Earlier this spring, several House lawmakers introduced a new bill to address a burgeoning post-pandemic trend: the use of employee monitoring technologies.

The “Stop Spying Bosses Act” would create new rules around the use of worker surveillance technologies. It would also establish a new division at the Labor Department to regulate workplace surveillance.

The legislation comes in response to an explosion in the use of everything from video surveillance to keylogging software to keep tabs on employees. A 2023 survey of 1,000 companies with remote or hybrid workforces found the vast majority use some form of employee monitoring. There’s even a new term for tech that enables this kind of continuous activity tracking: “bossware.”

As the country’s largest employer, where does the federal government stand? To date, there’s little evidence that federal agencies and their managers are taking up the more intrusive employee monitoring practices being embraced in the private sector.

But the unions that represent feds are also guarding against the potential as the technology evolves. National Federation of Federal Employees Executive Director Steve Lenkart said the issue is intertwined with the evolution of telework.

“As our technology improves, and we have more capabilities for people not to be in a centralized place, we’re going to have to invest in technologies that make it easier for that employee to function,” Lenkart said in an interview. “And there’s always going to be questions of supervision. And then it leads to questions of surveillance.”

SSA watchdog monitors employee computers

There is at least one instance where federal employees working remotely have had their computers monitored for performance.

In 2021, employees at the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General were subject to a survey of computer logs and telephone records to measure time online. Some employees were subject to disciplinary action or terminated.

While the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) — which represents more than 90% of SSA OIG agents – pushed back on that practice, SSA Inspector General Gale Ennis argued it was necessary “as stewards of taxpayer dollars, to hold employees accountable, when appropriate.”

“Failing to do so would be detrimental to public service, the OIG mission, and the morale of the many employees who go above and beyond in their contributions every day,” Ennis wrote in a September 2021 letter to the union.

Later that month, the FLEOA took a vote in which 98% of responding employees said they had “no confidence” in Ennis’s leadership. The use of computer logs for employee monitoring was among the issues cited by the union in its statement on the vote.

More than two years later, an FLEOA spokeswoman said the issue around the computer monitoring has yet to be resolved. “To our knowledge, the data analytics from employee monitoring are not being used for disciplinary actions as they were before, but they could be using it for other reasons,” the spokeswoman told Federal News Network.

In a statement for this story, FLEOA President Mat Silverman said SSA OIG employees were terminated “based on computer logs often without any corroborating or mitigating evidence from an employee’s immediate supervisor, raising serious doubts about the legitimacy of the terminations.”

“As agencies become increasingly skeptical about the benefits of remote work, we do fear the trend of remote monitoring will continue; however, we hope the strong criticism, high attrition, and decreased morale SSA OIG experienced will send a strong message to other agencies that this is neither an effective nor appropriate workplace policy,” Silverman said. “Ultimately, a workplace is successful when there is mutual trust, transparency, and confidence between employees and their leadership. Conversely, remote monitoring is demeaning to employees and undermines these important workplace values.”

In response to questions about the use of computer monitoring, an SSA OIG spokeswoman said, “Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General supervisors measure productivity and performance of their employees using performance plans.”

‘No rulebook’ on employee monitoring

As the telework era continues to evolve, Lenkart said it will take time to strike the balance between supervision and surveillance.

“I think there’s going to be a little bit of operational uncomfortableness,” he said. “If you don’t trust your employee enough where you have to watch them minute-by-minute, then that’s probably not a good candidate to be working home or the supervisor has trust issues that need to be addressed. There’s no rulebook written on this yet.”

While workplace collaboration technologies, like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, are key to remote work, some unions are keeping a close eye on how those technologies are used by management. The National Treasury Employees Union, for instance, said it “opposes the use of technology for anything other than its intended purpose.”

In a statement, NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said the union negotiates language in contracts that any “new or upgraded workplace technology cannot be used to track and monitor employees, measure productivity or replace existing official methods for tracking time and attendance.”

“For example, monitoring an employee’s colored-dot status on Microsoft Teams is not an indicator of productivity or attendance, and we would enforce our contracts to contest agency managers trying to use it as the basis of discipline or an adverse action against an employee,” Greenwald continued.

On its “Telework FAQ” page, the Office of Personnel Management encourages supervisors to focus on what an employee is accomplishing, rather than what it “looks like” an individual is doing.

“By focusing on the work product instead of the work activity, many supervisors find they are better able to communicate clear expectations to their employees,” OPM writes. “The resulting agreement on job expectations often leads to increases in employee productivity and job satisfaction.”

OPM did not respond to questions about the potential use of employee monitoring technology within the federal government.

In a 2021 blog, the Government Accountability Office underlined how first-line supervisors are key to reporting whether they think an employee is abusing time and attendance requirements. While agencies are increasingly using automated timekeeping systems and other internal controls to detect misconduct, managers are “still the most important internal control for managing time and attendance,” GAO wrote.

That’s a sentiment Lenkart reiterated in highlighting the disparate nature of many federal jobs and the difficulty of measuring performance from time spent on a computer.

“In the end, it’s always going to come back to the local supervisor to determine whether you have a good employee or not,” he said.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Derace Lauderdale

Close to 80% of employers use monitoring software to track employee performance and online activity.

Source: CNBC

The post With ‘spying bosses’ on the rise, where do federal agencies stand on employee monitoring? first appeared on Federal News Network.

That, as you might have guessed, constitues the status of work life for staff members of the Congress of the United States. This finding comes from the Congressional Management Foundation, which surveyed 138 senior staff members. Only 5 percent of the people surveyed answered, but the foundation’s president, Brad Fitch, said the results show clear trends; principally, that the staff of the Congress labors under a peculiar group of people.

I”ll spare you yet another take on the principal issues impeding the car wreck that is Congress. Congressional staff occupy a galaxy less visible to the public, and even to much of the executive branch bureaucracy. Even in my own 32 years of covering government, I’ve spoken to only a handful congressional staff members, fewer even than members themselves. Staff learn early the value of self-attenuation in the shadows of their often egotistical bosses.

But don’t think they’re diffident. In fact, traipsing through the brick tunnels of the Capitol complex are some of the most informed and practically-minded people you’ll find anywere. Name the issue, and you can find members of the congressional staff that possess expert knowledge. And since politics often has the surface grace of ballet but the tactics of a prison yard, staff of one party sometimes know better than their members how to devise compromises with those of the opposite party.

When first-elected members come to town with perhaps green personal staffs, you can bet they learn lot from the committee staffs.

I say this only because the staffs of members of Congress constitute a sometimes underappreciated contributor to the nation’s well-being. If the Congress itself is semi-functional, the blame goes to many factors. Staff isn’t one of them. So it’s good to see at least a sampling survey of the health of this workforce. By contrast, the executive branch workforce is the object of intense, detailed and never-ending study. The annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey provides rich data and insight.

Here is a bit of what the Foundation survey found:

• Only 19% of the staff members thinks Congress “correctly functions as a democratic legislature should.” That breaks down to 31% of Republican respondents, 12% of Democratic.
• Only 20% agree that Congress provides “an effective forum” for debating the important questions.
• 81% of Republicans and long serving staff members tend to disagree that “current procedures” give members of Congress the information they need from the executive branch to do their congressional duties. Sure, there’s a Democratic administration. But 46% of Democrats also find information from the executive branch wanting.
• Two thirds of Democratic and Republican staff members would like elected leadership to “enforce the rules and norms of civility and decorum in Congress.” At least they don’t march into the chambers and whack one another with canes.

