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.

After winding up its punch last fall, the Biden administration has delivered a final blow aiming to prevent the resurrection of a controversial Trump-era federal workforce policy, familiarly called Schedule F.

Efforts from the Office of Personnel Management to “reinforce and clarify protections for the nonpartisan career civil service” will tighten up the job security of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of non-political, career federal employees. OPM published its final rule reinforcing those protections to the Federal Register Thursday morning.

“Strong personnel has been at the core of our focus — we’ve been building on this agenda,” Jason Miller, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters during a press conference about the final rule. “The rule that the Biden-Harris administration is finalizing today is one part of that broader effort to ensure we have a strong, nonpartisan civil service that results in delivering results for the American people.”

OPM’s final rule is a direct response to a Trump administration executive order signed in late 2020. The order sought to reclassify career federal employees working in policy-related roles into Schedule F — a new, excepted service classification for government workers.

In practice, any employees reclassified as “Schedule F” would have seen fewer worker protections, making them at-will and easier for agencies to fire. But since the order came near the end of former President Donald Trump’s term, and President Joe Biden quickly revoked it once stepping into office, Schedule F didn’t see much light of day.

For at least a couple years, however, former Trump administration officials have been revisiting plans to revive Schedule F, should the presidential election go in their favor — a key motivation behind the new final rule from OPM.

After reviewing more than 4,000 public comments OPM received on its proposed regulations last fall, the now final rule outlines clearer worker protections for the federal employees the Trump administration had aimed to place into the Schedule F category — in particular, those in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” positions.

“This rule is about making sure the American public can continue to count on federal workers to apply their skills and expertise in carrying out their jobs — no matter their personal political beliefs,” OPM Deputy Director Rob Shriver said during the press conference.

The new final rule aims to ensure career civil servants are hired and fired based on their merit, not political loyalty, OPM said. In particular, the final rule states that employees cannot have their civil service protections removed involuntarily. And in the case that there is a reclassification, the rule also establishes a procedure and appeals process for feds to push back against it.

The regulations specifically state that “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” positions — the sector of employees that Schedule F originally targeted — are non-career, political positions and are not applicable to career federal employees.

In essence, the final rule aims to ensure worker protections for thousands of civil servants whose careers transcend presidential administrations.

“Career civil servants have a level of institutional experience, subject matter expertise and technical knowledge that incoming political appointees have found to be useful and may lack themselves,” the OPM final rule states. “Such civil servants’ ability to offer their objective analyses and educated views when carrying out their duties, without fear of reprisal or loss of employment, contribute to the reasoned consideration of policy options and thus the successful functioning of incoming administrations and our democracy. These rights and abilities must continue to be protected and preserved … and expanded and strengthened.”

The final rule will become official 30 days after its publication to the Federal Register, in early May.

The origins and scope of Schedule F

For years, experts estimated Schedule F would have affected around 50,000 career feds across government. But the estimate largely depends on each agency’s plans. A 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office showed that although OMB never actually reclassified any positions, approximately 68% of OMB’s workforce would have become at-will.

More recently, the National Treasury Employee Union, digging up Trump-era OMB documents, said the estimates are, in reality, much higher. While initially expected to impact only senior-level roles, the documents showed that OMB was also targeting federal employees in less senior positions, including those in GS-9 and GS-10 roles.

“We now know that the architects of Schedule F wanted to get rid of large numbers of federal employees for reasons that had nothing to do with their job duties or performance, upending 141 years of federal employment based on skills and merit,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement. “We are pleased that President Biden’s administration has taken proactive steps to protect our civil servants and the honorable tradition of public service.”

At the time of the 2020 order, Trump administration officials said Schedule F was a way to ensure accountability of federal employees, and to allow more flexibility over whom a president can have working in policymaking roles. Former President Donald Trump — as well as several other former Republican presidential candidates for 2024 — have pointed to what they view as a “deep state” in the government’s workforce, saying that many federal employees intentionally slow-rolled Trump policies they personally disagreed with.

Though the order has been revoked since early 2021, that sentiment remains alive. In one striking example, during Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign run, he said on the topic of federal bureaucracy that he would “start slitting throats” of federal employees on his first day as president.

But on paper, the Schedule F order was an effort to ensure accountability of federal employees, according to James Sherk, former special assistant to the President on the White House domestic policy council, and the policy lead on the original Schedule F executive order.

“Civil service protections make it very difficult to hold employees in senior policymaking positions accountable for implementing the elected President’s agenda,” Sherk, currently a director at non-profit America First Policy Institute, said in an interview. “Schedule F was designed to allow the president to hold that relatively small subset of the federal workforce accountable, allowing him to replace senior employees who are not getting the job done for the American people. It was similar to reforms adopted by many state governments.”

The executive order quickly gained strong pushback from many federal unions, organizations and other employee advocates who said Schedule F was in reality a politically motivated attempt to return the government’s workforce to a “spoils” or “patronage” system — harkening back to the 1800s when a majority of the federal workforce overturned with each new incoming president.

Many organizations lauded OPM’s final rule this week for its efforts to strengthen merit system principles and other protections for the career civil service.

“Frontline federal employees are not political appointees, and for good reason,” NTEU’s Greenwald said. “By having basic rights such as notice of any adverse action and an opportunity to respond, they are shielded from unlawful and politically motivated firings.”

“The public benefits tremendously from having a career federal workforce hired for their skills and free from political interference to equitably serve all Americans,” President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service Max Stier said in a statement. “OPM’s final rule maintains a commitment to a bedrock principle of our democracy: that civil servants serve their country based on merit, not their political beliefs.”

A “10:30-in-the-evening” regulation

Of course, OPM’s final rule comes during an election year, as time may be running short to implement policy changes before a possible presidential transition. The next several months will likely bring more efforts to implement policies that have been top of mind for the Biden administration over the last couple years.

“The people who originally proposed Schedule F have been in fear of what often is called a ‘midnight regulation’ — some kind of rule that would come by, that would wipe out their ability to be able to do what they want to do if, in fact, Trump wins,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, said in an interview. “This isn’t so much a midnight regulation as much as maybe a 10:30-in-the-evening kind of regulation. But it’s very clear that the Biden team wants to do all it possibly can to lock down the current system.”

A Biden administration official, speaking on background, said they believe the final rule from OPM will stand the test of time — and protect career federal employees even in the case of a presidential transition.

“This regulation is the strongest action that the Biden-Harris administration can take to promote these important policies. It has gone through the full rulemaking process,” the official said. “If another administration were to disagree with the policies that are reflected in this regulation, first, they would have to follow that full rulemaking process themselves. And then in that rulemaking, among other things, they would have to explain how a different rule would be better than the carefully crafted balance that OPM has struck here, and how their differing interpretation would be consistent with over 140 years of statutory language and congressional intent.”

Some experts, however, said they remain concerned that even a final rule from OPM won’t be enough to prevent Schedule F from returning in a future administration. In fact, in a 2023 outline of his policy plans, Trump said he would, on day one in office, restore the Schedule F executive order and the ability for a president to “fire rogue bureaucrats.”

Ron Sanders, who formerly served as chairman of the Federal Salary Council as an appointee for former President Donald Trump, resigned from his position in 2020 in response to the Schedule F executive order. While expressing appreciation for OPM’s final rule, Sanders — also previously a career federal employee for more than two decades — said he was concerned it wouldn’t completely prevent Schedule F, or something similar, returning in the future.

“It will serve as a speed bump, as opposed to a barrier,” Sanders, currently president and CEO of Publica Virtu, LLC, said in an interview. “It will slow down changes, but it won’t stop them.”

Similarly, former Trump administration official Sherk said OPM’s final rule would not stop an administration’s efforts in the future.

“What can be done through executive action can be undone through executive action. A future administration would have to go through the rulemaking process to roll back this rule, just as the Biden administration went through it to issue the rule,” Sherk said. “But the legal authority for Schedule F is clear. Rolling back this new rule would probably take about as long as OPM took to issue it. It creates some delay, but the rule is not something that’s going to stop a future administration from implementing the policy.”

