The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2023

72 JULY-AUGUST 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA REPORT T RM REPORT Every month, State Vice President Tom Yazdgerdi and I have met with the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources to bring these important issues to the table, straight from our membership and inboxes. We also met biweekly with Bureau of Global Talent Manage- ment leadership, as well as employee organizations (for- merly called affinity groups), to hear their concerns and priorities. We have ardently defended and maintained our status as the voice of the Foreign Service. AFSA programming is back to firing on all cylinders after the pandemic. We reinvigorated in-person events, including our sorely missed welcome lunches for new members of the Foreign Service and member happy hours. We also returned to nationwide travel for AFSA out- reach. In 2023, I completed five trips across the country in just six months. I spoke to a variety of educational institutions, retiree groups, and community organiza- tions. We are educating people across the U.S. about the Foreign Service, and perhaps inspiring the next generation of FSOs in the process. After 38 years in the Foreign Service, it is time for me to retire and move on to other opportunities. I will not stop fighting for the U.S. Foreign Service and our great country, and I plan to stay actively involved with AFSA and efforts to reform and modernize our Service. To our members: it has been my honor to serve you as AFSA president. Keep fighting the good fight. I sincerely thank you for your service, courage, resilience, and patriotism. Diplomacy and international development work are the main alternatives to war, conflict, poverty, and suf- fering across the globe. We can and should be proud of what we do every day to defend our country’s security and to make the world a safer, better home for all of humanity. —Ambassador Eric Rubin, AFSA President Executive Director’s Report A s the 2021-2023 AFSA Governing Board was taking office in July 2021, AFSA as an orga- nization was slowly settling into the post- COVID-19 reality. We officially reopened fully on Sept. 7, 2021. With the onset of the Omicron variant in late 2021, we had a few weeks of volun- tary full telework, but we are now approaching a full two years in the post-pandemic work environment. The outgoing board’s tenure overlapped with these sig- nificant changes, and they are in large part thanks to the openness of the board’s members to entertain new ways of working and delivering for our members. We have spent a good deal of time focusing on the possible silver linings of a global pandemic. We have found ways to conserve resources (i.e., member dues) and expand access by moving multiple events and meet- ings online. For instance, judging panels for awards and scholar- ships (about 20 per year) no longer meet in person with the attendant mountains of paper and catered lunches. These now happen online, which is also a better use of participants’ time. Online events have also made it much easier for us to reach our members abroad, who can now take part in town halls, book talks, and other programs from the comfort of their homes in Quito, Dakar, or Chennai. More than 60 percent of AFSAmembers are abroad at any time, which means we are now able to meet them where they are. AFSA has also embraced telework, with nearly every employee teleworking at least one day a week. This kind of flexibility makes AFSA a more attractive place to work when we need to hire and strengthens our hand in retain- ing talent. The outgoing board has shown a great interest in internal improvements at AFSA, whether physical or professional. For instance, we were proud to double our parental leave starting in 2023. This board has commit- ted AFSA to a biannual salary survey by an outside A lot of this work is behind the scenes and invisible to members, but this is what keeps AFSA a thriving, relevant, fiscally sound organization that attracts and retains excellent employees.