I spoke with Brad Fitch, the president of the foundation that surveyed congressional staff. A longtime watcher of Congress, Fitch said he doesn’t think the acrimony among members seeps down into staff relations. Otherwise, literally no bill might get written, much less ones the members reject anyway.

Fitch said — and the survey shows this — that the congressional staff sees positive movement in the technology, the workplace tools that have arrived in recent years. The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress helped here. It sunsetted last year, but now there’s a follow-on caucus. Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Washington) ably chaired the remarkably bipartisan committee. It came up with a couple of hundred recommendations, a couple of dozen of which Congress implemented. Senior staff are better paid now, and they have somewhat better IT systems.

It seems bizarre that an institution as important as the United States Congress engenders agreement about its own brokenness among its own members, the citizenry, historians and just about everyone else. Just don’t blame the staff.

The post Understatement: Congress doesn’t function properly first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Census Bureau is looking to roll out a remote work policy it drafted at the end of last year, but is rethinking how many employees can opt in, after Congress recently set minimum utilization rates for federal buildings.

The Census Bureau agreed to a remote work policy last December, and a working group is working on implementation details.

Census Bureau Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Ron Jarmin told employees in an all-staff email last week that once an implementation plan is finalized in the coming weeks, employees will be approved for remote work “in special situations determined by the remote work implementation working group.”

“Our policy must follow departmental and administrative guidelines and will have limits which significantly impact the number of employees who will be approved for remote work across the Census Bureau,” Jarmin wrote.

Jarmin said the bureau strongly recommends employees do not move outside the commuting area of their official duty station until they receive remote work approval.

Meanwhile, the Census Bureau is reconfiguring its headquarters to bring more Commerce Department employees under one roof.

American Federation of Government Employees Council 241 President Johnny Zuagar said in an interview with Federal News Network that the Census Bureau headquarters is undergoing renovations and giving up 50% of its headquarters space to accommodate employees from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The bureau’s headquarters, he added, will shift to a hoteling model following the renovations, meaning employees will have to reserve a desk for the days they plan to work in-person.

“We have done what they’re saying. We looked at our real estate, and we redid it. We have consolidated with other agencies, we are moving to smaller spaces that are at other locations. So we’re doing exactly what they’re asking,” Zuagar said. “We’re using the space efficiently and effectively. We are making adjustments. This is going to take a couple of years to know where the right balance is, but we’ll find that out.”

AFGE Council 241 Vice President Vickie Martin said Census Bureau employees who work outside the Suitland, Maryland headquarters are expected to work in the office a minimum of two days per pay period — although in-office expectations vary by position. Zuagar said some employees are working in-person every day.

Martin said the union initially expected more Census employees would be eligible to enroll in the remote work policy, but language in the fiscal 2024 spending deal set minimum occupancy requirements for federal buildings, and “handcuffed us a little bit” on the scope of remote work.

Lawmakers, in the spending deal for the rest of fiscal 2024, are requiring agencies with an office space utilization rate of less than 60% to report to Congress on their efforts to reduce their real estate footprint.

Agencies as part of the appropriations package will also have to provide information on the average number and percentage of employees working in the office during a typical two-week pay period, as well as their recent telework policies.

“We’re not going to give up on expanding that and getting further flexibilities for our people. But, we’re also not going to jeopardize what they’ve been able to gain, as far as flexibilities now,” Martin said.

A Census Bureau spokeswoman said in a statement that the bureau’s headquarters is under construction to modernize the building and bring Bureau of Labor Statistics employees into the building. During the renovations, the spokeswoman said “employees have been working under maximum telework.”

The bureau expects to reopen its headquarters building this summer.

“Employees have been notified that they will receive a 60-day notice before headquarters begins a phased reopening and will be required to comply with existing policies upon their return,” the spokeswoman said.

Discover more now:

Return to office in 4 parts: Fed facing the May 5 deadline

Education’s return-to-office announcement ‘perplexing’ to union

Lawmakers call SBA’s return to office policy ‘extremely minimal’

Labor employees protest at their office for more telework riles up lawmakers 

The post Census Bureau rethinks scope of remote work policy, consolidates office space first appeared on Federal News Network.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said OMB had set a deadline for employees to return to the office at least half of the time by a certain date. The story has been updated to reflect that OMB has set no specific deadline. 

Spring has sprung, flowers are in bloom and federal employees at many agencies are feeling the effects of the return to the office bug.

From the Social Security Administration to the Interior Department to the Education Department, the return-to-the-office mandates are in full bloom.

Over the course of the last two-plus months, ever since White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients asked agency leaders on Jan. 19 to “double down” on their efforts to increase in-person work, the number of agencies pushing for more federal employees to return to the office by negotiating the new requirements with union representatives has accelerated.

The latest example is the Labor Department. Acting Secretary Julie Su told agency employees in a Feb. 9 email that she expects to provide an update no later than this Friday. This update comes after Labor delayed its plans to have non-management or bargaining unit employees back in the office more regularly in January.

“First, I want to acknowledge all of you who have sent me your thoughts, concerns, and personal stories about the upsides and downsides of increasing onsite work. While I can’t respond personally to them all, I’ve read your emails and correspondence and I hear you,” Su wrote in an email obtained by Federal News Network. “Your input on the impact this will have on your lives and the lives of your colleagues has been both informative and instructive as we support the administration’s efforts and as we work to ensure the long-term organizational health of the department.”

The push to have more employees in the office is difficult to understand for many employees.

On the FedNews channel on Reddit, anonymous posters who claim to be federal employees routinely highlight both the contradictory and frustrating policy changes that come from many agencies.

Many say the rationale for returning to the office remains unclear, and make the case that the work-life benefits continue to outweigh, in most cases, the in-person benefits.

Recent research by University of Pittsburgh professor Mark Ma and Yuye Ding, a Ph.D. student, seem to support that notion. The researchers found “RTO mandates hurt employee satisfaction but do not improve firm performance.” Ma and Ding analyzed Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500 firms with RTO mandates.

“Instead of forcing everyone back to in-office work, high-performing employees who perform well at home should be allowed to continue at home. This would benefit the employee as well as the firm in the long-term through retention of high-performing employees, who can more easily find other jobs,” the researchers wrote.

Beyond maybe federal pay and benefits changes, few topics have elicited as much emotion and consternation as return-to-office mandates.

The following four stories are among the most recent examples of this ongoing debate happening across many agencies. It’s clear the RTO answer for many agencies isn’t as cut-and-dry as many would like it to be and like the initial months during COVID of working from home, the solution will come by trial, experience and through a little innovation by managers and employees.

Education’s return-to-office announcement ‘perplexing’ to union

Lawmakers call SBA’s return to office policy ‘extremely minimal’

Census Bureau reconsidering remote work policy

Labor employees protest at their office for more telework riles up lawmakers 

The post Return to office in 4 parts: Feds facing the pressure to reduce telework first appeared on Federal News Network.

Protesting at your office for the right to telework more captures those same vibes.

That is what happened in March when Labor Department employees in Boston went to their office to protest to retain their telework privileges.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.) called that decision by employees “hypocritical.”

