If your department or agency has great managers, it can make life much easier. A manager who understands the implications of their words, actions, and decisions can save HR from headaches, formal complaints, and lawsuits. The best managers also understand that listening can be even more powerful than talking. Whereas a bad manager might be…
Blogs
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Your Managers Should Be an Excellent Source of Tips
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You Need Investigative Case Management Software, Not a Software Development Project
No two investigative agencies are governed by the same mission, structure and statutes. That’s why each agency’s case management system requires upfront configuration to meet their needs. Workflows, data types, user permissions, and reporting should all be configured to match an agency’s processes so the system can live up to its potential. But there’s a…
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Reduce Fraud with an Employee Assistance Program
While there are people who will commit fraud to enrich themselves, many employees who engage in fraudulent actions are doing so because they’re facing intense personal pressures. For instance, employees facing bankruptcy may see financial fraud as their only way out. Employees that have personal issues that are keeping them out of work may attempt…
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Working Together Is Harder After You’ve Been Apart
The effects of the pandemic have been so pervasive that when we look back on 2020 it may be the only thing that seems relevant. But there were other significant events that would have seemed massive this year were it not for COVID-19. The commonality between these events was that they led to differing, strongly…
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2021 State and Local Government Employment Outlook: Not Good
When the COVID pandemic led to economic shutdowns in the spring, it was immediately apparent that it would have an impact on state budgets. As the pandemic (and the shutdowns) dragged on into months, and then quarters, it became increasingly apparent that the effect would be devastating. Moody’s Analytics estimated in June that state and…
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Employees at Multiple Federal Agencies Report Racist Behavior
Any organization as large as the federal government is going to face reports of racism from employees. A number of shocking reports in recent weeks, however, highlight the need for vigilance in aggressively rooting out egregious conduct. In a recent survey of 1,500 VA employees, 80% of them said that racism is a moderate or…
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Pandemic Presents Challenges for Public Sector Recruiting
COVID has made it harder to do almost everything in person. And of the many things agencies need to do in person, hiring new employees and training them are among the most important. This is especially true for customer-facing jobs. Even though new hires may be working from offices that aren’t currently open, those offices…
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Federal Hiring in 2021: More Flexible, or More Subjective?
As the pandemic’s effects took hold, most organizations weren’t able to look at much of anything and think “Thank goodness we prepared for this.” But the Office of Personnel Management’s USA Staffing platform upgrade in 2015 helped agencies across the federal government bring employees onboard with a “touchless” system – an upgrade that was so…
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Schools Face Too Many Challenges. Cyberattackers Could Add One More.
One of the biggest nightmares any HR department faces is a cyberattack. It’s an especially large threat at schools; the amount of private information schools have is enormous, and much of it belongs to children, whose data is even more sensitive than that of adults. The most publicized recent cyberattack was in Miami-Dade county, where…
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Study Attaches Real Numbers to Telework Savings
A recent study by Global Workplace Analytics found that the federal government would save $11 billion if all federal employees who are eligible for telework did so half of the time. Employees would also do better financially, saving $2,500 to $4,000 annually on transportation, food, dry cleaning and other costs associated with daily office work….