Kettl said, however, that the Biden administration now establishing more precedent and evidence through the regulatory process will at the very least make the rule more difficult to unwind.

“If not impossible, it just means it might take a little bit longer, require a few more steps, might require navigating and jumping through a few more hoops,” Kettl said. “But there’s no doubt that this is a battle that’s going to be looming.”

Schedule F’s odds on Capitol Hill

Efforts from the Biden administration to prevent Schedule F’s return aren’t an anomaly. For years, many Democrats, and a few Republicans, in Congress have simultaneously been pushing for the passage of legislation to block the Schedule F order’s revival through law.

The Saving the Civil Service Act, reintroduced in early 2023, aims to block presidential administrations from ordering agencies to reclassify federal positions outside merit system principles, unless given congressional approval.

Despite several years of lawmakers’ efforts to enact the legislation, the bill has not yet received much action.

Still, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who introduced the Senate’s version of the bill, said the final rule from OPM would serve as a solid step in the same direction.

“It’s in every American’s best interest that civil servants are hired through a merit-based system, and I welcome the Biden administration’s step today to affirm that principle and protect these workers from politically motivated firings,” Kaine said in a statement. “I will continue to push for my Saving the Civil Service Act so we can etch this progress into federal statute.”

A senior Biden administration official said they would fully support a goal of Congress to strengthen protections further through legislation.

“But we are also confident in the strength of this regulation, and that it is grounded in decades of congressional intent and administration practice,” the official said. “It is the best reading of the law that exists today.”

Other calls for civil service reform

Although the debate over Schedule F is highly contentious, some “good government” organizations have called for more of a middle-ground approach to ensuring better accountability and productivity in the career federal workforce.

“Agencies and the administration should continue to explore ways to make our federal government more responsive, transparent and accountable to the American people,” the Partnership’s Stier said. “Streamlining processes for hiring, performance management and accountability and preparing managers to support the workforce through the talent lifecycle are just some of the ways the federal government can better serve while adhering to merit principles.”

Implementing long-term, meaningful civil service reforms, including addressing challenges in human capital and performance management, may ultimately help restore the public’s declining trust in government, and the vast array of services it provides.

“Making sure that your drinking water is safe, how best to try to manage the cost structure of pills and pharmaceuticals that are being paid for by Medicare and Medicaid, how to try to create a new IT system for Social Security — I mean, these are very, very complex issues on which the performance of government depends,” Kettl said. “Not only are we talking about the big battles between the Schedule F proponents and those who want to try to maintain some version of the status quo, but we’re really talking about what government ought to look like and how accountability ought to work. It would be hard to underestimate how big those stakes are.”

The post Biden administration locks in plans aiming to block Schedule F for good first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The State Department has named a new chief diversity and inclusion officer (CDIO), filling a position that has been vacant for 10 months. The job is going to Zakiya Carr Johnson, a former White House official and former director of the department’s Race, Ethnicity and Social Inclusion Unit. Secretary of State Antony Blinken created the CDIO position at the start of his tenure. He said the job is critical to attracting and retaining State Department employees.
  (Appointment of Zakiya Carr Johnson as the Department’s chief diversity and inclusion officer - State Department)
• A Homeland Security board has some major security concerns about one of the government’s biggest technology suppliers. The Cyber Safety Review Board said Microsoft’s security culture needs an overhaul. The board’s latest report found the tech giant had inadequate security practices when suspected Chinese hackers broke into the email accounts of multiple high-level government officials. The report recommends the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency regularly review the security practices of all cloud service providers. And it recommends the government periodically re-evaluate the security of cloud services widely used across agencies.
  (CSRB castigates Microsoft, urges federal cloud security updates in pending - Federal News Network)
• More than a quarter of federal employees are feeling burnout, according to a recent study. A recent Gallup survey of federal employees finds 26% of them feel burned out “very often” or “always” at work. Rob DeSimone, the associate principal of workplace initiatives at Gallup, said that level of burnout can lead to high attrition rates. “When people are burned out, they're much, much more likely to leave their agency," DeSimone said. Gallup identifies five root causes of burnout. Those include unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workloads, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure.
  (One-quarter of federal workforce feeling burnout, with no ‘silver bullet’ fix, study finds - Federal News Network)
• Health care employees at the Defense Health Agency are getting closer to seeing union representation. After winning a union election in 2022, the American Federation of Government Employees said it is still working through some key steps to set up the new council for DHA. That council will represent up to 45,000 agency workers. The employees are mostly transfers from the Army, Navy and Air Force who were reshuffled into the new agency. Once everything is finalized, DHA will have a national-level collective bargaining agreement along with some smaller chapters to address local issues.
  (Forming DHA council to represent DoD health care workers - American Federation of Government Employees)
• The office of the Defense Department’s chief information officer will automate the review of zero trust implementation plans. Last year, the DoD CIO’s office received 39 zero trust implementation plans from the military services, defense agencies and combatant commands. It took four months and 35 full-time employees to review the plans. Randy Resnick, the director of the Zero Trust Architecture Program Management Office, said the process needs to be automated this year. The DoD CIO’s office mandated all defense components to submit updated zero trust implementation plans every October.
  (DoD to streamline review of zero trust implementation plans - Federal News Network)
• The Pentagon’s first-of-its-kind Commercial Space Integration Strategy synchronizes the department’s efforts to integrate commercial space technologies into its operations. The long-awaited strategy, released by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb, signals the Defense Department's willingness to take military action to protect commercial satellites. The document also calls for integration of commercial space technologies before conflict arises. The new strategy is aligned with the Space Force commercial space strategy, which is set to be released this week.
  (New space strategy calls for better protection of commercial space technology - DoD)
• A new bill in the Senate would extend the Department of Homeland Security’s use of a special procurement tool. The BEST Technology for the Homeland Act would extend DHS’ other transaction authority through fiscal 2031. It is currently set to expire at the end of this September. Other transaction agreements are considered more flexible than traditional contracts. The lawmakers behind the legislation want to see DHS use OTAs to acquire more innovative technologies.
  (Peters and Daines introduce bipartisan bill to ensure DHS can procure advanced technologies to strengthen national security - HSGAC )
• What is the best way candidates can prepare for a federal interview? The Office of Personnel Management is offering some guidance. OPM will share tips and an in-depth, inside look during a webinar on April 10. The free session is targeting federal job applicants and anyone else who might be interested in joining the federal workforce. During the webinar, experts at OPM will cover different types of federal interviews, common questions and other advice for preparing.
  (Federal interview process webinar - Office of Personnel Management)

The post New chief diversity and inclusion officer headed to State Dept 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.

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.

One year after the Office of Personnel Management released its gender identity and inclusion guidance on Transgender Day of Visibility, transgender federal employees expressed gratitude for the guidance, but also frustration around a lack of communication and training regarding both protections and processes.

They appreciate the protections and the clarity put forth in the guidance; it’s far more than existed before. But they also said agencies could do more to communicate about the guidance at both the managerial and employee levels, and provide training for managers to handle the technical and legal details facing transgender federal employees.

Two transgender federal employees who have come out since OPM released its guidance, speaking to Federal News Network anonymously out of concern over potential retaliation, said the lack of details about important aspects of transitioning such as changing their names and pronouns, and what protections were in place regarding their transitions remains a significant hole in the implementation of the guidance. Neither had seen or knew about OPM’s guidance; one said their agency provided training on sexual identity and gender inclusion when they were hired, but that guidance primarily focused on educating cisgender and heterosexual employees about LGBTQ+ issues.

No clear transition process

“I went and pulled out that PowerPoint, and I just looked through it for like, ‘ok, what do I need to do?’ And there wasn’t a whole lot of instruction,” one person said. “There was a part about ‘hey, if you’re transgender, here are your protections.’ But there wasn’t ‘this is what you should do if you’re about to come out.’ So I went to my supervisor and I just said, ‘hey, I just want you to know, moving forward, I’m transgender.’ And I don’t think he had a whole lot of experience, because he said, ‘oh, okay, cool.’ He didn’t ask for pronouns or preferred name or anything.”