Ernst and Franklin wrote to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su seeking more details about what the protest cost the department.

“Clearly, these employees know how much more effective they can be when they show up in person. We just wish they had the same level of dedication to serving Americans that they do to serving themselves,” the lawmakers wrote. “As White House Chief of Staff [Jeff] Zients said in January, agencies are still ‘not where they need to be’ on returning employees to the office. If your employees can show up to the office to protest, they can show up to the office to work.”

Ernst and Franklin want Su to respond to answers to three questions by April 10:

• How much taxpayer-funded union time did representatives of AFGE Local 948 log with the Department of Labor (DOL) in the four weeks preceding their rally on March 19, 2024?
• Were the DOL employees paid—either through taxpayer-funded union time reimbursements or otherwise—for their protest against returning to the office, which they staged at their office?
• If so, what is the cost to the DOL including but not limited to labor and resources—of this protest?

Emails seeking comments about the lawmaker’s criticisms to David Gonzalez, the AFGE District 2 national vice president, which includes federal employees in Massachusetts, were not answered.

A Labor Department spokesperson said in an email to Federal News Network, “The department continues to engage with our employee unions over the updated in-person work requirements with the goal of building a stronger sense of community in our department. We are committed to that process, and we support the First Amendment rights of all workers, including our own staff, to protest.”

Labor’s impending decision

Labor Department leadership and its union representatives have been in ongoing negotiations about return to the office plans since at least January. Labor initially wanted employees back in the office at least five days per two-week pay period starting Jan. 28. But Su delayed the implementation about a week before it was set to take effect citing ongoing labor-management discussions over the planned telework reduction.

For members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), Schedule C, managers and supervisors, they have been working in the office at least five days per pay period, since Oct. 23.

Su wrote to staff in a Feb. 9 email, which Federal News Network obtained, that the “department remains actively engaged in negotiations with our Unions. I will provide you with an update no later than April 5.”

This impending decision is likely why the employees in Boston held the protest.

Su wrote to employees in November, reminding them of their impending changes that will likely still apply later this month.

“For our employees impacted by this change, if you have a telework agreement that will need to be updated in TeleworkXpress to support the new in-person work requirement, please work with your supervisor to do so. If you don’t have a telework agreement on file, the expectation is that you are reporting in-person every workday unless you are on approved leave, official detail away from the agency worksite, or official travel. Keep in mind, management may recall DOL employees who participate in telework or remote work to work in-person on a temporary or permanent basis as needed to support mission and business needs,” she wrote on Nov. 28. “Further, all employees who participate in telework are expected to manage their work schedules to meet the in-person work requirement even if it means switching their in-person day(s) to a different day(s) during the pay period when they are approved to be on leave on what would have otherwise been an in-person day(s).”

Return to office in 4 parts: Fed facing the May 5 deadline

Education’s return-to-office announcement ‘perplexing’ to union

Lawmakers call SBA’s return to office policy ‘extremely minimal’

Census Bureau reconsidering remote work policy

The post Labor employees show up to protest for more telework first appeared on Federal News Network.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced that all agency staff will have to work in person at least five days per pay period beginning May 20. That includes the 2,400 employees in the American Federation of Government Employees bargaining unit.

“Our return to greater in-person presence not only gives us more opportunity for collaboration, engagement and innovation, but it also brings us into alignment with other federal agencies across government that have been increasing their own in-person presence,” Cardona said in a March 28 all-staff email, obtained by Federal News Network.

Currently, most Education employees are either remote workers, or on a telework schedule that requires them to work in person just two days per pay period.

Sheria Smith, AFGE president for Local 252, which represents Education employees, called the return-to-office announcement “perplexing.” She said the union has not had the opportunity to negotiate or come to an agreement on the changes. Labor-management negotiations are opening in April for a few collective bargaining articles, but currently, telework is not on that list.

“We’re more productive in our work for citizens and it is more cost-effective for us to work at home,” Smith said in an interview. “What would they be sending us to the office for? And to do it … bypassing the union, without giving the union the opportunity to negotiate any change. They’re just sending it out as if it was already bargained and already settled.”

Considering the many return-to-office announcements from agencies, the union had expected to receive proposals on any telework changes when they were first outlining the parameters of the upcoming negotiations.

“For an issue that they know is important, that we’ve been unequivocal in representing how important that is to our colleagues, our coworkers [and] how people have made familial decisions — and for us to not even receive proposals on this before it was sent out to the bargaining unit employees is, in our view, outrageous,” Smith said.

Since Cardona’s email went out, AFGE has received at least 100 emails from employees concerned about the upcoming changes. The union has already notified a mediator at the Federal Labor Relations Authority regarding the return-to-office announcement.

Cardona, however, said in the email the changes would still be “subject to fulfilling bargaining obligations.” A department spokesperson added that the agency “looks forward to partnering with the union and engaging in productive bargaining discussions to support a smooth transition for covered employees.”

The return-to-office changes, as outlined in Cardona’s announcement, apply to those with telework agreements. They also apply to those who are considered telework-eligible, but who are currently working remotely. Any employees who live more than 50 miles from an agency facility and those who were hired with a fully remote job offer are exempt from the new policy.

In preparation for more time spent in the office, Cardona said the agency has adjusted office space arrangements, IT and other logistics. Moving forward, Cardona said all Education offices should also consider scheduling “core collaboration days,” or certain days when employees can coordinate to all work in person on the same day.

Education employees’ views of telework have hardly changed. During the Trump administration, the department previously cut back on telework. At the time, the vast majority of employees said the changes decreased productivity, required staff to use more sick leave and annual leave, and hurt agency morale to the point that many considered leaving the agency.

Since then, many employees were largely teleworking during the pandemic, and continued regularly working from home under an agreement established in 2021.

But now, “for whatever reason, they want us to have watercooler conversations that we, frankly, have been having over Teams,” Smith said. “But they want us in person.”

Discover more now:

Return to office in 4 parts: Fed facing the May 5 deadline

Lawmakers call SBA’s return to office policy ‘extremely minimal’

Census Bureau reconsidering remote work policy

Labor employees protest at their office for more telework riles up lawmakers

The post Education’s return-to-office announcement ‘perplexing’ to union first appeared on Federal News Network.

House Small Business Committee Vice Chairman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) said in a March 20 oversight hearing that he was “extremely skeptical” of SBA’s request for a 20% budget increase in fiscal 2025, “as there is no evidence the agency is operating effectively or efficiently.”

Among his concerns, Luetkemeyer said SBA has “implemented an extremely minimal return to work policy.”

“This is a direct slap in the face to our entrepreneurs who don’t have the luxury of a day off or the ability to sit in their pajamas and work from home,” Luetkemeyer said.

SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman told lawmakers that employees are in the office at least five days a pay period, “complying with the standards” set governmentwide by White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.

“We have 50% occupancy on any given day, at a minimum,” Guzman said. “The whole of SBA, across the country, has returned to work.”

Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) said members of the committee toured SBA’s headquarters on Dec. 3, 2023, and saw “empty office spaces” throughout the building.

“If we’re not going to use these buildings, let’s shut them down. Let’s consolidate and save money for the American taxpayer,” Alford said.

“I’ve long been concerned with SBA’s lax work-from-home policy, and what that means for our nation’s 33 million small businesses, getting them the help they need, when they need it,” Alford said.

