Human Resources

Taking a Good Look: Workplace Environment and Women’s Empowerment

Our Office of Performance Management under City of Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO) City Manager Troy Schulte has managed an employee surveys over several years to identify where there are opportunities for internal service improvement. In an analysis of the responses to the open-ended questions, however, they have identified a few common issues that do notRead… Read more »

USA.gov does away with blog comments – Plus the 7 Gov stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER: Shutdown, furloughs, pay cuts – oh my! Last year was basically Groundhog Day for feds, each day an endless cycle of bad news – at least, that’s what it felt like. But how bad was it, really? A new survey tries to capture the data. We take a look. You canRead… Read more »

Future of Work for Millennials Will Be Results-Only (ROWE)

In the virtual workplace of the future many high-performing millennials will be empowered by employers to decide when, where and how they work. These employees will be responsible for setting their own hours, as well as deciding if and when to physically commute to a traditional brick-and-mortar office. That is, assuming one still exists inRead… Read more »

Cyber Breaches: Hacking into Your Company, Your Home

In 2013 alone, there were 253 cyber breaches of major organizations and over 552 million identities were exposed. 2013: it quickly became known as the year of the Mega Breach. Earlier this week, GovLoop hosted an online training with leaders in the cybertech industry to discuss today’s cyberthreat environment. Kevin Haley, director of security responseRead… Read more »

The Interns Are Here! … Now What?

If you have interns in your office, they have probably started working by now or will soon. Not only do they provide great work, former interns are your best ambassadors when they return to campus—they can help you recruit for next year’s interns, identify good candidates for entry level positions, and publicize the good thingsRead… Read more »

We Owe It to Our Interns (And Ourselves)

I still remember looking longingly at the Safeway “Help Wanted” ads offering $9/hour to bag groceries while I slogged away at yet another unpaid government internship. Like most other DC-based grad students, I regarded unpaid internships as a rite of passage. Yet the trade-off — a rich, rewarding internship experience — was not always partRead… Read more »

10 Actions You Should Take Now to Be a Successful Leader

You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself. — Sam Levinson I’ve interviewed over 450 government and contractor managers over the last fifteen years as part of a business growth assessment process. Besides getting to know a lot of sincere dedicated individuals, I’ve beenRead… Read more »

7 Steps to Productivity

In my last blog, I talked about how to increase everyone’s productivity by tweaking your meetings. What about making your personal time more productive? Technology helps you multitask and do more, right? Wrong. Mutitasking creates lower quality results making you less productive. Here are seven productivity tips that I have combined from inc.com, a listRead… Read more »

“Selling” public service to Millenial consumers: Are we in a new sort of competition with the private sector?

A fascinating paper by Winograd and Hais, and published by the Brookings Institution this morning, discusses some striking differences in what appeals to Millenials, compared to earlier birth cohorts, and it got me thinking. http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/millenials-upend-wall-street-corporate-america-winograd-hais The authors’ focus is principally on the corporate side of things, and consumer behaviour, discussing what they believe is aRead… Read more »

PMF: Presidential Management Fellowship — or Frustration?

It’s a long, sordid story, but the moral is simple: Beware what you ask for — you might get it! A little background: Back in 2007, I was so happy. The Presidential Management Fellowship program office “popped the cap”—they allowed universities to nominate an unlimited number of graduating students for the prestigious PMF program. Previously,Read… Read more »