That employee changed their icon and pronouns in Teams, but that was all they were able to do themselves. They’ve been using their name and pronouns, presenting as their gender and using the appropriate restroom ever since, and there have been no issues with their team. But they’ve existed in a kind of limbo regarding official procedures ever since, waiting on instructions — no one told them they needed to contact HR and IT. They said it’s been difficult dealing with seeing their deadname — the name they used before they transitioned — in the computer system every day since.

“I feel like my manager … I don’t think he had the proper training of, ‘hey, if somebody comes out, this is the procedure.’ Because still, I don’t know,” they said. “I think that’s been the biggest thing, is being like ‘I don’t think I did this right.’ Like I’m living [and] presenting as [my gender]. And I changed my pronouns in Teams. I changed my icon. And that’s it.”

The other transgender federal employee did go to HR, but found human resources managers and employees had received little-to-no training specifically on dealing with transgender federal employees. The only training they’d received was on the name change process, which OPM’s guidance essentially boils down to “name changes related to gender identity are handled in the same way as any other legal name change.” The agency also hadn’t updated its harassment training, the employee said. Training around non-harassment policies at their agency is the same as it was prior to OPM’s guidance.

OPM said that its Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility “has heard from individual transgender and nonbinary employees that this updated guidance is an important resource to point to as they work on improvements regarding gender inclusion in their own agencies, including on correct name and pronoun use, the ability to display used names and pronouns in email addresses and employee profiles, and transition support.”

Anxieties over bathrooms

But for this employee, the biggest concern was bathrooms in their office building. OPM’s guidance says “agencies should allow access to common and single-user restrooms and other facilities corresponding to an employee’s gender identity. Agencies should not condition this access on an employee having undergone or providing proof of any gender affirming surgeries or other medical procedures.” But being unaware of this guidance, this employee had been living in a state of anxiety over which restroom to use for the past several months.

“There are no gender-neutral bathrooms. So I’ve had to go with the one assigned at birth, just for safety in terms of not having to deal with anything going on my record of potential inappropriate workplace behavior of using the one I’m transitioning to using,” they said. “I’ve been kind of just hiding up on the top floor in … a stall, and if someone comes in, I just don’t come out until after they’ve left.”

The fears expressed by these transgender federal employees aren’t baseless. Restroom usage is often a point of concern with transgender people. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, found that in the previous year, 59% of respondents had avoided using a public restroom for fear of confrontations, 32% limited the amount they ate or drank to avoid using public restrooms, and 8% developed a urinary tract infection or kidney-related issue due to avoiding public restrooms.

The center performed another survey in 2022, but hasn’t released the full results yet. But the early insights report, which offers some highlights, states that 4% of respondents were denied access to restrooms in a public place, workplace or school in the previous year, and 6% “had been verbally harassed, physically attacked, or experienced unwanted sexual contact when accessing or using a restroom.” These lower numbers may be an early indication that the situation for transgender people is improving; however, recent rises in anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation indicate otherwise, and serve to compound the fears revealed in and informed by the 2015 data.

Gender-neutral restrooms

OPM’s guidance states that “agencies should also explore opportunities to expand the availability of all-gender restrooms and facilities in federally owned and leased workplaces in coordination with the landholding agency with jurisdiction over the facility.” But with the age of most federal buildings, gender-neutral bathrooms tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

And agencies haven’t always been quick to commit to this: Last year, gender-neutral bathrooms were one of the sticking points in the American Federation of Government Employees’ contract negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency. AFGE wanted EPA to commit, in the contract, to installing gender-neutral bathrooms in EPA facilities during any new construction projects.

“When they move into a new space, they could plan for a gender-neutral bathroom. We weren’t asking for any immediate big construction program,” Joyce Howell, executive vice president of AFGE Council 238, told Federal News Network at the time.

Avoiding stigma

But that’s not a ubiquitous experience. And neither are gender-neutral bathrooms a panacea. Joanne Woytek, program director for NASA SEWP, transitioned back in the 1990s. She said NASA built the agency’s first gender-neutral bathroom for her when she came out, but that it was also stigmatizing.

“You have to be careful in not making it a separation place. It has to be accommodating,” she said in an interview with Federal News Network. “You’ve got to have that gender-neutral bathroom and I’d rather have it be called ‘family.’ I prefer the ‘family restroom’ statement than the ‘gender-neutral.’ We’re all family. It’s a safe place for somebody to go do their business without worrying.”

She pointed out, for example, gender-neutral bathrooms can also be a safe place for nursing mothers to pump. That’s another reason, when her program shifted to a new facility, she pushed to have gender-neutral bathrooms installed.

OPM’s guidance does acknowledge the potential issue of stigmatization around gender-neutral bathrooms: “Agencies should not restrict any employee to a single-user facility instead of common facilities; agencies can, however, make a single-user facility available to all employees who might choose to use it.”

A big step forward

Woytek said she wishes OPM’s guidance had been in place when she came out. Back then it was uncharted territory. While NASA was very accepting even then, she said, there was a little pushback, though never from supervisors. But there were no legal protections, no workgroups on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, and in general, no support.

In fact, back then, Woytek said there was an unwritten rule in the transgender community that you didn’t transition on the job; you found a new job and transitioned there. But Woytek bucked that convention, which she called one of the biggest decisions she made early in her transition. When she told her boss and the legal folks at Goddard Space Center, they were accepting, but cautioned her.

“They said, ‘well, good for you. You know you have no support. And if somebody decides they don’t like you and they want to fire you, they can just do that.’ That was the advice. Because back then there were no legal precedents and no legal footing for what I was doing to not be used as a cause to fire me,” she said. “Now, it wasn’t that they were going to fire me, but they could. So that meant I had to approach it in that manner and understand that there was no infrastructure.”

The future of gender inclusion in federal workplaces

One thing Woytek said could be more clear about the guidance: What happens when this guidance conflicts with state laws? Four states currently ban transgender people from using the bathrooms consistent with their gender identity in some or all government-owned buildings, two make it a criminal offense, and another five have other laws or policies that could affect transgender people’s access to bathrooms. In these states, transgender federal employees could be even more conflicted and frightened.

That’s one reason Woytek worries about the future of the guidance. A new administration could reverse or rescind this guidance. There’s precedent: In 2017, the Trump administration removed any mention of LGBTQ+ people or issues from the State Department’s website, and in 2020, it overturned Obama-era non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in health care.

“I’ve had a successful career. So why does that have to affect it?” she said. “That’s what this memo is saying: Let’s treat everybody the same. And it’s happy for me to see that. I just hope it is something that does not get affected by other issues going on out there in the world, and it actually gets more firm in its place in the government.”

Woytek said she does see a lot of momentum around DEIA and employee resource groups in determining how best to implement this guidance. The guidance itself merely provides a basis for action, she said; a top-down directive will never be enough to change everything. It will take these various employee-led groups, with continued support from agencies, figuring out how to work together and move forward to really cement that culture change.

OPM said it “looks forward to continuing to work with and support agencies as they engage in the important work of making their workplaces more gender inclusive.”

“What I am seeing in the past six months or so is a lot of engagement among various groups within the whole community of ERGs … I think there is a lot of momentum within the federal agencies,” Woytek said. “I think overall there are still things to be learned, moves to be made, but that is part of life in government and industry. You are not going to solve anything with the directive from one group or another, but I feel good about what I have seen in that regard.”

