While the coronavirus pandemic is the immediate driver of the sudden shift to working from home in governments across the country, the foundation for the transition to distance work actually began more than a decade ago. Here’s the backstory.
While the reinventing government effort in the 1990s sought to empower frontline workers, subsequent reform efforts sought to strengthen the role of human resources and managers.
Leveraging technology with speed, reliability, and risk management has never been as important as in today’s world of distance work, virtual meetings, and IT development via geographically dispersed teams.
Moving to distance work arrangements have suddenly shifted from a “nice to have” to an agency’s “continuity of operations” survival in the age of coronavirus.
There’s a lot of media about the heroic work of federal employees engaged in responding to the epic health, economic, and social effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
As the coronavirus has disrupted society over the last few weeks, some of the distancing measures that once seemed drastic have become acceptable — in a few cases even preferable to the way things worked before.