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[introductory music] Welcome to this interagency training program: “Engaging the federal workforce to reduce
the Footprint.” All CFO federal agencies must establish a policy that specifies a space
design standard for maximum usable square feet by work station no later than March 25,
2016. This educational program is intended to help management and union representatives
engage federal workers to meet that requirement and the broader public interest in reducing
the federal footprint. This program and the referenced resources
are the result of collaboration among three agencies, the FLRA, the FMCS, and the GSA
who provide technical expertise and support to federal government labor relations and
property management and federal unions. I’m Heather Brown, Director of Education
and Training at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Joining me in today’s
program is FMCS Regional Director, Scott Blake,
GSA Assistant Commissioner Bart Bush, union leader, Bill Dougan and
FLRA Deputy General Counsel, Peter Sutton. Leading managers understand and research data
confirms that employees who enjoy workplace choice perform better. They are more innovative,
higher performing and more satisfied with both their work and workplace. Perhaps the
most readily available and meaningful opportunities to provide employee choice occur in connection
with changes to the work environment. I think it is a truism that changing workplace
and offices is one of the most stressful things that you can do to a workforce. It creates
significant employee stress for many employees. Where you sit in the office is tied to status;
and it takes on a very personal meaning for many employees. So it is really important
that you understand that when we are going to be making changes in the workplace or in
an office unless these changes are managed you can have a lot of stress and contention
in the workplace. Workplace choice needs to really start with
the office environment. We have to start thinking about what the workers’ space and tool needs
are. We know for a fact that in most agencies people are doing a variety of different jobs
and it may not be possible, for example, to design a workspace that is all cubicles and
meet the needs of the workers as well as the agency in terms of getting the work done.
So you have to ask yourself: what changes are going to enhance and support the employees
work as well as the agency's goals? A lot of management experts advise and I tend to
agree that when it comes to offering workplace choice you really got to start by talking
about the office environment. You start with a question to employees “What kind of workspace
or environment works best for you? and what works well where you currently are and what
does not work?” so we have to ask ourselves not only what current situation is – is
that working - are there other options? And what’s not working? Because we don’t want
to repeat failures. OMB’s reduce the footprint mandate offers a great opportunity to work
collaboratively with employees on workplace choices.
We are all aware of the Reduce the Footprint focus from OMB. GSA’s implementation is
really aimed at “smart reduction,” not just hitting the numbers. When you look at
the slide in front of you there are two distinct parts that jump out at you.
One is: maximize the value of federal real property resources,
And two: improve the productivity of the workers housed.
The real question ultimately becomes is: what part do you focus on? What is your driver?
What is taking you to really understand how you implement this guidance and do it in the
best way possible for the worker. We all recognize that over 80% of our federal
agency budgets are tied to worker salaries; worker costs. And less than 10% in most agencies
are on real estate. Why would one jeopardize the 80% to affect the 10%? So that’s why
smart reduction is really the key to success when looking at these potential opportunities.
OMB’s Reduce the Footprint Guidance requires agencies to produce a five-year real property
efficiency plan, and by March 25, 2015, adopt a policy that
specifies a design standard for maximum useable square foot by workstation.
It does not affect or require retrofit of existing space,
but is directed at new space acquisitions. Labor-management relationships are ready made
resources for employee engagement within federal agencies, and pre-decisional involvement,
or PDI, is an excellent vehicle for leveraging those relationships.
Thank you Bill and Bart. This is Peter Sutton I’m from the FLRA. I want to spend a couple
of moments talking about the labor-management relations implications arising from coming
up with an office space design standard. When we’re dealing with federal employees
that are represented by a labor organization, the federal collective-bargaining statute
requires the agency to negotiate in good faith over the working conditions of employees in
the bargaining unit. And when you are talking about what are conditions of employment, if
I ask you to sit down and draw up a list of the top five most important conditions for
a group of employees, office space and office environment would be on that list. It is considered
at the very heart of the conditions of employment; and it’s an area that really provides management
and labor opportunities as well as choices. So why labor and management are talking about
an office space design is that it is considered a basic condition of employment.
Critical aspects of employee workspace and work environment are ‘mandatory subjects
of bargaining’ between labor organizations and federal agencies. How union and management
representative engage on these issues, determines whether employees, and consequently the public,
achieves the full benefit of potential employee engagement opportunities. This is a diagram
of what would be referred to as the traditional collective-bargaining model.
