Category Archives: Supervisory

Want to Improve Government Customer Experience? Focus on Employee Morale

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Federal efforts to improve agency interactions with citizens will fall short unless employees are fully invested in the process, understand the goals, have a say in how to make improvements and are rewarded for their work.

Recent studies of the private sector have found that employee engagement goes hand in hand with the quality of customer experience they provide. Federal leaders should focus on this connection, considering the government lags well behind the private sector on employee engagement, according to the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government analysis. This gap is making it harder for government to meet the rising expectations of citizens for fast, simple, user-friendly interactions.

In the public sector, research conducted by the National Center for Organization Development within the Department of Veterans Affairs found that… (For more, click here.)

Do you agree that the strategies listed in this article can lead to improved employee morale and citizen satisfaction? Which have you seen at your agency? Which do you wish you would see at your agency?

That Focusing Trick Good Leaders Use to Stay on Task

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Public sector leaders often face two conflicting choices:

Choice No. 1: Focus on where I will place my foot for the next step.
or
Choice No. 2: Focus 10 steps ahead.

On what should leaders concentrate their attention? (To read more, click here.)

How does this apply to your job as an HR practitioner? How have you put into practices the principles in this article?

 

Job Restructuring as Reasonable Accommodation

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An often perplexing and frustrating area of the law for federal managers is disability discrimination and reasonable accommodations. As the law has evolved, so too has the federal workforce and employee medical impairments. More often today, employees–whether veterans suffering from the non-obvious mental impairments associated with post-traumatic stress disorder or aging federal workers plagued with a whole host of physiological maladies–cannot simply be accommodated with wheelchair ramps, ergonomic desk chairs, or adjusted schedules.

With the prevalence of physical and mental impairments in the workplace, it is easy for a federal manager to unknowingly discriminate against a disabled employee by failing to provide a reasonable accommodation. To read this article, click here.

In part 2 of his series on job restructuring, the author explores how job restructuring could affect other employees. To read this follow-up article, click here.

In what ways have you seen your agency meet their reasonable accommodation responsibilities?

Have you seen co-workers asked to shoulder heavier workloads to accommodate a disabled employee? Has such action affected morale or accomplishment of the agency mission? How has management countered any unintended negative effects?

Unconscious Bias and Its Impact on the Workplace

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In theFedSmith.com article, Review of Unconscious Bias, the author states, that “bias is a prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another usually in a way that’s considered to be unfair. Biases may be held by an individual, group, or institution and can have negative or positive consequences. The types of biases are conscious bias (also known as explicit bias) and unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias). Biases are not limited to ethnicity and race and may exist toward or from any social group.” For more, click here.

How have you seen this play out in your workplace? Has such bias affected the accomplishment of your unit or agency mission? How has it affected you directly?

Effective Management Requires Effective Discipline

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In this FedSmith.com article, the author states that “Corrective discipline should be the goal is most cases. [Discipline] is not intended to resolve severe or chronic cases of poor performance or misbehavior and to replace punitive actions when necessary. Nevertheless, when the [corrective discipline approach] is applied judiciously and appropriately, time and money can be saved and organizational goals can be enhanced.” For more on this important subject, click here.

Probationary Periods: A Missed Opportunity to Address Poor Performance

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In its recently released report on poor performers in Government, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended more effective use of the probationary period to identify and remove individuals who are unlikely to be good performers. GAO recommended that agencies consider doing more to ensure that supervisors have the opportunity to intercede before an individual completes a probationary period and that OPM and possibly Congress consider whether longer probationary periods might be appropriate for some positions[1].

MSPB’s extensive research over the past decade supports these recommendations. In a 2009 survey, we asked proposing and deciding officials for adverse actions whether the individual in question demonstrated during the probationary period that he or she was a good employee. Only 56% of those with knowledge of the individual during that period agreed the individual had shown good signs at that time. Thus, it appears that some of these adverse actions could have been avoided by better use of the probationary period.

We also conducted a survey of supervisors of probationary employees, discussed in our 2005 report, The Probationary Period: A Critical Assessment Opportunity. Of those supervisors who admitted that they would not select the person again if they could do it over, ….

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Effective Performance Discussions: Don’t Forget to Look Forward

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Much of the guidance on performance evaluation focuses on measurement— developing standards of performance, evaluating performance against those standards, and documenting the results. Performance evaluations matter greatly to employees as a factor in pay decisions and as a lasting reflection of the organization’s valuation of employees’ work contributions. Thus, it is important that they be done carefully rather than casually.

Performance evaluations and performance discussions should not focus exclusively on the past. The purpose of performance evaluation—and the employee-supervisor discussion of an evaluation—is not merely to look back. It is also to look forward—to think about what should be done to sustain or improve performance. Indeed, one of OPM’s warranty conditions for a performance management program is “commitment to… conscientious development of employees.” That look forward should include both performance (What results do we want?) and the person (What skills or support does the employee need to achieve those results?). …

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Leaders: “Recognizing” Employees Requires More Than Just Knowing Who Works for You

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Results of a 2012 American Psychological Association (APA) survey of working Americans indicate that feeling valued was a key driver of engagement and job performance[1]. For example, among employees who indicated that they were valued, 93% agreed that they were motivated to do their best at work and 88% reported that they felt engaged. In sharp contrast, employees who thought they were not valued indicated agreement levels of only 33% and 38%, respectively, to these same questions about motivation and engagement.

MSPB’s research confirms that appreciation is similarly important to Federal employees and Federal agencies. Our analysis revealed that employees who believed that their effort would result in higher performance and that they would receive recognition for that performance were more likely to perform well[2].

For these reasons, appreciation and recognition for a job well done are more than a matter of courtesy. Unfortunately, the trend in Federal employees’ experience of recognition is not positive, …..

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Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout

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Given the current environment in the federal HR world, it is increasingly difficult to manage the demands of work. In this article, Harvard Business Review provides some suggestions that can be employed by both the supervisor and the individual employee.

Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout

What do you think? Which of these recommendations do you think would be helpful in your work environment? Which are unrealistic? What do you think your supervisor would say if you forwarded this article to him/her?