COVID-19:
Views from our Fellows
on Workforce
Institutional Shifts After the Pandemic
June 18, 2020
Michael Poliakoff talks with Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, President Emeritus of the George Washington University, about the urgent financial ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic on colleges and universities, their prospects for reopening, challenges of declining enrollment, and the hard operational decisions that institutions will have to make in coming years.
How the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the evolution of telework
May 26, 2020
Governments at all levels in the United States are suddenly facing the need to do much of their work from a distance. While the coronavirus pandemic is the immediate driver of the sudden shift to working from home, the foundation for the transition to distance work actually began more than a decade ago. Here’s the backstory.
The federal government had been seen as the leader in the use of distance work arrangements largely because of a 2010 law that codifies a federal commitment to the adoption of telework. The law requires all federal agencies to allow telework, designate a telework managing officer, and provide training to both employees and managers. It also requires agencies to incorporate telework into their continuity of operations plans. At the time, the rationale for adoption was to improve employee work-life balance.
Interview: Mitigating the COVID-19 Crisis of Long-Term Unemployment
May 04, 2020
The unemployment numbers in this first month of the COVID-19 pandemic have been staggering. What can we do to help those who are finding themselves newly unemployed, desperately waiting for their benefits to start, and not sure where to turn? In this episode of EJB Talks, our host Stuart Shapiro, Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Policy at the Bloustein School, talks to Carl Van Horn, Distinguished Professor at the Bloustein School and Director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, on the dangers of long-term unemployment, who is most vulnerable, and the services the Heldrich Center can provide, along with the State of New Jersey, to help people traverse through the economic crisis brought upon us by COVID-19.
More Telework? Absolutely. But Far More is Needed During the Coronavirus Pandemic
March 17, 2020
Recent Office of Management and Budget guidance instructing agencies to offer “maximum telework flexibilities to all current telework eligible employees” is a start, but far more is going to have to be done to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic.
The guidance addresses “telework eligible” employees. We know that the majority of federal workers are not already teleworking eligible. In fact, the number of telework eligible employees dropped as a result of the Trump administration moves to cut back on telework. Those policies, attributed to mission requirements, put agencies in a position where it is more difficult for them to operate during emergencies.