Leadership

A Necessary Contradiction: Merit-Based Systems and Diversity

Merit-based systems have dominated the federal, state and local human resources landscape for decades with the purpose of creating a process of employee advancement and job-seeker selection that is based on individual skills and abilities. The current issue of PA Times includes a press release related to a report (.pdf) published in December of 2009Read… Read more »

Focus on work/life balance could free you from the office

By Dorothy Ramienski Internet Editor Federal News Radio Will your 9 to 5 work schedule soon be a thing of the past? Federal News Radio told you about a recent hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management and the Federal Workforce, where officials from the Office of Personnel Management gave the initialRead… Read more »

As oil leaked, Interior Dept. official rafted with wife

Though the Obama administration has stressed its involvement with the April 20 BP oil spill since “day one,” at least one Interior Department official decided instead to phone it in and go white water rafting in the Grand Canyon with his wife and other officials. Tom Strickland — who serves as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar‘sRead… Read more »

Resistance is a Judgment, Not an Action

This article was originally published on the Tri Tuns Blog.OBSERVATION When talking about user adoption of major IT systems – CRM, ERP, HRIS, etc – at some point the discussion always focuses on overcoming “user resistance”. When I probe deeper and ask clients to define exactly what they mean by “user resistance” (what form itRead… Read more »

Cloud Computing and Virtualization Aren’t What you Think

Today I had the opportunity to listen to a discussion about cloud computing and virtualization of IT services: “The Future of Enterprise IT Architecture” with representatives from Cisco, VMware, and Barquin. Now most non-IT government workers, like myself, probably would think, “Why in the world would you subject yourself to something like that?” But fortunatelyRead… Read more »

Health-care relief for feds?

Happy Wednesday! Lawmakers have introduced a measure that would allow the Office of Personnel Management to extend health-care coverage to the adult children of federal workers before the new federal health-care law takes effect next year. Several health insurance companies plan to extend coverage to adult children up to age 26 starting in June, butRead… Read more »

CITY JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM PLAGUED WITH MISMANAGEMENT

Union Says Youth Violence Directly Related to Failures of City Government (WASHINGTON) – The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents employees of the District of Columbia’s Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services, (DYRS), today said that the recent rash of youth violence can be directly attributed to failures of the city’s juvenile justice system.Read… Read more »

How to Be Open and Agile – Notes from OGI – Cory Ondrejka

So I’m here at Open Gov and Innovations and just heard the keynote Cory Ondrejka talk about Open and Agile. Here’s my notes:-It’s hard to be fearless-Hard to lead fearlessly-Get others to follow your examples-How can we keep up in an accelerated world-People predict linear growth, but reality is discontinuous -Usually less short term changeRead… Read more »