Today marks a milestone for thousands of Senior Executive Service members, general military officers and other top government officials: The onset of new reporting requirements for most stock purchases and other securities transactions worth more than $1,000. Up to now, such transactions had to be reported only once a year on the public financial disclosure statement known as Office of Government Ethics Form 278. Now, senior officials must file “transaction reports” within 30 to 45 days, under the recently passed STOCK Act. The new mandate applies to almost all 28,000 Form 278 filers, according to the ethics office, which issued…
Browsing: Workplace
More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition asking the president to issue an executive order ensuring workplace protections for gay federal contractors. Administration officials will not confirm any action, but Tico Almeida, president of the Freedom to Work advocacy group, said Labor and Justice department lawyers have recommended President Obama issue a policy requiring federal contractors to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Freedom to Work, which seeks anti-discrimination policies for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender workers, created the online petition at Change.org. More than 16 million employees of federal contractors either work for companies or reside in states that do not…
First, the good news; The percentage of federal employees claiming direct knowledge of waste or illegality in their agencies has dropped by more than one-third during the last two decades, according to a new report on whistleblowing. The bad news: Among those employees who reported alleged problems, there was an increase between 1992 and 2010 in the proportion who said they experienced at least a threat of reprisal for speaking out. The numbers come from a lengthy report released this week by the Merit Systems Protection Board. The report draws on a wealth of data from MSPB surveys of thousands of…
Federal employees currently working at the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., may find themselves relocated in favor of a Waldorf Astoria Hotel. In response to a March 24 General Services Administration request for proposals, Hilton Worldwide, which owns the Waldorf chain, has come up with its own plan for the 315,000 square foot historic structure. From a press release: The proposal, tendered in response to the General Services Administration’s solicitation for redevelopment of the iconic 112-year-old Old Post Office Building, would create a 245-room Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and feature destination retailers from New York and Paris, as well as…
There’s a lot of new requirements in the telework bill Congress passed last week. Agencies will have to: Establish a telework policy and notify employees of their eligibility to telework within six months, Require teleworkers and their managers sign agreements outlining their responsibilities, Set up an interactive training program for employees and managers, Incorporate telework into their continuity of operations plans, Designate a Telework Managing Officer, and Report on their telework progress. But will these provisions actually have an effect on the amount of teleworking that goes on in the federal government? We’d like to find out what you think.…
For many employees, the 40-hour work week has long since faded into obscurity. According to a new online poll by Right Management, 76 percent of employees say the “almost always” work more than 40 hours a week. While most of you are probably not shocked by this revelation, this poll helps confirm that employees are now expected to work longer to meet goals. Results are broken out below for your reading pleasure. Yes, almost always 75% Yes, several times a month 11% Yes, once or twice a month 6% Seldom, if ever 6% “The findings are extraordinary and no doubt…
A majority of workers do not take a regular lunch break, according to a new online poll by Right Management, a talent and career management expert within employment services company Manpower. When asked if they take a break for lunch at work, 47 percent said “almost always” while 13 percent said “seldom, if ever.” Employees who choose to eat at their desks was 20 percent, and only those that take a lunch break “from time to time” clocked in at 19 percent. The numbers may be food for thought as employees are forced to do more with less, according to…
Old habits die hard. The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy reprimanded deputy federal chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin for using Gmail and Google Buzz for work-related communication, rather than his official government e-mail account. McLaughlin was Google’s director of public policy and government affairs before jumping to the public sector. OSTP decided McLaughlin’s off-the-books conversations didn’t have any impact on policy decisions, and the reprimand reportedly is no more than a slap on the wrist.
This fall, the federal government is going to launch a new social networking site called FedSpace. This site is intended to be a kind of Facebook for federal employees and allow them to collaborate through blogs, wikis and other forms of social networking. What do you think about this plan? How would you use a fed-focused social networking site? Would it make it easier for you to collaborate across agency lines? What kind of dangers or pitfalls might come with an official social networking program? Also, how have you used social networking tools in the past to do your job? Are…
Chances are when you entered your federal office this morning, you passed by a private-sector security guard. Although the Federal Protective Service is charged with protecting employees and visitors at roughly 9,000 federal buildings nationwide, the agency largely relies on contract security guards to get the job done: 15,000 guards to be precise, compared to just 1,225 FPS officers, investigators and administrative staff. The House Homeland Security Committee is debating whether that needs to change. Specifically, the committee will hold a hearing tomorrow morning to debate whether federal guards would provide better security than contract workers. A series of eye-opening…