As Federal agencies deliberate how to reopen traditional offices and the policies they will need to keep employees safe, one thing is clear: gone are the days when the cubicle was the only option for government workers. The pandemic has forced Federal agencies to rethink telework policies, remote work, and even in-office setups. […]
As more Federal employees are going back to the office, there are efforts to understand the impact telework had. According to a recent survey, one effect was a substantial boost in productivity, as 79 percent of Federal employees found their productivity increased while teleworking during the pandemic, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) found. […]
Jason Miller, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said he hopes the government’s expansion of telework for Federal employees will serve as a “leapfrog moment” and help the government to better compete in the battle for talent. […]
As vaccination rates increase and the United States nears closer to a broader return to offices, Federal IT officials in the Department of Defense (DoD) are reporting that their organizations’ IT environment is more complex now than two years ago, according to a recent Axonius and MeriTalk survey. […]
Federal intelligence community leaders agree that as the Federal government slowly starts to return to the office for in-person work, managers and supervisors will need to help lead a “cultural shift” within agencies to normalize remote work and rethink performance management. […]
The Biden administration announced expanded telework options for Federal employees on Thursday, creating a huge cultural shift for the Federal government that will allow agencies to offer flexible work-from-home and hybrid schedules to employees. […]
While many Federal agencies are transitioning at least some employees back to physical offices, the State Department is searching for new software to enable remote work. […]
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) wants to build on its current transformational period, catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, to accelerate change and position the military to win, and the service branch’s CIO spoke on June 8 about tech strategies that the Air Force and the Defense Department are putting in place to get to that goal. […]
Over the years, many government agencies have undergone significant digital growth. But while they were “doing digital” and leveraging digital technologies to enhance their capabilities, they still primarily relied on traditional operating models. […]
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and several chairs of the panel’s key subcommittees today asked inspectors general (IGs) from ten Federal agencies for assessments of any cybersecurity vulnerabilities that were created or worsened by the use of telework systems during the coronavirus pandemic, and whether any such vulnerabilities have been mitigated. […]
Dave Zvenyach, director of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Services (TTS) organization, shared insights today on how to become a better digital leader while working remotely, along with tools and methods he uses to do so. […]
The U.S. Army CIO has released a new policy for Internet of Things (IoT) device cybersecurity which mandates that all Army personnel who are approved to telework remove or turn off all IoT devices in their workspaces. […]
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Federal agencies to work remotely almost immediately, but Federal CIOs and CTOs agree that this shift to teleworking has enabled agencies to undergo a transformational cultural shift within the agency and provides more opportunities for innovation. […]
Federal CIO Clare Martorana hinted at possible changes coming to Federal telework policy and the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Federal Data Strategy during an address today at ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology and Innovation virtual conference. […]
Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., ranking member of the House Government Operations Subcommittee, urged the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in a May 18 letter to bring Federal employees back to their pre-pandemic workplaces quickly, or explain how the Biden administration will deal going forward with the billions of dollars it spends on currently underutilized facilities if Federal employees continue large-scale work from other locations. […]
Increased cloud service adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic has enabled the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to speed agency migration to new Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation (CDM) Program dashboards. […]
Senior House Democrats are pressing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for action on implementing existing law that requires the Federal government to improve digital experience for citizens including modernizing the government’s public-facing websites. […]
New research on broadband accessibility found that 77 percent of Americans now have access to low-priced wired broadband plans in the first quarter of 2021. […]
Federal government officials earned a collective pat on the back last week when the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released its 2020 OPM Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). The annual survey shows Federal employee job satisfaction ticked up by three points, to 72 percent, during 2020 despite the dislocations in work life caused by the coronavirus pandemic. […]
Federal employees were more engaged and satisfied with their jobs in 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing Federal agencies to shift to majority telework, the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) 2020 OPM Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (OPM FEVS) shows. […]
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) found that Federal employees overwhelmingly support continued telework after the pandemic, and believe that their productivity has increased while teleworking over the past 14 months. […]
Federal Inspectors General have the crucial task of agency oversight, often handling that job for large agencies while operating on relatively small budgets. To keep up with their responsibilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IG offices have had to leverage new technologies – and old technologies in new ways – over the past year-plus, IG officials explained today. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general (IG) said in a new report that the agency should work to update its emergency response plans to include assumptions regarding the use of telework for essential and non-essential personnel. […]
Wanda Jones, the chief security information officer at the U.S. Air Force, said her agency has seen a high level of productivity after the switch to remote work and plans to continue to telework beyond the pandemic, while keeping security top of mind. […]
Federal leaders agreed during a Feb. 25 virtual conference organized by GovExec that the Federal government needs to change its mindset and culture to allow for more telework in the future, even after the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
Amid the shift to widescale telework to stem the spread of COVID-19, Federal, state, and local government (SLG) employees are dealing with an increase in credential-theft mobile attacks. […]
The Office of Management and Budget told Federal agencies in a Jan. 24 memo that Federal workplaces should run at no more than 25 percent of occupancy while the coronavirus is running at high rates. […]
Getting in and out of the District of Columbia will likely be more trouble than it’s worth until after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration with the Secret Service adding bridge closures to mounting restrictions. The Secret Service announced restrictions on seven bridges Jan. 18, with all but one restricting all access into the city. […]
During the nine months of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve asked a hundred variations of that question to people whose professional lives near the tip of the technology spear put them in good positions to predict the future and get as many good answers back. At the dawn of a more hopeful 2021, here’s a look at how the Federal work-scape may play out in the longer term, courtesy of three veteran technologists. […]
With one of the most abnormal years of our lifetimes coming to an end, we look back at the top Fed IT moments of 2020. In a year with both a pandemic and an election, the government had to change the way it worked, ensure trust in election outcomes, and modernize on the fly. […]