Federal Employees Research Articles

Flexibility stigma, supervisory support, and the use of flexible work arrangements in the public sector: distinguishing flextime and flexplace

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between flexible work arrangements (FWAs) in the public sector and flexibility stigma, focusing on two types of FWAs based on work schedule and work location. Using data from the 2017 Federal Work-Life Survey of U.S. federal employees, the study analyzes how supervisory and organizational support influence the relationship between flexibility stigma and FWA use. Results show a negative relationship between flexibility stigma and flextime use, while flextime use varies by type of flextime. Supervisor and organizational support mitigated the negative effects of flexibility stigma, particularly for flextime and remote work. The findings suggest that enhancing supervisory support can reduce the effects of flexibility stigma and promote effective use of FWA in the public sector. This study provides new insights into how supervisory and organizational support systems can mitigate flexibility stigma and promote the adoption of various FWAs in the public sector.

Improving Social Equity Within Public Organizations: Authority Differentials as Reference Points for Fostering Diversity and Inclusion Within U.S. Federal Agencies

Fostering diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a major challenge confronting the contemporary American administrative state. The asymmetric distribution of authority within U.S. federal agencies is critical for understanding employee perceptions of agency D&I efforts. Leveraging data from approximately 2.51 million U.S. federal employees across 105 agencies between 2010 and 2019, the statistical evidence demonstrates that authority differentials, reflected by the relative gender and racial balance of supervisory and non-supervisory personnel within U.S. federal agencies, predict employees’ evaluations of agency efforts at fostering D&I. Although these authority differentials have similar effects on employee D&I evaluations for both men and women, minority employees exhibit more sanguine assessments of agency D&I efforts than compared to non-minority colleagues predicated on such authority differentials. The statistical relationship between authority differentials and employees’ agency D&I evaluations is most pronounced for women minority employees, as well as for those holding supervisory positions.

Prediction of Utilization of Psychological Support During Vocational Rehabilitation

Comprehensive psychological support is a distinctive feature of vocational retraining centers, pivotal in stabilizing the health of the rehabilitants, reducing dropout rates and facilitating return to work. For optimal resource planning within the vocational retraining centers, and thereby ensuring the best possible psychological support during vocational rehabilitation, it is crucial to be able to estimate the number of appointments of the rehabilitants in advance. Even though routine data is available, predictions using regression analysis have not been undertaken previously. To predict the number of appointments in the psychological service, a hierarchical linear regression analysis with 25 potential predictors was conducted using retrospective routine data from 404 rehabilitants. In specifying the regression model, data-driven methods and theory were combined. The Andersen healthcare utilization model served as the theoretical background. The final regression model accounted for 39.5% of the variance in the utilization of the psychological service. Ten variables predicted a higher number of appointments: female gender, boarding status, low resilience, desire for psychological support, past psychological treatment, intake of psychotropic drugs, absence of two specific professional fields, Federal Employment Agency/Jobcenter as the paying institution, and non-participation in a specific preparatory course. The routine data available at the beginning of vocational rehabilitation in a vocational retraining center is generally suitable to predict the number of appointments in the psychological service. As such, it can be utilized for resource planning. Various factors prove to be informative, suggesting that a focus on single factors (e. g., the presence of an ICD-10 F-diagnosis) seems disadvantageous. Limitations of the regression-analytic approach are highlighted.

Table of life for beneficiaries of the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers (ISSSTE), Mexico 2021.

Determine the life expectancy in the covered population of the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers in México for 2021. We used the abrogated method from Reed-Merrel, for calculate the life expectancy in age groups. By 2021, life expectancy general was 79.51 years; 81.40 years and 78.91 years for woman and men, respectively. The calculated life expectancy not show a reduction in the population of federal and State employees in Mexico.

Automatic Frame Analysis for the Evaluation of Text Influence

The research paper focuses on the mechanism of semantic parser for automatic text analysis and represents some results of analyzing news with a total volume of 2.2 million clauses. This mechanism models the processes of text comprehension and in this paper it is applied to the evaluation of the text influence on the reader. The parser constructs a semantic representation of the text and maps the meaning of each clause to a particular frame belonging either to the set of 300 emotional or to the set of 4500 rational frames. Comparing the frames of pro-state (federal) and blocked sources in Russia, the authors show that the most frequent frames in federal news represent an interactive dialog between the media and the speaker (note, add, recall, etc.), while the most frequent frames in blocked news introduce the speaker’s utterance that has become known to the news agencies (report, write, say, etc.). This reflects the remoteness of the editors of blocked news from Russian speakers. The federal media more often report about funny or unexpected purchases, as well as about how federal employees rescue people, and this agenda should make a positive impression. The blocked media, on the other hand, are more likely to mention court sentencing and death, which should have a negative impact. The natural-language inference constructed via frame combinations is shown to enable the recognition of emotional situations in derived meanings that are not explicitly expressed in the text and, thus, it allows to analyze automatically more compound mechanisms of manipulation.

