GovLearning Blog

Best Places to Work Analyzes Innovation in Government

A new report from the The Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® looks at how federal employees feel about innovation at their agencies. It also examines what drives innovation in federal agencies and what can leaders do to promote it.

Finalists for 2013 Sammies Announced

The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service has announced the 31 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal finalists—outstanding federal employees engaged in important work to spur the economy, protect the environment and advance the health, safety and well-being of Americans.

Careers That Make A Difference

So, you want to make a difference in the world? More specifically, do you want a career that “makes a difference”? For increasing numbers of young people, their search for meaningful work leads them to the public sector. This work might involve contributing to the life of a local community by working in city/county municipalities, public safety, the military or with state or federal government.

HowTo.gov Highlights Online Community of Best Practices for Digital Government

HowTo.gov is the destination for federal agencies to share what they’re doing to create a more citizen-centric digital government and make government information available anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Engaging Organizational Leadership to Focus on Employee Development

I recently read The 6 Ways Government Needs to Improve Performance Management. The article talks about The President’s fiscal year 2014 budget and its emphasis on the creation of “a culture of performance improvement.” Now, of course, when I hear performance improvement, I pay special attention because we are in the business of improving organizational efficiency. We should always be tuned in to automatically think of this as an opportunity to add value and help our organizations.

Exploring Bring Your Own Device in the Public Sector

Mobile adoption has been growing exponentially in consumer markets, and is quickly redefining how government organizations engage with the citizens and solicit feedback for public opinion. To help agencies manage devices in the workplace, GovLoop published the report, Exploring Bring Your Own Device in the Public Sector, which was recently featured in the spring edition of The Public Manager .

Social Media A Growing Opportunity within Government

We know that the majority of Congress have social media presences. We know that many agencies are using social media for more and more innovative efforts. But just as the web became mainstream in the mid-90s and exploded with overnight innovations, there were many entities with a web presence, but no rhyme or reason for why they existed. We need to leverage those lessons learned and apply them to our current social explosion.

Keep Learning Even with Tight Budgets: Individual Development Planning Using a Blended Learning Approach

Change Our Thinking

I mentioned in my first blog post that we need to shift our focus from “training” to “L&D” and begin to embrace the notion that we’re in the performance business not the training business. Here’s what I meant by those concepts. Our jobs are so much more than filling up training classes with you know what in seats. As L&D professionals, our job is to ensure that people and organizations improve their performance on the job as a result of our solutions, tools, and expertise.

Upcoming Webcast

Tuesday, April 16^th a t 2:00 pm, Danette Campbell, Senior Telework Advisor for USPTO, will present a webcast on best practices for transitioning an agency to a telework environment. She will use the USPTO as a case study and walk us through challenges and successes of the implantation of their telework program.

Keep Learning Even with Tight Budgets: Individual Development Planning Using a Blended Learning Approach

What is Blended Learning?

I hear a lot of talk about blended learning, especially in times of tight budgets, but does anyone know how to explain it, or better yet, how to create an effective blended learning experience? In other words, does the blended learning approach actually accomplish the intended learning objectives or program goals? We’ve probably all adopted the most common blended learning approach, combining instructor-led training with online learning. Let’s not let our creativity and innovation stop there

SafeGov Proposes New Model for Evaluating Cybersecurity

A new report, “Measuring What Matters: Reducing Risk by Rethinking How We Evaluate Cybersecurity, ”from Safegov.org, in coordination with the National Academy of Public Administration, lays out a different approach for federal agencies to reduce risk: the Organization Cyber Risk Management Framework.

OPM Releases New Exit Survey for SES Members

OPM has developed the governmentwide exit survey to capture “valuable information regarding the circumstances under which executives leave the federal government and offer an opportunity for executives to provide candid feedback about their work experience.”

