 |
|
|
|
Government Leader home > news stories
10/11/06
Progress on human capital issues need executive leadership, says Davis
By Richard W. Walker
Government Leader Staff
In a perfect world, there would be a service academy for civil servants where prospective federal employees would receive an education, make a commitment to work for the government and get trained in public policy, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) said.
But the world isn’t perfect, and the government is still falling short in its efforts to transform human capital—its chief asset, according to Davis, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.
“We’re only as good as the people we hire and the tools that we give them,” Davis told a group of executives at a recent forum in Washington sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government. “At the end of the day, I’d like to empower our civil servants, train them, and give them the tools and systems they need to get the job done … but it’s very difficult to change Washington.”
For Davis, a glaring example of barriers to change in government is the Homeland Security Department. Combining 22 disparate agencies and 170,000 employees from different federal cultures to enhance national security was “great in theory,” but “instead of getting better, it’s getting worse.”
What needs to be done to pave the way for the necessary reforms? Davis said it will take a mix of legislation and, most important, leadership from the executive branch.
“You can legislate anything, but if [you] don’t have executive branch buy-in, it goes nowhere,” he said. “These processes basically start and stop with the executive branch, but it still takes a combination because in some cases you’re going to need changes in the law to give the executive branch more flexibility.” For example, he said, establishing a public-service academy would require legislation, but the effort would also need support from the executive branch.
Davis said one key human-capital area where the government is lagging is telework. He agreed that there is still too much unfounded concern about managing an “out of sight” federal workforce.
“It’s an old management model that you have to watch your employees work every day and practically have them punch a time card,” Davis said. “I think government is way behind the eight ball on this. Obviously, there are some people who have to be [on site] every day … but there are a lot of jobs in this information era that can be worked out of the home or at least some days we can give greater flexibility to.”
“I like telework because I use it in my own office,” he added. “Today, with personal computers and everything being wired up and ready access to cell phones, you don’t have to be [in an office]. In some cases, I find you can be more productive working out of your home. … With traffic the way it is in [the Washington] area, if a worker can be productive in another atmosphere it’s not only a benefit to them, it’s something that can lead to higher productivity.”
But making telework an integral part of agency culture will take executive leadership, not just more legislation, Davis said.
“If the agency head doesn’t buy in, it’s not going anywhere,” he said. “The agency head who sees this as … something that can be helpful in recruiting, retention and productivity can make it work. The tools are all there, the [security] safeguards are there, the technology is there.”
|
|
|
![Government Leader[happiness]](/images/govleader_smlogo.gif "Government Leader [happiness]"){kind=small}
