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CIO Crossroads: Federal IT in the COVID Crisis – GSA Edition
Podcast: CIO Crossroads – GSA Edition
It’s hard to fathom the number of critical government processes that have had to evolve – very quickly – to meet the needs of the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic. And if this crisis has a silver lining, it’s the accelerated modernization and innovation being born out of it. MeriTalk is surfacing the untold stories – and lessons – of those efforts. In the latest installment of CIO Crossroads, we turn to the General Services Administration (GSA).
GSA’s Lessons: Put People First – CIO Q&A
In the Federal IT community, we’ve all seen the analogy of the three-legged stool – technology, process, and people. After speaking with GSA CIO David Shive, it’s clear that a “people first” focus pays great dividends toward agency mission success, especially in a time of crisis.
GSA delivers the products, services, and facilities that agencies need to serve America. It oversees $66 billion in annual procurement, and it’s the largest landlord in the world, managing approximately $500 billion in U.S. Federal property. GSA’s job is to literally keep the lights on for the Federal government – every hour, every day.
As a modernization leader, GSA became mobile-enabled more than five years ago, and has moved over 50 percent of its technology workloads off premises. These shifts helped the agency adapt easily to the new requirements of the COVID-19 era, and it now has a 99.6 percent telework-ready rate.
Having quickly stabilized in the “new normal,” GSA has been on the front lines, providing other agencies with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), IT, and other equipment in the hundreds of thousands of units. And, even as it deals with these short-term critical issues, GSA is already looking ahead to how it can sustain the modernization advancements that have been made during the national emergency.
Please join us for an in-depth conversation with David as he talks about how GSA has managed its workforce during the pandemic so its people can help serve the rest of the Federal government during this challenging time for our country.
MeriTalk: As CIO of a large agency with a government-wide support mission, can you share your biggest priorities during the COVID-19 response? What are you proudest of?
Shive: I’m most proud that we immediately focused on the safety and well-being of our workforce by starting a daily accountability tracker for all employees. This lets us see where everyone is – if they’re teleworking, on leave, or on facility – and make sure they are okay. An important aspect of this was requiring a rationale for people going into the office. We are under mandatory telework, and our Administrator meant that, so we need to make sure that anyone going to the office has a very valid reason for doing so.
MeriTalk: What successes are you seeing?
Shive: We became a mobile-enabled agency five or six years ago, so this is not new for us. We’ve made the investment in tools, policy, and practice to support our mobile workforce. When we made telework mandatory on March 17, we already had the right technology and practices in place to enable our employees to work from home, with almost no disruption of work.
99.6 percent of our workforce was telework-ready, which enabled us to continue to deliver on our mission and do the hard work of GSA across multiple business domains, regardless of where people were working.
MeriTalk: Any other examples in addition to that very impressive telework number?
Shive: During the pandemic, we have been able to onboard people completely virtually – providing the secure access they need for remote connection and shipping hardware directly to their homes. We figured out what policies we needed to change to enable that – no wet signatures, no fingerprinting, etc. We’ve been able to work through it and deliver badges in a sa...
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By MeriTalkPodcast: CIO Crossroads – GSA Edition
It’s hard to fathom the number of critical government processes that have had to evolve – very quickly – to meet the needs of the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic. And if this crisis has a silver lining, it’s the accelerated modernization and innovation being born out of it. MeriTalk is surfacing the untold stories – and lessons – of those efforts. In the latest installment of CIO Crossroads, we turn to the General Services Administration (GSA).
GSA’s Lessons: Put People First – CIO Q&A
In the Federal IT community, we’ve all seen the analogy of the three-legged stool – technology, process, and people. After speaking with GSA CIO David Shive, it’s clear that a “people first” focus pays great dividends toward agency mission success, especially in a time of crisis.
GSA delivers the products, services, and facilities that agencies need to serve America. It oversees $66 billion in annual procurement, and it’s the largest landlord in the world, managing approximately $500 billion in U.S. Federal property. GSA’s job is to literally keep the lights on for the Federal government – every hour, every day.
As a modernization leader, GSA became mobile-enabled more than five years ago, and has moved over 50 percent of its technology workloads off premises. These shifts helped the agency adapt easily to the new requirements of the COVID-19 era, and it now has a 99.6 percent telework-ready rate.
Having quickly stabilized in the “new normal,” GSA has been on the front lines, providing other agencies with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), IT, and other equipment in the hundreds of thousands of units. And, even as it deals with these short-term critical issues, GSA is already looking ahead to how it can sustain the modernization advancements that have been made during the national emergency.
Please join us for an in-depth conversation with David as he talks about how GSA has managed its workforce during the pandemic so its people can help serve the rest of the Federal government during this challenging time for our country.
MeriTalk: As CIO of a large agency with a government-wide support mission, can you share your biggest priorities during the COVID-19 response? What are you proudest of?
Shive: I’m most proud that we immediately focused on the safety and well-being of our workforce by starting a daily accountability tracker for all employees. This lets us see where everyone is – if they’re teleworking, on leave, or on facility – and make sure they are okay. An important aspect of this was requiring a rationale for people going into the office. We are under mandatory telework, and our Administrator meant that, so we need to make sure that anyone going to the office has a very valid reason for doing so.
MeriTalk: What successes are you seeing?
Shive: We became a mobile-enabled agency five or six years ago, so this is not new for us. We’ve made the investment in tools, policy, and practice to support our mobile workforce. When we made telework mandatory on March 17, we already had the right technology and practices in place to enable our employees to work from home, with almost no disruption of work.
99.6 percent of our workforce was telework-ready, which enabled us to continue to deliver on our mission and do the hard work of GSA across multiple business domains, regardless of where people were working.
MeriTalk: Any other examples in addition to that very impressive telework number?
Shive: During the pandemic, we have been able to onboard people completely virtually – providing the secure access they need for remote connection and shipping hardware directly to their homes. We figured out what policies we needed to change to enable that – no wet signatures, no fingerprinting, etc. We’ve been able to work through it and deliver badges in a sa...