News from the VA’s Office of Human Resources and Administration

What’s Inside:

1. Top 50 Military-Friendly Employers
2. Grades on Management Scorecard Fall
3. Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard.
4. How to Improve Government Performance
5. Businesses Should Evaluate Leadership, Too

1. Top 50 Military-Friendly Employers
2. Grades on Management Scorecard Fall.  Many Federal agencies have taken a step backward on the Bush administration’s five major management initiatives, according to quarterly grades released by the Office of Management and Budget.
3. Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard.  A new book shows managers how to weave organizational principles into a more effective management system that respects the differences between strategy and operations yet integrates them in a powerful way.
4. How to Improve Government Performance.  For more than a decade, performance systems within a number of states have evolved with a strong emphasis on measuring programs and results.  But the best processes cannot effect positive change without the right people.
5. Businesses Should Evaluate Leadership, Too.  At performance review time, above and beyond looking strictly at dollar results, managers must be evaluated for their ability to motivate, inspire, engage, and retain their people.
6. The New Employee Connection: Social Networking Behind The Firewall.  Companies are increasingly building networks behind their firewall where employees can create profiles and connect with one another in ways first demonstrated by LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace.
7. Creating a Comfortable Workspace.  Many American workers are looking at their office or cubicle as a home away from home and decorating them accordingly.
8. Etiquette in the Workplace: Don’t Forget Your Manners!  When was the last time that you read results of a credible study indicating that rudeness, incivility, and sarcasm are the best ways to treat employees when you want to get maximum productivity from them?
9. Office Annoyances Shouldn’t Cloud Judgment About Your Workplace.  Lack of accountability has a demoralizing impact that can permeate a work environment.  Before you throw in the towel, analyze the situation and give your peers and your manager a chance to redeem themselves.
10. What I Have Learned About Supervision.  First-line supervisors are the Federal government’s largest corporate leadership asset in sheer numbers and direct impact.  Yet they must be more adequately prepared and supported to perform at the level that current and future needs require.
11. Blended Learning: A Cost-Effective Corporate Training Solution.  As companies are finding it more difficult to schedule groups of employees to attend training sessions during the day, many are turning to solutions that provide a more flexible means of delivery.
12. Coach Wellness.  Once an executive perk largely focused on career issues, today’s coaching is used by a small but growing number of companies to help employees with work-life and wellness challenges.
13. Staffing Firm Becomes America’s First "Office of the Future."  A leading professional staffing firm reported that they have successfully completed a 6-month study to measure the impact on individual wellness from increased activity in a real-life office.
14. Taking a Break Offers Employees Many Benefits.  All work and no play can lead to a range of mental, physical, and emotional problems that can lead to burnout and reduced productivity.
15. Stressed? Neglecting Yourself Can Cause Real Problems.  Many working adults skip sleep, eat lunch while driving, and give away all of their off days to family and volunteer work.  But, being human, they will eventually crash.
16. Spiritual Counseling Enters Job Sites.  As employers seek to find an edge in recruiting and retaining workers, more and more companies are offering free spiritual counseling in their ”work-life” package of employee benefits.
17. Is Working Like This for Real?  Every week brings another announcement of a government agency adopting a 4-day work week or a business expanding telecommuting options to help minimize employees’ pain at the gas pump.
18. Most Office Workers Fear Backlash of Telecommuting, But See Trend Increasing.  In an interesting contradiction, a majority of office workers fear that telecommuting can hurt their career prospects, yet just over half believe that it is beneficial for a company to endorse telecommuting.
19. Telework Becomes More Attractive as Quality-of-Life Concerns Spike.  Telework might not solve all the Federal government’s workforce ills, but it’s providing relatively cheap and easy relief for agencies struggling to make themselves more resilient and performance-oriented.
20. Developing Workers at the Other End of the Age Spectrum.  There’s a global perception that once employees pass a certain age, they become less valuable.  Organizations need to overcome this bias and invest in efforts to engage older workers.
21. Baby Boomer Strategies for Slowing Down.  While not necessarily ready to retire, many 40– and 50–somethings have begun to slow down their career merry-go-round.
22. Job Market for Aging Boomers Will Favor Brains Over Brawn.  Baby boomers looking for jobs in growth fields that welcome older workers will want to dust off their diplomas rather than their treadmills, according to a new report from the Urban Institute.
23. Generation Y the Least Engaged.  The knives are out again for Generation Y as a new survey finds that in almost all parts of the world except India, employees born since 1980 are the least engaged members of the workplace.
24. Field Guide to Workforce Millenials.  The next generation of workers is different from boomers and Xers, but like most employees, they respond well to high expectations and accountability, consistent feedback, and a little understanding.
25. Does Your Generation Pose an Office Security Risk?  Whether you were born in the swinging sixties or are part of the slacker generation, some security experts say generational social influences can give you bad habits and make you an office liability.
26. U.S. Demographic Landscape Shifts.  An analysis of 2007 Census estimates shows that White populations have declined in more than half of the USA’s counties since 2000, helping fuel a rise in the number of communities where minorities are now the majority.
27. Becoming Us.  All those people who look different, speak a different language, and eat different food—will they ever blend into American society the way previous immigrant groups have?
28. States Urge Cultural Competency in Health Care.  As the ethnic profile diversifies in the United States, some states are trying to assure that health care providers are trained in cultural competency.
29. $1M Grant Goes to New Nursing Program at Pace.  A new doctoral nursing program at Pace University has won a 3-year Federal grant of nearly $1 million to help enhance its curriculum and promote greater cultural sensitivity.
30. New Alliance to Address Healthcare Disparities Through Educational Initiative.  In an effort to help reduce racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in healthcare, leading professional organizations and academic medical institutions have joined forces in a unique collaborative alliance.
31. Giving Disabled Vets a Boost Through IT.  Thanks to a program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, dozens of veterans are being trained to become Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technicians.
32. Crusade for War Veterans Continues.  The author of Asbestos: The Silent Killer of Navy Veterans has toned down his combativeness and criticism of the Veterans Administration in his crusade to help as many veterans as possible get disability compensation.
33. Vet Seeks Affirmation of Agent Orange’s Impact.  The Agent Orange Gastro-Intestinal Cancers Act of 2008 would allow veterans to get service-connected disability benefits and care at Veterans Administration clinics when they are diagnosed with cancers of the gastrointestinal tract.
34. Court: No Voter Drives at VA Hospitals.  A Federal appeals court has upheld a Veterans Administration policy barring voter registration drives inside its hospitals, concluding the rule does not violate the First Amendment.
35. Religion Allowed in VA Care, Court Rules.  Taxpayers cannot sue the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for incorporating religion into its health care programs for the nation’s veterans, an appeals court has ruled.
36. Things to Say to LGBT Coworkers.  While more straight people are advocating for equal workplace rights for LGBT coworkers these days, many don’t know how to welcome a coworker who has recently come out of the closet.