Traditional collective bargaining typically involves private management deliberations,
leading to a management decision about a work space change, which is then communicated to
the union as a written bargaining proposal. The union reviews the proposal and may ask
for additional information. The union will then privately deliberate among its employees
and fashion a response. That would be known as a counter proposal. Then the parties would
engage in negotiations. It is through that process, the give-and-take
of negotiations, that parties typically reach a mutually agreeable solution.
The parties will then incorporate their agreed upon solution into a written document. And
then, after following the normal protocols, the change will be implemented.
Alternatively, management can engage the union before management decides to make a workspace
change. This process , sometimes called “pre-decisional
involvement”, engages the Union and union-represented employees
and management in a problem solving dialogue early in management’s decision making process.
Rather than the parties privately deliberating among themselves and fashioning their own
preferred solutions or own answers to the issue “what is the
ideal office space design standard for our operation?”
they approach the question as a joint problem that requires joint collaboration and decision-making.
As a labor management opportunity, parties, we would suggest early involvement is critical.
And that’s where you get into start using pre-decisional involvement. And really, the
parties are planning for what the office of the future is going to look like. And to do
that effectively you’re going to have to start thinking about has the nature of our
work changed? Has the nature of the workplace changed; and has our workforce changed? These
are rather serious items that are going to require a lot of collaboration and study by
the parties. What better resource of information and ideas
on that would be going to the union and the employees that are performing the job and
get their input? Now as we saw from the earlier slide through the Harvard Business Review
study, employees that are given the opportunity to provide input on basic decisions that affect
their work situation turn out to be more engaged more productive employees. So that’s sort
of the benefit you would see from using pre-decisional involvement. And like any type of effort it
requires a considered and thoughtful approach. Every program that I do, and we talk about
doing with labor and management, we talk about a number of things that you need to understand
to make it work. And the first thing is really “are you really committed to the process?”
That commitment has to come from both labor and management. Not worrying about whether
the other side is doing what they are saying they are going to do but really taking responsibility
for what you say you’re going to do. And the second thing is listening skills, or communication
skills. Most of us believe communications is putting information out. Or getting it
out to both sides so they understand what the proposal is or what the issue is. But
really when you really look down to it, the most important part of the communication skills
is listening skills. That’s learning how to listen effectively. And the third thing
is learning how to be candid with each other. In the federal government it is probably the
easiest place to do it. Being candid, I mean, is sharing the information, all the information,
as quickly as you can. There are a variety of programs that we can
help you out with. If you’re in that kind of the process, and you’re in PDI, please
understand, PDI is a consultation process where you can reach an agreement. We facilitate
meetings where we can come in and help you with that process. We do a lot of skills development
for both labor and management on consensus decision-making, brainstorming, and problem-solving
techniques. Specifically, the problem-solving technique of interest-based problem-solving.
As we just talked about a few minutes ago, the traditional process is basically spending
a lot of time away from each other developing proposals and then coming back in. You don’t
do a lot of listening, you do a lot of talking. In the interest based problems solving process
you spend a lot more time together in joint session talking to each other versus at each
other and coming up with ways to solve a problem that you can both work with. We also have
other programs for those who need additional programs, such as team-building programs;
or probably the most influential program we have is called Relationships-by-Objectives.
It’s a very in-depth two and a half, to three and a half day program, where we go
out and helped parties change their relationships. Where there is a great deal of distrust or
lack of understanding of what each other is doing, low morale and things like that. But
all the skills that we have, we like to teach both labor and management together. Our mediators
throughout the country have a great deal of experience in that process. And since they
mediate all the time they can help you with the process of not only understanding the
facilitation process and listening to each other but also since they deal with a lot
of both labor and management and a lot of these programs, they have a lot of input and
a lot of ideas on what you could use as alternatives to solve your issues.
We really wanted to turn GSA into a 21st-century workplace. We wanted to increase our collaboration
amongst our workforce and really provide a model for the rest of government. What we
quickly understood was that creating the workplace for the future wasn't a bricks and mortar
solution. Important elements associated with creating the space also involved a high degree
of involvement with our IT world, as well with our human resources world. Creating those
three legs of the stool were very important for us to be successful. And I believe that
as GSA approached this and work closely with NFFE we presented issues more as a problem
statement not as a solution. We were able to create thoughtful dialogue as opposed to
reactive statements. We always have felt at our agency that the best ideas came for our
employees so we were very aggressive seeking out their input in a variety of ways and in
a variety of mediums working closely with NFFE in this effort to be successful.
