Government Executive - Authors - Mark Doboga

Building a Shared Services Marketplace

Mark Doboga — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 13:27:29 -0500

Novelist William Gibson once said, “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”

This has been the state of shared services in the federal government during the past 15 years. Is that about to change? Given recent events, it certainly appears more possible than ever.

At an event hosted by the Partnership for Public Service in October, Dave Mader, the acting deputy director of management at the Office Management and Budget, and Denise Turner Roth, head of the General Services Administration, announced the creation of the Unified Shared Services Management Office to oversee shared services for the federal enterprise.

The new office will be headed by Beth Angerman, most recently the director of the Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation at the Treasury Department. Angerman will be responsible for developing and implementing an enterprisewide shared services strategy, and helping meet the administration’s cross-agency priority goal to “strategically expand high-quality, high-value shared services to improve performance and efficiency throughout the government.”

Cities, states, the private sector and other countries have embraced shared services as a way to improve the quality of services to customers while driving down costs. The federal government, however, has had mixed success in deploying shared services due in part to the distinct lack of an enterprisewide governance structure.

The Shared Services Office should fill this need, grow what is working well in government and make it easier for leaders to learn from global best practices. In coordination with OMB and key stakeholders, the new office will be positioned to provide accountability, cooperation and strategic direction to promote an innovative, competitive and scalable shared services marketplace.

The marketplace should allow agencies to shop for administrative services that provide the best value for their customers, achieve economies of scale, leverage proven solutions and reduce duplicative investments. These services could fulfill needs ranging from financial management and human resources to information technology and acquisition, and be shared among agencies within a department or across departments. Eventually, the marketplace could be expanded to include sharing mission functions that span multiple agencies.

That said, the most difficult tasks lie ahead, with significant obstacles to creating a viable marketplace still unresolved on both the supply and the demand side of the equation.

On the supply side, there is an open question of whether there are enough providers, both from the private and government sectors, capable of reaching a scale necessary to meet the needs of large agency support service operations. A set of common standards and measures to ensure quality control and hold providers accountable for performance also are lacking.

On the demand side, many agencies are reluctant to seek shared services agreements due to the risks associated with reliance on outside providers and potential costs involved in switching to a new way of doing business. In addition, there are workforce implications, such as potential reductions in staff or additional retraining costs that must be addressed in a transparent and open manner.

These challenges are not insurmountable, but they are significant and require an enterprisewide, strategic approach and a strong governance structure to ensure successful implementation.

Organizations such as the Partnership for Public Service’s Shared Service Roundtable, ACT-IAC, the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Association of Government Accountants can help by continuing to provide recommendations and support. But the establishment of the Shared Services Office will increase the odds of success and result in more widely distributed shared services that will make government more effective and better serve the needs of the American people.

Mark Doboga is director of Government Transformation and Agency Partnerships at the Partnership for Public Service. He also leads teams that assist federal agencies in developing and implementing strategies to improve workforce management.

(Image via Artco/Shutterstock.com)

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The 12 Best Very Small Agencies to Work For in Government

Mark Doboga, Partnership for Public Service — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:45:00 -0400

There are a number of federal agencies with fewer than 100 employees, many of which are not widely known. But for their employees, their jobs and work environment are just as important as it is for those who spend their days serving the public at the huge departments like defense and veterans affairs.

For the second year in a row, the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte included job satisfaction and commitment scores for these very small agencies. They range in size from the National Capital Planning Commission, which has only 36 employees, to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which has 89 employees.

In 2012, the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation topped the very small agency list with a Best Places to Work job satisfaction and commitment score of 90.1 on a scale of 100. Its mission is to assist Hopi and Navajo Indians impacted by the relocation that Congress mandated in 1974 for members of the tribes who were living on each other’s land.

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency, which advances economic development and U.S. commercial interests in developing and middle income countries, ranked second with a score of 79.5 out of 100.

Here is the full list and Best Places to Work scores for the very small federal agencies with fewer than 100 permanent full-time employees.

Rank	Agency	2012 Index Score
1	Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation	90.1
2	U.S. Trade and Development Agency	79.5
3	Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board	76.3
4	Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission	74.1
5	National Capital Planning Commission	67.9
6	Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars	64.4
7	Office of Government Ethics	63.2
8	Postal Regulatory Commission	60.4
9	Institute of Museum and Library Services	56.8
10	Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board	54.2
11	National Indian Gaming Commission	45.9
12	John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts	39.4

The Best Places to Work rankings are based on data from the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) 2012 annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, and additional survey data from nine agencies plus the intelligence community.

