OMB director to staff: Step to it.
October 1st, 2009 | Executive Office of the President HR Management OMB Workplace | Posted by Elise Castelli
As a runner and general fitness nut, I was pleasantly surprised to find a press release in my inbox from the Office of Management and Budget this morning announcing a new mandate for OMB staff: wear a pedometer.
OMB Director Peter Orszag launched the “OMB Pedometer Challenge” today to improve employee health by having everyone wear a pedometer to track their physical activity throughout the day.
Employees will enter their daily steps on an internal Web site and compare their activity levels to Orszag’s activity levels and their division’s levels. They’ll also be able to enter health statistics like body mass index, blood pressure and heart rate to help track improvements in their health.
The employee with the highest activity level each month wins lunch with Orszag and the highest performing team wins a “health happy hour.” Free lunch and/or a free happy hour? That’s inspiration enough for me.
Orszag said:
This challenge will make all of us more aware of our current activity levels and help inspire us to increase our physical activity. Evidence shows that pedometers are one of the most cost-effective ways to increase physical activity. And in true OMB fashion, we like to walk down the path cleared by the best data.”
The challenge is part of a larger effort to improve the health and productivity of the federal workforce, while reducing health care and disability costs, OMB said in the news release.
Firing poor performers: Federal Times wants to hear from you
August 6th, 2009 | HR Management Homeland Security | Posted by Steve Losey
Everybody’s heard the urban legend that it’s impossible to fire a government worker, but Federal Times wants to take a closer look at the federal firing process and find out what’s really going on. And to do that, we’d like to hear from you. Are you a manager who has found it impossible to get rid of the one bad apple in your office who can’t — or won’t — improve? Or has your agency backed you up when you needed to terminate someone for disciplinary reasons or poor performance? On the other hand, are you an employee who lost your job with the government, or did you successfully fight an attempt to remove you? What, if anything, should be done to improve the process?
E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com if you’d like to talk. If you’d prefer that your name not be published, that’s fine by me.
On another subject, I’m also interested in talking to Border Patrol agents and instructors at the Artesia, N.M. training academy about the agency’s massive hiring wave over the last few years. Are the agents hired since 2006 of the same caliber as recruits hired in the past? Has quality of new agents suffered as the agency tried to double its ranks in a few short years? Were you a recruit who decided that a career with the Border Patrol wasn’t for you, and if so, why?
Tags: Border Patrol, Firing, HR Management, performance management, recruitment
Breaking: Task force recommends reconstruction of NSPS
July 16th, 2009 | Defense HR Management Pay & Benefits | Posted by Elise Castelli
From Steve Losey at the Pentagon:
The National Security Personnel System Task Force is about to recommend the Defense Department continue with NSPS with some major revisions, such as improved communications between managers and employees and improved transparency for the pay pool process.
Check back with FederalTimes.com later today for Steve’s full report on the task force’s NSPS recommendations.
Tags: NSPS, NSPS review
Orszag: Poor performers need a plan
May 20th, 2009 | HR Management OMB | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
I’m at the release event for the Partnership for Public Service’s 2009 “Best Places to Work” report, which measures employee satisfaction at agencies across the government. We’ve got a quick summary of the results, and you can view the whole survey (which contains lots of interesting data) here.
One interesting point: OMB director Peter Orszag just gave a quick speech, and he said this about the survey results:
We will be looking to include the results in the fiscal year 2011 budget process, because we should not just let this be a report that generates a one-day news story. It needs to be something that is built into the way we run government.
Orszag went on to say that OMB will ask the poorly-performing agencies to come up with a plan for improving their scores.
OPM to unveil new telework policy
April 28th, 2009 | HR Management | Posted by Steve Losey
The Office of Personnel Management is going to announce the Obama administration’s new telework policy tomorrow morning. OPM Director John Berry, along with Reps. John Sarbanes, D-Md., and Gerald Connolly, D-Va., will outline his plan to improve the government’s efficiency by expanding the use of telework.
In a statement announcing the Capitol Hill press conference, Berry said:
Telework is good for the environment [and] good for the continuity of government operations. It also shows the commitment of President Barack Obama to provide a work/life program that is improving the quality of life for federal employees.
Check back with Federal Times tomorrow to find out what OPM has planned.
Swine flu and flexible hiring
April 27th, 2009 | HR Management | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
Steve Losey linked to some OPM guidance on swine flu this morning. One other point to make from my reporting… I’ve talked to a few feds today about their swine flu responses, and they keep mentioning the hiring flexibilities that OPM grants during emergency situations: direct hire authority for doctors and nurses, 120-day temporary contracts to fill vacancies if an employee gets sick, etc.