Who Gets Denied Telework in the U.S. Federal Service?

Discretionary rewards can motivate employees but increase social inequity. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, when supervisors had substantial discretion over whether and how frequently U.S. federal employees teleworked, those who did so several times a week liked most aspects of their jobs more than those who teleworked less, especially those who were denied telework. Though telework became a necessity rather than a reward during the pandemic, supervisor discretion is increasing during the return-to-the-office period, making unequal access to telework a potential site of social inequity. Using logit analysis on the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) before and during the pandemic, we examine how race, sex, disability status, and sexual orientation affected who was denied telework and how job characteristics affected those decisions. Black, Latino, and younger employees and employees with disabilities were more likely to have telework requests turned down; differences by gender and sexual orientation barely existed.

Seasonal Patterns of Living Kidney Donation in the United States From 1995 to 2019.

The number of living kidney donors in the United States has declined since 2005, with variations based on the donor-recipient relationship. The reasons for this decline are unclear, and strategies to mitigate declined donations remain elusive. We examined the change in donor number monthly (within-year) versus annually (between-years) to inform potentially modifiable factors for future interventions. In this registry-based cohort analysis of 141759 living kidney donors between 1995 and 2019, we used linear mixed-effects models for donor number per month and year to analyze between-year and within-year variation in donation. We used Poisson regression to quantify the change in the number of donors per season before and after 2005, stratified by donor-recipient relationship and zip-code household income tertile. We observed a consistent summer surge in donations during June, July, and August. This surge was statistically significant for related donors (incidence rate ratio [IRR] range: 1.12-1.33) and unrelated donors (IRR range: 1.06-1.16) across donor income tertiles. Our findings indicate lower rates of living kidney donation in non-summer months across income tertiles. Interventions are needed to address barriers to donation in non-summer seasons and facilitate donations throughout the year. Since the Organ Donor Leave Law provides a solid foundation for supporting year-round donation, extending the law's provisions beyond federal employees may mitigate identified seasonal barriers.

Vocational Rehabilitation in Times of the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed new challenges to actors in vocational rehabilitation (VR) for people with disabilities. In this study, we were interested in the following: How did actors like service providers and financers of VR (here: German Federal Employment Agency (FEA)) experience the Covid-19 pandemic, which process changes and delays have occurred, and what impact will this possibly have on the future of vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities? Between July 2020 und July 2021, a total of 29 persons from service providers of VR programs (n=16) and representatives of the FEA (n=8) were asked about their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic in the course of 24 guided expert interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded in MAXQDA; the analyses of the transcribed material are based on a system developed from inductive and deductive categories. VR programs had to be conducted remotely, digital possibilities had to be created. As a result, VR was also forced to evolve technologically, revealing opportunities (in the provision of programs) and limitations (e. g. acquisition of social skills or assessment of mental health). Thus, continuous additional support by the service providers was indispensable to contain psychological crises, to ensure the understanding of the program contents and to avoid dropouts. Just like schools, the employment agencies and job centers closed their doors for a long time and VR and general vocational counseling did not take place nor did assessment procedures carried out at the medical and psychological services of the FEA for determining VR needs. A decline in access to VR had been apparent for some time, but it became increasingly evident, particularly for 2021/22. Individuals from poor households were more likely to be affected because they were more difficult to keep in touch with. Even though VR has experienced a major digital boost, experience from the pandemic has shown that programs in face-to-face formats with social contact are particularly important for young people and people with mental disabilities. Nevertheless, VR must change with the working environment in order to prevent people with disabilities from being left behind even further.

A Taste of Telework: Effects of Remote Work Arrangements During and After the Global Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented changes in global work dynamics including mandating telework for most of the U.S. federal workforce to protect employees from health and safety hazards of the communicable virus. Although not ubiquitous, many federal employees had experience with these arrangements because they voluntarily chose telework prior to the pandemic through provisions in the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010. Using the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), which focuses on telework perceptions and experiences, this study explores the effect of the involuntary telework mandate on employees’ attitudes toward telework after several months through a prospect theory framework. Findings demonstrate that several factors including previous telework experience and experiential learning may influence employees’ preference for and voluntary selection into telework moving forward. These dynamics suggest an endowment effect for telework among employees who gained telework experience before and during the pandemic. In addition, employees may choose telework as an alternative work arrangement when they are not satisfied with their organizations or jobs but want to maintain employment. These findings suggest that agencies should continue to offer robust telework opportunities to satisfy and retain employees.

