Effective IT Managers

The Office of Personnel Management testified on Thursday that most agencies are going above and beyond when it comes to complying with a 2004 law that requires managers to undergo training on areas such as employee mentoring, conducting performance appraisals and dealing with poor performers.

At a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, OPM said it has conducted an informal inventory of President's Management Council agencies to determine what they are doing to meet OPM supervisory training requirements as well as those that would be required in the proposed Federal Supervisor Training Act (S. 674). Of the 25 agencies that responded to the survey, about half are meeting the requirements and a majority of others are developing supervisory training programs to fully comply with the requirements, OPM said. Five agencies, including the Defense Department, meet all of the additional training requirements outlined in S. 674, such as training on mentoring, improving employee performance and union rights, OPM added.

John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, noted that effectively training supervisors is key to retaining workers and boosting employee morale. "Consistently, the number one predictor of changes in employee satisfaction has been changes in employee attitudes towards their supervisors and higher level managers," Palguta said. "As employee views of their supervisors decline, so does employee satisfaction."

When it comes to recruiting and retaining future IT workers, training for supervisors on how to effectively hire, evaluate, manage and mentor employees will play a key role. Does your agency have these training programs in place? More importantly, how effective are these training programs in creating top-notch IT managers and boosting employee morale?

Wired Workplace is a daily look at issues facing the federal information technology workforce. It is written by former Government Executive reporter Brittany Ballenstedt and published on Nextgov.com. Click here to read the latest entries.