The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace

Aspiring front-line managers often ask me, “What would you do as a front-line manager the first week on the job.” I tell them I would start having conversations with my team members that foster emotional connections. The first questions I would ask my direct reports are, “What is your personality and temperament, what are strengthsRead… Read more »

Technology-Focused Career Options for Women: Virtually Limitless

In Women in Technology: Promoting a Broader Perspective, I argued that women can make strong contributions in technology-focused areas without being employed by technology firms or educated and trained in technology-related fields. This piece extends those ideas by highlighting the diversity of career options for women available in the Digital Era. Although well intentioned and certainly important, emphasizingRead… Read more »

Female Feds: What’s in Store for Your Financial Future?

By Abigail Reid, Writer-Editor, Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board Recently, the Thrift Savings Plan examined gender differences in retirement saving among Federal employees. For the first time, we segmented data from our annual Participant Behavior and Demographics Report by gender, in addition to factors like age and length of tenure. Considering that March is Women’sRead… Read more »

TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up

Stocks traded virtually flat across the board for the week leaving the action to intraday traders tracking down daily peaks. It seems to be unpredictable as to what will motivate stocks to make their next move. February was a strong month for stocks overall and very different from January’s volatile action. So what’s in storeRead… Read more »

Lack of Inclusion: Moral Failure or Moral Slumber

Most people do not wake up every day and decide not to be inclusive of each other in the workplace. If this is so then why are so many private and public sector employees disengaged. Why does every demographic group in the workplace report that they cover by not bringing their full selves to work?Read… Read more »

Innovation and Adaptibility in Organizational Culture

Have you ever heard of buzzword bingo? Where you and your co-workers make a bingo card of words or phrases like “touch base” and “data driven” and “Scalable” and “Proactive” and “Paradigm,” then head into a meeting and see who can hit a bingo? Well, it’s a real thing. I mention it because buzzword bingoRead… Read more »

Is Big Data the Same as Dirty Data?

Conversations on Big Data is a series of discussions about using analytics in creative and interesting ways that the Partnership for Public Service and the IBM Center for The Business of Government designed to broaden the perspective about quantitative analytics. Wikipedia defines Big Data as “…an all-encompassing term for any collection of data sets soRead… Read more »

Organic Mentoring: Growing Mentoring Relationships Naturally

For every Luke Skywalker there is an Obi-Wan Kenobi (or Yoda) and for every Justin Bieber there is an Usher. These pairs each shared a mentor-mentee relationship. Without this special bond, neither party would have achieved the accomplishments (I use the term accomplishments loosely for our latter mentee subject) they are so well known forRead… Read more »