The post Transgender federal employees want more training, communication around gender inclusion first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Labor Department employees are facing criticism for protesting in front of their offices in Boston about the agency’s telework policy. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.) called the decision by AFGE employees to show up at their offices to seek more telework privileges "hypocritical." In a letter to acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, the lawmakers are seeking answers to three questions by April 10. Among the details Ernst and Franklin want to know is how much official time did employees log in the four weeks preceding the March 19 rally and what did the protest cost the Labor Department.
  (Lawmakers call Labor employees’ in-person protest for more telework hypocritical - Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa))
• Tensions over telework are affecting yet another area for the federal workforce. At least half of recent cases at the Federal Service Impasses Panel have to do with either return-to-office, or work-life balance. The panel, an independent branch of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, generally helps settle disputes between agencies and federal unions. Now, after agencies began returning employees to the office more often, the panel has found that issues like hoteling are commonly leading to impasses in collective bargaining.
  (Federal telework, work-life balance often top issues in collective bargaining - Federal News Network)
• Federal agencies face new requirements to vet artificial intelligence tools before putting them to use. The Office of Management and Budget is requiring agencies to publicly report on how they are using AI, the risks involved, and how they are going to manage those risks. If agencies do not follow those steps for a particular use case, OMB said that in most cases, they will have to stop using those AI tools. Vice President Kamala Harris said the guidance ensures safe, secure and responsible use of AI across the federal government. "When government agencies use AI tools, we will now require them to verify that those tools do not endanger the rights and safety of the American people," Harris said.
  (OMB sets 'binding requirements' for agencies to vet AI tools before using them - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released new and far-reaching regulations. CISA’s proposed cyber incident reporting rules will apply to about 316,000 organizations across 16 critical infrastructure sectors. CISA kept the definitions in the rules broad. The agency said it needs a lot of data to analyze cyber risks and share information quickly across sectors. The goal of the regulation is to prevent hacking campaigns and other incidents from spinning out of control. The new rules will not be finalized until the end of 2025. CISA is taking comments on the proposed rules through June 3.
  (CISA’s cyber incident reporting rules will apply to 316K entities - Federal News Network)
• Agencies will soon have more options to buy commercial products. The General Services Administration is expanding the number of providers under the Commercial Platform Initiative (CPI) from three to eight, including six new ones. Along with current platform providers, Amazon Business and Fisher Scientific, GSA awarded spots to a range of companies including Staples and Grainger and four small business e-commerce platform providers. The awards come as the use of e-commerce platforms by agencies has been growing. GSA said for 2023, 34 agencies spent $80 million through the three CPI platforms. That is double the amount of money spent in 2022.
  (GSA’s commercial platforms program to grow by five providers - Federal News Network)
• Blue Star Families want to hear from military and veteran families about issues affecting their lives. The largest annual military family lifestyle survey is now open and all active-duty service members, veterans and their spouses are encouraged to tell their stories. The survey is designed to understand issues affecting military families, including housing, employment, access to health care and food insecurity. It remains one of the most comprehensive data sets for lawmakers, the Pentagon leadership, and community partners. You can find the survey by googling "Blue Star Families."
  (Largest military family lifestyle survey is now open - Blue Star Families)
• The Pentagon’s policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel when seeking reproductive care out of state, was used 12 times from June through December of last year. The department spent around $44,000 on transportation and lodging expenses for service members seeking such procedures as an abortion, in vitro fertilization, and egg retrieval. The policy was the reason Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) put a hold on military promotions for nearly a year.
  (Pentagon’s reproductive care policy used 12 times from June to December - DoD)
• Republican lawmakers said teleworking employees at the Small Business Administration are not making full use of their office space. SBA said about half of its workforce is in the office on any given day. But House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas) and seven of his colleagues, said the agency's buildings remain underutilized and are wasting taxpayer dollars. Lawmakers are asking SBA about its return-to-office plans and why the agency is asking for a 30% increase in its rent budget for 2025.
  (Eight committee Republicans pen letter to SBA over work from home policy - House Small Business Committee )
• The Treasury Department will work with the financial sector to make more fraud data available for training artificial intelligence models. A new report from Treasury on AI cyber risks, said a fraud data gap is one of the major challenges for the financial sector. The report also points to a lack of consensus across the sector on what exactly constitutes an AI system. Treasury said it will work with other agencies and industry partners to develop a common lexicon of AI terminologies most relevant to financial institutions.
  (Managing artificial intelligence-specific cybersecurity risks in the financial services sector - Treasury Department)
• Federal employees donated more than $68 million to this year’s Combined Federal Campaign. Each year, feds can contribute to the charitable donation program, which spans more than 5,000 different charities. The donations go toward programs that offer, among other things, housing, education, food supplies, and job training. The 2024 campaign wrapped up this week with an awards ceremony in the nation’s capital. Since its inception more than 60 years ago, the Combined Federal Campaign has raised over $8.6 billion. Next year’s campaign will begin this fall.
  (2024 finale and awards ceremony - Combined Federal Campaign)

The post Lawmakers call telework protest ‘hypocritical’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

• A judge with the Merit Systems Protection Board is ordering the Army Corps of Engineers to send a letter of appreciation to a whistleblower. The judge ruled that the Army Corps has not lived up to the terms of its 2023 settlement and still owes Dr. Toni Savage a letter of "sincere thanks" for exposing millions of dollars of contracting fraud she witnessed as a contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers Huntsville, Alabama Support Center. The Army Corps was also required to pay an undisclosed sum of money to Savage who suffered retaliation for blowing the whistle.
  (Judge orders Army Corps to 'thank' whistleblower - Kohn, Kohn, & Colapinto)
• The General Services Administration is a step closer to setting up a new way for agencies to verify and authenticate the identities of their customers, by taking its Login.gov platform to the next level. And it is going to lean on industry expertise to do that. GSA awarded eight vendors a spot on a new blanket purchase agreement for next generation identity proofing capabilities. Through the BPA, which has a ceiling of $194 million, the eight vendors will provide a variety of services including document capture, authentication and validation, biometric comparison and identity resolution. The agency is using the BPA as part of its improvements to Login.gov after a scathing audit report in 2023. GSA received 17 bids, so a protest is still possible.
  (GSA awards next generation ID proofing contract - Federal Procurement Data System)
• The Veterans Benefits Administration is looking to move away from mandatory overtime. VBA is providing more benefits to more veterans than at any other point in its history, but it is looking to make sure its workforce can keep up with the pace. VBA is asking Congress to nearly double its overtime budget in fiscal 2025. But Undersecretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs said VBA is looking to move away from mandatory overtime, in an effort to reduce employee burnout. “We are working very hard to move away from mandatory overtime. I don’t think it is sustainable in the long term," Jacobs said.
  (VBA looks to move away from mandatory overtime to reduce burnout - Federal News Network)
• Agencies are seeing some trouble spots when it comes to hiring employees with disabilities. A specific hiring authority, called Schedule A, is meant to help agencies streamline the hiring process to onboard individuals with disabilities. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found agencies face confusion and difficulty when it comes to using that authority. Many agency officials are not familiar with the hiring authority. And often, agencies do not have enough qualified HR staff to process those hiring actions. The EEOC is calling for better guidance, clarification and outreach to help agencies better understand and use the authority.
  (Promising practices for using Schedule A to recruit, hire, advance and retain persons with disabilities - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)
• A Department of Homeland Security component is facing an exodus of employees. Over the last six months, DHS’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMD) has lost 24 out of about 240 employees, representing roughly 10% of its staff. The law authorizing the office expired in December and Congress has yet to pass a reauthorization. Without that, CWMD leaders said the office will continue to lose employees and struggle to recruit new talent. The office has also faced low morale among employees, leading to some of the lowest employee engagement scores in the federal government in recent years.
  (Homeland Security CWMD office loses 10% of staff, faces continued attrition concerns - Federal News Network)
• The Army is the biggest participant in the first round of the Pentagon’s Replicator program. One system the Army was already working on made the cut for the initial round of the Replicator initiative. The program aims to field thousands of small, cheap drones. The service is already proposing several systems for the second round of the program. Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush did not say which system was selected for the first round. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife said the service’s programs are not mature enough for round one of the Replicator initiative.
  (National Security Innovation Base - Reagan Foundation)
• The Justice Department is advancing new standards for systems that underpin the Freedom of Information Act. DoJ is seeking comment on the first-ever FOIA business standards. Feedback is due by May 17. The standards are intended to help agencies coalesce around common FOIA services, while giving vendors a better idea of how to build FOIA case management systems. The federal government received a record number of FOIA requests last year. Many federal FOIA offices report that outdated and disjointed technology is among their greatest challenges.
  (RFI on federal integrated business framework standards - Federal Register )
• The largest military lifestyle survey has found that the number of military families encouraging young people to enlist has significantly dropped. At the same time, the number of families steering young people away from service has doubled since 2016. The military services have struggled to meet their recruitment goals in the last several years. Families not recommending service to their loved ones will further exacerbate the Pentagon’s recruitment crisis, as the majority of new recruits report having someone in the family who did serve.
  (Fewer active-duty families recommend service to young people - Federal News Network)
• The Army is adding a new approach to filling some of its uniformed personnel shortfalls: bringing back retirees. A message sent yesterday from the service’s deputy chief of staff for personnel, authorizes the use of the Army’s Retiree Recall Program to fill “key and critical” position vacancies. All of the recalls will be voluntary, and commands can request either specific retired soldiers to return to active duty, or issue requests to fill particular positions. The Army expects most of the recalls to last for one to two years, and two to three years for retired aviators.
  (Utilization of the Army Retiree Recall Program - U.S. Army)
• The IRS is looking to use artificial intelligence to conduct more targeted audits, but two House Republicans are trying to put a stop to that. Reps. Clay Higgins (R-La.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) are leading the No AI Audits Act. The bill would require the IRS to select and initiate audits, based on decisions from its workforce, not AI algorithms. The bill would also limit the ability of the IRS to set AI guidance, without first setting clear taxpayer protections.
  (Higgins introduces legislation to restrict AI deployment in the IRS - Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.))
• A vast majority of agencies have been effectively offering Personal Assistance Services (PAS) for feds with disabilities. That has stayed true even in work environments with increased telework, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Agencies are legally required to have PAS programs to help staff with disabilities perform physical tasks. For the roughly 15% of agencies that are having trouble with the requirements, EEOC recommends discussing solutions in senior management meetings. EEOC said, when possible, agencies should also allocate additional staffing and funding to provide PAS accommodations.
  (The impact of telework on Personal Assistance Services - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

