May 6, 2008

Get a Life!: Public Service Recognition Week

This is Public Service Recognition Week and if you don’t yet feel recognized in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, you can go to the National Mall and join the crowd at more than 100 agency exhibits, through May 4-7.  Other events will be occurring in other states across the county.

Not only is the ATF-K9 team on the Mall with the dogs, but an amazing display of agency musical talent.  Who knew that the Social Security Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency each had a choir?  You can hear them and also the Enviromental Protection Agency jazz band by checking the schedule. 

But it will be the agency displays of the work that federal employees where most visitors will gather, as they do each year.  There are many ways to recognize federal employees with agency awards and public comments.  Just in case that recognition isn’t always made nor always heard, a special week like Public Service Recognition Week gives a well-deserved pat on the back.

Judy Welles
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April 30, 2008

Get a Life!: More about telework

If you want to get started on telework -– or keep it going -– you should check out the new telework.gov Web site launched by the Office of Personnel Management and Government Services Administration.

Most employees who want to telework know what is expected. Despite increasing evidence of the productivity of telework, the main problem in many offices seems to be the reluctance of managers to let staff get out of their eyesight and work at home.

The Web site lists 14 basic steps to help managers minimize administrative burden and make teleworking successful, such as establishing performance management measures and communicating expectations to staff.

One piece of advice from the site is to “avoid the pitfall of assuming that someone who is present and looks busy is actually accomplishing more work than someone who is not on-site.”

Topping a list of frequently asked questions is this one: What can I do if my manager won’t let me telework?

The answer is that if you are eligible to telework under your agency’s policy and have followed proper procedures, your telework coordinator can help you write a business-based proposal to submit to your manager.

You can also submit a question to the site. After all this time and legislative effort, it should be getting easier, not harder, to work out a telework arrangement.

Are you teleworking yet? Post a comment on this blog (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com (subject: Telework) and we will post it for you.

Judy Welles
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April 21, 2008

Get a Life: Feds help food banks

The Washington Post reported recently that Bob Blair, a retired Federal Emergency Management Administration employee, had started a “volunteer farm” that grows produce for food banks. That same week, I received an email about the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

One offshoot of rising gas prices, foreclosures, and current economic conditions is a shortage of food supplies and more people seeking help at food banks -- which face rising costs too.

Blair started the Volunteer Farm in Woodstock, Va., on land he had bought five years ago to escape his urban routine of working in Washington and living in suburbia.

This year, with the help of schools, churches and other volunteers, the farm’s 40 acres will have watermelons, cantaloupes, green beans, beets, turnips, onions, corn, cucumbers, cabbage and potatoes. Harvesting varies with the planting seasons, but the onions will come in July and the potatoes in August. The fresh produce will be distributed to food banks through the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank network. 

Meanwhile, on Saturday, May 10, the National Association of Letter Carriers will conduct their annual food drive. Supporting the drive, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association is urging members to collect and bag non-perishable food items and place the bag by their mailboxes for letter carriers to pick up on May 10.

Even if you are not a member of NARFE, you can leave a bag of canned goods by your mailbox on that date. No non-perishable food will be turned away.

Judy Welles
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April 11, 2008

Get a Life: Airline misery

I happened to fly to Denver when American Airlines grounded hundreds, then thousands, of flights. I was not flying on American but quickly learned that it didn’t matter: Flying is just no longer fun, with unexpected twists and turns that are numbing.

When I worked for the government, I flew throughout the country to recruit for VISTA Volunteers at college campuses. I flew to western states to write about the Department of Interior’s land management, parks and conservation initiatives. I accompanied various Cabinet secretaries and program leaders at the Health and Human Services Department, providing speechwriting and media assistance at conferences and events. So flying came naturally and was something I enjoyed.

By contrast, my trip to Denver was a lesson in endurance. Six people boarded with seat assignments to row 23. To the amazement of flight attendants and passengers, there was no row 23.

It was even stranger because I had flown to Denver in seat 23F. So it turns out that some of the planes had row 23 and some did not. However, the seats on the return flight were booked to that row regardless. Even worse, in addition to the six displaced passengers, the flight was overbooked by three passengers. So the airline offered hotel and meal vouchers to passengers, along with $400 in plane tickets, as an incentive stay in Denver for two days until they could be booked on another flight. 

I stayed glued to seat 15C, but nine courageous, generous souls accepted the offer and got off the plane. It took five hours of waiting for the airline to finally taxi out. Thankfully, one of the passengers who had told me her story while we were waiting for the situation to be solved, was on the plane as it left.

As an Army employee, she said she had flown to her dying mother in Colorado and when she went to the airport to return to Washington, D.C. after the funeral, with ticket in hand, she was not allowed to board an overbooked flight. She said she needed to get back to the Pentagon, having spent two weeks in Colorado and knowing that her office was understaffed and needed her. It didn’t matter, she said, that she was military or that she had a death in the family. She ended up on my flight the next day. 

To top it all off: The airline I had chosen, because it had a reasonably priced direct flight from Washington, D.C., filed for bankruptcy on the day I returned.

Have you had a bad experience on airline travel on government business? How does your office handle unexpected delays that occur on your business travel? Post a comment on this blog (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com and we will post it for you.

Judy Welles
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April 9, 2008

Get a Life: How well do you get along?

Some of the best educated, most progressive thinking employees might be the most difficult to manage and to work with. At least that is the case for managers of Millennial Generation employees (ages 18-31) in some Massachusetts companies.

Top tech executives in 40 companies in the healthcare, financial services, higher education and government industries rated the Millennial Generation highest on difficulty to manage, followed by Generation X (ages 32-42) and the baby boomers (ages 43-61).

When asked which generation they enjoy working with most, employees in the same companies rated Generation X the highest, followed by baby boomers, and Millennials came in last.

Although the millennials might present challenges to some managers, they also bring important benefits to the workforce. According to coaching consultant Jim Jenkins, this group, having grown up along with Internet, is the first global-centric generation. They are among the most resilient in navigating change while having deep appreciation for diversity and inclusion.

They are also team-oriented, having participated in sports, music, and recreational activities to keep them occupied while their Baby Boomer parents focused on work. Still, they can appear demanding even impatient as they seek challenge, Jenkins observed.

Sometimes generation gaps make it difficult for one age group to relate to another, a fact noted by many observers of the gulf between Boomers and Millennials. Still, gaps, no matter how wide, can be bridged by people with open minds and friendly personalities.

Which generation do you think is the most difficult to work with in your office? Which is the hardest to manage?

Post a comment on this blog (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com and we will post it for you.

Judy Welles
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