Keep Learning Even With Tight Budgets: Individual Development Planning Using a Blended Learning Approach

No Training Budget Doesn’t Equal No Learning

Let’s face it, we have had to cut out parts of our jobs like travel, supplies, and contracts with tight budget constraints. Most organizations are doing the unthinkable, CUTTING TRAINING BUDGETS…OH NO! Well, I have great news for you. Little to no training budget should not equal little to no learning. Regardless of your organization’s training budget, learning should never stop. When learning stops, organizations do not grow, people become disgruntled and disengaged, morale drops, productivity is lost and ultimately, money is wasted just when your organization is squeezing every drop out of an already tight budget.

Technology and Human Capital Investment Drive Success in Government

OMB Releases Q1 Update on Cross-Agency Job Training Priority Goal

The OMB has launched the first of its quarterly online updates on how agencies are faring in pursuit of the 14 cross-agency priority goals. One of the 14 goals is Job Training, defined as to “ensure our country has one of the most skilled workforces in the world by preparing 2 million workers with skills training by 2015 and improving the coordination and delivery of job training services.” So far, an interagency working group was established and is comprised of the key agencies that operate job training programs across the federal government to guide and drive this work.

Whos Next in Line Develop Tomorrows Leaders Today

In Who’s Next in Line? Develop Tomorrow’s Leaders Today, Preston Brown writes a plan to trade and develop new managers who are set to replace some 60,000 government retirees in the upcoming year. Preston outlines obstacles to this plan which include: Lack of time, Inadequate funding for designing programs and developing employees, Difficulty in assessing and selecting succession candidates, and Difficulty forecasting attrition for succession positions; As well as ways to overcome each.

New Report Examines How Agencies Use Social Media

Social media has redefined how people, organizations and government interact. How can federal managers use social media technologies more effectively to change how they carry out their work, fulfill their agency’s mission and broaden how they communicate and engage with the American public? That is what the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton set out to understand in the new report, "#ConnectedGov: Engaging Stakeholders in the Digital Age."

Job Characteristics Key to Motivating Federal Employees

new report from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) examines motivation levels in the federal workforce and discusses steps that federal agencies can take to enhance employee engagement and performance.

Usability Testing Program Uncovers Why Dot.Govs Failed in 2012

GSA’s First Fridays Usability Testing Program has put together a list of the most common government website fails they encountered in 2012. It was no surprise that the most common usability problems are less about technology and more about communication: jargony content, poor navigation labels, and confusing contact information.

2012 FEVS Says Government Workers Remain Mission-Focused

The 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), released this month by the Office of Personnel Management, indicate that federal employees’ remain dedicated to their jobs in spite of an overall decline in morale.

New Report Advises Agencies on Building an Analytics Culture

The Partnership for Public Service and the IBM Center for The Business of Government recently released, “From Data to Decisions II: Building an Analytics Culture.” This second report on using information to measure and improve performance examines what it really takes to build analytics into an agency’s decision-making processes and culture. The report includes concrete steps for building a disciplined approach to analytics and profiles of seven agencies using analytics to achieve better results.

Needed: Formal Career Track for Managing Big Data

The government should create a formal career track for the employees who manage its increasingly large volumes of complex and variable data known as “Big Data,” according to a new industry report from the TechAmerica Foundation’s Big Data Commission.

2012 Causey Award Winners – HR Professionals Helping Government Operate Better

Federal News Radio has announced the winners of the third annual Causey Awards, recognizing human resources professionals who have gone above and beyond to help the government operate better.The awards, named for Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey, are in tribute to his life-long dedication to the reporting of federal workforce management and federal pay and benefits issues.

Agencies Fail to Take Advantage of Strategic Sourcing

“Improved and Expanded Use Could Save Billions in Annual Procurement Costs,” a report released in September 2012 by the Government Accountability Office(GAO), finds that that selected agencies leveraged only a fraction of their buying power through strategic sourcing and achieved limited savings.

VA Fills First Phase of Veterans Retraining Program

In press release September 20, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it has approved applications for all 45,000 slots available in fiscal year (FY) 2012 under the successful Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP).