The post Judge orders Army Corps of Engineers send whistleblower ‘thank you letter’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

Transportation Security Officers have reached what their union calls a groundbreaking bargaining agreement with the TSA. It covers everything from uniforms to airport safety itself. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin gets more now from the president of Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, Thomas Hydrick.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Tell us about this agreement. First of all, how long have you been bargaining over this particular round here? How long did this take to establish?

Hydrick Thomas Whole process started in April of last year. Took approximately a year because it started with the ground rules. That’s on what you can, can’t do. Who’s going to agree on what.

Tom Temin So a year is actually not that bad these days for.

Hydrick Thomas For us its’ not bad because this is our first collective bargaining agreement.

Tom Temin But there was a pay hike for TSOs earlier, but that wasn’t a result of a bargaining agreement.

Hydrick Thomas No, that was a result of the DHS secretary, and he had a conversation with the TSA administrator at the TSA, that employees have been making more money, so I guess they went to Congress with that.

Tom Temin All right. So now you have the money and now you have the contract. What are some of the most important provisions you feel are in this?

Hydrick Thomas This is a process of the grievance, the disciplinary action that they’ve been in the past, who has had no real rights to defend themselves against unfair disciplinary actions brought against them.

Tom Temin And what do they have now? How does the process work?

Hydrick Thomas The process now you have to go can go to SBP. That’s a federal grievance process. You can take it through. Before we only took it to the TSA, it was like you said, a judge and a jury. And they decided on what type of discipline and what punishment you received for what they alleged that you committed.

Tom Temin What are the kinds of things that tended to happen a lot with respect to TSOs.

Hydrick Thomas I’ll use an example of what I dealt with in a way, you know, incident happened on a checkpoint, prohibited items came in, a supervisor writes a statement saying that they turned to checkpoint over to BUE. And next thing you know, the BUE says, well, I can’t write a statement because I wasn’t in charge.  This said, well the supervisor wrote a statement that you were so to read, you refused to write the statement because he was on the lane. Next thing you know the BUE gets a three-day suspension, for failure to comply to direct order.

Tom Temin Right, the BUE stands for.

Hydrick Thomas Bargaining unit employees TSOs.

Tom Temin I see. Okay. So, in other words, they were wrongly pinged in many cases for letting things through. So now they don’t like the outcome of a complaint with TSA. They have another court of appeal, you might say. And what else is in there?

Hydrick Thomas We have the uniform allowance, which you notice to give us a $425. Plus, they give you three replacements. But then they’re selling the jacket online for $300. So, you have $100 to buy shirts and pants. The pants now are $117 for a pair of cargo pants, which in the past it might have been $69. So, because they say everything had to be American made, but they don’t give you American money to buy American made items.

Tom Temin So what do you have now?

Hydrick Thomas We have approximately $600 that we spend on a uniform company that they deal with. And we also get two replacement uniforms.

Tom Temin And that’s every year.

Hydrick Thomas Yes. Once a year? Yes.

Tom Temin A few years ago, there was a problem with the uniforms because the material was scratchy. Have they fixed that?

Hydrick Thomas Yes, because some people, you know, certain garments like the shirts, certain people can’t wear polyester blend. They have to wear 100% cotton. So, you know cotton is a little bit more expensive. So, they to basically order the uniforms for those employees, which, you know, they complied. They give them a certain amount, but they don’t get no extra money to buy the material their body can withstand.

Tom Temin So now there is enough money then allowed per TSO, per year to cover the cost of these more expensive types of uniforms.

Hydrick Thomas Yes it is.

Tom Temin Do they wear out pretty fast?

Hydrick Thomas They try some new material. They give it to the union representatives. We have a uniform committee. They get to wear pants. Some people say they fade out too quick, like we wash them because they’re washable. So now they’re trying a new one. And hopefully that will can work. Actually, enough money. You can buy enough uniforms to basically have for the year.

Tom Temin Right, you want to look sharp.

Hydrick Thomas You definitely do.

Tom Temin And now you have been a TSO for a long time. Now you’re on official time. But in your experience, what is the toughest thing about the job?

Hydrick Thomas The toughest thing about the job is when they hire inexperienced employees. I feel this is my personal opinion because I’m a former marine. I’m out of the military. We’re looking for explosives, and the training that they receive is not sufficient to do the job 100%. They have recertification, they have extra additional training, and you need to you can still solicit and say I need to be trained. And they’ll send you for additional training.

Tom Temin Right? So, it’s not even dealing with a difficult public, but it’s dealing with inexperienced new colleagues. It’s the toughest part.

Hydrick Thomas The dealing with the public is the hardest part, because a lot of the flying public don’t understand when you do a certain procedure like you might have to tell a male passenger be patted down your arm, the legs, and your body. I have to do a personal pat down to back my hand on your private area. So now think that you just feel up on them because we can’t tell them what we’re actually looking for. This is making sure that you get to your destination safely.

Tom Temin Sure. And with respect to safety, there are provisions in the new agreement, according to the basic release that came out that said that now there is a greater say in the operations and safety concerns at individual airports. Tell us more about that one.

Hydrick Thomas Yes, now you have the right to go to what they call a federal safety director. Each airport has one. If you have a concern about the procedures on safety. You can have a sit down with them and discuss it and they investigate, look into it and then make changes through the headquarters.

Tom Temin So before that you did not have access to those to the Federal Safety directive.

Hydrick Thomas We had no say so in how the procedures actually was conducted. We just did what we were told to do.

Tom Temin Can you think of a particular case in which an officer might have had a better idea for improving safety, because every airport’s laid out differently?

Hydrick Thomas Yes. Like some time had come out of procedure. Okay. In the middle of the day, we have a new procedure. We want you to start sliding down the side of the leg or whatever. So, the officer went, okay, well, what am you training? You brought this into effect like instantly. And now we haven’t really been trained. So, then they stop, and they start training the workers. So, they’ve been really good across the country as far as they will go back and retrain and give everybody input on what you think it should be done?

Tom Temin Sure.

Hydrick Thomas Final decision made from headquarters.

Tom Temin Well, always. Right. That’s life in Washington, I see. Now, what is the status of the contract? Do you still have to have ratification or have the members voted on it?

Hydrick Thomas Okay, the members already voted. It was approved. And then goes to TSA for a head review to see if they see anything wrong with it. Then they send it back within a 30-day period they have to send it back. And then it goes into effect, I think 90 days after, which I think is a total of 120 days.

