This calendar provide detailed information regarding the day to day activities of Secretary Lew during his first few months in office. Consistent with the Freedom of Information Act, certain limited aspects of the secretary’s calendar are not released publicly.
Report with recommendations for streamlining paperwork for executive nominations. It was sent to the president and the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Committe on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.
What are the key challenges federal human capital leaders face today? Are budget constraints likely to prompt workforce reductions? How are chief human capital officers (CHCOs) responding to the changes impacting their organization? What grade would agency human capital leaders give their agencies on hiring reform? These are just a few of the topics covered in the latest survey of CHCOs by the Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton LLP.
The report, “Bracing for Change: Chief Human Capital Officers Rethink Business as Usual”; is the fourth in a series of similar reports and offers recommendations for how federal human capital leaders and their agencies can navigate challenges and changes in this crucial time of transition.
On March 2, 2011, Partnership President and CEO Max Stier testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on streamlining the nominations process. In his testimony, Stier praised the Senate and its bipartisan working group for taking steps to reduce the number of political appointees requiring Senate confirmation. Beyond that, Stier encouraged the Senate to set goals for the incoming administration to get nominees’ paperwork in to the relevant committees so the Senate can vote on top administration officials at the beginning of the Congressional session. Stier also advocated for converting select political appointments to career positions and capping the number of political appointees at each agency instead of just across government.
On April 22, 2010, Partnership President and CEO, Max Stier, testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on the Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia on the presidential transition. Stier discussed the Partnership’s tracking of the 2008 transition and provided several recommendations based on the Partnership’s Ready to Govern (provide link to report) transition report, released a year after the inauguration. Stier thanked the members of the committee for their leadership in introducing S. 3196, the Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act of 2010, and offered additional recommendations, including mandating White House and agency transition councils.
Based on our examination of presidential transitions, and in particular the 2008–2009 experience, it is time once again to revisit and amend the presidential transition law to place requirements on the White House to better facilitate transition activities, and to enable campaigns and the president-elect to be better prepared to govern.
In this Ready to Govern report, we examine the three phases of the 2008–2009 transition—the pre-election timeframe, the period from the election to the inauguration and President Obama’s first year in office. In each section, we provide a short narrative based on the experiences and reflections of some key participants in the transition, and offer a series of recommendations for each phase on a broad range of transition issues. These include:
- Starting the transition process earlier and making it more transparent so there is no longer a stigma on preparing.
- Reducing the number of Senate-confirmed politically appointed positions.
- Congress and the White House to agree on a calendar of appointments so 500 key officials are confirmed at the six-month mark, rather than the current norm of a year.
Obama administration’s 2009 annual report to Congress on White House staff. The list includes the names, titles, salaries and statuses (full-time, part-time or detailee) of White House staff members. This report includes 487 employees — 454 full-time staffers, 1 part-time staffer and 32 detailees as of July 1, 2009.
This calendar provide detailed information regarding the day to day activities of Attorney General Holder during his first few weeks in office. Consistent with the Freedom of Information Act, certain limited aspects of the attorney general’s calendar are not released publicly.
Center for American Progress report that analyzes comprehensive new data on delays in the appointments process as well as appointee turnover in Senate-confirmed positions in executive agencies over the past five administrations.
Our next president and his team will have no shortage of people offering them advice. Considering the primacy of an effective federal workforce toward achieving the administration’s goals, they would be well served by what our government’s top human capital experts have to say. Acting upon these expert recommendations could elevate our federal government to new heights.
More than half of respondents volunteered that bold reform of our civil service system is necessary. More than two-thirds advocate eliminating or significantly updating the General Schedule pay and classification system. The vast majority of them recommend phasing out the current system gradually.
Ninety percent agree that alternative work schedules are a useful tool to a great or very great extent for attracting and retaining talent, and over half would add telework to that list of especially useful tools. Given a menu of options, direct-hire authority and dual compensation waivers are cited as the most underutilized hiring tools. The need to obtain prior OPM approval to use these tools on a case-by-case basis is cited as the main reason they are not more actively used.
Only 44 percent of CHCOs believe that federal managers and supervisors possess the supervisory or managerial competencies they need to a great extent, and none of the respondents believe federal managers overall deserve the highest rating, i.e., to a very great extent.
Only 29 percent of CHCOs believe to a great extent that HR staff members have the competencies they need. The percentage of CHCOs who believe their HR staffs are viewed as trusted advisors is 52 percent. Eighty-eight percent of the CHCOs interviewed believe federal performance management systems are doing a good job of aligning organizational goals with individual performance, up from 64 percent in 2007.