Human Resources

Focus on Efficiency Phase 4: Review your Impact

A previous post laid out the Focus on Efficiency Framework: Plan – Decide – Implement – Review – Repeat. In this post you’ll learn the importance of Reviewing the impact you’ve had on your organizations efficiency. You’ll Review at a pre-determined time which you set in your Planning stage. When exactly that will be, isRead… Read more »

Two Tips for Presenting IT Projects to City Council

by Sophicity Every new budget cycle brings a bevy of projects and ideas before city council for approval. While projects like sidewalk improvement or traffic decongestion are easy to explain in terms of benefits and return on investment, IT projects can be a thorny subject, especially if the council is largely made up of non-technicalRead… Read more »

3 Quick Facts on Compensation for Contract Professionals

Knowing compensation facts can help you get a better job offer or even get better compensation at your current job. Hard, credible numbers are tough to refute in any negotiation. The Facts Overall, compensation (meaning salaries, benefits and bonuses) in the contracts field is pretty nice. The National Contracts Management Association does a nice jobRead… Read more »

The Dangers of Being Too “Positive” in a Team Building Process: Or Don’t Just “Have a Nice Day!”

“You’re being negative!” Recently I led a team building workshop, and that was a federal government Division Director’s reply to my questioning, “Why the ‘Front Office’ meeting had not been working?” Preceding my operational assessment a number of people noted: a) that for several months people were not bringing relevant agenda issues to the meetingRead… Read more »

But where does DoD fit in? Review of Burton Report: Gotta, Mike. “Field Research: Actions to Take On Enterprise Social Networking”

With the DoD lagging behind in the adoption of social media in general, to include social networking, it is not an area ripe for research. Yet, with growing interest and a handful of innovative projects picking up steam, we have a need to apply what has been done on the commercial sector without much understandingRead… Read more »

Collaborating for the Environment

Recently, during a conversation about on-line community management and growth, a top executive from a small collaboration software vendor told me that collaboration was just great team building. I understand how the difference between collaboration and team building can be blurry, but I walked away from that conversation feeling that vendors who believe such simplificationRead… Read more »

US Department of Labor Announces Tools for America’s Job Seekers Challenge

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the kickoff of the first phase of the “Tools for America’s Job Seekers Challenge.” The challenge will connect workers with online career resources, and offer businesses and other organizations an opportunity to showcase their best products. Providers of online job search engines, job boards and career exploration sitesRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Could poor morale ground FAA?

The Federal Aviation Administration ranks so low on government employee satisfaction surveys that the agency may struggle to retain and recruit employees in the next four years, according to a new government audit. Thirty-eight percent of FAA employees will be eligible to retire in 2013, the Government Accountability Office said Monday in a new report.Read… Read more »

One Small Step for Employee-Management-Community Consensus Building: Affirming the Purpose, Participation and Power of Admin Professionals

One of the challenges for an Organizational Development Consultant is getting management and employees on the same page, if not singing from the same sheet of music. Sometimes you don’t need management to generate static. Status distinctions within the employee ranks may exacerbate in-house tensions. For example, in one government directorate, scientists and IT folksRead… Read more »

Remarks of OPM Director John Berry at Human Capital Management Forum

From OPM.gov November 17, 2009, 8:15AM Hello! It’s great to be here with all of you at the Human Capital Management Forum. Thank you, Mike Causey, for the kind introduction. It’s a great time for all of us to be serving as Federal HR professionals because we’re at a moment of historic opportunity. Historic opportunityRead… Read more »