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October 9, 2020 By cs

Why government must change its management model

Bureaucracy is getting worse, not better.

COVID-19 and the sudden shift to working remotely has accomplished something presidential initiatives, commissions and consultants failed to do — it’s forced work units and their managers to rethink working relationships.  There is no time or reason to do another study; agencies have to make it work.

On the positive side, this could finally provide the impetus to shed bureaucratic practices.  As John Kamensky argued in a recent column, it’s time to “strengthen unit-level health and performance.” That’s also the theme of a new book, Humanocracy, a “passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better.”  The book advances the ideas in Kamensky’s column in some important ways.

The Need to ‘Excise Bureaucracy’

Government today is confronted by multiple workforce concerns: the abrupt need for highly qualified, dedicated front line workers to battle COVID; redefined manager-employee working relationships imposed by remote working; the continuing aging of the workforce; a work experience that by all reports contributes to early turnover of new hires; and a need for improved performance.  Government is also affected by demographic trends, the changing career choices of the next generation of workers, and talent shortages in a number of fields. Looking ahead, in the absence of needed change, the workforce problems will deepen and performance will deteriorate.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/why-government-must-change-its-management-model/168449/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: bureaucracy, change management, civil service, coronavirus, COVID-19, government reform, learning culture, management, OMB, pandemic, performance, reform, trust, workforce

May 30, 2018 By AMK

OMB wants to strengthen a learning culture in government

Amazon, Apple and Google are examples of Fortune 500 companies that are known as learning organizations. They relentlessly pursue knowledge creation and transfer, leading to improvements in products and practices. By actively managing their institutional learning, they serve their customers’ needs — and their bottom lines.

In government, on the other hand, deliberative strategic planning around learning happens far too rarely. Even though the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act requires agencies to develop strategic plans, its implementation has never met the original expectations. There are good reasons why learning approaches differ between the public and private sectors, but every organization can learn and apply that knowledge to improve results.

A few federal agencies are showing that it can be done. The Labor Department, for example, requires its operating agencies to develop learning agendas that identify high-priority research studies that those agencies would like to have done. The U.S. Agency for International Development launched a learning office with agencywide policies that encourage grantees to develop learning plans. And in just the last two years, the Small Business Administration has made notable progress, launching an evaluation office and creating an agency-wide learning agenda.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2018/05/omb-wants-strengthen-learning-culture-government/148350/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, continuous learning, Labor Dept., learning culture, OMB, performance, SBA, USAID

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