Affirmative action and employment equity in the professions: Backlash fueled by individualism and meritocracy.

In the 40 years since federal employment equity initiatives were launched in Canada, they have faced persistent backlash. This backlash is grounded in and fueled by conceptualizations of justice and equality that are rooted in ideologies of individualism and meritocracy. Here we draw on 140 qualitative interviews with members of six professions from across Canada, who self-identify as Indigenous, Black or racialized, ethnic minority, disabled, 2SLGBTQ+, and/or from working-class origins, to explore tensions between concepts of justice grounded in group-based oppressions and those grounded in individual egalitarianism. Though affirmative action and employment equity opened up opportunities, people were still left to fight for individual rights. This push to individualism was intensified by persistent hostile misperceptions that people are less qualified and in receipt of 'unfair advantages.' Through discursive misdirection, potential for transformative institutional change is undermined by liberal discourses of individualism and meritocracy.

The Tethered Pathway to Organizational Adaptation in Collaboration

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine how the framework of administrative tethering (AT) provides important guidance and insight at the organizational level to support a strategic management mechanism to ameliorate pressing political, social, and economic issues for the public good. This investigation was an empirical analysis of data collected from the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint (FEV) Survey and records attributed to the Department of the Navy (N = 32,416). The Department of the Navy consists of naval forces and marine forces for maritime operations, which conduct internal collaboration and represent cases of both external institution to institution (i2i) collaboration and internal unit to unit (u2u) collaboration. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a useful analytical approach to examine the relationships among all the measured and latent variables. The resulting SEM analysis evoked the importance of individual behaviors on collaborative efforts.

Socio-medical assessment: an inventory of the Medical Service of the Federal Employment Agency

The Medical Service of the Federal Employment Agency is responsible for socio-medical assessments of clients whose ability to work in the labor market is in question. Data about the Medical Service, its structure, and its performance were previously only available within the Federal Employment Agency. In October 2023, data from the Medical Service containing information on the employee structure, clients, and orders were extracted from three data systems, processed, and analyzed. The number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) in the Medical Service decreased significantly from 2016 (n = 859.1 FTEs) to 2021 (n = 799.0 FTEs). This holds true for the professional groups of physicians, specialist assistants, medical assistants, and externally contracted physicians. The number of female employee FTEs rose significantly during this period from 85.6% (2016) to 87.0% (2021). The part-time ratio also increased significantly from 41.4% (2016) to 50.6% (2021). The number of assignments to the Medical Service was stable in 2017-2019 at around 630,000 but showed areduction in 2020 (n = 518,538) and 2021 (n = 545,289); in particular, the number of assessments with client contact decreased significantly from 2019 (n = 166,980) to 2020 (n = 52,484). Most of the assignments came from the field of job placement (n = 349,346). The size of the Medical Service was in line with the total number of orders, which can certainly be seen as COVID-19-related in 2020 and 2021 and is likely due to the overall shortage of skilled personnel. The proportion of women and part-time employees increased significantly, with anationwide part-time trend emerging not only among women. In order to enable all clients who may be unable to perform in the labor market to receive aquick assessment, it is necessary that the number of employees in the Medical Service does not decrease in the future.

Public Managers and Job Satisfaction: Exploring an Effective Way to Improve Their Job Satisfaction

Extensive research indicates that enhancing employee satisfaction and motivation leads to improved organizational performance. Given the crucial role public managers play in delivering quality public services, ensuring their satisfaction becomes paramount. This study, based on survey data from approximately half a million U.S. federal government employees, explores the factors influencing public managers’ job satisfaction and investigates whether managerial positions moderate these effects. The findings reveal that overall job satisfaction is positively impacted by satisfaction with both intrinsic and extrinsic job aspects, irrespective of managerial status. However, the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on overall job satisfaction undergoes significant changes when a public employee assumes a managerial position.

Assessing the Effects of Workplace Contextual Factors on Turnover Intention: Evidence from U.S. Federal Employees

AbstractThis study delves into the crucial topic of turnover intention among U.S. Federal Employees, shedding light on the workplace factors that play a pivotal role in mitigating this issue. Through the utilization of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analyses, the study meticulously examines various workplace contextual factors and their impact on turnover intention. The standout finding of the study underscores the paramount importance of opportunities for growth and development (Factor 4) in reducing turnover intention. This emphasizes the significance of investing in employees’ professional advancement and creating avenues for them to expand their skills and progress in their careers. Moreover, the study brings to the forefront additional factors that contribute to decreased turnover intention, such as longer tenure, higher salary, gender (with females exhibiting lower turnover intention), and age. These insights not only provide a nuanced understanding of the dynamics at play but also offer actionable strategies for organizations to address turnover concerns effectively. By identifying these key factors, the study equips HR professionals and decision-makers with valuable guidance for implementing tailored HRM practices aimed at curbing turnover and fostering a more stable and satisfied workforce within the U.S. Federal sector. Ultimately, these findings have the potential to drive tangible improvements in employee retention and organizational performance.

