ALL VOICES

Leave the Drama Outside

• By Scott Eblin
• June 17, 2013
• Comments

Melissa, the young woman who cuts my hair, is wise beyond her years. She’s 26 years old and got into town 7 or 8 months ago. Within a week of getting here, she had three job offers from different salons and was promoted to assistant manager in the one she selected about three months after she started. Once a month we have an hour long conversation about music, favorite vacation spots, working out and business while she cuts my hair. Yesterday, I asked Melissa how, as a manager, she deals with the drama that can come up when you lead ...

Obama Breaks Ranks With Senior Executives

• By Tom Shoop
• June 14, 2013
• Comments

In April, I had the privilege of attending the Senior Executives Association’s annual Presidential Distinguished Rank Award banquet, honoring the recipients of the highest awards to civil servants for on-the-job performance. I’ve attended the annual event several times, and as usual it was a classy, dignified affair, held at the State Department’s Diplomatic Reception Rooms, featuring an address by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. And lest you think it was an example of questionable federal spending, the event was, in fact, funded by SEA’s Professional Development League, with corporate support. But it may be the last time SEA has ...

Cost-Cutting Moves Could Spare Relocation Programs

• By Linda Rothleder
• January 23, 2013
• Comments

As scrutiny of federal travel intensifies, agencies are getting road weary. In November 2011, President Obama issued an executive order requiring agencies to review their travel budgets and reduce costs by 20 percent. Then came the fallout from costs associated with the General Services Administration’s ill-famed Las Vegas conference. Now Congress is considering three pieces of government travel legislation that would beef up oversight and cost containment even more. Amid the all uproar, one travel program should be reviewed separately on its own merits -- the Federal Employee Relocation Management Program. The program was authorized by legislation in 1983 to ...

Why Obama’s Approval Rating Isn’t Higher

• By Charlie Cook
• June 17, 2013
• Comments

The good news for President Obama and his administration is that all the controversies swirling around the White House have not had a significant impact on his job-approval ratings. The bad news is that, like so many other second-term administrations, Obama’s may end up spending so much of its last four years fighting fires and fending off congressional inquiries that it gets little else done. Even if Obama manages to douse some of the current controversies, new ones, even minor ones, could constantly distract him and throw him off message to the point that he can’t make headway on any ...

Pay Uncertainty

• By Kellie Lunney
• June 13, 2013
• Comments

Lawmakers have reliably disagreed over the federal civilian pay raise for a while, whether to freeze or unfreeze it, and for how long. Now they’ve got differences over how much to boost military pay in 2014. The House this week is considering the fiscal 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, which would give members of the military a 1.8 percent pay increase next year. The Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee marked up its version of the defense authorization bill on Tuesday, however, with a 1 percent pay raise for service members in 2014. The 1 percent figure is in line with ...

Phased Retirement: The Bottom Line

• By Tammy Flanagan
• June 14, 2013
• Comments

Last week, we looked at the proposed rules governing the new phased retirement option in government, under which an employee could choose to work part time while receiving a partial retirement benefit. This week, let’s look at how a pair of partial retirement scenarios would play out under the government’s two main retirement systems. Civil Service Retirement System Suppose Pat, a 55-year old CSRS employee with 32 years of service and a salary of $100,000, wanted to shift to half-time employment. If Pat retired completely, her annuity would be $60,000. Under phased retirement, if Pat went to half-time service, the ...

Telework Keeps People On the Job Longer

• By Brittany Ballenstedt
• January 14, 2013
• Comments

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 ...

This Is Why People Hate the Government

• By Garance Franke-Ruta
• May 16, 2013
• Comments

The Treasury Inspector General report on the IRS mishandling of conservative advocacy group applications for tax exempt status between March 2010 and February 2012 was released Tuesday, and it is a doozy. The report, conveniently titled "Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review" -- in case you had any question as to its conclusions -- points the finger at "ineffective management" as the cause of the improper selection of groups using the words "Tea Party," "Patriot" and "9/12" for additional review and questioning. The report fills in some important blanks in our knowledge about how the groups ...

People Joining the US Workforce Today Are Less Educated Than Those Leaving It

• By Lauren Alix Brown
• 4:52 PM ET
• Comments

Things are looking grim for young Americans starting work. According to a new report on the state of US education from the Council on Foreign Relations, Americans going into the labor force today are less educated than those retiring from it. This phenomenon is unique among developed countries. For 55- to 64-year-olds, the US has the highest percentage of high-school graduates and the third-highest percentage of college graduates; in people aged 25 to 34, the country is 10th and 13th respectively. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people without a high-school diploma have the highest rate of unemployment and ...