2012 Service to America Medals Awarded

Winners of the 2012 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals were awarded in September. The “Sammies,” as they are informally known, are considered among the most prestigious awards for U.S. civil servants.

Best of TPM Standardized Project Management

In “Workplace Learning to Improve IT Project Management,” Bill Damare describes how public sector organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense have formulated a blueprint for many private sector companies to follow in order to facilitate change for project management.

New BYOD Toolkit for Federal Agencies

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is a concept that allows employees to use their personally owned technology devices to stay connected to, access data from, or complete tasks for their organizations. Agencies considering allowing employees BYOD have a new toolkit at their disposal to ease the transition.

CHCOs Brace for Change

The Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton interviewed 55 chief human capital officers and other human resources leaders about the state of managing the federal workforce in light of the tough economy and shrinking budgets. Their findings were released this month in the report, Bracing for Change: Chief Human Capital Officers Rethink Business as Usual. The report claims that the rate of change within the federal government is increasing—not only connected to operational challenges and tightening budgets, but also in the people expected to deal with those challenges.

GSA Saves More Than $11 Million

the U.S. General Services Administration announced that the agency is projected to save more than $11 million in taxpayer dollars through an initial set of policies implemented in April 2012 by the new head of the agency, Dan Tangherlini, to cut travel and conference costs. A financial audit showed that since April 2012 and through the rest of the fiscal year, more than $11 million has been saved in meetings, conferences, trainings and travel costs. This is just one step in the ongoing top to bottom review of all agency operations.

Best of TPM: Forum Examines Resiliency of Those Affected by Hurricane Katrina

Beverly A. Cigler, in her Forum article “Resiliency: Five Years after Katrina,” analyzes the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, as well as the disasters that have affected the city in the 5 years after the hurricane struck. Cigler discusses many topics.

Government Newsletter: August 2012

Between the daily borage of controversial headlines around misappropriated spending, workforce reorganization, and federal pay cuts, we often miss hearing the good news about innovation and progress occurring within the government workforce. Well, the 2012 Next Generation of Government Summit in Washington D.C.,

Homelessness: A National Security Threat

In a forum published in the winter 2011 issue of The Public Manager—“Federal Leaders Open Doors to Tackle Homelessness”—Jeanne Van Vlandren and Myra Howze Shiplett offer a unique perspective on a hidden threat to national security and how the U.S. government is responding. This is a national security threat because it challenges the whole nation as it did in September 11, after disasters, during economic recession. The authors’ introduction to the 3-article forum frames the nation’s homelessness problem as a threat—stemming at least in part from the lost productivity of roughly 650,000 people who are without housing, adequate healthcare, and stable employment.

Best of TPM: A Model for Private-Sector Procurement

Brad Douglas is the former commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services for the State of Georgia.

Best of TPM: Preparing for Climate Change on the State and Local Level

Frances L. Edwards, PhD, is the deputy director for the National Transportation Security Center of Excellence at the Mineta Transportation Institute, San Jose State University in California, and director of the director of public administration program.

OPM Releases Benchmark Report on Teleworking Inside Agencies

President Obama signed the Telework Enhancement Act in December 2010. The legislation was designed to improve teleworking opportunities and adoption rates at federal government agencies. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has released the first comprehensive view of telework practices across the entire federal government since the enactment of the Act in the new report to Congress entitled 2012 Status of Telework in the Federal Government. Prior to this report, agencies submitted telework data to OPM on a voluntary basis.

Book Brief The Municipal Budget Crunch

Many public officials have great ideas, but tend to work in a vacuum, so they don’t know what other cities are doing. The Municipal Budget Crunch, a new release compiled by Roger L. Kemp, Ph.D., offers an inside look at programs working municipalities across the nation.

