8/24/23: Avoiding a paycheck breakdown for 650K feds; hitting small business goals at HHS; the management relationship-building that even works for keeping nukes safe

The National Finance Center does payroll, human resources, and retirement services for 650,000 federal employees across 170 agencies. It’s up against the same modernization challenges other federal government organizations are facing. Margie Graves, Senior Fellow at the IBM Center for The Business of Government, and former Deputy Chief Information Officer of the United States, led a team for the National Academy of Public Administration that advised the NFC how to stay ahead of the curve. She tells me what her team found, and how NFC can keep moving in the right direction.

The Department of Health and Human Services small business contracting goal for Fiscal 2023 is 22%. The agency has goals for subcategories of small businesses for this fiscal year too. On the newest edition of Fed Gov Today TV, I ask Shannon Jackson, Executive Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at HHS, about the progress he’s making toward those goals.

The war in Ukraine has dozens - or maybe hundreds - of second- and third-order effects in addition to the suffering and violence because of war fighting. One of those is the security of nuclear materials in the region. Zachary Johnson, Foreign Affairs Specialist at the National Nuclear Security Administration, is a finalist for a Service to America Medal in the Safety, Security, and International Affairs Category. He shares the management and relationship-building principles that keep nuclear materials safe in some of the worst conditions in the world.