Guzman said SBA occupies two-thirds of its headquarters building, and that three other agencies occupy the rest of the space.

“We went to the floors that SB A fully occupies,” Guzman told lawmakers. “We are looking constantly at our space requirements, aligned with our facilities’ needs.”

Acting American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 228 President Niklas Gustafsson said bargaining unit employees are expected to work in the office a minimum of four days per pay period, “with additional days, depending on the position.”

“Managers have the discretion to have a higher amount, if there’s a particular need,” Gustafsson said. “For example, if you are a receptionist or work in the mail room. If you’re in a position that requires more in-office presence, that would then be required.”

SBA managers and members of the Senior Executive Service, he added, are expected to work in the office at least five days per pay period.

“Employees recognize that there are in-person, in-office functions that need to be accomplished, and SBA bargaining unit employees are professionals and don’t object to that,” Gustafsson said. “However, many employees are confused and do not understand what it is they are accomplishing in the office, when they are in the office, that is different from when they are teleworking.”

Gustafsson said that he and his coworkers are carrying out the same duties each day, whether or not they’re in the office. That means SBA employees sometimes spend their in-office days in videoconference meetings with colleagues located across the country.

“My in-office days look no different than a telework day, from a work process or productivity point of view, and I think that’s true for the vast majority of our bargaining unit,” he said.

Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas), Luetkemeyer, Alford and five other committee Republicans say SBA office space remains mostly underutilized and is wasting taxpayer dollars.

The lawmakers are asking SBA to clarify its return to office requirements, and are asking why the agency is asking for $42 million for its rent budget in it 2025 budget proposal — a 30% increase from 2023 levels — when it already has “rows and rows of empty desks.”

“Despite the Biden administration’s belated realization that work-from-home policies are counterproductive to servicing the American public, it appears that the SBA has failed to implement an effective strategy to return its employees. Nearly a year after the Biden Administration ended the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, the SBA is still not back to work,” lawmakers wrote in a March 27 letter to Guzman.

Congressional Republicans have repeatedly pointed to SBA as an agency with underutilized office space.

Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) placed SBA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on the top of her “naughty list” of agencies with underutilized offices last December.

Data from the Government Accountability Office shows HUD and SBA both had a 7% average utilization rate in early 2023 — the lowest rate of all other major agencies.

HUD and SBA officials told GAO their headquarters buildings were undergoing renovation during the data collection period, contributing to a decrease in attendance.

GAO, in a report this summer, found all 24 of the agency headquarters offices it reviewed had excess space, including 17 that had an average building capacity of just 25%.

Discover more now:

Return to office in 4 parts: Fed facing the May 5 deadline 

Education’s return-to-office announcement ‘perplexing’ to union

Census Bureau reconsidering remote work policy

Labor employees protest at their office for more telework riles up lawmakers 

The post GOP lawmakers pan SBA return-to-office plans as ‘extremely minimal’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

Nobody has a guaranteed tomorrow. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan for a good retirement. Presuming you don’t climb 1,000-foot rock cliffs without ropes or scuba dive to pet tiger sharks, you can expect some good years after work. The Social Security figures show a man at 65 — the classic retirement date — will live on average another 17 years. A woman at 65 has another 20 years on average. In reality more and more are making it to 90 and beyond.

Why a retirement column today? With two weeks until the tax incoming filing deadline, people are thinking about their finances. Baseball opened yesterday, and wouldn’t it be great to get to those precious few day games without a lot of schedule rigmarole? Plus, given that most federal employees pick December 31st to retire, April 1 still gives you some time to get retirement affairs lined up.

I credit Thiago Glieger of RMG Advisors in Rockville, Maryland, and a regular Federal Drive guest, for the idea. He said his federal clients often knuckle down to retirement planning now, with the holidays, winter and tax filing behind them. My own two cents: Solid retirement planning is also good financial planning generally, no matter how far away your retirement.

Glieger says to think of retirement in three phases — go-go, slow-go, and no-go. Go-go, you’re still relatively young and active. This is when you pack in the more active or strenuous things you want to do while you can. Slow-go, you’re still okay, but maybe slowing down to enjoy more chilling, say with younger family members. No-go is later old age, which might entail assisted living or other forms of help.

You can’t control anything fully. Inflation, though, lies in the zone of totally uncontrollable. Glieger calls inflation the silent retirement killer. You can control how your react in terms of Thrift Savings Plan or 401K strategy. He cautions against substituting  the volatility of higher growth funds like the C  Fund or S Fund for the steadiness of, say, the G Fund, on which inflation will have the most corrosive effects.

In that sense, your TSP is the one element in the TSP-FERS annuity-Social Security trio that is not fixed, or at least not tied to nominal inflation adjustments. Certified financial planner Art Stein, also an alarm-ringer on inflation, points out that FERS and your annuity won’t run out, either, whereas you can wipe out your investments fairly easily. You might be tempted to take more from your savings if inflation reduces the buying power of your FERS annuity, Stein adds.

Like a noxious vapor, inflation seeps into everything.

So, don’t shy away from keeping relative to wide swings, “if you think about not growing your money fast enough, that’s also a pretty big risk. Over time, you may not be able to keep up with your spending,” Glieger said.

Any retirement plan must include a spending plan. Glieger cautions against underestimating what you’ll spend. Some people spend more when they retire; say, because of more travel. Plus, cars, roofs, furnaces and washing machines don’t last forever.

Or at least initially, you buy that bass boat or sewing machine or Beretta shotgun you now feel you’ll have the time to use. Therefore, you’ll want a TSP investment strategy that grows your nest egg at no less than the rate at which you take withdrawals. Or at least ensure the principal lasts until you’re 95 or 100. You don’t want to undershoot the runway.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Michele Sandiford

The ratio of women to men over 65 years old is 100 to 76. The ratio of women to men over 85 years old is 100 to 49.

Source: DoSomething.org

The post Planning on retirement? Beware of killer inflation first appeared on Federal News Network.

Two things to know: Presidential transition has already started. And you can participate!

Panelists on an online webinar put on by the AFFIRM group the other day talked all about transition. The speakers, all current or former federal executives, said that helping a transition can be professionally rewarding and even fun, although it requires setting aside your personal politics. Which, when you think about it, you pledged to do when signing up for a federal job in the first place.

Beth Killoran, the chief information officer of the Government Accountability Office, pointed out, “Transition started a year ago, because of what is statutorily required and what the General Services Administration has to do.” She’s former deputy CIO at GSA. She was CIO at Health and Human Services. “I actually had to do the onboarding of the new politicals as part of the transition team,” she said. Before all that happens, so-called beachhead teams, often heavy with campaign-connected people, will come in to start gathering information for the subsequent transition teams.

Jim Williams was, among other things, acting GSA administrator at the end of the Bush administration and oversaw the transition to the Obama administration. GSA ascertains the winner of the election, but long before that it establishes office space and generally makes sure the operation runs smoothly. He said that the Bush administration gave him instructions to make a “seamless and gracious” transition.

So far, it’s always been seamless, although not always gracious. Still, Williams said, “One thing I would say for anybody in the federal government: volunteer. It’s incredibly exciting. It’s always the opportunity to put your best foot forward and get to know the incoming team.” Even when the incumbent president is reelected, “there will be a changeover of people,” Williams said.

