In the federal government,
agencies like the US Department of
Agriculture are adopting a more flexible,
hybrid work environment where some
employees are on the work site every day.
Others telework a certain
number of days per week,
and still others work remotely,
and only occasionally come into the office.
In this video, we'll share 5 unwritten
strategies to help federal employees
like you successfully navigate.
This transformation to a new hybrid work
environment first maintain a high level
of trust through your actions and conduct,
because maintaining trust is paramount,
the federal ethics rules require
that every employee play a critical
role in the federal ethics program.
That means that if you're a federal employee,
you should always act in the
public's interest, carry out your
duties in a clearly impartial way,
spend taxpayers money wisely,
comply with.
All requirements of government ethic,
laws and regulations,
and avoid any questionable conduct
that could erode public confidence
in the government's actions.
Next, if you're a supervisor,
remember that you're accountable
for the actions of your staff,
the federal ethics rules require
that you serve as a model of ethical
behavior for your subordinates.
Ensure that your employees are
aware of their ethical obligations,
and work with ethics officials
to enforce ethics rules.
How?
By setting clear expectations for your staff,
they need to know that you expect
them to complete all required annual
ethics trainings in a timely way.
File all required new employee
and annual financial disclosure
reports on time and contact the
Ethics Office for advice whenever
they have any ethics questions.
The third rule is that you have to protect
your reputation from ethical misjudgment,
to maintain the public's trust.
President Abraham Lincoln once said.
If you once forfeit the confidence
of your fellow citizens,
you can never regain their
respect and esteem more generally,
once you lose the trust of your supervisors.
Coworkers or the public you serve,
it becomes very difficult to
regain that trust.
Whether you're a senior executive,
a senior political appointee,
or a frontline manager, you worked long,
hard hours to get your leadership position.
All it takes is a single ethical
misstep from you or your staff,
and suddenly no one will
remember your good work.
As the saying goes,
it takes about 20 years to build your
reputation and about 5 minutes to lose it.
The fourth rule is to find new
ways to engage with your employees.
One of the greatest challenges of the
hybrid work environment is that you
can't as easily walk down the hall to
have a quick conversation with that employee.
Hey,
these types of informal interactions
will be more limited when
your employees are off site.
That means that in order to keep employees
engaged and to maintain their trust,
you'll need to find more intentional and
proactive ways to communicate with them.
And even if you rarely see some of them.
Face to face,
you need to consistently emphasize
the importance of being fair and
ethical in all their activities,
and let your staff know that you're
counting on them to always act in a
way that leaves no doubt about their
integrity and dedication to the public.
They serve. One way is to send your
staff e-mail messages emphasizing your
expectations and telling them about
the available long distance resources
created by USDA's Office of Ethics.
Finally, as a supervisor, you need to know.
How to leverage ethics training
resources to best support your staff?
The USDA Office of Ethics is a recognized
leader in creating new and innovative tools,
and we've created long distance resources
to help you protect your career and
maintain the public's trust in government.
These resources,
which are available to all federal
employees and members of the public,
include the new ethics rules for you series.
These are quick panel discussion
videos on current topics that
provide you and your staff.
With an effective way to stay
up to date on ethics topics,
you can find the ethics life
casts on usdaa's ethics web page.
The USDA ethics app,
which has an ethics library,
ethics videos,
and two interactive ethics games
that make it easy and fun to
learn the federal ethics rules.
There are dozens of quick and engaging
ethics videos that USDA's Office of
Ethics has created and made available
to the public on demand 24 hours a day.
You'll find the mall on
USDA's official YouTube page.
And finally,
the USDA Office of Ethics website,
a treasure trove of information
about the federal ethics rules.
Everyone can visit this website at
www.ethics.usda.gov all federal
employees should always contact
their agencies ethics advisors
if they have an ethics question.
If you're a USDA employee,
please contact the USDA Office of Ethics.
So that we can answer your questions
and support usdaa's mission of a safe,
plentiful and sustainable food supply to
feed America and people across the globe.
We're the USDA Office of Ethics,
and we're here to help.