John Kamensky

When President Obama took office, it was the depth of the Great Recession and he froze pay and bonuses for the civil service to reflect the economic downturn across the country.  However, the Administration undertook several efforts to improve the working environment for employees by:

[Note: This column also appears in Washington Technology. It is the third in a series on how the COVID-19 crisis has changed how government works.]

John Kamensky

In early 2001, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) designated “Strategic Human Capital” as one of the federal government’s high risks for potential failure.  This issue is still on its list today, even though there have been concerted efforts by subsequent presidential administrations to address the issues raised by GAO.

GAO’s concerns at the time were that agencies did not:

John Kamensky

But as IRS managers have found, this is an uncomfortable shift because it involves a culture change for managers. They have to trust their workers to do the right thing and empower them with the information, training, and tools to do it.

But there’s also some pretty amazing stuff going on in federal agencies that are not directly on the pandemic response front lines – and are getting their core mission work done from home.

One of those agencies – the Veterans Benefits Administration – has even exceeded its performance targets set before the coronavirus pandemic!  And at the same time, agency head Undersecretary Paul Lawrence has accelerated his personal outreach efforts to veterans via state-by-state tele-town halls where he’s connecting with tens of thousands of veterans in each state.

[Note: This column also appears in Washington Technology. It is the second in a series on how the COVID-19 crisis has changed how government works.]

Nowhere has this been truer than the workplace, where companies and employees have found remote operations far more feasible than expected.

John Kamensky

Who Is the Economic Predictor? Federal Times reports: “with the U.S. economy having just experienced its worst financial quarter in a decade because of the coronavirus pandemic, senior government leaders are asking when it will recover. The Transportation Department’s statistical agency may be able to offer clues.”

Government needs to think about effective management both in the current historical moment, and for the longer-term. Additionally, knowing how well different which agencies are managed would be a useful baseline for new agency leaders or in setting priorities for a new administration. Developing benchmarks to measure effective management would be useful for agencies to assess how they are doing over time, in comparison to other agencies, or what best practices exist for potential adoption.