SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Currently, the Forest Service uses two main methods of hiring employees: USAJOBS and AVUE Services. USAJOBS is the more comprehensive website. AVUE has less flexibility, does not allow searches for "virtual" jobs, and frequently does not even allow listing where a particular job is located, making job searches and the application process unnecessarily complicated and frustrating. At the same time, we have the goal... more »

How much time do well paid executives spend sitting in meetings? Have you ever considered how much a single meeting can cost in salaries?

In the age of technology there are a lot of time and travel saving ways of sharing ideas. Wikis and other collaborative software are a great ways to share ideas with colleagues without needing to take a lot of time for everyone to meet.

Government IT departments often restrict or... more »

Allow Contracting Officers and Contract Specialist to use a digital signature (verified with a Pin number) to sign contracts. We print out so many sheet of paper to sign them. We could sign an award electronically and send it through to the next person with out printing any paper.Also this saves the time of printing it, signining it, scanning it back in to the computer and sending for obligation.

If the people hired for vacant positions had the skills for the job the government would spend a great deal less monetarily trying to mold the people into what they need. When that individual may have skills more appropriate to a different position. That goes for upper managment positions too.

SAVE at least $3.7 million - Employees with computers should have to use the e-calendar built into MS Office or their system's equivalent, (MACs have iCal). If only 1/2 the Federal employees have a desk calendar costing $2.68 or more, the annual cost for calendars is at least $3,783,861 nationally.

The 2009 Census Bureau indicates there were 2,823,777 full and part-time Federal employees.

If every employee who has... more »

Wasted productivity is a large but avoidable expense. Our current security systems serve a critical purpose, but could be more time efficient. This proposal would avoid losing more than $900 million annually of currently lost productivity while preserving security.

Proposal: Create streamlined security software that allows one to stay signed in securely to the network and to password protected programs and avoid automatic... more »

Simply reduce the total chargable work hours to 37.5 hours per week. New York State did it long ago. It could painlessly reduce the Federal payroll budget by millions. Some can't complete tasks within the currently prescribed 40 hours and for good reason. As these are most likely not an overwhelming majority, make appropriate adjustments on a case by case basis. Overall, if the general workforce were reduced to 37.5... more »

Meetings. Most governmental employees cringe when they hear that they have to attend a meeting. The average person in my 550 person unit has at least 2 meetings every week. That is more than 55,000 hours spent each year in meetings at my small unit alone. I would like to make a few suggestions that would decrease an employees time spent in meetings. The first idea that I have seen in the civialian sector is to take... more »

Within HHS-ACF, we have been able to reduce the amount of time we have spent with admin duties regarding the on/off boarding of employees, manage user accounts & contact information and reduce the amount of paperwork we deal with by 100% with the use of the ACF Contact List System (CLS).
Not only have we been able to reduce the time spent on administrative functions & paperwork but we have been able to control costs by... more »

I recently did my monthly rotation at the front desk. Over two hundred claimants called for an updated status on their claim in one day. Each claimant should have electronic access whether by phone or computer to check their status on their claim. In addition, the claimant should be informed of each step of the process (RTS, POST,MAIL-OUT) and approximately how long each step takes. If the claimant was informed of... more »

In many cases, meetings take place that involve different agencies or field offices. If we encourage the use of webcasting for meetings we would save tax money by cutting back on printing costs, fuel, and employee time. Meeting materials would be sent via email before the meeting or shown in a presentation during the webcast. This would save dollars on printing materials to hand out in meetings. Also, by meeting through... more »

When a landowner or government agency wants to get a permit to dredge or fill a wetland, is it really necessary to have 4 or 5 government agencies review the project? I think a lot of times there is too much overlap in environmental regulation. The amount of government time spent reviewing the smaller scale impacts can be overwhelming and very costly when you consider the number of people involved in the permit review... more »

We need to do a thorough analysis of time management practices at federal agencies. At the VA Hospital that I work at, a lot of people go from one meeting to the next, and some of the committees and subcommittees seem redundant. I don't quite understand when work is being done. Also, some of the mandatory trainings either on campus or online through TMS need to be assessed to see whether or not they are appropriate for... more »