News Briefs

THE DAILY FED

News Briefs

The following news summaries are from OPM AM, the daily newsletter of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM AM is available on OPM Mainstreet, the agency's electronic bulletin board, at 202-606-4800.

THE FEDERAL DIARY--"Big families, even if everybody is healthy, need to be careful about picking a health plan. With multiple mouths to feed, the cost of premiums is important. So is what the plan does, and does not, cover. Insurance professionals urge shoppers to study the brochures of several plans, then run them by their doctors to make sure they will get maximum coverage at minimum cost. Federal employees have until Dec. 9 to choose their 1997 heath plans" (The Washington Post, Tuesday). "For the first time, computer-literate people anywhere can surf their way through some of Washington's hottest, best-paying federal jobs....The 7,400 jobs listed pay from the mid-30s to more than $100,000 a year. They are in virtually every federal agency. Many will be up for grabs over the next couple of months as Cabinet officers leave and their replacements assemble their own teams of loyalists." The book of "Policy and Supporting Positions," can be accessed on a computer at www.house.gov/reform/ (The Washington Post, Sunday).

IT'S TIME TO EVALUATE YOUR WORK, AND ALL INVOLVED ARE GROANING--"Dismissed as a 'deadly disease' by W. Edward Deming, the late quality-movement guru, the year-end rite has begun anew for millions of employees and managers. But in almost every major survey, most employees who get job evaluations and most supervisors who give them rate the process a resounding failure....More and more companies are realizing that once-a-year reviews don't work well. Many require managers to formally review employees at least twice a year and informally talk with them even more often about how they are doing....One recent study may persuade companies to try frequent reviews. Using data from Boston Consulting Group of New York, Hewitt Associates, a Lincolnshire, Ill., benefits-consulting concern found that from 1990 to 1992, companies with year-round systems significantly outperformed competitors lacking such systems in financial measures such as return on equity, total shareholder return, sales growth and cash flow. The study also indicated that a company's financial results strengthened considerably within two years of adopting a year-round system" (The Wall Street Journal).

CLINTON GIVEN HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY TO TRANSFORM JUDICIARY--"President Clinton's election to a second term all but assures the vivid transformation of the nation's federal courts in both appearance and judicial philosophy by 2000....Overall, of 846 life-tenured positions, Clinton has appointed 204 judges. By 2000, he likely will have appointed 40 to 50 percent of the bench, estimates Sheldon Goldman, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who has tracked judicial nominations since the 1960s. Goldman estimates that about one-fourth of federal judges will be women by 2000. White House officials agree with the projection, saying they expect to continue making a third of their nominees women. One in four have been members of racial minorities" (The Washington Post).

JOB INTERVIEWS COME TO CYBERSPACE--"Students interviewing for jobs may wear shorts on the bottom as long as they're dressed presentably up top in what's billed as the nation's first Virtual Job Fair. Today through Friday, students on 19 campuses from Maryland to Louisiana will meet corporate recruiters face-to-face in interviews conducted over special computers....The Virtual Job Fair is a joint project of VIEWnet Inc., makers of the technology, and career centers in a consortium of nine Atlantic Coast Conference and 12 Southeastern Conference universities. Thanks to the fair, Procter & Gamble can visit all these schools without having to leave their offices,' says Jim Kellen at the University of Alabama. AT&T recruiter Veda Pennington says the system will make it possible for her to screen more students than usual and to touch campuses AT&T might not visit" (USA Today, Monday, November 18).

HOUSE PAYS STAFF LESS THAN CIVIL SERVICE JOBS--"House staff on Capitol Hill earn 33 percent less than other federal government workers here and the gap is increasing according to a nonprofit consulting firm. But the study also found that female and minority House staff members earn salaries much closer to those of their white male colleagues than do women and minorities in the general work force. The 115-page report was prepared by the Congressional Management foundation, a non-profit nonpartisan group that provides management consulting for congressional offices. The findings are based on data provided to the group by 184 House offices" (The Washington Times).