Obvious though they may seem to career employees, the specific duties and operational constructs of an agency or a department often mystify and incoming politicals. A lot of information comes in briefing books. Those can lay open everything an incoming will need to know, or not.

As former Office of Management and Budget official Mark Forman put it, “What do people want to know what did people in the agency want to put in the books are not the same.” Briefings can grow complicated, he said, because people at different levels and on different programs or bureaus will each need different sets of information.

That information transfer is therefore a chance to enhance your career and reputation. Roger Baker, who worked on the Veterans Affairs transition team for the incoming Obama crew in 2009, said, “The problem with the briefing books is that’s what they’d like you to know. And, you know, largely, as far as the transition team is concerned, that’s not what they’re worried about. What they’re really worried about is what is it you’re not telling them.”

If you tell them in a non-political way, you can enable a good relationship with the new political team and maybe enhance your own happiness on the job. Williams urged an evenhanded approach to the incoming and outgoing.

“Your job is to support the elected officials,” he said. He added, “Remember how you’re treating the people going out.” In the complex of government, think tanks, non-profits, contractors and law firms, people go and come ’round again.

Forman said to look at transition as a time to shine, but also as a chance to change things for the better.

“I think you need to come in and say, here’s what I think needs to be changed, or here’s what’s broken, what are the options,” Forman said. And let them know your recommendations. “And,” he added, “you also have to provide some credibility that that you can actually succeed in implementing that recommendation. If you answer those three questions, I think you’re gonna be pretty well situated.”

Yes, in many ways the upcoming election looks grim. But don’t let it make you unhappy as a government employee. Transition is a legal and political process, but it’s also an exercise in human relations.

By the way, the World Happiness Report is put together by Gallup, something called the Wellbeing Research Centre and hoity-toities from the University of Oxford. At 23rd happiest, the U.S. is way below Finland, Denmark and Iceland, which rank 1, 2 and 3.  But we’re way ahead of the three most unhappy nations: Lesotho (maybe it’s the elevation), Lebanon and Afghanistan. And we’re happier than  #30 China and #72 Russia.

Nearly Useless Factoid 

By: Michele Sandiford

Per TSA regulations, you can bring a bowling ball into the cabin in carry-on luggage, but not a bowling pin.

Source: TSA

The post With the election coming up, no wonder we’re miserable first appeared on Federal News Network.

Until his nomination to OSC, Dellinger was assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy. He’s no non-partisan, but presumably he knows the four specific laws — including the Hatch Act —that concern the OSC. Dellinger is no non-partisan, though, as evidenced by some tweets unearthed by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (Iowa). His answers to Grassley’s questions are worth reading.

Dellinger succeeds Henry Kerner, who has been a sort of jolly warrior on behalf of retaliated-against whistleblowers and other federal employees harmed by prohibited personnel practices.  OCS under Kerner, and his predecessor Carolyn Lerner (now a federal judge), maintained a tough stance on Hatch Act violations. That is, federal employees politicking at work. Dellinger and OSC staff will have to remain both tough and non-partisan in the presidential election now drearily unfolding.

I know we’re not choosing between Adlai Stevenson II and Dwight Eisenhower, but still, election passions never improved any workplace other than campaign headquarters.

The Biden administration nominated Kerner to a seat on the Merit Systems Protection Board. I feel the Senate should confirm him. After a debate cloture vote, the Senate voted in favor of Cathy Harris continuing as MSPB chair, without “acting” on her title. That will maintain the quorum, two of three members. The two members can keep chipping away at a backlog of appeals cases that built up during the MSPB’s five years without a quorum.

When a quorum came back in 2022, it faced, or “inherited” in the board’s words, a backlog of 3,793 cases, some of them going back years. The latest report on case processing shows they’ve cleared 2,560 of them, or 61%. One of my regular correspondents who follows this process in detail, estimated that at the February pace of 264 cases, the board would wipe out the backlog in October of this year.

The average citizen has likely never heard of the Office of Special Counsel or the Merit Systems Protection Board. The gigantic machinery of the federal bureaucracy is difficult enough for people in it, or who follow it closely, to keep up with. Obscure as these two offices might seem, to federal employees they form a sort of supreme court against capricious or worse supervisors. Like all courts, they require effort, time and often expense to access and gain from. Still, the federal workplace and federal employees would be worse off without them.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Derace Lauderdale

The Hatch Act was named after Senator Carl A. Hatch of New Mexico, who introduced the bill in 1939.

Source: interestingfacts.org

The post For federal employee justice, some continuity in leadership first appeared on Federal News Network.

“I hated to do it. These people needed promotions. But somebody needs to wake up in the White House and the Pentagon that they cannot dictate policy here in the U.S. Senate. So I put a hold months ago on admirals, generals and civil nominees. A few months went by – a few months became 11, and we’ve had that hold ever since they put that policy in place,” Tuberville said.

Since the start of the blockade over his opposition to a Pentagon policy that reimburses service members for travel expenses to seek reproductive care, including abortion and in vitro fertilization services, the senator insisted that halting promotions would strictly impact the most senior military leaders.

But defense officials, lawmakers and military organizations say the cascading impacts of the holds will be felt for years to come.

Blue Star Families, a non-profit organization, asked service members and their spouses about the impacts the blockage was having on their families.

In a poll conducted in September, 609 participants who identified as active-duty service members (11%), active-duty spouses (58%), veterans (16%) and spouses of veterans (7%) were asked about their likelihood to recommend military service to family members, their likelihood to continue military service and their satisfaction with military service.

Out of 331 respondents, 27% said they were directly impacted by the promotion block. Those affected by the blockade were located at duty stations nationwide and registered to vote in 27 states, with the largest portions registered to vote in Florida, Virginia and Texas. Impacts were reported in each military branch and in both the active and reserve components.

While families have been reluctant to share their experiences, anonymous accounts of hardships endured included service members having to move their families at their own expense to make sure their children were enrolled in school and officers living in temporary housing and paying storage costs out of pocket while waiting on the hold to be dropped.

“If you are a military family, in the summertime, you pretty much know you’re selected for your next duty station. So you’re already making plans to move by the end of the summer. But you’ve got kids that are ending their school year. They’re getting ready to start the next school year and they are already enrolled most of the time in these new schools at the new duty location. Well, that family can’t move. So those kids are in limbo,” Tom Porter, the vice president of government affairs at Blue Star Families, told Federal News Network.

“Then those same families have more than likely ended their lease at their current location or might have to stay in a hotel and might have to put their items in storage. And many times, they’ve also entered into new leases at their new locations. But of course, they can’t start that lease and they might have to be paying for them even before they’re moved.”

The survey found that 57% of currently-serving family respondents said the promotion block decreased their likelihood of recommending service to a young family member. For those directly impacted by the promotion block, the number increased to 77%.

Nearly half of the currently serving family respondents said the promotion block decreased the likelihood that their family would continue service, and more than three-quarters of those directly impacted by the blockade say it decreased their likelihood to remain in military service.

The poll found that 63% of currently-serving family respondents said the blockade decreased their satisfaction with military service. In addition, the number increases to 87% for those directly impacted by the blockade.