The rankings include 362 federal agencies and subcomponents. Agencies with more than 15,000 full-time permanent employees are classified as “large,” those with 1,000 to 14,999 employees are considered “mid-size,” and any agency of 100 to 999 employees is classified as “small.” Agency subcomponents are also ranked.

The government-wide Best Places to Work rankings provide valuable insights into how employees view their jobs and workplaces. The data helps alert leaders to signs of discontentment in the workplace and provide a roadmap to help improve organizational performance.

The number one large Best Places to Work agency was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In the mid-sized rankings, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took top honors, while the top-ranked small agency was the Surface Transportation Board.

For more detailed information, go to www.bestplacestowork.org.

Image via spirit of america/shutterstock.com

Mark Doboga is Director of Government Transformation and Agency Partnerships at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. This is the third article in a series on the 2012 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings. For information on how to improve employee satisfaction and commitment at your agency and to request a senior leadership briefing on your agency’s Best Places to Work results contact Doboga at mdoboga@ourpublicservice.org.

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Why the NCUA is One of the Best Places to Work

Mark Doboga, Partnership for Public Service — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:46:00 -0500

Federal employee job satisfaction and commitment took a big hit in the 2012 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government ® rankings, dropping 3.2 points across the government.

But there were some agencies that defied the odds, raising their job satisfaction scores at a time when so many others faltered. These included the Department of Transportation, Office of Management and Budget, the Peace Corps and the Intelligence Community.

In the mid-sized agency category, the most improved agency was the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). The NCUA ranked 6th out of 22 mid-size agencies and increased its employee job satisfaction score from 68.1 out of 100 in 2011 to 71.0 in 2012. The agency also registered gains in an array of workplace categories.

Produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte, the Best Places to Work rankings provide a benchmark for measuring federal employee job satisfaction and commitment – key elements to creating high performing organizations. The rankings alert leaders to signs of trouble and provide a roadmap to help improve agency effectiveness and better manage employees.

On the issue of effective leadership, a primary factor in employee attitudes toward job satisfaction, the NCUA score went up by 5.3 points. Within this category, agency senior leaders drew the biggest increase, up 7.3 points to a score of 58.9 on a scale of 100. Since 2009, employee views of their senior leaders have increased 22.8 points. In addition, the agency increased its scores in the leadership category for direct supervisors and on the issues of empowerment and workplace fairness.

The one area of decline was pay, with employees registering a decrease in satisfaction of 4.4 points, a trend that took place across the government.

A NCUA spokeswoman said Chairman Debbie Matz set a goal for the agency to be “an employer of choice and reliable partner with elected labor representatives, understanding that employees are our most important asset.”

The spokeswoman said a concerted effort has been made to let employees know that management wants to hear and respond to their concerns. She said all managers were told they would be held accountable for improving communications with their direct reports.

As part of this initiative, Matz traveled to every NCUA office and met with employees. She also has held quarterly webinars so employees could express their concerns and get direct answers to their questions. During the webinars, for example, agency leaders learned that NCUA’s testing procedures were holding back qualified examiners from becoming principal examiners. In response, the NCUA made several changes to improve the principal examiners’ test procedures, to ensure consistency and fairness in the test administration.

The agency started a weekly email newsletter to address concerns from employees that they were not privy to information about newly hired workers, staffing changes and other internal matters that occur on a week-to-week basis. In another case, union officials were consulted about workspace renovations to ensure the views of employees were incorporated into the plans.

And in response to the federal pay freeze, the NCUA board approved an enhanced benefits package for all employees, including a 401(K) plan to supplement the defined contribution retirement savings plan for federal employees. In addition, all employees became eligible to receive compensation to defray the costs of medical, dental and vision insurance.

The NCUA, an independent federal agency created by Congress, regulates, charters and supervises federal credit unions. It is not supported by tax dollars. NCUA operates and manages the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, insuring the deposits of more than 93 million account holders in all federal credit unions and the overwhelming majority of state-chartered credit unions.

The Best Places to Work rankings provide an overview of federal agencies and subcomponents, and trend data and analysis of what the results mean. Agencies are ranked from first to last in one of four groups, including large, mid-sized and small agencies, and subcomponents. The agencies also ranked by 10 workplace categories, including effective leadership, strategic management, employee skills/mission match, pay and teamwork. Data is available on demographic groups, including race/ethnicity, age and gender.

Government-wide, the 2012 Best Places to Work rankings showed a decline in overall employee satisfaction and commitment and in each of the 10 workplace categories that were measured. Effective leadership remained the primary driver of worker satisfaction.

