GovExec Daily

To paraphrase an old cliché, 2021 came in with a bang and is going out with a whimper. The 19th month of the coronavirus restrictions saw the Omicron variant rampaging through the U.S., nearly a year after vaccines became available for Americans. Against this backdrop, federal employees had to transition between presidential administrations and continue government operations mostly remotely. It was an eventful year.

Tom Shoop is editor at-large and the former executive vice president and editor in chief at GovExec.He joined the podcast to discuss the stories that defined 2021.

As the Omicron variant spreads nationwide, the Biden administration announced on Tuesday a series of actions to stem the spread of COVID-19. The White House also touted vaccine rates and promoted vaccines as the most effective way to prevent deaths and severe illness from COVID-19.

Courtney Bublé writes the coronavirus roundup for us here at GovExec. She joined the show to talk about the vaccine mandates going into the new year and the administration's moves to combat the pandemic.

Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja came into office in the midst of a devastating global pandemic and in the middle of the first year of a new administration that promised to rebuild the civil service. In the six months since, the pandemic has continued and the reconstruction of morale across government has been a work-in-progress.

The pandemic has brought changes to the civil service that Ahuja has overseen, as agencies put out guidance for their employees to keep government running. Hiring has become more complicated in the remote and hybrid work era. As one of the signatories to the President's Management Agenda Vision, Ahuja spoke to GovExec Daily about the progress on these issues and how the PMA will address them and other challenges for the civil service.

In the second half of a two-part conversation with the Ahuja, we discuss how to make the civil service younger, feds' pay and how the COVID-19 rules are affecting federal employees.

In releasing its Presidential Management Agenda Vision last month, the Biden administration focused employee engagement and customer service in ways previous PMAs had not. Recruitment and retention are key points in the document, putting a fine point on the need to bring in younger workers into the public sector fold.

Kiran Ahuja is director of the Office of Personnel Management. She is also a GovExec contributor as the author of a post headlined "The Biden Blueprint for the Future of Work" about the Biden PMA document. In the first half of a two-part interview, Ahuja joined the podcast to discuss OPM's role in the PMA vision document and what employee engagement looks like.

At the Tribal Nations Summit last month, President Joe Biden touted the dozens of Native Americans in key administration posts including the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in Deb Haaland. The president also spoke of collaboration, consultation and respect of tribal sovereignty during the summit. Out guest today writes on our site that the administration has fallen short of these promises since taking office, however.

Kevin Allis is a tribal member of the Forest County Potawatomi Community, president of the government relations firm Thunderbird Strategic LLC, and former chief executive officer of the National Congress of American Indians. He has a post on our site right now headlined "Biden Isn't Living Up To His Pledge to Respect Tribal Sovereignty." He joined the show to discuss his post and Biden's relationship with Tribal Nations in the wake of the summit.

When President Joe Biden announced the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for feds this fall, some were concerned about the adoption rate for public servants. But the mandate has been a success so far, with 93% of the federal workforce having now received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.

GovExec Senior Correspondent Eric Katz looked into the White House's vaccine push in a story headlined "How the Biden Administration Got Nearly the Entire Federal Workforce Vaccinated." He joined the podcast to discuss the Biden administration's push to get feds vaccinated.

The pandemic has been a strain on workers for nearly two years, but working parents have especially felt the strain of the COVID-19 crisis. Managers and organizations, even during the pandemic, need to lead their teams and drive performance while also supporting the work-life needs of all of their employees.

Dr. Ellen Ernst Kossek is the Basil S. Turner Professor at Purdue University's Krannert School of Management and the first elected President of the Work-Family Researchers Network. She joined the show to discuss how the pandemic is affecting the relationship between working parents and their employers and vice versa.

Late last month, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky temporarily blocked the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. While the judge did not fully block the mandate, he did write in the decision that Biden exceeded his delegated authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act. Since then, the injunction was extended nationwide.

GovExec reporter Courtney Bublé is covering the story. She joined the show to talk about the injunction and other COVID-19 stories.

As paradigms shift due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, questions remain about what agency evolution will look like. As the year comes to a close, the state of agencies in 2022 remains unwritten as uncertainty remains the only certainty.

As part of Government Executive's State of the Federal Workforce event recently, GovExec reporter and frequent GovExec Daily guest Eric Katz spoke to John Dankanich, MSFC Chief Technologist, In-Space Transportation Capability Lead at NASA and Michael Peckham, HHS Program Support Center CFO. In this episode, they explore what the federal agency of the future will look like.

Last month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order establishing the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force, which moves closer to the federal government implementing the very clear mission of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. But the order also has a section noting the importance of "implementation of infrastructure investments across all levels of government," which perhaps can address a significant intergovernmental challenge.

G. Edward DeSeve is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Coordinator of the Academy's Agile Government Center and a Visiting Fellow of the IBM Center for the Business of Government. He's also the former Special Advisor to President Obama for Recovery Implementation and the author of a post on our site headlined "We All Should Be Rooting for the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force." He joined the podcast to discuss the post and the implementation of the infrastructure plan.