“This has an incredible impact on retention in the military at a time when our military is being challenged more than ever to meet its recruiting goals. When we should be doing everything that it takes to keep service members and their families who’ve been serving the longest, to keep them in the service, we are discouraging them from moving forward and making them more than ever want to reconsider serving,” Porter said.

“We’ve normalized chaos within the military family, and that just contributes to dissatisfaction with serving in uniform. When you don’t fund the government, when you use the military as political pawns, that has an adverse impact on our national security, and it will ultimately cause military families to rethink whether or not they continue in their service and whether or not they will recommend service to their family and friends.”

GAO to review the impacts of Tubeville’s military nominations blockade

The Government Accountability Office’s investigation might provide a comprehensive review of the impacts of the senator’s 10-month blockade.

In a letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked the agency to review short- and long-term effects of the senator’s hold on military readiness, national security and military families.

“The work will begin soon,” GAO spokesperson Chuck Young told Federal News Network. 

Two congressmen also asked the agency to identify processes the Defense Department relies on when military promotions are stalled for prolonged and indefinite periods of time. 

“We encourage that effort. We wish that was a bipartisan effort that’s called for here. But regardless of who’s behind it, we need to know the exact impacts on our military families, both short-term and long-term,” Porter said.

But just because Sen. Tuberville’s 10-month hold has ended, any single senator who has an objection to a policy can block military promotions. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), for example, put a two-week hold on all military promotions in July 2020.

“This is possible again,” Porter said. “Maybe some people think that this was impactful for Sen. Tuberville. He certainly didn’t get his way. But we’re going to be watchful to make sure that this never happens again by the way we mobilize our members to share their opinions with Congress.”

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Michele Sandiford

31  of the nation’s presidents have served in the military.

Source: USO.org

The post Impacts of Tuberville’s military holds will be felt for years first appeared on Federal News Network.

The show in fact appeared on other stations before the formation of what was then called Federal News Radio. Bob, in my interview, couldn’t quite remember how many years back it went.

Bob is alive and well, but he’s no spring chicken. He retires from the air having built a large and loyal following of people, mostly federal employees. Bob and his guests served regular plates of advice on financial and estate planning, wealth accumulation, taxes, Social Security and a myriad of related topics.

Low key and self effacing, Bob glided into our studios faithfully every Monday until the pandemic, so I’ve only seen him sporadically in the last few years. For his last show he was here, so we could give him a proper sendoff, complete with cake. He was joined in studio by regulars Marc Levine, an estate and wills lawyer, and Tom O’Rourke, a retired tax attorney. On the phone were benefits consultant Tammy Flanagan, who may know more about Social Security than anyone at the agency itself; and Karen Schaeffer, a certified financial planner.

Couple of things you may not know about Bob. For one, he’s got a dry but sharp sense of humor. A Christian Scientist who eschews most conventional medical practice, he recalled the time, as a child, he was playing football in the street. A Jewish kid, taller and heavier, demanded to know, if Bob were to fall, break an arm and have a bone protrude through the skin, whether he’d go to the hospital.

“I answered,” Bob said, “well, if you were starving, would you eat pork?” That ended the confrontation.

For another: Although soft spoken, Bob has real skill in speaking and guiding a conversation, which explains the steady success of For Your Benefit. Bob explains how an early boss, the late Mr. McCarthy, would give traveling seminars to promote his tax return preparation business. One day McCarthy, without warning, handed full responsibility for the presentation to Bob and left the room.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” the boss said. Bob handled the presentation just fine, and realized, he said, that Mr. McCarthy in some sense knew Bob better than the young Bob knew himself.

More than a guy who knows taxes, Bob is a creator with good business acumen. Early on he co-founded a CPA firm, Turner, Leins & Gold, which operates to this day. He founded the National Institute of Transition Planning, a leading training outfit for federal retirement.

Bob has helped others realize their potential, having learned a lesson from Mr. McCarthy. He sort of pushed Tammy Flanagan to the front of an NITP stage, telling her, “I’m going to be walking backwards,” leaving her to lead the presentation. Now, she’s one of the best.

A couple of columns ago I commented on how, if I do eventually retire, I have so many things I’ll want to do beyond work. Whatever one’s retirement plans, it takes planning for what will give your life meaning. It takes takes planning, and in some ways decades of discipline, to make sure you can pay for it all.

That’s been the appeal of For Your Benefit. Bob and his guests have provided not only information, but some assurance that you can in fact build a secure retirement. The singular voice may be gone, but our coverage of these issues will continue.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Derace Lauderdale

Social Security recipients get a 3.2% raise in 2024, compared with the 8.7% increase that beneficiaries received in 2023.

Source: AARP.org

The post We salute a long running voice for federal employees first appeared on Federal News Network.

Few things in the federal community get as bad of a rap as the hiring process. It takes too long to hire federal workers. It’s too cumbersome. We have too many, or not enough authorities for hiring managers to understand.

Without a doubt the federal hiring process is an easy punching bag for agency leaders as to why their workforces are missing or can’t find the skillsets they need.

And while the federal hiring process, or for that matter any organization’s hiring process, is far from perfect, part of the problem for federal leaders, according to federal human resources experts, is they don’t understand, haven’t taken the time or just don’t care to know how to work within the system. The same can be said for firing employees. As one long-time chief human capital officer has often told me privately, the hiring and firing systems aren’t the problem, it’s the people and even the technology that fall short.

That systemic challenge of understanding the federal human resources system is exactly why the Office of Personnel Management is out with a new playbook that goes deeper, further and makes the processes easier to understand than most other playbooks, which have become Über popular over the last decade especially in the technology sector.

OPM is trying to supplant that purposeful, or accidental if you are being benevolent, ignorance that has built up over the last few decades by creating 12 plays around hiring, training and diversity and equity in its new Workforce of the Future Playbook.

“It’s really designed to help agencies implement many of the initiatives that we’ve already been talking about where we still know, there’s work that needs to be done, where agencies still are saying, ‘Hey, can you help us a little bit more with some of these areas.’ That’s what the playbooks really designed to do. It’s designed to be that implementation tool,” said Jason Barke, OPM’s deputy associate director for strategic workforce planning, in an interview with Federal News Network. “It’s got resources for agencies. It’s got examples from other agencies that have been successful. We talk about a ‘call to action,’ what you could do right now to start implementing some of these plays. Then there are some suggested metrics on what you could do to be able to measure to make sure that you’re being successful and we really think that if these plays are really implemented correctly, it’s really good to kind of give that roadmap on how we get to where we want to go.”

Each of the 12 plays aren’t just based on theories that haven’t been tried out in the real world or at such a high level that they are hard to implement.

OPM and its team that included agency CHCOs outlined for each play:

• The “why it matters,”
• The current and future state
• Promising practices, including agency examples
• Tools and resources
• A call to action
• Metrics to consider

Barke said OPM’s goal for the playbook was to make it easy to understand and useable for CHCOs, hiring managers and anyone involved with the federal workforce.

“As we began engaging with our stakeholders and talking about the plays, they said, ‘Oh, well, it would really be great if this got to a manager, and they said, Okay, what should I be doing now? You’ve given me a lot of information.’ That’s where the call to action came from,” he said. “We said here’s some steps you can take right away to be able to start implementing this, and then we wanted to make sure they knew if they were being successful or how they should judge how they’re doing. We started looking at some metrics. We really wanted to make it actionable, and really something that they really could use.”

