Do you ever feel like your workplace is being sabotaged? Well, it just might if any of your colleagues are adhering to a formerly classified Office of Strategic Services document, the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual.” America’s enemies will always innovate and the intelligence apparatus has always sought to evolve to counter changing threats. The sabotageRead… Read more »
Our recent June 29th derecho event, featuring lightening, thunder, rain, wind, trees falling, and power lines failing, has provided yet another opportunity for people in the Washington, DC area to experience what the Federal government calls “unplanned telework.” As it did when our area suffered through snowstorms and earthquakes, the government provided employees with theRead… Read more »
A recent report by the CBC has pegged the cost of federal public service absenteeism at $1B per year. According to the CBC story, the average public servant is taking 18 days a year in sick leave, double what their private sector counterpart does in that same year. While the story does discuss fairly obviousRead… Read more »
Dan Chenok recently emailed me and John Bordeaux a New York Times story and asked us for our opinions. The articles was “From a Facebook Founder Comes a Way to Streamline Work Flow,” and the quote that moved Dan to ask for our input was this: Dustin Moskovitz [a Facebook Co-Founder] thinks this is aRead… Read more »
In line with its mission to ensure the careful use of Federal funds, OMB issued guidance on 5/11/12 to Federal agencies that requires them to make more efficient use of existing government real estate — in effect, “freezing the Federal footprint.” In a roundabout way, this is good news for Telework fans. By requiring agenciesRead… Read more »
Efficiency is the path to bigger profits. Efficiency is good. Everyone needs to be efficient. Right? Wrong! Efficiency sucks! For knowledge workers – you and me – the case against efficiency is overwhelming. ‘Efficiency’ is one of the weasel-words of management-speak, constantly misused and we are all worse off for this. In an effort toRead… Read more »
One of the biggest reasons managers give for resisting the implementation of telework policies is that they do not believe that their employees will “really” work when they are not in the office. Those of us who have embraced a more flexible work design may consider this an “attitude adjustment” problem – on the partRead… Read more »
At the beginning of the month, I wrote a blog about how a study showed that Facebook may just be a reliable assessment tool for recruiters. It sparked a conversation about whether employers should be using Facebook to screen applicants. Flash forward a couple of weeks, and stories about job seekers being asked for FacebookRead… Read more »
As we start the Second Annual Telework Week today, it’s a good time to think about boundaries and the challenge of how we create a boundary between the professional and the personal when we work at home. The most obvious boundary can be created by the space in which we work. A home office, forRead… Read more »
In the course of examining data from the current Australian Public ServiceState of the Service of the Service Report the previous report. It contains an interesting chart showing employee satisfaction or engagement by length of service in the APS (see at the end of this post). What is interesting is the reduction in engagement overRead… Read more »