U.S. Federal Employees With Disabilities: How Perceptions of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Affect Differences in Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and Job Involvement

Using the 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, this study examines whether perceptions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) help explain why federal employees with disabilities have lower levels of three predictors of work motivation: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement. All aspects of DEIA have impacts, but accessibility matters most. People with disabilities have greater accessibility needs and are less satisfied with organizational responses; this difference explains much of why they have lower DEI perceptions. Lower DEIA perceptions account for nearly all the differences in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement. Although the federal service has been more effective than other sectors in achieving representation of employees with disabilities, objective measures of disability representation have minimal impact on these outcome variables. Instead, improving accessibility appears to be the key tool to making full use of the talents of federal employees with disabilities, alongside more equitable development and advancement opportunities and the espousal and enactment of inclusive leadership practices.

Indian Preference and the status of American Indians and Alaska Natives in the federal service: Employment, earnings, authority, and perceptions of fairness

AbstractPublic administration scholars have largely ignored American Indians and Alaska Natives in their studies of racial disparities in the federal service, despite strong reasons to believe they face discrimination. Using three large federal data sets (the American Community Survey, federal personnel records, and the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey), we compare the status of American Indians and Alaska Natives in the federal service to both Whites and other minorities. We find that, largely due to Indian Preference, American Indians and Alaska Natives are much more likely than Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians to hold federal jobs, but they are highly concentrated in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, agencies with which they have a sordid and fraught history. This concentration allows them to work in positions that may advance the interests of their communities and increases their probabilities of being supervisors, but it does not prevent them from being among the poorest‐paid and least‐satisfied employees in the federal service.

Policy and Fertility, a Case Study of the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan

In 2006, the Quebec government implemented a parental leave program more generous than the scheme available through the Canadian federal Employment Insurance (EI) program. It was aimed at maintaining the personal disposable income after a birth, especially for women whose income exceeds the maximum insurable earnings of EI. In this article, we assess whether the implementation of the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) was associated with an increase in the fertility in Quebec, especially for highly educated women. We use data from the rotating panels of the Canadian Labor Force Survey. We test the effect of the implementation of the QPIP on fertility by comparing Quebec and Ontario, which kept the federal EI scheme, before and after the implementation of the QPIP. We adapt the difference in differences method (DiD) to the modeling of the fertility schedule using Poisson regression. We estimate fertility by educational levels within each of the four groups of the DiD design by integrating the estimated fertility schedules. Our results show that the implementation of the QPIP was associated with an increase in fertility in Quebec. The magnitude of the increase varies by educational levels: 17% for women who did not complete secondary education, 46% for those who completed it, and 27% for women who earned a university diploma.

Using Appreciative Inquiry to Understand Workload Reasonability

This article describes an organizational continuous process improvement project using Appreciative Inquiry to evaluate staff members’ perception of their unreasonable workload, as indicated in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The goal for approaching the management-directed study was to use AI to frame the conversation around the lifegiving forces aspects AI brings to the organization rather than a traditional continuous process improvement approach in which we would investigate a problem, identify issues, and propose solutions to correct it.

Readiness for Artificial Intelligence Integration in Government Services: Perspectives from Ramechhap District Employees

The study aimed to investigate the perception of government services employees regarding the future perspective of AI in government services and to compare the perspectives between federal and local level employees. Research adopted objectivity methods to explore the result. Data collected from federal and local government employees in Ramechhap District, Bagmati Province of Nepal. The study revealed insights into the perception of government services employees regarding AI in government services, indicating a moderate belief in AI's potential to enhance job efficiency and a cautious optimism towards AI integration within organizations. Respondents recognized the importance of investing in AI infrastructure and training, foreseeing changes in daily tasks and increased AI usage in service tasks. Anticipation of new HR roles and a demand for flexible virtual work setups was also noted. The ANOVA results comparing federal and local level employees' perspectives on AI in government services showed no significant difference between the two groups, suggesting that the variation in perspectives was not statistically significant. This research provides valuable insights into the perceptions and expectations of government services employees regarding AI adoption and its potential impact on future work environments

Control (Supervisory) Activities of the Federal Labor and Employment Service: The Contemporary State and Development Prospects

Control (Supervisory) Activities of the Federal Labor and Employment Service: The Contemporary State and Development Prospects