SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Private sector does a far better job of managing employee performance. There is this belief that because I'm a Federal employee, I can't be fired. We need to move away from this model and have Supervisors trained to manage performance effectively, allowing them to praise and reward high performers while managing out poor performers. There are a number of employees that feel unappreciated and others that are able to... more »

The costs of training are high. There is, however a large amount of knowledgeable employees at the different agencies who are very capable of training other government employees. For example, a Census employee could give a half day training class on Census data to another agency which uses their data. This will allow for a group of employees at the non-Census to get relevant and informational training at a very large... more »

I recently went to a month-long training session out of state as part of the training for my position. I also recently graduated a very well designed, challengine online Masters of Business Administration program offered by the University of Florida, a highly accredited institution that has won awards for this specific program. I don't understand why the government is still spending money on per diem and travel costs.... more »

Employee training is obviously vital to the success of our workforce, but every year many training documents are still printed on paper, in excess—witness the pile of unused EEO folders in our mailroom, destined for the recycling bin—which is incredibly wasteful. The paradigm has shifted, folks, and while there is no replacement for classroom learning, it’s time to upgrade the government training programs to be more... more »

In my agency, we have annual "learning colleges" where colleagues present information on topics of interest to the agency. It would aid in knowledge retention and information transfer if ALL conference presentations were recorded and maintained by a designated entity within each agency. This would allow employees who are brought on staff after conferences occur to still benefit from the conference by viewing presentations... more »

The cost of training each and every employee is extremely high and I believe that there is a better, more cost efficient way of doing things. Currently, the Government sends each employee to their required training, paying for their flight, hotel and per diem. For a two week course, this can easily be $5000 per person. If there are 20 people in this class, then the cost is $100,000 plus the cost of the instructors... more »

I suggest that participant binders be kept by the Training Center and be reused by returning students for a particular class. Savings realized can easily come to over $200,000 a year.

For each student attending training, a 3 ring participant binder is created containing training materials & presentations. After the class concludes, a majority of these binders are left behind and tossed in the trash because students... more »

Every new mandatory training further saps the workforce productivity, and indiscriminately wastes more and more total effort. It is far too easy to make a training "mandatory," and too tempting by their creators to make them overly burdensome. For several years now, annual IT security training for anyone with a computer in HHS has required completion of 15 individual modules. There have been mandatory trainings in 508... more »

Interagency training for ICS/NIMS should be conducted. Our agency conducts ICS/NIMS training, however, it would be beneficial if other agencies would conduct training together in order to share information.

Currently IRS field offices (Taxpayer Assistance Centers) provide annual CPE training to all employees via DVD. Having virtual instructors teach classes that are broadcast live to field offices would allow real-time interaction and save on the cost of producing and shipping thousands of DVDs each year. Virtual classes could also replace travel-related instruction and meetings.

Along with Information Technology, Safety and other required training programs and refresher courses, instigate an Efficiency Training program, which would cover the basics of efficient work practices that could be applied to any work setting, government-wide. Such a training program could present practices and tools that can help each of us work more efficiently. Even if each employee adopted just one new idea, the... more »

So many agencies and Departments develop their own IT security training that all employees have to take annually. How much do all these programs, which are new each year, cost? Why not just have one government-wide computer security training program? We would save millions in duplicated effort and increase uniformity of security standards.

Both the government and employee may benefit by sharing costs of training and travel. Training and travel dollars are limited. This strategy allows employees to attend training that they ordinarily couldn’t attend due to funding restrictions. For example, the employee pays registration fees, and the employer covers transportation and per diem. Or, the employee pays all costs but is granted administrative leave or can... more »

Use teleconferencing and web-based programs for training to save on travel expenses.

Let's be realistic, the 4th amendment is the 4th amendment. So many Federal Agents change jobs and have to go through essentially the SAME academy at FLETC over and over again. There are some things that are consistent with Federal Agencies. Consider having a 3-4 month BASIC academy and then the agencies can sponsor their own specialized training.