OPM

New SES Onboarding Guidance.  Federal Times reports that the Office of Personnel Management has issued a new guide to agencies.

Do health IT and privacy rules need a refresh? Training and definitions may prove the modest start of national health IT improvement, though lawmakers signaled skepticism even as they acknowledged problems in the current regime. "We haven't realized the full potential of health IT for every person in this country," acknowledged National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Dr.

This is the challenge of leading in a multi-generational workforce, which now spans four generations, and is increasingly driven by rapid technological changes that have changed the nature of work and how it gets done.

There are enormous benefits that can result from telework:  improved employee retention and reduced sick leave, cost savings from reduced use of office space and utilities, and reduced pollution from commuting. . . . and yes, the ability to work from home when it snows!  In fact, a study by the Telework Research Network claims potential savings of about $3.8 billion a year if all eligible federal employees participated.

Other Implementation Provisions.  The new law contains a number of other implementation provisions worth highlighting:

But there are answers out there.  Author Daniel Pink, in a 2009 best seller, Drive:  The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, says that focusing on three job elements is the secret to improving engagement: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

OPM leads the Federal Government's efforts to improve strategic human capital management.  OPM focuses on building a professional civil service based on merit principles, where Federal employees can effectively serve the public throughout the employment life cycle – while also receiving benefits and services from “hire to retire” that are consistent with best practices.  That effort continues today as OPM embarks on a new initiative to integrate HR offerings and HR data sets across the Government.

Experience from industry practices and industry research regarding personnel security provide interesting insights and lessons learned for government to consider.   These findings emerged from a recent roundtable discussion held in November and co-hosted by the IBM Center for The Business of Government and the National Academy of Public Administration.  The roundtable intended to help identify commercial benchmarks that can inform government choices.

Background.  Reform legislation adopted in 2004 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that restructured the intelligence community included requirements to standardize and better align the background security clearance process across agencies.  But in the years that followed, the consolidation efforts took time, culminating in a 2008 presidential directive to improve the process.