Tom Temin As a president of the AFGE local council 100. That’s all the TSOs.

Hydrick Thomas Yes.

Tom Temin Do you feel that you have access, and you can discuss things with TSA management?

Hydrick Thomas Yeah, I can go above. They gave me access to speak to the administrator himself. If I feel something is not being done as he directed, he sent out a guidance. And I get a report from the airport that it’s not being done exactly the way that they wanted to do it, for the safety of the flying public. I can set up a meeting with him. He could make it instantly. The meeting will happen right away. He wouldn’t me, oh Hydrick, we have to wait three weeks? You would just accept my call. We have to sit down and discuss what’s going on.

Tom Temin All right. And final question. What is what’s the duration of this contract?

Hydrick Thomas We have a seven-year contract. This is the first contract we had. The past one was called a limited contract with the administrator will determine what we can bargain on. Since, Mr. Bennie Thompson, who’s a congressman out of Mississippi, is our most powerful supporter on all rights and benefits and training for TSA, got us into this contract with the help of Mr. Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, President Eric Kelly out of Washington, that represents a total agency of 700,000 members. So, everybody got together and has got together and decided this is the way things should be done in this type of contract. They should have better help their employees with the pay, the pay was a major thing. I appreciate Mr. Mayorkas for that because he, you know, he stepped in quickly and finally we got the pay based on Congress approving it. And now people can actually afford to live a decent life and take care of their families.

Tom Temin All right, well, I know Everett and Benny, and if you have those guys on your side, you’ve got some pretty good wind in your sails.

Hydrick Thomas Yes, yes.

The post Transportation Security Officers have a spiffy new collective bargaining agreement first appeared on Federal News Network.

• There is a partial, short-term deal in the works. But if Congress misses its deadline to fund the government, at least 158,000 federal employees could be furloughed this week. If Congress doesn’t reach an agreement on four appropriations bills by midnight on Friday, some agencies could face a partial government shutdown. Under a lapse in appropriations, furloughed government employees must stop working. And they don't get paid until a shutdown ends. The bills with the Friday deadline include funding for the departments of Agriculture and Energy, and many others. The 158,000 figure for possibly furloughed feds is only an estimation. The real number may be even higher.
  (Under a possible government shutdown this week, 158,000 feds facing furloughs - Federal News Network)
• The White House is considering new recommendations for agencies to take action on critical infrastructure security. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency should set minimum performance goals across the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, according to a new report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It found water systems, the electric grid and other systems are increasingly interconnected and increasingly susceptible to both cyber and physical disruptions. The council is also recommending CISA set up a National Critical Infrastructure Observatory to address cyber-physical weaknesses in critical infrastructure systems.
  (PCAST releases report on strategy for cyber-physical resilience - White House)
• The Food and Drug Administration has outlined the six goals driving its technology modernization. FDA's goal is simple: Unleash its technology and data to improve health for all. How the agency will do that is what Vid Desai, FDA's chief information officer, detailed in the agency's new IT operating plan. Desai laid out six goals, each with strategic initiatives, metrics, project milestones and risks. Additionally, the document included insights around FDA's IT organization, its current governance structure and performance metrics it plans to use. The IT operating plan builds on the IT strategy the agency released in September.
  (The FDA's 6 goals in its new IT blueprint - FDA)
• Federal employees have been filing fewer whistleblower claims in recent years. The Office of Special Counsel saw whistleblower disclosures fall by nearly half between fiscal 2017 and 2022. It also saw a 40% drop in whistleblower retaliation complaints. OSC said the COVID-19 pandemic mostly led to the drop in whistleblower complaints, but Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) said there are also other factors at play. PEER said federal employee satisfaction scores have been on the rise, adding that the data corresponds with the Merit Systems Protection Board not having a quorum to rule in appeals of these types of cases.
  (Federal employee whistleblower complaints fall by nearly half over 5 years - Federal News Network)
• Military construction projects, including five barracks the Army planned to build in the coming year, cannot begin under a continuing resolution. The service had plans to invest in family housing at Fort Leonard Wood and at Fort Eisenhower installations. The projects are stalled until Congress passes the fiscal 2024 budget. The service will not be able to start work on barracks at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a location known for its high cost of living and shortages of housing for soldiers.
  (The Army can’t start housing construction projects under continuing resolution - GWU Project for Media)
• The federal fleet continues to march toward the President's goal of being made up only of zero-emission vehicles by 2035. The General Services Administration has already ordered almost 4,000 electric cars and trucks in 2024. That is about 20% of all orders for vehicles and 30% of all orders for light-duty trucks. Those numbers build upon the progress GSA made in 2023, when the agency said it ordered more than 5,800 zero-emission vehicles, which was a 63% increase over 2022. The federal fleet includes about 380,000 vehicles and GSA replaces about 8% of them every year.
  (Federal fleet on path to becoming more electric - GSA)
• Agencies need to do more to train employees to try to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. GAO said the departments of State and Interior, among many other agencies, should identify ways to improve training and awareness of the issue. According to a recent survey, 12% of federal employees said they have experienced sexual harassment within the last two years.
  (Sexual harassment: Actions needed to improve prevention training for federal civilian employees - Government Accountability Office)
• The Treasury Department’s investment in artificial intelligence is helping it crack down on fraud. The department said it recovered more than $375 million, thanks to AI fraud detection tools its Office of Payment Integrity put in place last year. Those tools help the department flag fraud in near-real time and expedite the process to recover potentially fraudulent payments from financial institutions. The department said check fraud has nearly quadrupled since the COVID-19 pandemic.
  (Treasury Announces Enhanced Fraud Detection Process Using AI Recovers $375M in Fiscal Year 2023 - Treasury Department)
• Employee engagement is trending up at the Transportation Security Administration, but that doesn’t mean TSA can’t do more to address workforce challenges. A new report from the Government Accountability Office said TSA should analyze the underlying causes of dissatisfaction among transportation security officers. TSA agreed with GAO’s recommendations. TSA also pointed out that its Global Satisfaction Index increased by 15% over the past year, driven largely by historic increases in officers' pay.
  (Transportation Security Administration could further improve officer engagement - GAO)
• The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) is seeking a partner to contribute to the development of a "Responsible AI Wire." This analytical product will help the CDAO Responsible AI division to bring together the latest academic research, industry and market developments, and public commentary on responsible AI and AI ethics. The goal of the open call is to find vendors to develop the framework for this analytical product and deliver it regularly. Submissions are due by March 6.
  (CDAO looking for partner to build framework for analytical product - Tradewinds)

