Photo By Eric Pilgrim | The new landscape of civilian federal government employment during the Coronavirus...... read more read more
The new landscape of civilian federal government employment during the COVID-19 pandemic is beginning to look more and more like your house.
Under Health Protection Condition Level CHARLIE restrictions and in an effort to protect the health of the military workforce, many organizations are sending civilian employees home to work – what is known as telework.
As a result, telework has expanded to meet the need while helping to maintain vital Army missions.
“Thinking about the difference between a few weeks ago — when we were at Health Protection Condition Alpha or Bravo — and today, there’s a big difference in the telework as well as the fact that the World Health Organization identified the COVID-19 as a pandemic,” said Erika Jaskolski, director, Fort Knox Civilian Personnel Advisory Center. “When [WHO] did that, it opened the door for any organization to put a person on telework when previously they wouldn’t warrant, or did not have an agreement in place.”
In fact, Department of Defense officials in a March 8 memorandum encouraged organizations to put as many of their employees on telework as possible.
In the memo, Ross Lassell, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, granted a limited exception to the telework policy through Dec. 31 to “help the Department minimize the risk to its civilian personnel and their families, as well as to ensure the readiness of our force to continue to execute our missions and support our domestic and international partners.”
As a result, many employees have found themselves thrust into their home environment with government computers situated in front of them, communicating with others and getting work done while trying to avoid distractions of home life.
Jaskolski said just in her office alone, 25% of her employees consistently used approved telework intermittently prior to the pandemic. Now, 95% of them are teleworking 100% of the time.
For many, the opportunity to telework has proven to be a blessing, according to Jaskolski. That’s because research supports an increase in satisfaction for those who desire to work from home.
“From a survey standpoint, and from historical data that’s available on it, telework actually presents a much better employee morale; that’s in the majority of cases,” said Jaskolski. “However, right now I also have people in my office who don’t want to telework, never did want to telework, and would rather be in the office doing the work than at home.”
She said working from home can be especially difficult for those who have school-age children that have also been sent home from school as part of virus control measures.
With all of this in mind, Jaskolski offered some advice. First idea: disconnect VPN when going to sites that don’t require it.
“We have found that because of the firewalls that are put in place on the military servers, going to website that don’t require VPN actually slows down the programs that we don’t need the VPN for, or we don’t need the military server to interact with,” said Jaskolski.
Another idea: Develop and maintain a schedule and include regular communication with the boss throughout the day; understand what boss’s expectations are and the employee’s responsibilities — and be prepared
“Know what type of work that needs to be done that may be different than what you normally do because sometimes the priorities change in this type of environment,” said Jaskolski. “Ask if there are other agencies or other mission essential positions or duties that should be done instead that you could assist with because you may not have enough to fill out your normal day.
“But you might be able to help assist other parts of the government to ensure other parts of the government are still running.”
Another idea: Avoid sending large files across VPN to ensure it doesn’t get bogged down.
The important thing to remember, according to Jaskolski, is to stick to the schedule, and be prepared to adjust as the situation warrants.
“This is a situation that no one in our lifetime has had to deal with,” said Jaskolski. “It is something that we’re all learning day-by-day what today looks like from a telework standpoint.”
| Date Taken: | 04.01.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.01.2020 15:56 |
| Story ID: | 366358 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 66 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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