With most of quarantining and embracing the work-from-home lifestyle, we’re spending a lot more time with our furry friends. While we may miss seeing our colleagues in-person, we are enjoying extra quality time Fluffy and Fido. […]
In accordance with recent White House initiatives, the Department of Defense (DoD) is developing plans for Washington, D.C.-area employees to return to the Pentagon and begin a “new normal,” Secretary Mark Esper said at a May 4 Brookings Institution webinar. […]
I’m a veteran of the conference-going circuit, and my professional world has been turned on its head in the current climate. […]
Several members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs are criticizing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for its lack of Senate briefings on the Federal workforce during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. […]
Remote work isn’t a new thing for many organizations, but with pandemic-driven shelter-in-place orders and travel restrictions, it’s the new normal. For most, this experience is a mixed blessing. Work-life and home-life are melding together, more time is being spent with family and furry-friends, and commutes are non-existent – unless you count walking from bed to the home office. But during work hours, instead of chatting around the water cooler at our leisure, we’re now being inundated with virtual meeting requests. […]
With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing both Federal agencies and the private sector to make a rapid shift to telework, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) launched a dedicated telework product line. […]
The Office of Management and Budget’s recent memo encouraging Federal agencies to maximize telework across the nation, has proven to cause some challenges for government workers making the shift, according to Kathleen Glow-Morgan, national transformational coach captain at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) transitioned from 50 percent to 100 percent telework during the coronavirus pandemic without any noticeable service disruptions, Deputy CIO Beth Killoran announced at the April 30 ACT-IAC COVID-19 Town Hall. […]
As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to reverberate through all aspects of daily life, many are asking the same question: How can I help? […]
The spread of COVID-19 has drastically changed how government IT thinks of resiliency. Resiliency and continuity of operations planning were reserved for potential disaster scenarios – how agencies might respond should an attack or system shutdown occur, and how to recover. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has more than tripled the numbers of agency employees teleworking on a daily basis since February, an agency spokesperson told MeriTalk. […]
The National Security Agency (NSA) released a guide on April 24 to help Federal agencies make decisions about which collaboration and video chat services to use during telework, as the government continues to adjust to mass telework orders. […]
The Department of Energy (DoE) has moved the vast majority of its workforce – 85 percent – to telework to help stem the spread of COVID-19, a DoE official confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
We’ve all done it – it’s really easy to do. […]
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote a joint letter to the Trump administration urging them to not prematurely reopen Federal offices. Each of us have made tough decisions about which employees in our governments are performing essential roles and must still report to work locations, and which […]
The Office of Personnel Management released guidance on April 22 to agencies on how to implement sections of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that involve emergency paid sick leave. […]
How’s this for an emergency drill within the eye of the swirling coronavirus storm? As America social distanced, Federal IT has literally brought us together – as a government, and as a nation. As government IT operations achieve steady-state amid the demands of the pandemic, let’s begin to lift the veil on that story, starting with the Small Business Administration (SBA). […]
As we enter week six of telework, I find myself looking for small bits of normalcy. Finding new ways to support local businesses that I enjoy frequenting the most has helped achieve that. Rewinding to early March, I packed up my essentials at the 300Brand offices and thought I’d be back in a few short weeks. In those early days, I saw a lot of my favorite local businesses scrambling to launch virtual offerings. Yoga studios were streaming classes on social media, coffee shops were offering online ordering, and neighborhood restaurants were adding delivery for the first time. Were these options perfect? No. But they were helping us all get by. […]
The Small Business Administration (SBA) transitioned to telework “without missing a beat,” quickly implemented new programs, and scaled to adjust to a mass number of new users amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic thanks to prior IT modernization and cloud transitions, per CIO Maria Roat. […]
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is requesting that Federal government offices meet a list of preconditions before reopening to employees. […]
In a Department of Defense (DoD) press conference on April 22, U.S. Air Force General John E. Hyten and Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist laid out a four-tiered testing program for service members. […]
The Department of the Interior (DOI) has tripled its remote work numbers amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as agencies were instructed to maximize telework. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been on maximum telework mode since March 15, an OPM spokesperson told MeriTalk, adding “on any given day approximately 90 percent of the workforce is teleworking.” […]
Resiliency has taken on new meaning for government agencies as they accommodate new ways of working due to COVID-19 and as a result, grapple with an exponentially larger attack surface. MeriTalk sat down with former Navy CIO and DoD Deputy CIO, Robert Carey, now VP/GM of Global Public Sector Solutions at RSA Security, to talk about steps agencies can take to ensure they meet their missions in the short term, as well as in the longer term as we navigate toward the “new normal.” […]
The United States Agency for International Development operates in over 100 countries, providing foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. On March 2, approximately 65 percent of the overseas workforce logged in to their computers at USAID facilities while just 22 percent of the nearly 7,000 overseas staff logged in remotely or teleworked. […]
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has moved almost entirely to telework, an EPA spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
Steven Nguyen, Vice President and General Manager-Public Sector at Citrix, has charted a career path that could serve as a virtual roadmap for informing and supporting the Federal IT industry enterprise over the past three decades. […]
The novel coronavirus pandemic has touched many aspects of business in the United States, including how we communicate with our colleagues. […]
Since the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) instructed all employees who could to work from home just over a month ago, the agency is now reporting that 95 percent of their employees are currently teleworking, a senior HUD spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
The State Department workforce is at about 90 percent telework, with the remaining 10 percent performing duties not transferrable to telework such as driving, CIO Stuart McGuigan announced at the April 21 AFCEA breakfast. […]