The post Agencies need to do more to train employees on workplace sexual harassment prevention, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The departments of Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development have been told to begin planning for a shutdown. The Office of Management and Budget said it held a call last Friday with those agencies that are facing a lapse in funding on March 2 at midnight. OMB said Circular A-11 requires agencies to review and update their shutdown plans a week before any lapse in appropriations. Other agencies are funded through March 8. President Joe Biden will meet with congressional leaders today to discuss keeping the government funded in 2024.
  (Shutdown planning begins for VA, Energy and other agencies - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to keep adding to its health care workforce this year, just at lower levels than last year. VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the Veterans Health Administration is managing its workforce under a “tighter fiscal picture.” He said VHA is also taking a more targeted approach to hiring, after the agency exceeded its hiring targets last year. “It’s not because we haven’t been able to hire. It’s because we don’t have a need. Why would we not have a need? Because we just had a great year of hiring,” McDonough said. McDonough also said VHA isn’t facing a nationwide hiring freeze or hiring pause and that there are no plans for a reduction in the VA health care workforce. “The idea that we have a hiring freeze is not correct. The idea that we are looking carefully at hiring is correct.”
  (McDonough says ‘tighter fiscal picture’ at VA requires careful planning to continue heath care hiring - Federal News Network)
• Lawmakers say the Pentagon needs to conduct more thorough assessments of mergers and acquisitions in the defense space, as they express concerns about the Defense Department’s approach to reviewing consolidation of the defense industrial base. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) are asking for a more thorough and transparent assessment of defense business mergers and acquisitions to better understand the state of the defense industrial base. They said without more transparency, Congress cannot know whether a merger might affect defense contracts, prices, supply chain gaps and innovation.
  (Lawmakers asking Pentagon for more thorough review of defense business mergers - Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.))
• The Department of Veterans Affairs recently found evidence of sexual harassment carried out by senior leaders who worked in an office that normally deals with those types of complaints. But a separate investigation by the House VA Committee is entering a new phase. Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) wants to interview eight VA officials to find out when VA leadership knew about the complaints and why they didn’t take action sooner. Bost said VA didn’t act on employee allegations until November 2023, after he had sent two letters and made a phone call to VA Secretary Denis McDonough. VA’s investigation recommends firing one VA official and recouping bonuses paid to others.
  (Chairman Bost outlines next steps in committee’s VA HR office investigation - House VA Committee )
• The White House is shining a light on a major source of cybersecurity risks. In a new report, the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) is urging the software industry to address so-called memory safety vulnerabilities. ONCD said those types of bugs, hidden in software code, are often exploited by hackers. The White House said if software developers used memory safe programming languages, they could eliminate entire classes of cyber vulnerabilities. The new report is intended to rally the technical community to address software security issues.
  (ONCD report calls for adoption of memory safe programming languages - White House)
• The Small Business Administration has been without a chief counsel for advocacy for more than seven years and lawmakers are calling on the White House to nominate someone immediately. The chief counsel for advocacy is an independent voice for small business within the government, who monitors and ensures agencies are complying with the Regulatory Reflexibility Act. The counsel also helps policymakers better understand issues confronting small business owners. This is the third letter to President Joe Biden from House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas) seeking assurances that the White House would nominate someone to fill the position.
  (House lawmaker calls on White House to nominate small business advocate - House Small Business Committee)
• A new policy will increase drinking water system oversight and coordination across all Navy installations. Historically, Navy commands managed their water systems. Moving forward, Navy Installations Command will oversee the delivery of quality drinking water and ensure consistent management of systems across the service. The Navy will also establish drinking water committees at the installation, region and headquarters levels to ensure they address any water quality concerns. The policy follows the Navy's recent effort to clean up 19,000 gallons of fuel that leaked into drinking water at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
  (Navy places drinking water system oversight under one command - DVIDS)

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• An Air Force official is sounding the budget alarm about a full-year continuing resolution. Acting Undersecretary of the Air Force Kristyn Jones said the service would lose as much as $13 billion in buying power, before adjusting for inflation. A year-long CR, Jones said, would cancel 34 construction projects and impact seven national security space launches. She added that the Space Force would see the largest gap in funding under a full-year CR, losing up to $2.6 billion in research funding, and the Air Force would lose up to $1.4 billion in research, test, development and evaluation dollars. The Pentagon meanwhile, she said, is already absorbing the cost of pay raises for service members, but a year-long CR could very well create a $5.8 billion gap in military personnel funding and cut enlistment bonuses.
  (Air Force will lose $13 billion in buying power if Congress doesn’t approve 2024 budget - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Homeland Security is pushing hard to improve customer experience. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has directed DHS component agencies to create their own burden-reduction strategies. The directive is part of DHS’s customer experience push. DHS has hired more than 70 CX experts in recent years, as it pushes to streamline services like disaster assistance, immigration processing, and airport security screening. DHS also cut down on its public-paperwork-burden by more than 21 million hours last year.
  (DHS recognizes 2023 customer experience achievements and looks ahead to 2024 - Homeland Security Department)
• The Defense Department now has a single office in charge of studying what used to be called UFOs. But there is still no comprehensive plan to respond to what DoD now calls “unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs),” according to the Pentagon’s inspector general. Parts of the OIG’s findings are still classified, but a summary the office published last week faults the department for not involving DoD’s combatant commands in its approach to UAPs. The IG said the lack of coordination could pose a threat to U.S. military forces.
  (Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena - DoD Inspector General)
• Trouble at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation continues to multiply. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is pressing FDIC leadership on more details about why it didn't use expedited procedures to dismiss an FDIC employee who was indicted on producing child pornography. She asked for answers to three questions by Friday about its decision processes. The Iowa Republican also wrote to new FDIC Inspector General Jennifer Fain, asking her to make her top priority the investigation into the FDIC's sexual harassment prevention program and the leadership climate. The acting IG announced the investigation after a Wall Street Journal article in November detailed a toxic workplace culture.
  (Sen. Ernst presses FDIC leadership employee dismissal procedures - Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa))
• There is a new way to give artificial intelligence capabilities in the cloud a boost. The growing demand for artificial intelligence capabilities, including generative AI, will be among the first priorities of the FedRAMP program management office, under its draft Emerging Technology Prioritization Framework. The PMO, which issued the draft document on Friday, is creating an operational framework for how FedRAMP will prioritize certain cloud service offerings (CSOs) for specific emerging technologies during the FedRAMP authorization process. Among the first sets of AI tools include chat interfaces, code-generation and debugging tools, and prompt-based image generators. The PMO is seeking feedback on the draft prioritization framework by March 11.
  (FedRAMP to prioritize cloud-based AI tools through new draft framework - FedRAMP)
• Military physicians said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to make a full recovery after his hospitalization stemming from prostate surgery complications. Austin returned to Walter Reed Military Medical Center for a follow-up appointment on Friday. Doctors there now say his prognosis is excellent and he has no more treatment planned for his cancer. Austin’s health issues caused consternation throughout the executive branch earlier this month when the Defense Department failed to notify the White House and the public that he was hospitalized. DoD is conducting an internal review of that communication breakdown and the department’s inspector general has launched its own investigation.
  (Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Health Status - DoD)
• The Army’s Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems has a new leader. Bill Hepworth, who has served as the deputy program executive officer since 2022, will replace Ross Guckert, who is retiring after 34 years of Army service. Guckert led his office through a number of major initiatives, including the rollout of the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army. As the new leader, Hepworth will oversee more than 37 acquisition programs that support and field Army’s finance, personnel, logistics and procurement systems.
  (Hepworth tapped to lead Army PEO EIS - U.S. Army)
• New legislation coming out of the Senate aims to make the presidential transition process easier on federal agencies. The Agency Preparation for Transitions Act (APT Act), is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Sens. Gary Peters (R-Mich.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). The legislation provides timelines, guidance and services to improve coordination between federal officials tasked with managing the presidential transition process. The APT Act also makes recommendations for cybersecurity and requires incumbent administrations to prioritize records management leading up to a presidential election.
  (Senators aim to improve presidential transition process - Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.))
• A senior Senate staffer is heading to the White House to help lead on cybersecurity issues. Jeff Rothblum is joining the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director. For the last five years, Rothblum had led the cyber and emerging technology portfolio at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Prior to joining the Senate committee, Rothblum worked at MITRE, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
  (Jeff Rothblum announcement on joining ONCD - LinkedIn)

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It’s one thing to be controlled at work. Everyone has dealt with controlling bosses and co-workers. It’s another thing to be in control of your work and your life. One thing can make the difference. For what it is, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with longtime federal management professor Bob Tobias.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  Bob, what can make the difference between being controlled and being in control?

Bob Tobias The single word answer, Tom, is telework. Telework. And interestingly enough, OPM just recently reported that 87% of those federal employees eligible to do telework last year actually participated in the program. And they also reported that more agencies were meeting their performance standards. And finally, they reported that employee attitudes, recruitment and retention also increased. Now, for me, I think there’s a direct link. I think that attitudes and retention and recruitment and performance increased because 87% of those eligibles were doing telework. What’s interesting to me is that whether you’re a GS-2 or you’re a member of the SES, when you have more control over your work, when you work, you perform more.

Tom Temin Work. Yes. I mean, that has been stated by a lot of teleworkers that kind of wryly say, well, gosh, I work many more hours because I’m not commuting, and I’ll just sit down at the computer in the evening and do things. But this is primarily for knowledge workers. Is it fair to the people? And there’s hundreds of thousands of federal employees that, by virtue of their location basis for the work, can’t telework?