Obviously the disease hasn’t affected federal agencies yet, and nobody’s sure if it will, but it’s worth being prepared.
GAO: Defense lacks information on acquisition workforce
March 25th, 2009 | Defense HR Management Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
The Government Accountability Office issued a blunt assessment of the Defense Department’s grip on its acquisition workforce needs today.
Its opening line:
DoD lacks critical departmentwide information to ensure its acquisition workforce is sufficient to meet its national security mission.
And its second line:
In its acquisition workforce assessments, DoD does not collect or track information on contractor personnel, despite their being a key segment of the total acquisition workforce.
Followed closely by:
DoD also lacks information on why contractor personnel are used, which limits its ability to determine whether decisions to use contractors to augment the in-house acquisition workforce are appropriate. GAO found that program office decisions to use contractor personnel are often driven by factors such as quicker hiring time frames and civilian staffing limits, rather than by the skills needed or the nature or criticality of the work.
GAO made four recommendations:
- Collect and track data on contractor personnel.
- Identify and update on an ongoing basis the number of acquisition personnel and skills they need to fulfill the department’s mission.
- Review and revise the guidance for using contractor personnel to clarify when it is appropriate.Â
- Develop a tracking mechanism to determine whether the guidance has been appropriately implemented across the department.
 DoD concurred with the recommendations.
Tags: acquistion workforce, GAO
Breaking: West Point to outsource 300 jobs
March 25th, 2009 | Defense HR Management Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
The United States Military Academy will outsource more than 300 public works jobs to the private sector, the university announced today.
Ginn Group, a Peachtree City, Ga. company, was selected to provide public works and maintenance services to the Army’s West Point, N.Y. campus.
The decision is tentative and will be subject to a 20-day review period during which losing bidders can protest to the Government Accountability Office. The estimated cost savings will be released following that 20-day period, a USMA spokesman said.
Tags: A-76, outsourcing, West Point
Congressmen call for halt to competition for West Point jobs
March 18th, 2009 | Defense HR Management Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
Congress and the White House have declared their desire to see an end to public-private competitions for federal jobs through the omnibus bill and other proclamations. But that doesn’t mean the competitions have been stopped completely.
Approximately 570 public works and custodial employees at the U.S. Military Academy will learn the fate of their jobs next week when a two-year long public-private competition for their jobs is expected to conclude.
Two members of congress are urging the Defense Department to cancel the competition before a decision is announced. In a March 18 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Reps. John Hall, D-N.Y., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., wrote:
The A-76 program was shut down by Congress in the omnibus appropriations act that the president signed into law earlier this month because of longstanding concerns. Two Government Accountability Office reports issued last year detail how poor guidance from the Office of Management and Budget had result in systematically overstated savings and understated costs.
In the letter, the congressmen write that the West Point competition is unlikely to save the government money because it has overrun its 30-month statutory time limit. The competition was formally announced in 2006, but has been in planning stages since 2002.
They also cited a 2008 appeal from West Point leaders to Army commanders to stop the competition because internal reengineering of the work would be “less disruptive” and yield greater savings than the prolonged competition with the private sector. That appeal was rejected.
Don Hale, the president of the local American Federation of Government Employees chapter representing the employees, said he hopes Congress can stop the competition and preserve federal jobs in the economically depressed region.
Employees are still willing to implement their proposal to make the academy run more efficiently, said Hale, who could lose his job if the federal employees do not win.
Tags: A-76, outsourcing, West Point
Congress could throw out outsourcing
February 25th, 2009 | 2009 Budget Congress HR Management Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
A provision in the omnibus spending bill could halt public-private job competitions for federal work.
The provision introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., would temporarily suspended public-private competitions for federal employees’ jobs conducted under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76.
Other bill provisions indroduced by the lawmakers would:
- Require agencies insource work currently performed by contractors and to allow federal employees to perform new work.
- Require agencies determine the size of their contractor workforces.
- Prevent agencies from outsourcing functions performed by 10 or fewer employees without holding a competition.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which backed similar provisions in previous appropriations bills, applauded the lawmakers. AFGE President John Gage said:
The A-76 process is clearly broken…The provisions introduced by Sen. Durbin and Rep. Serrano will end years of privatization studies that never saved taxpayer money and were skewed to promote the use of contractors over federal employees.
According to OMB’s May 2008 report on competitive sourcing, however, federal employees won more than 83 percent of the competitions held between fiscal years 2003 and 2007.
The report also claims the government saved $7 billion from the competitions held during that time period because of management efficiencies gained in streamlining how federal work is performed. The savings estimates are often questioned by Congress and employee unions because the estimates do not include the planning costs for the competitions.
Tags: A-76, AFGE, insourcing, outsourcing