GAO Report Finds Method to Compare Federal and Private-Sector Pay Ambiguous

The results from the GAO findings were released July 25, 2012, in a report entitled Results of Studies on Federal Pay Varied Due to Differing Methodologies (GAO-12-564). The GAO report fails to make any recommendations, but it provides a comprehensive explanation of the legal and practical reality of the federal pay system and why comparisons to the private sector vary in their conclusions about the pay gap.

Best of TPM: Advice from U.S. Coast Guard on How to Lead from the Inside Out

Geoffrey Abbott is a retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain. He conducted this research as part of a National Graduate School doctoral dissertation entitled “Improving Organizational Performance through Innovation and Workforce Empowerment.” He served in the Coast Guard for 30 years, spending the last few years developing the innovation program innovation in the public sector

ASTD 2013 Call for Proposals for Government Practitioners

ASTD is accepting speaking proposal submissions for next year’s conference in Dallas, Texas. An entire track will be dedicated to practitioners delivering learning and performance solutions in government. Here is a list of topics in search of speakers.

Best of TPM: HUD Secretary Discusses Initiatives for Ending Homelessness

Shaun Donovan is U.S. Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. He is committed to make quality housing possible for every American. He previously was commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, where he created and implemented the largest affordable municipal housing plan in the nation.

Free Webcast- The Currency of Competency IDPs at Treasury

Facebook Feds: How Federal Agencies Are Using Social Media

Social media is everywhere—even in the federal sphere. Case in point: In April, the U.S. General Services Administration created a social media registry on which federal agencies can list their accounts on 22 social media platforms. To be sure, social media tools are presenting unparalleled opportunities for collaborative government. Not only do examples of the federal government using Facebook abound, they seem to be using it fairly well, reported research firm Foresee.

Taking Care of Business- The VA Commits to Training

In Taking Care of Business: The VA Commits to Training, Richard Garrison discusses the VA’s need for a new strategic plan for training. The VA’s plan, developed by Secretary of the VA’s Eric K. Shinseki, has been dubbed “Transformation 21” is said to be people-centric, results-driven, and forward-looking. Garrison evaluates “Transformation 21” and also goes in depth on its strategic vision and impact.

Strategic Procurement Training in San Diego

In Strategic Procurement Training in San Diego, Carrie Hoff evaluates the strategic training process of the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency and how they evaluate contract proposals. Hoff uses the San Diego HHSA as a model, for other agencies to follow, when training for contract procurement and strategic plan development.

Take-It-With-You Training

In Take-it-With-You Training, Donald Berbary and Alan Malinchak outline the many opportunities that new mobile and online learning technologies give to government workers. Berbary and Malinchak summarize many aspects of online training, discussing:

OPM Establishes New Model for Executive Onboarding

Many new executives fail to make it to the end of their first year in a new job. Stephanie Castellano outlines the Office of Personnel Management’s solution to high rates of executive turnover, which involves the implementation of an executive onboarding program.

Making Training Strategic

Preston Brown in Making Training Strategic writes to create a plan for government managers to make training a more tactical and calculated process. Brown strives to make training a piece of a greater government plan toward a specific goal. Within the article brown list steps to form this strategy which include:

Retaining Troop Talent

In Retraining Troop Talent, Emily King writes to inform employers that as more and more troops return from deployment abroad there is a much greater need to re-train veterans for employment in the civilian job market. With such an influx of work force King believes that there must be a plan in place to correctly train and support these future employees.

Diversity Inclusiveness and Executive Order 13583

At a seminar sponsored by the Public Manager Journal and Federal Special Interest Group of the D.C. Chapter of ASTD, diversity expert Mauricio Velasquez explained that diversity training has gained increased importance for federal managers since President Obama’s promulgation of Executive Order 13583, establishing a coordinated government-wide effort to promote diversity and inclusion in the federal workplace. OPM has issued its “Guidance on Implementation of the Government-Wide Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan” to hasten the implementation of these programs. Federal agencies will be required to present to OPM their initial strategic plans at a round-table discussion on March 16th.