The rankings are based on data from OPM’s 2012 annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and additional survey data from nine agencies plus the intelligence community. The rankings include 362 federal agencies and subcomponents, representing 97 percent of the 2.1 million person federal workforce.

Mark Doboga is Director of Government Transformation and Agency Partnerships at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. This is the second article in a series on the 2012 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings. For information on how to improve employee satisfaction and commitment at your agency and to request a senior leadership briefing on your agency’s Best Places to Work results contact Doboga at mdoboga@ourpublicservice.org.

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Why DOT Is One of the Best Places to Work

Mark Doboga, Partnership for Public Service — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:43:00 -0500

Across the federal government, agencies are facing budgetary constraints, increased demands for improved service and calls for greater efficiency. Central to meeting these challenges is having an engaged and committed workforce.

The 2012 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government ® rankings produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte provide a benchmark for measuring employee satisfaction and commitment. They alert federal leaders to signs of trouble and provide a roadmap to help improve organizational performance and better manage government’s most important asset – its employees.

In a year when many agencies lost ground regarding employee job satisfaction and commitment, the Department of Transportation (DOT) made important gains.

The DOT registered the largest improvement in the Best Places to Work rankings for large agencies, a distinction that it also earned in 2010. The DOT raised its Best Places to Work satisfaction and commitment score by 4.1 points in 2012, from 59.5 out of 100 in 2011 to 63.6. Government-wide, the Best Places to Work score declined by 3.2 points compared to 2011.

The department achieved this success by improving internal communication with employees and ensuring accountability at all level of leadership. Key focus areas for the department have been employee empowerment, the balance between work and personal life, and opportunities for training and development. While every agency has different needs and cultures, some of the steps taken by the DOT can serve as useful examples for managers seeking to improve employee satisfaction and performance.

Improvement: A Continuous Process

Chief Human Capital Officer Brodi Fontenot said DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, who will soon be leaving President Obama’s Cabinet, made it a personal mission to improve the agency’s Best Places to Work scores, using the ratings as a tool for change.

“It can’t be a one-time thing,” Fontenot said. “It has to be a continuous process, and it has to be framed in the context of making our organization a better place to work. That can’t be said enough.”

That philosophy has been expressed to employees in listening sessions, in emails from the senior leaders of DOT’s many administrations and from the secretary himself. Most importantly, the changes resulting from the employee feedback have been communicated to the workers.

“We can put gold in the basement of our building here, but if no one knows it, it’s the same value it was before,” Fontenot said.

After improving its Best Places to Work score by 8.2 points in 2010, the department was not content, and added its own questions to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) survey used in the Best Places to Work rankings that were specific to the agency so they could concentrate on areas where it wasn’t improving.

Responding to Employee Feedback

From those questions, the agency determined that beyond leadership and communication, employees wanted improvements in their work processes. The secretary asked that senior leaders encourage feedback by conveying that they heard this message. The secretary’s office collected the lists and with input from each operating administration, made changes to meet employee needs.

For example, employees found it difficult to schedule conference rooms because they couldn’t easily determine availability. A change was made so they can look up online what rooms are open and schedule them, a process improvement that is helping to enhance productivity and make life easier for employees, Fontenot said.

DOT continues to run IdeaHub, launched in 2010, an online community for the agency’s 55,000 employees to submit and collaborate on ideas for driving innovation and facilitating change. When the ideas are vetted and changes are made or rejected, the decisions are communicated online to everyone as well as directly to the employees who submitted ideas. “We’re continually engaging all the time,” said Fontenot.

The department also provides training for first-line supervisors in the core competencies of effective leadership, empowerment, employee engagement and ethics, and has included an employee satisfaction goal in all career and non-career Senior Executive Service (SES) performance plans.

The Best Places to Work

The Best Places to Work rankings provide an overview of each agency and subcomponent, trend data and analysis of what the results mean. Agencies are ranked from first to worst in one of four groups including large, mid-sized and small agencies, and subcomponents, and also by 10 workplace categories, including effective leadership, strategic management, employee skills/mission match, pay and teamwork. Data is available on demographic groups, including race/ethnicity, age and gender.

The rankings are based on data from OPM’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and additional survey data from nine agencies plus the intelligence community. The rankings include 362 federal agencies and subcomponents, representing 97 percent of the 2.1 million person federal workforce.

Mark Doboga is Director of Government Transformation and Agency Partnerships at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. This is the first in a series of profiles on the 2012 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government notable agency movers. For information on how to improve employee satisfaction and commitment at your agency and to request a senior leadership briefing on your agency’s Best Places to Work results contact Doboga at mdoboga@ourpublicservice.org.

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