Furlough 'Consistency and Fairness'
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5 Agencies with the Most Disconnected Leadership
No Bonuses for VA Benefits Execs
Will You Be Furloughed?
Wired Workplace
BYOD As a Right, Not a Privilege
- By Brittany Ballenstedt
- June 25, 2012
- comments
A survey of more than 3,800 active employees in their 20s found that 74 percent already regularly use their own personal devices for work purposes. Fifty-five percent said they view the use of their own device at work as a right rather than a privilege.
At the same time, younger workers understand the risks of using their personal devices for work purposes, with 42 percent of 20-somethings saying they believe potential data loss and exposure to malicious IT threats to be the most dominant risk associated with BYOD, according to the survey. But that’s not stopping some of them, with 36 percent admitting they have or would contravene a corporate policy banning the use of personally-owned devices for work purposes.
Organizations also may face resistance from younger workers in implementing security controls on an employee’s device, the survey found. The majority (66 percent) of respondents consider themselves, not the company, to be responsible for the security of ...
When Work Tech Can't Keep Up With Personal Tech
- By Brittany Ballenstedt
- June 18, 2012
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Federal employees wish the technology they use at work could keep up with the technology they use at home, an issue that could play a major factor as agencies develop “bring your own device,” or BYOD strategies, according to a new study by MeriTalk.
The study, Consumer Crossover: Me, Myself and IT, which is based on a survey of more than 220 federal employees, found that 67 percent of federal employees wished the technology they use at work kept up with the technology they use in their personal lives. That number is even higher for feds 35 and under, with 80 percent wishing work tech kept pace with personal tech.
The new digital government strategy, released by the Obama administration last month, aims to ensure agencies manage mobile devices safely and affordably and give citizens mobile access to government websites and information. The plan also requires agencies to issue a BYOD plan by September, with a focus on allowing federal employees to access their work and agency-built mobile applications from any device.
The MeriTalk study suggests that feds don’t have a long way to go to adopt the digital government strategy, in part because most feds already use Web-based ...
Next Generation Feds
- By Brittany Ballenstedt
- June 11, 2012
- comments
The Homeland Security Department is launching a new effort to develop and recruit the next generation of cybersecurity experts.
At a meeting with industry and small business representatives at the White House, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Homeland Security Advisory Council is taking steps to improve the nation’s cyber workforce.
The new task force, co-chaired by Jeff Moss, founder and director of the Black Hat and DefCon security conferences, and Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, will consider strategies that may include expanding DHS involvement in cyber competitions and university programs, enhancing public-private partnerships and working with interagency partners to develop an agile cybersecurity workforce governmentwide.
“Today we face an increasing demand for the best and brightest in the cybersecurity field across industry, academia and government,” Napolitano said. “DHS is committed to working with our partnerships at universities and throughout the private sector to develop the next generation of cyber professionals to protect against evolving cyber threats.”
NEXT GENERATION SUMMIT
Equipping young feds with the skills and savvy to pick up where more seasoned workers leave off amid sharply rising retirements is the focus of the third annual Next Generation of Government Summit, set to ...
Telework a ‘Silent Factor’ in New Digital Strategy
- By Brittany Ballenstedt
- June 1, 2012
- comments
The White House last week released its long-anticipated digital government strategy, and like many others, I was surprised to see that telework played virtually no role in the plan. Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel earlier this month even hinted that the strategy would include telework as a major component.
But the digital strategy mentions telework only once, in reference to new technologies necessitating updates to telework rules “to allow employees to work from any location, as long as the device and connectivity are appropriately secure.”
Cindy Auten, general manager for Telework Exchange, said Wednesday that while telework was not a component in the strategy, it’s still the underlying factor in any effort to embrace mobile technologies.
“I think it’s the silent factor through it all,” Auten said. “They’re looking at mobility and how it can drive citizen engagement, but I think the underlying theme is how employees are going to work and interact. Telework has a stake in that, whether it’s actually called out or not.”
Agencies that have worked hard on implementing their telework policies under the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act also will see an advantage in meeting the new mandates under the digital strategy, Auten ...
Does Telework Work?
- By Brittany Ballenstedt
- May 21, 2012
- comments
Since the passage of the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, it’s likely that your agency is implementing telework in some form or fashion. The question is, how will your agency know if that telework program is producing results?
Cindy Auten, general manager for Telework Exchange, said in an interview with Wired Workplace last week that measuring results was one of the most-discussed topics at the bi-annual Telework Town Hall meeting earlier this month. “One of the great challenges for agencies is making sure they can measure the success of their program appropriately,” Auten said.
In February, Auten noted that agencies like the Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security departments -- which were called out in a recent letter to Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry for having high numbers of positions deemed ineligible for telework -- may have a difficult time beginning to track and provide accurate data. And those agencies are not alone, she said.
Solving the challenge of measuring telework performance was the focus of a webinar on Thursday also sponsored by Telework Exchange.
Shirley LaBella, telework coordinator at the National Institutes of Health, said NIH’s telework program started as a pilot in 2001 with 51 employees teleworking two ...