OPM ramped up how it delivers metrics to agencies when it launched its new hiring manager satisfaction dashboard last April as well as one focused on the cyber workforce.

The hiring manager satisfaction dashboard shows a consistent set of scores over the last three years ranging from a high of 7.9 out of 10 to a low of 7.43 out of 10 for how satisfied respondents are with the overall hiring process.

That data and other survey efforts by OPM show there is not only room to improve, but the communication about the hiring process needs to get better.

Barke said OPM designed the playbook to keep the “HR speak” to a minimum.

“We did some usability testing with certain groups that were outside of that [HR] arena. We asked, ‘Does this make sense? Can you give us feedback?’ We were able to take that feedback and made sure that it was all relatable so that anybody that picked the playbook up [could use it],” he said. I use the example of a fish biologist or a meat inspector, who can look at that and say, ‘I need to do hiring or I want to make sure I have an inclusive work environment. How do I do that?’ We wanted to make sure the playbook is in very plain language. It’s something they can resonate with them that they can implement right away.”

One of OPM’s main goals with the playbook is to focus on new and existing authorities and practices “that have not been fully utilized but, if implemented, will serve as the foundation for a future that sees improved effectiveness and efficiencies in the federal government.”

Barke specifically highlighted the plays for using pooled hiring and skills-based hiring as two that agencies underuse across the government.

Recent successes of pooled hiring, where one agency, who’s already hired the candidates it needs off a list of qualified applicants, then shares that list with other agencies looking to onboard candidates for the same position, for positions in data science and a new service from USAJobs.gov to make hiring for similar positions easier.

Skills-based hiring has been in the federal sector since a June 2020 executive order by President Donald Trump and promoted by OPM in a new handbook issued in September.

OPM included play for AI

Barke said the playbook highlights how both of these approaches would speed up time to hire as well as ensure agencies are bringing on qualified candidates.

“We talk a lot about artificial intelligence in the playbook. AI is really on the forefront right now, this is something new, we haven’t been talking a lot about. And so there’s a play on AI and how we start thinking about that, and how that’s going to impact our workforce. So just a couple of plays that I would highlight right there,” he said.

Over the course of the next two months, OPM will hold several webinars to further socialize and educate the hiring managers and others on the plays.

One big key to success with a playbook is making sure employees not only know it exists, but what it means and how to use it.

Barke said OPM and the CHCO Council will pay close attention to the impact of the playbook based on a set of metrics, including the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) scores.

“In certain areas that we’ll be able to monitor, we will look at those and be able to, just from an initial standpoint, know how many people were opening the playbook, how many are using it, some of the links that they’re clicking on. We’ll be able to understand if this is useful, and we’re going to evaluate the reactions after the webinars. And we do an annual CHCO survey,” he said. “I think it also is some of those things like we are seeing more requests for pooled hiring. Are agencies reaching out? Are we seeing more use of shared certificates? Are we seeing more skills-based hiring? There’s a website, hosted by GSA, that tracks skills-based hiring and how many are being hired. We’ve actually put in the playbook that you could click on that website and you could track to see how many alternate assessments are being used during these hirings.”

Barke added OPM will continually update the plays and add new ones to the document.

“If we see that there’s a gap or if we hear from CHCOs that there is another area that we really need help on, we’ll make sure that we start thinking about how do we have new plays that come out,” he said. “We work closely with the CHCOs and we’re going to have evaluations after these trainings, where we’ll get some feedback and say, ‘what else would you like to hear from us or what else may be missing in there? Are there other areas or other topics that are of interest to you or you need support on?’”

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Michele Sandiford 

OPM was established in 1978, but its first iteration dates back to 1883, when the Civil Service Reform Act created the competitive civil service.

Source: OPM.gov

The post OPM’s 12 plays to improve the federal workforce first appeared on Federal News Network.

“I once joked with a supervisor that the time difference can be a real blessing. Sometimes a hair-on-fire issue which arises overnight or first thing in the morning in D.C. is often resolved before I open my email inbox in the morning.”

Raymond Tanabe, a now former chairman of the Honolulu-Pacific FEB, said that even a 7:00 a.m. start time in Hawaii means it’s already noon or 1:00 p.m. in Washington D.C. While he joked that the time difference can be a blessing in disguise, Tanabe also said it also often leads to cross-agency meetings that occur either at the crack of dawn or well after dinnertime.

So yes, there are both pros and cons to working for the federal government way out west. And even if feds aren’t that far out, it’s still fairly well known that 85% of the federal workforce does not live or work in the DMV. The percentage is an easy way to sum up how vast the more than 2.2 million feds really spread, but to some, it might be hard to grasp what that really looks like.

That’s what Federal News Network’s series tried to accomplish — pointing to the geographical vastness of the federal workforce, while also highlighting that FEBs underpin the important connections among government employees.

In South Florida, federal employees are tracking hurricanes and responding to natural disasters. In Cleveland, Ohio, NASA employees are conducting space simulation tests at the Glenn Research Center. And in Seattle — the other Washington — feds are studying earthquakes and the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Like Tanabe in Hawaii, plenty of FEBs leaders nationwide recognize and appreciate their distance from D.C., in part because of the separation they have from what many view as a political bubble.

There are certain comforts of being a bit removed from the beltway, said Larry Hisle, the FEB executive director in Kansas City, Missouri. There’s less pressure, less drama — the atmosphere feels more relaxed.

“We are less engaged in politics and those that are trying to make a big name for themselves,” added Christal Murray, former executive director of the Los Angeles FEB. “I believe we have more time to provide effective support when not having the distractions that might come with working in D.C.”

“Being outside of the D.C. bubble also affords us the opportunity to be creative in our approach to interacting with external stakeholders without the ‘optics’ of such collaboration being on the front page of various publications for varying reasons,” said Darrell Graham, chairman of the Atlanta FEB.

Even so, many senior executives during Federal News Network’s special report also expressed a desire to overcome the “us versus them” mentality — or in this case, “headquarters versus field offices.” And it’s the right time for that change. Many of the federal leaders called 2024 a “year of transition” for federal employees in their area, as the FEB program sets out to expand its reach and deepen the already-existing connections.

“FEBs can really help unite the federal workforce by bringing the information, opportunities and activities to their own local regions,” said Agnes Winokur, the FEB vice chairwoman in South Florida.

In just the last couple of years, the federal workforce has shifted to a more hybrid, flexible model of work. And that means there may be even more connectivity among FEBs and federal employees operating nationwide.

“This new virtual world that the COVID-19 pandemic required us to embrace has opened up opportunities for us to be more dynamic, flexible and creative in helping federal agencies with their needs this year,” said Stephen Millen, program director for the FEB Eastern Region.

At the same time, Anita Leach, the FEB executive director in St. Louis, Missouri, mentioned that when working for the government outside the DMV, it can sometimes feel like there’s less support or focus on regional issues.

But federal employees working across the country do deserve more attention, and more time in the spotlight. They’re closer to the issues in the field. They know best what’s going on right in their own backyard.

So while “the 85 percent” as a number on its own may not pack a whole lot of punch anymore, considering the diverse areas, and hearing what’s going on in all these different regions, you get the sense that the government really does have a place everywhere — not just in the DMV.

