GovExec Daily

The COVID-19 crisis has forced so many of us to remote work, including the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center. The center's mission might be different than the one at your workplace, but the center's workforce proved the mission can be accomplished anywhere during the pandemic. The crisis has led the center leadership to rethink the nature of work, prompting the launch of the Office of the Future project.

Colonel Kevin R. Mantovani is the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center vice commander at Air Force Materiel Command in Texas. He joined the podcast to discuss the Office of the Future project and the ways that the Air Force is evolving.

The General Services Administration recently awarded a first-of-its-kind contract to WeWork and several other co-working firms. The contract comes as the pandemic has changed the way federal workplace culture is evolving during the COVID-10 crisis.

Courtney Bublé writes the Coronavirus Roundup on GovExec.com. She joined the podcast to discuss the contract and other news that she's been covering about the pandemic.

President Joe Biden recently met with some of the top CEOs from the tech sector. Participants such as Apple's Tim Cook and Amazons Andy Jassy along with representatives from IBM, Bank of America and more were urged by the president to do more to improve cybersecurity. But this will most certainly be a group effort, according to Alex Major and Matt Wrigh, partners with McCarter and English, LLP. They joined the podcast us today to discuss how federal contractors can reduce ransomware risk and the hostage crisis that it presents.

On Friday of last week in a letter to Congressional leadership, President Joe Biden formalized a plan to provide civilian federal employees with an average 2.7% pay raise next year. The number is lower than some Democrats had urged earlier this summer.

Erich Wagner covers the workforce for us here at GovExec. He joined the show to discuss the pay raise process and other stories he has been covering.

African-American history is colorful. It goes beyond the history of slavery, the civil rights movement or a few well-known historical figures. Its business owners, owners and everyday people that helped build this country. Many of them are from towns just like yours and many Americans currently live in communities that were once majority African-American. At Route Fifty, GovExec Editor-at-Large Tom Shoop wrote a moving story about two towns in Virginia and their efforts to gather and evaluate historical information. He joined the podcast to the story, his research, how it hits home for him and much more.

The COVID-19 crisis has made many of us reevaluate our relationship with work, from our physical locations to our use of technology. Much of the workforce is also reevaluating relationships with our coworkers, managers and employers as the evolution of work continues during the coronavirus pandemic.

Jeffrey Bradfield leads the Human Capital Consulting practice for Government & Public Services and Kraig Eaton is Principal in the Human Capital practice, both at Deloitte. They joined the show to discuss Deloitte's 2021 Global Human Capital Trends Special Report titled "The Worker-Employer Relationship Disrupted: If We're Not Family, What Are We?"

In 2017, Congress passed the landmark VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act as a way to make it easier to fire Veterans Affairs employees while fairly treating them. The rule, however, has seen mixed results and two court cases recently knocked down the VA's interpretation of the law.

Conor D. Dirks is an attorney at the firm of Shaw Bransford & Roth, where he has represented federal officials and employees in all aspects of federal personnel employment law. He wrote a case law update about the two cases affecting the VA headlined "Federal Circuit Knocks Down VA's Interpretation of 2017 'Accountability" Law'" on Fedmanager.com. He joined the show to discuss the cases and the future of disciplinary action in the government.

In recent years, the Pentagon has confirmed the authenticity of videos depicting military pilots seeing unidentified flying objects. In fact, last year, the Office of Naval Intelligence ​​launched the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force to standardize data collection on the issue. But the Pentagon's role in this is not that new. In 2007, the unclassified but largely unknown Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was appropriated for five years, largely because of the efforts of former Senator Harry Reid.

As part of Nextgov's Emerging Tech summit event recently, Nextgov reporter and frequent GovExec Daily guest Brandi Vincent spoke to Reid. In this episode, they discuss how the government and technology come together to monitor unidentified aerial phenomena in the pursuit of security.

A Taliban spokesman this week reiterated that the August 31 deadline to withdraw Americans will not be moved, putting urgency on the U.S. government's attempts at evacuating Americans and Afghan nationals in danger. In the last few weeks, the federal government has ramped up its civilian response as the deadline nears.

Eric Katz is a senior correspondent at Government Executive. He joined the show to discuss the Biden administration's Afghanistan withdrawal efforts and how civilian feds are involved in the evacuation.

As part of its vaccine-or-testing mandate for on-site federal employees, the Biden administration is instructing agencies to establish their own COVID-19 testing programs, either at their offices, in partnership with other federal entities or through contracted services.

Stephanie Rapp-Tully is a partner and federal employment attorney with Tully Rinckey PLLC's Washington, D.C. office. She joined the show to discuss the Safer Federal Workforce update to the testing-or-vaccine mandate.