GovCentral

Time flies when you're wasting it These days, no one can afford to waste time at work. Thanks to widespread downsizing, workloads are piling up. Unfortunately, extra hours in the day are not. Maximizing your time at work can mean the difference between leaving at a reasonable hour (i.e. holding onto your sanity) and staying late unnecessarily. You’ve got a ...

The Cato Institute, a libertarian leaning think tank, suggests that the average federal worker is paid more than the average private-sector employee, especially when fringe benefits like health insurance and pensions are factored in. Nancy Folbre, Economics Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in a recent New York Times article, wanted to explore if there was any merit to these ...

600,000 over three years. 273,000 deemed mission-critical. That's how many people the Partnership for Public Service projects the federal government will need to hire by 2012 to fill growing needs as well as replacing a baby-boomer workforce set to retire. These numbers and other hiring projections are listed just in time for some Labor Day reading in the third edition of ...

Question: Washington, D.C.: Why does the government actively advertise jobs on their job site that are reserved for people within the agency? I am very tired of applying for jobs only to be told, months later, they have decided not to fill the position. I am told this is because the person they wanted to promote from within somehow didn't get ...

One of the best part of serving in the Military is playing with cool toys. Newsweek has compiled some of the best and strangest ones in a photo gallery they call, ahem, Weapons Porn. Gadget blog, Gizmodo, has picked a favorite. It's the Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot aka the Care B.E.A.R. I think this would be appropriate to extract over-served interns during ...

Sit in front of laptop. Lie on couch. Eat pickles for lunch. Back to laptop. Feel sorry for self. Feel sick of self. Tear hair out in frustration. And ... back to couch. If this is your 9-to-5 routine, you're probably like 14 million other Americans: unemployed. And in addition to the frustration of looking for work, you might find yourself ...

In a new feature we're calling Ask GovGuru, our Editorial team and experts will be responding to your questions about careers in government. At GovCentral, one of our goal's is to empower individuals to find the information and resources they need to begin a career as public servant in government at the federal, state, or local level. We hope that our ...

If you've been selected for an internal transfer, congratulations. An internal transfer can be an opportunity to develop your skills, boost your visibility, expand your network and make more money. Internal transfers can be promotions or reassignments. They can occur as a reward for great work, to test your potential for more senior positions, or because you are the best or ...

h4. A ABANDONMENT OF POSITION — When an employee (e.g., DD04) are considered as one agency fails to report for duty and does not submit a resignation. ABSENCE WITHOUT LEAVE (AWOL) — Absence without prior approval, a non-pay status resulting from an Agency determination that it will not grant any type of leave (not even leave without pay) for a period ...

Now more than ever, it’s important to get the best bang for your buck and live in a high job-growth area. And there’s no question about it — when it comes to economics, not every U.S. city is created equally. Why chase a great salary if your rent swallows most of it, unemployment is skyrocketing and you spend two hours a ...

Less than two weeks after his inauguration, President Obama signed a little-noticed executive order that could dramatically change how federal contractors staff their government projects. The Jan. 30 directive requires service providers that win follow-on contracts to offer jobs to nonmanagerial employees at the previous company. No positions can be advertised until former employees have been granted the right of first ...

What will the Obama administration do to ensure development of a strong, skills-based federal workforce? Given the country's financial meltdown, ballooning deficits, deepening housing crisis and on-going national security challenges, this is a critical question to answer in coming months. Agencies must take a strategic, multifaceted approach to human capital planning. This means considering requirements across the spectrum, starting with workforce ...

A survey of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission employees suggests that morale is decreasing as the agency's workload is reaching record levels. Respondents to a January survey conducted by the American Federation of Government Employees Council 216, which represents EEOC workers, said they needed more support to deal with a rising pile of employment discrimination claims. The union posted the survey on ...

Deep inside the current swine flu scare, there may be a silver lining for federal employees -- greater acceptance of telework in musty bureaucracies. Although increased telecommuting has been a federal workplace goal for many years, statistics show a difference between theory and practice. Part of the problem has been managers who are reluctant to approve at-home working arrangements because they ...

In the midst of what is being called the “great recession”, we know that government agencies and organizations are facing a challenging time. Government and education institutions are facing a vastly changed landscape, requiring a revamp in HR communications and training to create high performance workforces. As our customers are navigating an ever changing landscape, issues of recruiting, retaining and maintaining ...

With tens of millions of people unemployed or underemployed, and with blue-chip industries from automotive to banking in distress, the US workforce sorely needs help. So the new funding for job training provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is a well-timed boon to American workers. “The [federal] workforce system will play a vital role in America’s economic recovery ...

Who makes your favorite shoes or outfits? What beverage calls your name when you need a pick-me-up? Whose movies won't you miss? Whose help do you seek when you want a project done right, at home or at work? All of these questions involve your reactions to a particular brand -- a collection of assumptions about quality, appeal and reliability that ...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a reputation for secrecy and data protection. Yet that organization was one of the first in the United States - in either the public or private sector - to embrace telecommuting. But the IRS is not the only arm of the federal government embracing telecommuting; many agencies have far outpaced the private sector in adopting ...

The broad, sometimes little-defined concept of change - especially as it relates to improving government management - was a central theme of the 2008 presidential election. Now our new president is faced with having to make good on the promise of change during one of the most challenging economic environments the nation has seen since the Great Depression. The question is ...

Some people like to wade into cold water one step at a time, while others prefer to jump in feet first and get it over with all at once. The same applies to federal employees nearing retirement. You could go cold turkey by accepting your last paycheck and never entering the workforce again. Or you can ease into retirement by shifting ...