TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
09/30/09 11:24 am ET
I linked to a story on FederalNewsRadio.com yesterday that said the Office of Personnel Management would no longer project the retirements of federal employees. The story was clarified on Tuesday to say that OPM will continue to make retirement projections that forecast the potential number of retirees who are eligible for retirement and actually leave federal service each year.>>
09/29/09 02:06 pm ET
Federal health premiums will rise by an average of 7.4 percent in 2010, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The average increase includes the government's share and employee's share of the overall premium. >>
09/29/09 11:39 am ET
FederalNewsRadio.com reports that the Office of Personnel Management will no longer project the retirements of federal employees, largely because previous predictions have not held up. >>
09/28/09 02:13 pm ET
The Government Accountability Office on Friday released a new report outlining the key issues for government oversight of national security strategies, organizations, workforce and information-sharing. The report recommends that agencies develop a national security strategy that defines organizational roles and responsibilities and helps agencies clarify who will lead or participate in activities and facilitate decision-making. The watchdog also recommends that agencies implement new strategies for collaborating with other organizations, invest in training opportunities and workforce planning for federal employees, and share and integrate national security information across agencies. >>
09/25/09 05:09 pm ET
ComputerWorld highlights the Office of Personnel Management's efforts to learn from top technology companies like Google and Facebook on how to recruit and retain a top-notch workforce and create quality health and wellness programs.>>
09/24/09 02:52 pm ET
Wired Workplace has been trying to follow the Twitter updates from Thursday's Telework Exchange town hall meeting, at which Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra were scheduled to speak, but surprisingly, there haven't been many tweets. Luckily, Alyssa Rosenberg at Government Executive and Ed O'Keefe at The Washington Post have some details from the meeting.>>
09/24/09 01:00 pm ET
Two federal IT employees were honored on Wednesday evening for their efforts to promote information sharing across the intelligence community through the development and implementation of Intellipedia, a Wikipedia-like clearinghouse of intelligence experience.>>
09/23/09 01:10 pm ET
The House Science and Technology's Research and Science Education Subcommittee passed legislation on Wednesday that would strengthen the federal cybersecurity research and development portfolio by improving training for the IT workforce and facilitating better partnerships between the private sector and government. The bill would require federal agencies to create a roadmap detailing its role and the level of funding required to fulfill research objectives, and would require the National Science Foundation to support research on the social and behavioral aspects of cybersecurity. >>
09/23/09 01:00 pm ET
While the U.S. high-tech industry shed 115,000 jobs between January and June 2009, a 1.9 percent decline, it still faired better than the overall private sector, according to a report released on Wednesday by the TechAmerica Foundation. >>
09/23/09 11:57 am ET
The State Department has launched a new program that leverages the Internet and social media to conduct diplomatic missions. The program, called Virtual Student Foreign Service, is part of State's efforts to use technology and a commitment to service among young people to facilitate new forms of diplomatic engagement, according to the agency's Dipnote blog. >>
09/22/09 10:25 am ET
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, has a great piece at The Huffington Post on how social media and Web 2.0 tools have changed the work dynamics of many federal employees, thus resulting in better levels of public service. "The challenge will be too many good ideas," he writes, asserting the need to break down the barriers to Gov 2.0 within agencies and get the word out on innovative Gov 2.0 projects government workers are putting in place. >>
09/21/09 01:00 pm ET
The Office of Personnel Management has kicked off the 2009 Combined Federal Campaign, the world's largest workplace giving campaign. OPM Director John Berry on Friday sent a letter to the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, stressing the importance of supporting the CFC as a means to show the American people who federal workers really are. "For over three decades, federal workers have been denigrated and maligned," Berry wrote. "These attacks have hurt recruitment, they've hurt retention, and ultimately, they impair our ability to serve the American people.">>
09/18/09 01:39 pm ET
There's an interesting conversation going on at IBM's Smart Work Jam about the concept of age being just a number when it comes to social networking and virtual worlds. "I've led groups of zealous, older managers into Second Life sessions, where a number of younger managers were less interested, and managers of all ages have opted into the online community that I launched for them," one commenter states. >>
09/18/09 01:27 pm ET
The Chief Information Officers Council has released a new report that provides guidelines and recommendations for federal agencies looking to adopt a safe and secure social media strategy. In addition to advising that agencies develop a social media policy and risk management program and assess potential threats to federal employees, infrastructure and information, the report emphasizes the importance of providing annual security awareness training to federal employees. >>
09/17/09 12:05 pm ET
The Homeland Security Department has launched a new IT platform that simplifies and accelerates its recruiting and hiring activities. The agency touts the tool, called TalentLink, as a means to help subcomponent agencies reduce their time to hire, improve the quality of candidate referrals and better manage and onboard new staff. The tool also uses electronic routing and approvals, automates the rating and ranking process and standardizes vacancy announcements using plain language.>>
09/17/09 10:45 am ET
The IBM Center for the Business of Government this week is hosting on its Web site a Collaboration Jam, which brings together business leaders, technologists and visionaries to discuss the future of work. Participants can weigh in on seven forward-looking discussion topics, including collaborative business process management, the future of teamwork, healthcare, the generational divide, and work in the year 2020. While participation in the online event is restricted, I thought I'd share some of the top buzzwords that IBM has compiled using a text-mining tool:>>
09/16/09 12:47 pm ET
