Save Award 2010 Ideas

Telecon/VidCon. Reduce travel costs by hosting more Telecons and VideoCons. For most meetings/conferences, this system will work. The amount of travel money that could be save could be substantial.

Limit the number of employees from each agency allowed to attend the same training or conference. Require those who attended to report on what they learned, and make any electronic resources available to their co-workers to maximize the impact of the expenditure. Rotate the attendees so that the same employees are not the employees always attending training. This would save travel money, maximize the expenditure and create... more »

Implement more cost-effective training requirements that are to met by each agency. For example, require agencies to utilize web-based training programs in lieu of in-person training seminars. The costs for in-person training are exponentially larger compared to the costs of conducting trainng over CENTRA or an equivalent, web-based program.

Not only are the costs of travel quite large (to include airfare, hotel,... more »

By using an online commercial travel booking service such as Travelocity or Orbitz we could save millions - literally. By using GovTrip we are wasting millions of dollars by 1. untold employee hours (and likely the most money) wasted due to poor website application functionality, 2. not being able to book the least expensive options, 3. the cost of the application itself, 4. difficulty in processing travel vouchers after... more »

The same information is often requested from multiple agencies (name, address, dependents, and income). Where possible combine forms across agencies to consolidate the requests we make of our customers.
Immediate benefits will include:

• Consolidate requests to our customers
(in 2010 we submitted our tax and census requests within weeks of each other)
• Reduce duplicate envelope cost, a more “green” approach
•... more »

Large cost savings could be gained if federal leaders were encouraged to train their employees in the cities they work. Approximately 88% of the Federal Workforce is located outside of Washington D.C.

This is better for the environment and will save the federal government in travel and per diem costs.

Federal training already exists in 28 large cities through the Federal Executive Boards (www.Feb.Gov). FEB sponsored... more »

Each federal agency should consolidate its training offices and institutes to reduce travel and staffing costs, and take advantage of synergies. The Dept. of Labor, for example, has separate training institutes for OSHA, MSHA, VETS, EBSA, etc. Yet many courses teach the same thing: how to investigate a claim, document a case file, establish that discrimination or retaliation has occurred, etc. The OSHA training institute... more »

Cross-training and seeing a job from a new perspective makes people more effective and efficient.

Establish guidelines to cross-train people. There should be a method where a person hired to do 1 job must complete a mandatory "rotational" assignment, doing a similar or related job - or 2 jobs. For example, somebody hired to develop software can do a rotation as a software tester, and a 2nd rotation as a configuration... more »

I suggest that you change the way process improvement personnel are currently managed in the government. Instead of hiring outside contractors, or term employees, make process improvement its own job series and career path. By allowing people to advance in their career along the process improvement path, you will get the most bang for your buck.

Training process improvment experts right now is not cheap, and yet we... more »

Computer Based Training (CBT) is often used by the government at the cost of millions in development. There are many Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) software programs that can be used to develop CBT. I suggest the government in every branch procure this inexpensive software and develop its own process driven training programs that will run on any government computer that has Flash loaded. Programs like Adobe Captivate... more »

Communication is the key to success in the workplace. I think that all employees, Federal or otherwise, that work on government projects should go through mandatory communication training. There are communication failures in the workplace-- day in and day out. These failures cost us greatly, because they require us to redo work, cause resolved and unresolved conflict, waste time and productivity having to recommmunicate... more »

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Central Office has an off site training facility. Finding a parking spot is quite a challenge; especially when several classes are held at one time. Parking is limited and we end up driving around looking for an empty spot or parking in areas designated for local businesses. If we had a shuttle that left CMS 10-15 minutes before the start of class and left the training... more »

Provide awareness training to mitigate the excessive use of resources. A lot of people are either ignorant or just plain don't care that they are using tons of resources on a daily basis while on the job. It is easy for a government employee to become complacement in regards to their energy use because they never see the bill (except at tax season). Educating and creating a better awareness of environmental impact would... more »

Implement more frequent, smaller scale, cheaper, local training like the lunch-and-learn programs used in the corporate sector.

Provide a sack lunch (from a local vendor) and spend one hour on bite-sized trainings. It keeps informaiton fresh in your employees' minds, doesn't require travel, is much cheaper, and allows trainers to respond quickly to current needs.

Create a single position or department that will discover and ensure all federal employees who are behind on thier state and federal taxes pay them back in a timely manner. Assist those employees in creating a budget in which garnishments can be made with as little impact on the employee as possible. Give the employee a window of time in which he/she can pay off the debt. If the debt is not paid within that space of time,... more »