WEDNESDAY,MAY 5, 2010

KLMNO

THE FEDERAL WORKER

CONVERSATIONSMAX STIER

Public service week stresses importance of federal workforce

Max Stier is president of the

Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to promoting public and government service. The Partnership and the Public Employees Roundtable are sponsoring this week’s 25th Public Service Recognition Week:

What do you hope happens this week?

There are two goals here: To

make sure that the current federal workforce gets some real applause, because they deserve it. And the second is that the American people get an improved picture of their public servants.

You got a bit of an assist last weekend from President Obama, who provided his defense of government in a commencement address at the University of Michigan:

He definitely captured a very

important point about the nature of our discourse and the importance of our government. I would respectfully add to the list of things that he suggested that young people consider and that is actually government service itself.

I think in today’s world, many people no longer think about government service as being part of public service. . . . In today’s world, government service has been bled out of public service. We need to see a change, we need to re-inject government service into public service. . . . As important as the nonprofit sector is, without a vibrant, healthy government, none of the other stuff works.

In the view of you and your colleagues, is the current wave of anti-government rhetoric and violence normal?

You can look at the trust in

government numbers and there have been other times when they’ve been this low, typically

Service week schedule

Public Service Recognition Week, which honors public sector workers at the federal and state level, is Tuesday through Sunday. The Partnership for Public Service (PPS) and the Public Employees Roundtable host the annual event. Wednesday: Service to America Medals finalists’ announcement. Thirty-two finalists for the public service awards to be honored on Capitol Hill with Sen. Ted Kaufman, (D-Del.) and Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, 9 a.m. Invitation only. Events below will be on the Mall, between Fourth and Seventh streets

during economic hardship. My sense is that has to do partly with what the president described as the nasty political discourse, because I don’t think people have a good sense of the civil servant and what’s going on day in and day out. Look at the newspaper today:

You have the terrorist incident in New York, so you have the FBI and the set of government agencies that have been built to protect our physical security in the Untied States. You have the environmental crisis in the Gulf Coast, which draws upon an entirely different set of federal agencies that are designed to address protecting our environment. If you dig in the paper, there’s plenty of other examples of issues we face. . . . Economic, physical security, environmental security, it’s all in play right now and we need the best in government to deal with it.

But it’s still too difficult for some folks to find government jobs.

It’s really three problems, and

the first is that not enough information is getting to the talent market. Talented people don’t know enough about them. The second is the hiring process and the third is that once people are in government that they’re treated in a way that makes them want to stay and grow.

Have you seen enough progress on any of those three?

I think there is real progress, the most important sign of it being that we’re seeing a leadership commitment to talent. I think the partnership between OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and OPM [the Office of Personnel Management] around talent issues is a hugely important development. It has to be done by both, neither alone is sufficient.

NW.

 Thursday: PSRW Opening Celebration with, among others, Energy Secretary Steven Chu; Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; General Services Administration head Martha Johnson; Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Scott Gould; OPM’s Berry; and Max Stier, PPS president and chief executive. 12:15 p.m.

 Friday: Students’ Day, a rally with astronauts, firefighters, police officers, Marines and others. 10 a.m. (Also, hundreds of Washington area students will do job shadowing at federal agencies.)

It now seems that the Partnership is the only group in Washington thinking about the issues of government service and government operations 24/7. Shouldn’t there be others too?

We need to see a greater

investment inside and outside government. One of my favorite examples is that the business community is willing to invest

 Saturday: The first Federal Jobs Workshops on the Mall. Learn about opportunities in various fields, from public to international affairs. 10 a.m.

 Sunday: Special Thanks to Our Troops Service Project. Write letters to active-duty service members in Iraq and Afghanistan. 10 a.m.

Members of the public employees’ roundtable:

American Society for Training & Development Coalition for Effective Change Council of Former Federal

Executives Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Roundtable

SAM KITTNER/KITTNER.COM

millions, if not billions of dollars on lobbying around policy not operations, but they don’t invest at all on the management of government. . . . We really need to see business, philanthropy, universities, we need to see them putting their time and money where it’ll really matter, and that’s making government work better.

— Interview by Ed O’Keefe

Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund Federal Executive Institute Alumni Association Federal Managers Association International Public Management Association for Human Resources National Active and Retired

Federal Employees National Association of Schools of

Public Affairs and Administration National Federation of Federal Employees OmniGov Organization of Professional Employees of the USDA Professional Managers Association Senior Executives Association The Public Manager

What can the federal government do to improve the image of federal workers and

eliminate some of the stereotypes that dog the workforce?

Send your answers to federaleye@washingtonpost.com and include your full name, home town and the federal agency for which you work. Your answers might be used in Friday’s Washington Post.

Online benefits calculator

 Federal retirement: www.opm.gov/retire/tools/calculators/

ballpark/menu.asp This calculator projects retirement benefits under federal retirement systems according to variables such as salary and length of service. It offers a ballpark estimate because it does not take into account certain rules that might apply. It also has links for calculating how much of an annuity will be tax-free and how much tax to have withheld.  Social Security: www.ssa.gov/planners/ calculators.htm This site features a Social Security benefit estimator for those who will be eligible under that system, which includes most current federal employees. It also has links to several other calculators, including one showing a reduction that might apply to certain federal retirees.

 Thrift Savings Plan: www.tsp.gov/calc

This site has calculators allowing participants in the 401(k)-style

retirement savings program to project future account balances based on differing investment levels and rates of return, to determine loan payments if they borrow against their accounts and to see how an account balance would translate into income after separation, among other functions.

 Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance:

www.opm.gov/calculator/worksheet.asp This site calculates premium and benefit amounts under various options, as well as potential changes after retirement.  Other benefits: www.opm.gov/insure This site has links to calculate premiums under the options available in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (click on “Long Term Care,” then “Program Information,” then “Cost Information”) and to determine the potential tax savings of flexible spending accounts. It also has links to compare premiums and other features of plans in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the Federal Dental and Vision Insurance Program.

Note: Eligible employees can enroll or make changes in the TSP or FLTCIP programs anytime, but there are restrictions on enrollment and changing coverage under the other programs.

— Eric Yoder

Quicker coverage sought for adult children

by Ed O’Keefe

Lawmakers introduced a meas-

ure Tuesday that would allow the Office of Personnel Management to extend health-care coverage to the adult children of federal work- ers before the new federal health- care law takes effect next year. Several health insurance com- panies plan to extend health-care coverage to adult children up to age 26 starting in June, but cur- rent federal law prohibits OPM from doing the same for workers in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The new bill — co-sponsored by local Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D- Md.) and Gerald E. Connolly (D- Va.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) — was intro- duced as federal workers unions push for a revision of the health- care law.

“OPM needs the authority to implement this very important provision sooner and this legisla- tion is designed to do just that,” Van Hollen said in a statement. Margaret L. Baptiste, president

of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association,

New EPA water policy promotes smart growth

The Environmental Protection Agency instructs states to adopt smart-growth principles in allocating the $3.3 billion in water infrastructure funding.

A19

Work-life balance still on shaky ground

Teleworking, of course, is a key

FEDERAL DIARY

Joe Davidson

W

hen it comes to helping federal employees develop a good balance

between work and personal lives, Uncle Sam talks a good game, but his actions fall short. Witnesses at a congressional hearing Tuesday agreed on the need for greater flexible work arrangements in the government. But many also agreed that although the government has made important steps in the right direction, it is moving too slowly and is meeting too much resistance from within. During the past 35 years, most

federal agencies have “developed an impressive variety of supports” for workers, Kathleen Lingle, executive director of the Alliance for Work-Life Progress, told a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. That sounds good. But the problem is the lack of a coordinated program, in addition to management resistance. Add those together, and you have an organizational culture that does not welcome change. “What is striking today is that for the most part, the federal sector is not harnessing the full power of work-life effectiveness as the most inexpensive and intrinsically motivating driver of attraction, engagement and retention available in the 21st century,” Lingle said. “The notable gap in the federal environment is a failure to deploy work-life as an overarching organizational strategy, one that has a demonstrated capacity to engage the minds and hearts of any labor force.” Max Stier, president and chief

executive of the Partnership for Public Service, told the subcommittee that his think tank estimates that the government workforce is likely to increase by more than 273,000 critical positions by 2012. The Obama administration is

said the coverage “would be par- ticularly helpful to dependent children about to graduate from trade school, college or university who could have difficulty finding employment with health benefits in the present unfavorable job market.” If the law does not pass by June,

federal workers with adult chil- dren can apply for a temporary continuation of coverage or con- vert them to an individual policy, according to OPM.

ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com

aware of the government’s shortcomings and has tried to get in front of the issue. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spoke at a recent White House conference on work-life balance. John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, was a key participant and has pushed agencies, starting with his own, to grant employees more flexibility. Jonathan Foley, a senior adviser to Berry, told the subcommittee that oversees the federal workforce that OPM is reviewing its regulations and guidance on alternative work schedules “to provide maximum flexibility to federal agencies to assist them in implementing these flexible arrangements.” He reported on OPM’s pilot

programs in worker wellness and the Results Only Work Environment, which emphasizes getting the job done rather than where it is done. “Not only is it easier for us to do our work almost anywhere, it is easier for us to do our work anytime,” he said. “This means that we can schedule our work around responsibilities and events that in the past would have required us to take time off from work.”

factor in flexible work arrangements. But although everyone seems to agree that it is a good thing, implementing it is another story. Foley cited 2008 survey data indicating that 49 percent of federal agencies report “management resistance remains a major barrier to telework.” Almost a third said computer security and funding for information technology “each are significant barriers to the use of telework.” Subcommittee Chairman Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) started the hearing by saying that it is fitting to air these issues now, during Public Service Recognition Week. “The federal government is the largest employer in the United States,” he said, “and we can lead by example.” But the example the

government is setting is uneven. Uncle Sam is taking the right steps, although too slowly and erratically. Joseph P. Flynn, a national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said government workers tell the union they are considering jobs in private companies or other organizations “that offer a better work-life balance than their agency.”

S

B3

PHOTODISC

— Jonathan Foley, OPM adviser, speaking about a pilot program.

“It is easier for us to do our work anytime.”

Colleen M. Kelley, president of

the National Treasury Employees Union, said that the federal government “is losing ground” because “employers who follow dated policies and practices that limit workplace flexibility do not serve the interests of either the employer or the employee — and when that employer is the federal government, it does not serve the interests of its citizens, either.” One thing that can keep

federal employers competitive, Kelley said, is top bosses rewarding lower-level managers who allow their staff members greater workplace flexibility. Any savings generated by the increased productivity that flexibility might generate should go back to the agency or its employees, she said. The increase in productivity could result in part from fewer unplanned days off. With the proper training, equipment and security precautions, the federal government won’t have to close for emergencies, as its District offices did during the big snows this winter. Instead of snow days, the government would declare “mobile work days.” “By creating a mobile workforce,” Foley said, “employees will always be able to work no matter where they are located.”

federaldiary@washpost.com

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