I’d like just to reiterate a couple of things you’ve already heard. One of the key things
that made the successful between GSA and my union was getting in early. Us sitting down
early before management had invested a lot of resources in thinking about possible solutions,
because, one of the problems that you have in terms of traditional bargaining is when
management invests a lot of resources and develops very detailed proposals and solutions,
it becomes very difficult for labor and the employees that they represent to have meaningful
input and a chance on changing the minds that we believe or it appears that management’s
already made their minds up on what the solution is going to be. So the key is to get in early
before we’re giving any serious discussion about possible solutions. And to work together
to come up with a list of possible alternatives or solutions. The other thing is it’s really
important to focus initially on this as a problem-statement since, as we’ve already
said, if we start talking about this as solutions that really raises the red flag and antennae
for labor and employees, because they begin to feel like management is invested in their
idea how to fix this problem and design the workspace. And it begins to strain the relationship
between labor and management in terms of possibly creating ill will that’s going to make it
much more difficult for us as we continue down the journey of trying to work together
on this issue as well as other issues in the future.
The earlier slide Peter showed, it showed the overlap of the two methods from a traditional
to a PDI. This project at our headquarters was under a tight time line. We had to be
engaged quickly to make those construction deadlines that were necessary in the expenditure
of the funds to modernize our headquarters. So we really appreciated the opportunity to
work collaboratively and reduce that amount of time that a traditional negotiation process
would have taken. I think it is really true on this effort that
we undertook, that when looking back on it, I think a lot of the best ideas that came
out of this effort in terms of design of the workspace and how the different types of options,
they came from employees. Because as it’s been mentioned before, and I firmly believe
this, the people that do the work, the employees, are probably your best source when it comes
to thinking about making changes, whether it’s workspace or whether it’s work processes.
Because they’re the ones that are doing it, they’re the ones that are living it.
And you need to tap into their innovation and creativity and give them a voice. What
you will find is if employees feel like they have a voice they will offer up a lot of really
good ideas. And we saw that with this effort at GSA.
I think some of the real element of the successful partnership was a recognition that many of
our employees were getting their work done in better ways than maybe our space had allowed
for. So we showed extensive support for expanded telework and flexible schedules. To help reach
that work-life balance. We really invested heavily in technology using collaborative
tools that would be important for people to work together regardless of whether they were
face-to-face or one coast to another coast. And the ability for them to use those tools
to demonstrate their skills in achieving the mission of the agency. We saw that was very
much a vital function in the element and it helped employees get their job done better
and increased their level of engagement in the overall process as they saw this investment
coming their way for their benefit. I think the other key for us was from day
one when we took this thing on, we saw management and labor speaking with one voice. We weren’t
telling two different stories, our communications messaged the same message. And I think that’s
really important that the workforce, both the employees and the managers in the workplace,
see that we are speaking the same and we’re talking the same story. And also I think that
demonstrates a joint commitment to making this a success. I think that was another key
thing. And we exhibited that behavior and demonstrated and exhibited that through the
entire process. The engagement and feedback is ongoing with employees on this process.
My feeling is I don't think you are ever done managing space. You get done with a particular
project then you got a new set of challenges, whether it’s new demographics in the workforce
or tough budgets. So, it has to be ongoing and continuous. And on this particular project
that could result in further modifications to the workplace and how work gets done at
GSA in the future down the road. My point is it’s not a static process. It is dynamic
and has to continue to be fluid. One other element I wanted to talk just briefly
about was a best practice we employed was the use of change champions. We went out and
solicited employees representing all different facets of the GSA workforce and engaged them
as folks that would both take the messaging out about levels of discussion to their workforce
as well as bring that workforce reaction back to the space committee. That gave a sense
of empowerment to our employees. They really understood that their voice was being heard
through these change champions, through the host of other communication tools we established
whether they were chatter groups or frequent town halls. I think especially being able
to identify people in every division to act as that Change Champion helped us ensure that
the messages from our employees were heard and understood and that people were getting
the same message back afterwards. The fact that we provided these types of forums and
town halls to our employees help build that level of trust between employees, between
labor, between management, for a successful project. And I believe we’ve been able to
document a lot of that activity and provide a change management as a resource to our customers
across the federal government when they come to talk to us about space alteration projects
that are planned in the future and how they want to address that with their labor groups,
with their employees. We offer that level of advice and counsel to other agencies.
On the screen are a variety of resources available to you. It includes contacts for the three
agencies who participated in this webinar, as well as links to relevant information.
Thank you for viewing our Webinar on Engaging the Federal Workforce to Reduce the Footprint.
I will leave you with some wise last words by FMCS’s Scott Blake
Again, I can’t overemphasize the fact that when you’re working with each other, there’s
one thing that I try to talk to everyone about, and that is that one of us is not as smart
as all of us.