More than anything, what the distance from D.C. brings is better perspective.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Michele Sandiford

Right outside of Washington, DC, Virginia’s federal workers make up 3.7% of the state’s total workforce, while in Maryland, federal workers make up 4.7% of the state’s total workforce.

Source: USA Facts

The post For FEBs, getting some distance from DC is a good thing first appeared on Federal News Network.

Very few topics raise the temperature of federal employees as much as changes to their office space.

The loud talker next to you.

The person’s whose daily tuna sandwich smell permeates the office.

The traffic, the cost of gas or the metro, and the overall hassle of having to make your way into the office after many people realized the benefits and enjoyment of telework.

Yes, there are many tens of thousands of federal employees who have been going to the office every day for the past almost four years, but even they can be exasperated by others coming back to their once quiet sanctuary.

Add to that, the Biden administration’s push for federal employees to return to the office, emotions ratchet up further when it comes to where you sit and work every day.

We can debate the value, the necessity and even the stupidity of forcing employees, public or private sector, back to the office for a specific period of time during their work week.

Office space must be agile, flexible

But what we all can agree on is that change is inevitable for your office space. The technology, the furniture and the overall configurations are part of the constant upheaval we all experience in our lives.

“One trend that we’re seeing, and I think is going to remain, is that the work and workspaces need to remain agile and flexible to address the current environment we’re in. And we need to manage that ever-changing environment,” said Chuck Hardy, the chief architect at the General Services Administration, in an interview with Federal News Network. “This makes managing the surge vitally important and properly planning spaces. I think agencies are learning that, but more directly, it’s sending that message that you don’t build space for your busiest time of the year. Instead, you build it for the mean and have solutions in place like federal co-working, like commercial co-working or like telework that effectively and efficiently absorb those surges.”

Flexibility to have seamless meetings where some people are in person and others are on video. The agility to work in a group of three or four for a short period, but then go heads down by yourself for a few hours.

Agencies need to make their employees’ office experience more than a desk, a chair and a computer.

Hardy said the lessons learned from the first year of GSA’s Workplace Innovation Lab is demonstrating more than what is possible, but what really works.

“I think a trend that’s going to last as well is proper acoustical design. With the increase in hybrid meetings going on in the office and alongside the individual solo work, well designed acoustics is essential,” he said. “Not only from the furniture side, where you’re seeing a lot more soft surfaces, the technology that provides noise dampening, technology that makes conversations more audible are among those solutions agencies are seeing that probably weren’t in place two years ago or three years ago, and are now solving some of the concerns people may have about office environment.”

GSA lab aims for seamless experience

When GSA launched the test site in January 2023, former Public Building Service Commissioner Nina Albert said it was “for people to return to office and to re-experience the benefits of shared culture, idea exchange and camaraderie. What you’re going to see are innovations in furniture solutions, innovations in conferencing, how really can we experience hybrid in a way that feels seamless and effortless as opposed to a burden.”

In the year since Albert, who left her role last October, outlined those goals, Hardy said GSA’s Workplace Innovation Lab (WIL) has received positive feedback from its users.

Hardy said the lab has conducted over 300 tours with over 7,000 federal employees, which came from over 100 different agencies or bureaus. There are about 1,800 registered users on the lab’s website, which are the employees who can book reservations for desks or meeting rooms. He said in the first year, the lab has received 4,200 individual desk and over 3,900 meeting room reservations.

“We’re getting feedback and input from these folks and 90% of the top 10 rooms reserved for people suggesting that the will was a valuable resource for federal agency teams to collaborate. I’m happy to say the feedback about the WIL has been overwhelmingly positive customer experience rating of the will is 4.3 out of 5,” Hardy said. “With many folks providing us good feedback along the way, we’re also seeing 85% of the users really want to see the WIL keep going. We’re going to do that. Overall, some agencies use a space for offsite meetings. Some use it for helping drive change in their organizations to get people to broaden their perspectives, and others to experience what offerings are out there to help meet their missions.”

The feedback from those 1,800 registered users — GSA doesn’t charge agencies to use the WIL, but does ask for them to complete a survey in return — has turned into lessons learned and improvements.

Hardy said, for example, GSA and its partner vendors have made improvements around the acoustics of the office spaces.

“From the start, we had, for lack of a better way to characterize them, some phone booths that were sound-controlled rooms that you could go into. There were one-person booths and there were four-person booths. We have been letting agencies know about, and having the conversations with agencies about, the cost effectiveness of providing a furniture solution for a sound-controlled environment that can be moved and can be plugged into the wall. But if you don’t need this location, you can pick it up and move it someplace else,” he said. “These things can start to solve some of these mixed scenarios that will go on in the office where the person next to you is on a webinar or a call where he or she is talking out loud, or you have a loud talker that’s just on the phone with somebody, a solution like that where they can step away from their desk area, walk into that booth, have that half hour call, and then walk back to the desk and conduct business. It’s both cost effective and efficient for the business lines that we’re dealing with.”

Lab to expand office space test

Hardy added several vendors swapped out technology or furniture based on user feedback as well such as the ability to have multiple virtual meeting technologies that are used across government on the startup screens, making meetings, really just one click away.

“We had some folks asked about the accessibility of those since the start of the world today. Those manufacturers are already addressing the accessibility issues in those in those booths,” he said. “So it’s good to see that we’re not only signaling changes that need to be made in their offerings, but the furniture vendors in the industry is actually responding with solutions.”

As GSA continues its Workplace 2030 test bed, Hardy said his team will focus on a few changes based on agency feedback. The customer surveys become more important as GSA sees an opportunity to reduce the government’s real-estate footprint by up to 30% in the coming years as about half of GSA’s leases are set to expire within the next five years.

Hardy said one big change is the lab is expanding to the top floor of GSA headquarters in Washington.

“We’re keeping one of the three areas that we’ve had on the second floor fully operational. We do that because we wanted to make sure that we were still continuing to serve the federal population in in DC while we’re going through some of these changes,” he said. “On the seventh floor we are going to broaden the scope of the workplace research we’re doing in addition to a strong partnership with technology and the furniture industry. It’s also going to demonstrate some low-cost changes to workplaces that could reap benefits for our end users. For example, how can we take workplace change and achieve it reusing some of the existing furniture we already have?”

With budgets expected to be limited to non-existent for agencies to buy new furniture, Hardy said the idea of the seventh floor lab is to show agencies what they can do to rearrange or reconfigure the furniture to be more agile and flexible.

“As we continue to go forward, it will continue to be this advanced research program for GSA around furniture, technology and workplace that will constantly feed us information from our clients’ needs and our end users’ needs. And what we should be leaning forward into developing as product lines for us,” Hardy said. “What’s nice about the seventh floor is there is an open space on the outside that goes out to an area that does have WiFi and so we now have a location that people can have meetings inside of space and outside on a rooftop. That shows the effective and efficient use of space, sometimes gets forgotten and used only during lunch and on breaks. But this is something that you could actually go out there and have meetings and do things. So there is a lot of opportunity up there on our top floor.”

GSA’s Workplace Innovation Lab will not solve many all the problems, concerns or even grumpiness of the return-to-office mandate. But it does have the potential to make office space more comfortable, meet employees’ needs more easily, and maybe most importantly, make the overall experience less painful for those dreading coming back to the office.

The post As you return to the office, the office space must evolve first appeared on Federal News Network.