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Ten Tips to Attract the 'Sheldons' to Your Agency

The federal government already holds many of the tools it needs to effectively recruit, hire and retain many of our nation’s smartest and most highly-skilled workers – those in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical fields. Agencies just need to leverage those tools more effectively, according to a new report.  

The report, “The Biggest Bang Theory: How to Get the Most Out of the Competitive Search for STEMM Employees,” released Wednesday by the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton, outlines several steps agencies can take to compete with other industries for the so-called “Sheldons” – a reference to the brilliant young physicist in the hit sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

“It’s a good news-bad news story,” Dr. Ronald Sanders, a vice president and fellow at Booz Allen Hamilton, said Wednesday. “The bad news is that STEMM talent is in short supply, and in government, with citizenship and clearance requirements, they further shrink the candidate pool. . . The good news is that the government has a lot of tools as its disposal to compete in that market.”

Roughly one-quarter of the federal government is composed of employees with STEMM skills, with 15.4 percent of those employees working in information ...

OPM Advertises Vacant CIO Position

The Office of Personnel Management is accepting applications for its vacant Chief Information Officer position.

According to a post on USAJOBS.com, OPM is accepting applications through May 30 for the CIO position at their Washington, D.C. headquarters. The selected candidate will join the Senior Executive Service, with a salary ranging from $119,554 to $179,700 per year, according to the announcement.

The new CIO will be responsible for managing the design, development and implementation of information technology, establishing IT policies, approving and providing leadership in the selection and acquisition of IT and manage OPM’s ADP security program.

Applicants must detail in their resume how they meet the five executive core qualifications of the Senior Executive Service: leading change, leading people, driving results, business acumen and building coalitions.

Hat Tip: GovLoop

Demand for IT Grads Is Driving Up Supply, Study Finds

The high demand for information technology professionals is driving up the number of college students pursuing IT-related degrees, according to a new report.

The “American Tech Talent Crunch,” released Tuesday by IT jobs website Dice.com, found that 43,072 IT-related bachelor degrees and 37,677 associates degrees were conferred in 2011, jumping 9 percent and 16 percent respectively over the previous year. The number of associate’s degrees in particular has jumped 36 percent over the past four years, Dice found.

Those numbers are lower than their peak in 2004, when nearly 60,000 tech bachelor’s degrees were conferred, but significantly higher than 2009, when just 38,000 were given.

“As the growing demand for tech workers meets a growing supply – a higher number of new two-year and four-year graduates entering the workforce – the result may well be more competitive pressure for job applicants and a tougher fight among the best and brightest for coveted jobs on the enterprise side of the tech world,” the report states.

It appears that one trend in IT-related degrees is an increasing emphasis on two-year degrees, particularly as more businesses and schools provide an “open door” to recent graduates eager to start ...

Telework Honor Roll

Six federal agencies and one state agency received awards late last month for excellence in telework programs and mobility.

The 8^th annual Tele-Vision Awards, run by Mobile Work Exchange, recognized public sector telework and mobility programs, including agency accomplishments and individual contributions to supporting a mobile workforce.

Unlike past years, which often had repeat agencies that simply updated their telework programs, this year’s winners were all new, a testament of the progress telework has made across the federal government, Cindy Auten, general manager for Mobile Work Exchange, said last week.

“Historically, we have had a repeat winner that had expanded their program, so we started to see a lot of the same people,” Auten said. “This year, all award winners were new, which was really interesting and helped uncover some of these new practices.”

The awardees were selected by an independent panel of judges made up of professionals from government and affiliate organizations with experience funding, implementing and managing telework and mobility programs.

Award winners were:

Federal Telework Honorable Mention Award: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program, which launched in 2012 after the EEOC saw a need to reduce costs while providing ...

FEMA Ramps Up Telework, Mobility

Mobility is part of the mission at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now leaders are taking it to the next level, radically transforming the workplace with a focus on technology.

FEMA is embracing a mobility strategy that emphasizes modern workspaces, telework and hoteling -- an unassigned seating arrangment -- said Tonya Schreiber, the agency's deputy chief administrative officer, speaking at last week’s Telework Town Hall meeting sponsored by Mobile Work Exchange.

“FEMA is about people,” Schreiber said. “We have to have people to help protect people and do what we do best, so instead of paying for space and outdated systems that don’t work, we are investing in our people and empowering them with the right tools and the ability to effectively do their jobs.”

The strategy includes an effort to reduce the number of office buildings FEMA leases from eight to three and to create more open, collaborative workspace at those remaining locations. This effort, which is projected to be completed by 2016, will reduce office space by 182,000 square feet and will save more $9.1 million per year in leasing costs and roughly $530,000 per year in utility costs, she said.

The agency ...