The Office of Personnel Management has increased the efficiency in which the government completes security clearances, completing 90 percent of background investigations in an average of 37 days, the agency's director told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs federal workforce subcommittee on Tuesday. In 2005, the average time needed to obtain a Top Secret security clearance was in excess of one year, Berry said, while today it is only 72 days. >>
09/16/09 11:21 am ET
Consulting firm (ISC)2 on Tuesday announced the final nominees for its sixth annual Government Information Security Leadership Awards. The awards honor individuals who have significantly enhanced the information security workforce by demonstrating a leadership role in any information security workforce improvement initiative, program or project on either a government-wide or agency-specific basis. The program recognizes IT workers from each of the following categories:>>
09/15/09 01:33 pm ET
Nearly half of U.S. human resources professionals are using social networks to research job candidates at least occasionally, according to a new survey by Harris Interactive and CareerBuilder.com. The survey found that HR professionals were most likely to use search engines such as Yahoo! or Google to research candidates online (41 percent), followed by Facebook (29 percent) and LinkedIn (26 percent). >>
09/14/09 01:13 pm ET
Computerworld highlights a recent report by Forester Research that examined how American workers make use of computers, smart phones and key productivity and collaboration tools at work. >>
09/14/09 12:11 pm ET
The Office of Personnel Management on Monday released proposed regulations that would expand the definition of "family member" for purposes of determining leave and long-term care benefits. The regulations, published in the Federal Register, would modify definitions of "family member" and "immediate relative" for determining use of sick leave, funeral leave, voluntary leave transfer, voluntary leave bank and emergency leave transfer. >>
09/11/09 11:30 am ET
On Wednesday, I highlighted how the recession has dramatically shifted the combination of the workforce, as many Generation Y workers seek to enter the workforce while many Baby Boomers refuse to take retirement. A new survey by the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic...>>
09/11/09 11:30 am ET
Chris Dorobek reports on FederalNewsRadio.com on a memo from Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry that gives the incoming OPM Chief Information Officer greater visibility and authority within the agency. The move comes as OPM looks to finalize its 2010 strategic plan, which is currently open for public comment. >>
09/10/09 12:49 pm ET
Alex Parker's Pay & Benefits Watch column highlights several pieces of legislation affecting federal employees that Congress left unresolved at the end of July. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., on Wednesday sent a letter to House conferees participating in negotiations regarding the fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization bill (H.R. 2647), urging them to retain the federal employee provisions included in the House-passed version of the bill.>>
09/09/09 12:18 pm ET
Psychology Today has some useful advice about what employers and managers should know and do to address generational differences in the workplace, especially as the economy recovers. Because of the impact of the recession, the article states, a large portion of Generation Y entering the workforce combined with the refusal of Baby Boomers to take retirement has dramatically shifted the combination of the workforce.>>
09/08/09 12:45 pm ET
A new survey by consultant McKinsey and Company of nearly 1,700 executives from around the world found that nearly 70 percent of respondents believe that their companies have gained measureable benefits from Web 2.0 and social networking tools. Successful companies also are not only tightly integrating Web 2.0 technologies with the workflows of their employees but are also creating a "networked company," linking themselves with customers and suppliers through the use of Web 2.0 tools, the study found. With the current recession, respondents overwhelmingly said they will continue to invest in Web 2.0.>>
09/04/09 01:16 pm ET
Many lawmakers and federal employee groups are angered by the 2 percent figure, especially since many have pushed for pay parity between civilians and military service members, who are slated to receive a 3.4 percent raise if appropriators follow the guidelines in the 2010 Defense authorization act, or a 2.9 percent increase if Congress follows Obama's budget proposal. The president has cited a national emergency since Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the sluggish economy and high unemployment as his basis for the lower-than-average 2 percent figure.>>
09/04/09 12:53 pm ET
Nextgov reporter Gautham Nagesh on Thursday wrote about a new report from the state of Virginia that highlights lessons and statistics gathered from the state's participation in National Telework Day on Aug. 3. I wanted to highlight a couple of other findings from the report that pertain to the potential benefits of teleworking to the federal workforce:>>
09/03/09 01:41 pm ET
By fall of 2012, the federal government will hire nearly 273,000 new workers for mission-critical jobs, a large portion of which will be information technology specific, according to a new report by the Partnership for Public Service. The latest "Where The Jobs Are" report, released Thursday, outlines governmentwide, mission-critical hiring needs through 2012 and is based on a survey of 35 federal agencies representing nearly 99 percent of the 1.9 million member federal workforce.>>
09/02/09 04:47 pm ET
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., writes on The Hill's Congress Blog about the importance of securing a top-notch cybersecurity workforce in the federal government. The Defense Department, for example, has thousands of cybersecurity workers dedicated to combating cyber threats and building cybersecurity plans, but the Homeland Security Department has only 100 employees dedicated to this work. "With the gap between military and civilian cyber security personnel as large as it is," Sanchez writes, "there needs to be strong government leadership to increase recruitment pools and employ the next generation of cyber leaders that will help and protect our civilian networks.">>
09/02/09 11:32 am ET
Wired's Epicenter blog highlights a recent trip Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry made to Silicon Valley. The goal of the trip was to learn from companies like Facebook, Google and design firm Ideo about how to attract young, tech-savvy employees to the federal workforce.>>
09/01/09 11:05 am ET
Alyssa Rosenberg writes at Government Executive that President Obama will use his authority to set a 2 percent pay raise for federal employees in 2010, citing the economic crisis and the ballooning federal budget.>>
