Imagine you've just been hired to manage the Washington Nationals. Your contract is contingent on your ball club making it to the World Series. But the team's owner says you have to take the field with essentially the same players you inherited -- despite their losing record. Sound absurd? Of course, but it isn't far from reality, considering an administration proposal ...

John Berry fired the first salvo for how to "reinvigorate" and "unshackle" all aspects of federal human resources. The director of the Office of Personnel Management laid out Monday some initial ideas about changes that he hopes could bring agency hiring, firing, recruiting and retention practices in line with other Fortune 500 companies. Listen to WFED's Federal Drive "Our hiring system ...

President Obama's nominees to lead the Merit Systems Protection Board on Tuesday told senators that if confirmed they would focus on recruiting talent to replace experienced staffers who are retiring and to meet increasing demands for the agency's services. During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, they also pledged to improve ...

Federal employees submitted more than 38,000 ideas to help the government save money. An Office of Management and Budget official says as of Oct. 14 employees suggested about 38,400 ways to make the government more effective and efficient. OMB stopped accepting official entries as of last Tuesday, but says on its Web site that it would still take ideas. The official, ...

You know things are bad at a government agency when a Cabinet secretary says as much while swearing in the new boss. It happened at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in August, when Commerce Secretary Gary Locke showed up to swear in the new director, David Kappos, and told the rank-and-file that the agency's backlog had a negative impact on ...

In recent years, the web portal, USA.GOV has become one of the most popular destinations in the federal government's web presence. But now, the site's managers are plotting the "next generation" of the site, at a time when social collaboration tools are reshaping the way that people use the World Wide Web. David McClure, associate administrator with the Office of Citizen ...