financial position and results by tracking assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses. Budgetary accounting tracks the use of each appropriation in a separate ac-count, and records receipts and other collections by source. Congress and the executive branch speak this language so they can better set priorities and allocate resources among alternative uses and still comply with the Constitution. It's a body of accounting knowledge that goes beyond what most universities teach. "So coming from the private sector, it is challenging to learn, especially late in your career," Martin says.

Pack homed in on a fundamental distinction after accepting a financial role at the Army in 2001. Private CFOs, she knew, focus on building value for the shareholder. "In government, many programs you undertake are not necessarily the most efficient from a financial standpoint-they're undertaken because they're the right thing to do for the American people," she says. "It is a striking difference that takes a little getting used to."

"Public sector CFOs often have to remember that we are not here to do good accounting. We do good accounting to serve the public's interest, so that's a very big difference," Mok says.

He's preaching to the choir in Combs' office. "The public expects CFOs will provide accountability, respectability and transparency in everything we do," she says flatly.

Systems Struggles

Combs tempers her enthusiasm and praise for federal CFOs' accomplishments with a caveat: The financial management systems scattered throughout Washington are in various stages of development, implementation and upgrades. "We certainly aren't all there yet," she notes.

Take Dale Sopper, deputy commissioner for finance, assessment and management at the Social Security Administration. Before he came, SSA was tapped as a pilot for the first accountability report for fiscal 1996, which consolidated the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, the 1978 Inspector General Act and the 1982 Debt Collection, CFO and Federal Managers Financial Integrity measures. The pressure meant SSA began extensive prep work to dump its antiquated accounting system in favor of one with a Joint Financial Management Improvement Program seal of approval that came on line in 2001.

"I can't say enough about what a success that was," Sopper says. Today, his is the only entity that has upgraded to Oracle Federal Financials version 11.5.10. But the story isn't ending. In the next 12 months, he needs to replace the system so SSA's operations managers will have real-time financial information to use in decision-making.

Paul R. Corts, who holds down the financial fort at the Justice Department, faces the unenviable job of unifying its system. Each component group at Justice operates its own accounting system on varying platforms, with no standard data definition. Corts must roll 10 audits into a departmental consolidated financial statement. He has to request data from individual components, which opens the door for them to clean their numbers and turn in the report they want the boss to have instead of a snapshot of reality. "We don't have the independence that the CFO office ought to have in being able to call up information," he says. "It's not the best practice and we know it."

Help, at least on the drawing board, should arrive in 2006, but realistically he knows that whatever Justice buys won't be up and running for several years yet. Meanwhile, Corts is stuck in a vortex of time crunches and veracity checks while tinkering with commercial off-the-shelf products to jury-rig a solution.

Mok says Labor is the only agency in recent times to stand up a successful payroll system from scratch. He also moved Labor's payroll system to the National Finance Center without hiccup. Even through Hurricane Katrina, employees received their paychecks on time and for the correct amount. For an encore, Mok is shooting for Labor to be the first agency to have an electronic travel system that handles everything from travel request to reimbursement sans paper.

He chalks up the achievement to leadership, starting with Combs and getting in applause for his management team of financial gurus collected from Fortune 100 companies such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and Fidelity Investments. "Centralized databases aren't the answer to everything," says Mok. "The software systems that serve people's needs are those that are well managed by people."

When Martin stepped into Education in 2001, he inherited an agency with "very serious problems," as he puts it. Former Secretary Rod Paige established a team of senior career and political people to develop a roadmap out of the morass. "We had about 160 items on that blueprint, and the first two were to implement a new integrated financial management system and get clean audit opinions," Martin says. Just like that, he was in the pressure cooker.

It's a familiar spot for CFOs in 2005. Both Mok and Martin note that they receive more effective oversight from the Government Accountability Office and OMB than do publicly traded companies wrestling with Sarbanes-Oxley. The PMA score card holds everyone's feet to the fire; Combs' office takes financial performance very seriously. "We ensure that the objectives and strategic priorities in each of the departments and agencies are identified, a plan is put in place, and we hold people accountable for achieving those specific standards," she explains.

Martin likes the return on investment. "I have been around Washington for a long time, and I have never expected that we would have so many of our major Cabinet agencies and large independent agencies receiving clean audits," he says.

Kathleen Turco, the General Services Administration's acting deputy administrator and CFO, thanks the oversight for placing her in the middle of the action. "We used to be the back office. We're in the front office now and sometimes we have to use some sharp elbows at the table. But that place comes with a responsibility for conducting the business analysis along with the financial analysis-how it operates, the metrics, its problems and how you can solve them. We have to understand from input to output because it all flows through the financial systems," she says.

To Corts, his profession's expanding status means government is no longer a hiding place for introverts and pure numbers crunchers. "You better be a master at networking," he says. "Frankly, it is one of the things that keeps the job a lot of fun."

]]>