It wasn't so long ago that a typical telework story in Federal Computer Week followed a predictable arc: Feds want it, outside groups encourage it, and managers resist it, usually for fuddy-duddy reasons such as a concern that employees will slack off if not watched.
In the past year or so, there has been a real change. The stories we've done more recently have largely lacked the management-aversion angle or at least featured it much less prominently. Managers’ resistance seems to be breaking down, and the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, coupled with President Barack Obama's strong support, has no doubt gone some way toward easing the transition. Technology improvements that include faster, more secure home networks and the proliferation of cloud services have also helped.
Coverage now is more likely to focus on specific situations, such as the technological innovations that are giving rise to a virtual workforce or questions about unusual situations that might fall outside the boundaries of a standard telework policy.
For example, our workforce reporter, Camille Tuutti, wrote a blog entry about a question a reader had submitted: Should a worker who lives close to the office be allowed to telework?
“She lives less than a mile from work,” the reader wrote. “She could walk. Would you allow her to telework when it's obvious she wants to be able to go to the store when she wants, watch a TV show when she wants, etc.?”
Readers were generally supportive of the woman and didn’t share the concerns of the person posing the question. They wondered: If her work is satisfactory, what's the problem?
“Your assumption that she ‘really’ wants to drive around town all day and watch TV is so old-school that, for me, it's a tip-off that the management style in your office should be more closely examined,” one reader chided the questioner.
Readers also disputed the suggestion that telework is primarily about reducing pollution by encouraging less driving. “This is a ridiculous thread,” one wrote. “If people who choose to live far away from the office are given special consideration, people smart enough to live within walking distance should be allowed the same consideration.”
Another article, also by Tuutti, offered some examples of small agencies that have embraced telework with good results. The Library of Congress and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration were featured as success stories, with examples of small pilot tests that grew into widespread programs.
Our readers responded enthusiastically to the article.
“I...believe the apprehension in embracing a mobile workforce is more fear than anything else — fear of not knowing and fear of loosening the reins on employees,” one wrote. “I have been slowly introduced to the telework program and now absolutely love it. Production and morale have dramatically increased in our department.”
“We’ve seen many success stories in the year since the passage of the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010,” commented Sam Davis, a vice president at the American Management Association’s Enterprise Government Solutions. “We expect to continue to see an increase in government agencies adopting telework for many reasons, including the recruitment and retention incentives mentioned. Leadership development training is a crucial part of this process as organizations continue to make these necessary changes.”
But another reader named Mike, commenting on the same article, added a cautionary note. “It's always a case-by-case basis.… I see more camaraderie and teamwork when folks are at work together. Short-notice meetings…usually require folks to be [physically] available to attend.”
Overall, it's fair to say that the tide has turned on telework. The conversation is no longer about whether the government will embrace the concept but how and under what conditions. Moreover, the conversation is shifting to even broader issues of mobility in off-site workers. The term “telework” still connotes an employee tied to a location, such as a home office, but mobility suggests an even greater freedom. Think of someone with an iPad at a coffee shop, reading their work e-mail over a latte and a danish.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Feb 22, 2012 at 11:46 AM0 comments
Traditionally, the annual release of the president's budget request is an exciting time at Federal Computer Week. Every year, we get the budget document as soon as its available and have our reporters comb through it in exacting detail, looking for everything of interest to our readers -- from the grandest IT initiatives to the smallest nuggets of funding for small, but interesting, projects.
This year was no exception. We got President Barack Obama's request for fiscal 2013 -- online, not in print -- and had our staff pore over it, as always. But this time, there wasn't much to find. At least, not in the technology policy arena.
Grand IT initiatives? Forget it. 2013 isn't a year for expansion or striking out down new roads. Small, but interesting, projects? There are a few, but only a few.
Mostly, this year's budget proposal is about saving money, cutting costs. What innovation there is centered around gaining efficiencies and reducing expenses. A number of programs will lose funding, in part or in full, at least for the year. And the outlook for future years isn't likely to be better.
That's not to say there aren't interesting ideas. The push to consolidate data centers is there, and so is the suggestion of creating a “data center marketplace,” in which agencies in need of new computing power can be steered toward unused capacity available within government. And noting which programs would lose funds under the request, such as the Justice Department's Integrated Wireless Network, is important. But still, there's much less to be said than in most years.
It doesn't help that the president's budget is never the budget that gets enacted. Everyone knows that it will be subject to debate, compromise and often replacement as it wends its way through Congress. Whatever budget finally does pass is certain to bear little resemblance to the request released Feb. 13. In years in which there are bold proposals and fresh initiatives, that matters less, because the prominent parts of the president's request form the centerpiece of the debate and often end up passing more or less intact. In a year where there are no such proposals, there's much less to say.
So how do we cover the budget in such a year? Diligently, because it still matters, but with greater difficulty. Congressional counter-proposals, due to be expressed in appropriations bills later this year, take on great importance. But the president's request matters, even if it leads to no actual funding, because it expresses the administration's priorities. If Obama is re-elected this year, the proposals in the budget will likely remain policy priorities in his second term. So the budget request isn't a moot point, just not a terribly interesting one.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Feb 17, 2012 at 1:52 PM0 comments
The annual Federal 100 awards gives us at Federal Computer Week an opportunity to recognize some of the brightest stars in the government. It’s a privilege we’ve enjoyed for 23 years now.
To understand how much care goes into choosing the winners, you need to know that we spend about a third of every year on the process. For this year’s event, we started taking nominations in the last week in October. Over the next two months, several hundred came in. Meanwhile, our editors were working behind the scenes to recruit our ten judges, who are themselves some of the brightest minds in government and industry.
After we closed the nominations, we compiled all of the entries into binders and sent them to the judges, who had some time in December to read through them and make their initial determinations. Then, on a Saturday in January, the judges gathered in our offices in Vienna, Va., along with Anne Armstrong, president and chief content officer of the 1105 Government Information Group, Jennifer Weiss, publisher of FCW, and some senior editors. The judges spent the day discussing (and sometimes debating) relative merits of each nominee, before finally making the nearly-final judgment calls.
That process is fascinating to observe. Many of the entries were clearly worthy and got quick yeses from the panel, and some got quick nos. Not all of the nos came because the nominees were not worthy, though. In many cases, the judges agreed that the project in question was quite meritorious, but most of the hard work is still in the future. Because our award is for work done in the previous calendar year, some of those deemed premature will almost certainly win in the next year or two.
After that first pass through the hundreds of entries, the judges had picked several dozen winners, but there were still a lot of open spots. At that point, the process became more deliberative. The judges considered each one of these “maybe” entries in detail and, with some discussion and occasional disagreement, spent several hours choosing the remaining winners and 10 more to serve as alternates.
Picking those alternates is important, because in some cases the judges agreed a nominee was worthy of the award if the account in the nomination was true, but there might be some reason to doubt. And as always happens, a couple of the original 100 didn’t pan out during the verification process, and the first names on the list of alternates became winners.
In the weeks following the judging, I marked up the nomination forms to highlight the work that the winning nominees had won for, to make sure it clearly stands out from the rest of the text on the entry forms. These marked-up forms provide the basis on the assignments that our reporters use as they write the profiles of all 100 winners, to be published in our March 30 issue.
And that’s where we are now. The reporters have their assignments and are starting to work on writing the profiles. Meanwhile, plans for the annual gala, to be held March 28 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., are well underway.
To those who won, we hope you’re proud to have earned the honor and know that it has a real significance. To those who were nominated but didn’t quite make it, we hope you understand you had some stiff competition.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Feb 01, 2012 at 2:43 PM0 comments