GovExec Daily

Public assistance programs, while technically accessible to those who need them, are often confusing, demanding, and stressful to access. Administrative burdens, including time and paperwork commitments, can be overwhelming and disparate for those who may be least-equipped to handle them.

In a new paper, our guests today explore the discrepancies across programs. Last month, the Urban Institute published Customer Service Experiences and Enrollment Difficulties Vary Widely across Safety Net Programs, a paper exploring these topics. Marla McDaniel, Michael Karpman, Genevieve (Jenny) Kenney, Heather Hahn, and Eleanor Pratt joined the podcast to discuss their research.

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Human capital management has changed a lot in the last few years. A new generation entering the workforce, a presidential transition and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic have made the job that much harder. Representation, performance management and other aspects of workforce management are changing, forcing government's HR officials to keep up.

As part of Government Executive Media Group's Workforce Summit event recently, GovExec Daily host Ross Gianfortune spoke to two senior human capital leaders: Jessica Palatka, the Director of Human Resource Management and Chief Human Capital Officer at the Department of Commerce, and Erin Moore, who serves as the Chief Human Capital Officer for the Department of Energy. They talked about the challenges and opportunities in human capital management.

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A third of all American workers are over the age of 50. But as much as the broader workforce is aging, the federal workforce is surpassing it, with more than 43 percent of federal employees over the age of 50. The retirement wave that hangs over the federal workforce has been slow going, but attrition without replacing those workers with younger workers means a loss of institutional knowledge, professional experience and, ultimately, mission delivery.

Anthony Fauci spent more than 50 years in government service, including as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Max Stier is the president and CEO of the nonpartisan nonprofit, Partnership for Public Service. They are co-authors of a Washington Post op-ed headlined "The federal workforce is aging. It's time for a new generation." They joined the podcast to talk about how to recruit more young people into government service.

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More than one hundred people have held the colloquial title of "czar" in the U.S. federal government, from the commonly-known drug czars to the COVID-19 czars of recent vintage. The proliferation of czars has ebbed and flowed over the years, with Barack Obama being accused of having more than three dozen czars by his political opponents. Since, the term has fallen off a bit.

Tom Shoop is editor at large and the former executive vice president and editor in chief at GovExec Media. He is also the author of a post in his "That Time" series headlined "That Time the Federal Government Was Ruled By Czars." He joined the podcast to discuss czars in American government.

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In 2019, the Office of Management and Budget and the National Archives and Records Administration brought forward the government-wide directive M-19-21 as a way to move forward how government records are managed. In moving toward going paperless in recordkeeping, modernization remains a priority, but agencies are still behind on the process.

Melissa Carson is Vice President and General Manager of Iron Mountain Government Solutions where she leads a portfolio for the public sector. She joined the podcast to discuss the M-19-21 memo and how government records are managed.

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Every presidential administration is different, but many issues that American leaders face are similar or influenced by the ones that came before. Nationalism, immigration and a deeply divided electorate are a few of the issues that presidents going back to George Washington have faced in their terms.

Ronald Gruner founded and served as chief executive of three technology firms and is the author of We The Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century, a book examining presidents' effects on the lives of Americans. He joined the podcast to discuss the book and how presidents influence their successors.

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Nearly everyone in the public administration world says that the civil service system is far from perfect and needs to be fixed. The rules governing the system have not been updated in decades, leaving the federal government's workforce systems in the proverbial stone age. The bifurcated political landscape has not helped, with more elected officials proposing more so-called solutions that would cut, degrade or otherwise hamstring the professional civil service.

Jeffrey Neal is former chief human capital officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. In this episode, you'll hear the second part of Neal's conversation with GovExec Daily about the reasons that modernization has been so slow going, how it can be accelerated and the Academy's role in moving modernization forward.

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The federal government depends on its workforce to serve the public. The civil service system relies on its merit-based foundation to bring in hire, retain and engage its highly-skilled workforce. But, the last major changes to this system came decades ago in 1978. Since then, the world has changed a lot, and modernization of the civil service system is overdue. Over the coming months, the National Academy of Public Administration will release a series of white papers that address the challenges that face government modernization.

Jeffrey Neal is former chief human capital officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He also is the author of "The Challenge of Modernizing the Civil Service." In the first part of a two-part interview, he joined the podcast to discuss the challenges inherent in trying to update the civil service rules for the 21st century.

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Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced that the national public health emergency will expire on May 11. Enacted in early 2020, the cessation of the declaration will also sunset many of the policies designed to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus that has killed 1.1 million Americans in three years.

GovExec reporter Courtney Bublé has been covering the pandemic since it began in 2020. She joined the podcast to discuss the end of the emergency declaration.

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When a disaster hits a community, the people affected have to get trustworthy information quickly. Whether it's an earthquake, a pandemic or some other crisis, people have questions about finding shelter, how to stay safe or where to get medical care. Government agencies are among the first to help out in a crisis, so providing good communication is paramount for government.

Marc Mancher is a principal at Deloitte Consulting, where he founded and continues to lead the federal, state, local, and higher education Contact Center business. He joined the podcast to talk about Deloitte's latest paper on establishing crisis contact centers during an emergency.