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Election Day can be a whirlwind of campaign signs, crowded polling sites and an avalanche of social media posts. To help cut through the chaos, here's Federal News Radio's roundup of congressional races, presidential platforms and Hatch Act reminders.
The Obama administration released new guidance designed to officially codify the feedback its heard from agencies during the Hiring Excellence campaign and put them on path to use those lessons to improve federal hiring.
Federal employees with disabilities made up 14.4 percent of the workforce in fiscal 2015, an improvement over 2014's 13.6 percent. Agencies also hired more employees with disabilities, 26,466 new hires compared with 20,618 new hires in 2014. The latest report from the Office of Personnel Management on the topic shows record disability hiring among agencies over the past 35 years.
The Office of Personnel Management said that agencies need to ensure employees have at least three hours either before or after work to attend their polling places.
Two big changes are coming to the Combined Federal Campaign, the federal workforce's annual giving campaign, next year. One change lets federal employees volunteer with certain charities and have that time count toward the campaign. The second lets federal retirees submit donations.
Hispanics represented 8.5 percent of the permanent federal workforce in 2015, a 0.1 percent bump over fiscal 2014's numbers. Though 2015 marks the sixth consecutive year where the Hispanic federal population has increased, leaders within the Office of Personnel Management are noticeably disappointed that the progress is happening slowly.
President Barack Obama signed a memorandum promoting diversity and inclusion in the national security workforce. The memo calls for the collection, analysis and dissemination of demographic data, as well as develop practices for exit and stay interviews.
Charlie Phalen has spent four decades in the personnel security business, most recently at Northrop Grumman, and before that, in top security positions at the CIA and FBI.
The federal workforce said it was slightly more engaged at their agencies. Employee engagement rose slightly in 2016, rising from 64 percent in 2015 to 65 percent this year, according to the newly released results of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.
The four companies awarded contracts for background investigation work are made up of two new faces and two current federal contractors.
The latest updates to USAJobs.gov include a new, more responsive mobile site, as well as a help center and frequently-asked-questions page. The new improvements come from the Office of Personnel Management, which is celebrating the job portal's 20th anniversary this week.
A new report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's majority members links the 2014 and 2015 OPM breaches as coordinated attacks, and blames the agency's failure to heed warnings about its cybersecurity for the theft of PII of millions of federal employees and their families.
The Office of Personnel Management has been busy this year helping agencies more quickly recruit, hire and develop cyber talent, an initiative outlined in the President's Cybersecurity National Action Plan. Agencies like the FBI and Commerce Department say they are also beginning to change their mindsets when building teams of cyber experts.
Two senators are urging the Office of Personnel Management to share details about the progress — or lack thereof — for the National Background Investigations Bureau. The NBIB is expected to be operational by October 2016.