Bob Tobias Well, it isn’t a question of fairness. I don’t think I think it’s a question of maximizing employee ability and willingness to do more work. And ironically, it was the fear of increased employee control and decreased managerial control that led managers over the years to deny requests for telework. And of course, that all turned around with COVID when everybody was forced to do telework. And what, of course, emerged is that when federal employees were given the authority to break up their workday to take care of a kid or a sick parent, they acted responsibly by returning to work and producing more trust emerged between managers and employees. And I think that’s a very potent elixir. There was no trust before COVID that employees would or could or would be interested in performing more work. But COVID proved that they could, and they would.

Tom Temin Right. So that required some reorientation on the part of managers to understand what it is they needed to measure. And it’s not time and attendance per se, but output and deadlines.

Bob Tobias Exactly. Exactly. And you know, the crucial ingredient to increase performance, as it turns out, I think, is choice. Because the recently released Federal Employee Viewpoint survey revealed that federal employees who chose teleworking at least three days a work scored 77.1 on the employee Engagement Index, and the Employee Engagement Index measures how engaged employees are and, as a result, how much more they produce. But what was interesting to me is those who chose in-person work and did not telework. They could have, but they chose not to. Scored 73.1, which is very, very close. So, if you have the choice to do in-person, you have the choice to do telework. You score high. But in contrast, those who couldn’t do telework because of their work or chose not to only scored 58.5. So, the reality is, those who are required to be in person and don’t have choice scored 58.5 on the Employee Engagement Index.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Bob Tobias, a retired professor in the Key Executive Leadership program at American University, former NTEU president before that. And I think it’s fair to say, too, that the Covid probably forced the issue in the sense that there were technological means that agencies quickly employed or deployed to be able to allow a lot more people to telework than could have from a technical standpoint. In fact, a lot of the tools didn’t exist five years earlier than that. And the ones that got employed nobody had heard of until Covid forced people to use them. And. So there’s a technology basis I feel that enabled this to some degree.

Bob Tobias Absolutely. The crisis, the telework crisis, forced innovation and creativity that didn’t exist before. And agencies purchase what they need to purchase and supported telework. So, the data is clear. But I’m going to say time. I don’t have any data to support what I’m about to say, but many of my students reported that telework changed my family structure. And what they said was that as a result of telework, both parents were able to participate in after school kid activity. Both parents took the responsibility of taking a kid to a doctor. Both parents could do volunteer work after work. And so, it wasn’t one or both parents who were going off early in the morning and coming back as ghosts in the evening after kids go to sleep. Both parents are actively and able to actively engage in parenting, which I think is a quite fundamental difference, particularly in large city areas where people commute an hour and a half or two hours to and from work.

Tom Temin Yeah, the commute is kind of a soul crushing experience, I think no matter where you are, unless you’re, you know, somebody that can have a helicopter or limousine pick you up. And I think even the federal bureaucracy at the managerial and appointed levels, there’s less and less of that going on than there used to be.

Bob Tobias Exactly.

Tom Temin Let me ask you a devil’s advocate question. I would trace the beginning of the erasure of the work and life boundary line to the advent of the BlackBerry, maybe the pager before that, but the BlackBerry and email meant people were on all the time, and the novelty kind of wore off after a few years. But what about the idea that when you say you’re mixing your work life and your personal life throughout the day, you still at some point have to resist that tendency to have that dynamic go on till midnight.

Bob Tobias Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, some people manage it well and some people don’t. But when you think about it and you think about the good news that has come about as a result of this technological revolution, as a result of the ability of more people to do telework and more productivity, there’s an ever increasing pressure from mayors and real estate developers who have empty buildings and restaurant tours, who want their boarded up restaurants reopened to have the federal government force employees to do more in-person work. And I think, Tom, that that should be resisted because as a taxpayer, I want talented individuals who are really inspired to do their work, who want to stay with the federal government and who deliver more public service today than they delivered yesterday. So, I think this telework program works. It’s proven to work, and it should be allowed to continue.

Tom Temin All right. Now, if Microsoft could just fix Teams so that everyone didn’t hate it and we’d really be in Clover.

Bob Tobias Exactly.

The post Expert’s proof shows telework works first appeared on Federal News Network.

• New details have emerged on how somebody hacked into the Securities and Exchange Commission's official X account earlier this month. In an update on Monday, the SEC said it was the apparent victim of a “SIM swap” attack. That is when a person’s phone number is switched to another device without authorization. The hackers used that technique to gain control of an SEC cell phone number and reset the password on the agency’s X account before making multiple posts on January 9. Law enforcement is investigating how the attackers got the cell phone carrier to change the SIM for the SEC phone number.
  (Statement by SEC spokesperson on SECGov X Account - SEC)
• The Technology Modernization Fund program management office has new temporary leadership. The General Services Administration has named Larry Bafundo as the TMF program management office's deputy executive director and acting executive director. He comes to GSA from the Labor Department, where he was the director of IT modernization strategy. GSA said it plans to name a permanent executive TMF PMO director in the future. Bafundo replaces Jessie Posilkin, who took over as the acting executive director when Raylene Yung left in October. Posilkin will continue to work with the TMF PMO as its customer experience portfolio director.
  (GSA - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is making medical appointments available to keep up with demand. The Veterans Health Administration is running “access sprints” to maximize appointment availability. The sprints target three areas of care: cardiology, mental health and gastroenterology. VHA is offering night and weekend clinics and increasing the number of veterans each VA provider sees each day. Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said all of this is possible because of record hiring it saw last year. “We now have the end-strength to be able to increase productivity across the system, and provide more care out of the direct care system," Elnahal said.
  (VHA launches ‘access sprints’ to offer more medical appointments to veterans - Federal News Network)
• Another agency has launched a neurodiversity program. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is getting started on a 15-month neurodiverse workforce initiative. It formally began in October. CISA will hire neurodivergent interns and place them on select cybersecurity teams at the agency. The initiative will include training for the interns, as well as managers and supervisors. CISA also plans to develop a neurodiversity employment playbook that can be used by other agencies.
  (Federal ‘neurodiversity’ initiatives slowly getting off the ground - Federal News Network)
• The Navy is revamping its pregnancy policy. Sailors who become pregnant during their sea duty will now be able to get reassigned to shore duty where they can get medical care while still working. Sailors will be able to be on shore duty for 24 months, allowing the opportunity to keep their careers on track. Under the old policy, sailors were mainly relocated to positions close to their duty stations.
  (Navy overhauls its pregnancy policy - U.S. Navy)
• The Veterans Affairs Department is now scanning all websites for compliance with Section 508, which requires federal agencies to ensure that their information and communication technology is accessible to people with disabilities. In a new report, VA told its inspector general that it had full capability to scan all sites as of October to ensure they meet accessibility requirements. VA's CIO told auditors that 93% of its websites now meet 508 standards. The IG found that while VA made progress in ensuring its websites were 508 compliant, the agency was still struggling to validate and update the accessibility compliance of its IT systems more generally. VA said over the next two years, it will take steps to improve training, guidance and oversight of its 508 compliance activities.
  (VA improves 508 compliance of websites, IT systems still lacking - VA OIG)
• The Army is upgrading its Integrated Personnel and Pay System, also known as IPPS-A. The Army Contracting Command is looking to industry to develop Army Military Payroll solutions using the Oracle PeopleSoft platform. The integration of new capabilities will heavily rely on agile and DevSecOps methodologies. The chosen contractors will be expected to provide personnel and supervision to develop and deliver the IPPS-A payroll solutions. The contract ceiling is set at $370 million, and Army Military Payroll proposals are due by February 20.
  (Army Contracting Command looking for vendors to improve its enterprise payroll system - SAM.gov)
• The Postal Service is laying the groundwork for what will be the largest electric vehicle fleet in the country. USPS unveiled its first electric vehicle charging stations in Atlanta. The agency is gradually replacing its aging fleet with a mix of new electric and gas-powered delivery trucks. USPS expects electric vehicles to make up at least 62% of its new fleet. The agency is spending about $10 billion on new vehicles, thanks in part to Congress giving the agency $3 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act, to buy more electric vehicles and charging stations than it could otherwise afford.
  (USPS outlines its majority-electric vehicle future, as it unveils its first charging stations - Federal News Network)

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