The Foreign Service Journal, April 2020

26 APRIL 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Employee Paid Leave Act. Under this legislation, which received strong backing from State Department leadership and employee organizations, federal government employees will receive 12 weeks of paid leave following the birth, adoption or foster place- ment of a child as of Oct. 1, 2020. In a message informing State Department employees of the new law, Director General Perez welcomed the new policy, stating that she had seen far too many federal government employees, herself included, take leave without pay following the arrival of a new child. The department also implemented reforms designed to provide greater assistance to Foreign Service families with special needs children, including revisions and clarifications to policies and procedures related to the Special Needs Educa- tion Allowance. 3 FAM 3280 codifies recent regulatory changes that expand and clarify the services covered by SNEA, including services provided outside a school setting, educational consul- tants and extended school year services. [See “What’s Next for SNEA?,” p. 41.] To support and retain employees facing life circumstances that require extra flexibility, the Director General announced in November that employees may take leave without pay (LWOP) for up to three years at a time under a new pilot program. This additional flexibility will enable employees to address fam- ily commitments, learn new skills or recuperate from illness, without having to resign. The Director General has also encour- aged bureaus to increase the number of domestic positions eligible for domestic-employee-teleworking-overseas (DETO) arrangements to facilitate assignments for the growing number of tandem employees. Encouraging a Change in Culture While some reforms are the result of policy changes, others require a change in department culture rather than the rulebook. To that end, in a September 2019 cable the Director General encouraged the use of annual leave when possible for employees newly arriving at post. By tradition, Foreign Service employees are expected to begin work on arrival in country, while they are at the same time settling into a new residence and, in many cases, enrolling children in school or arranging childcare. I remember arriving at one Latin American post with the intention of spending the first week focused on learning my new job and unpacking. My daughter’s overzealous high school teachers, however, had other plans; on the first day, they assigned homework that required internet access, which I had to scramble to arrange. At another post, in Europe, my supervisor, a single parent, had to find someone to babysit her two small chil- dren so she could attend a front office meeting within 48 hours of her arrival in country. Regulations do not permit the use of administrative leave or consultation days in these situations, but there is no such restriction on annual leave. In a December 2019 message, the Director General provided guidance for the use of special compensatory time off (SCTO) for employees performing overtime work. While tenured For- eign Service employees are not eligible for overtime pay, they are eligible for SCTO in circumstances where work has been ordered and the overtime hours approved in advance. (This does not apply to Foreign Service specialists or to untenured FSOs, who are generally eligible for overtime pay; nor does it apply to members of the Senior Foreign Service, who are not eligible for overtime pay or SCTO.) Contrary to common perception, the FAM does not limit SCTO to emergencies and VIP visits. It can be applied to any situation in which an employee is assigned official duties outside regular work hours, such as participating in a webinar with an office in another time zone or working the check-in table for an evening Fourth of July event. More to Come in 2020 Meeting the needs of a diverse and rapidly changing work- force is a moving target, and therefore more changes can be expected this year. Some initiatives are already in the works, including a departmentwide Diversity and Inclusion Plan, a new Manager Support Unit in the Office of Employee Relations and a monthlong program of events to recognize the outsized role that managers and supervisors play in retaining and developing talent. Other ideas will come directly from the workforce. In May 2019, the Bureau of Global Talent Management launched the DG Innovation Portal, which has received more than 1,000 submis- sions from employees with ideas on everything from workplace flexibilities to career development. In 2020, GTM stands ready to turn some of these ideas into concrete changes to support employees and strengthen our institution. n Employees may take leave without pay (LWOP) for up to three years at a time under a new pilot program.