16 JULY AUGUST 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL SPEAKING OUT Stacy D. Williams is chair of the employee organization Balancing Act. He began his State Department Civil Service career as a Presidential Management Intern in 1997 and was deputy director in the Office of Haitian Affairs. He has served as president of the Thursday Luncheon Group and established the Diversity and Inclusion Council in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Iwas quite pleased to read The Foreign Service Journal’s April 2024 edition. Finally, there was a conversation focused on the State Department’s problems with bullying and incivility, showcasing the need for the department to identify immediate-, medium-, and longer-term solutions to the challenges employees are facing within the workplace. These issues must be addressed as Secretary Antony Blinken pursues his goals of modernizing U.S. diplomacy. As chair of the employee organization Balancing Act, I am all too familiar with these issues. Over the last three years (and in another sense, the last seven), the State Department, like the rest of the country, has experienced a period of great turbulence and imbalance. The immediate need is to bring equity front and center as the means to “rebalance” our efforts to establish a collegial, collaborative, and inclusive work environment, one in which we all have the opportunity to be seen, heard, valued, and respected at all levels. Top Challenges Overwork, impossible deadlines, varied working conditions, lack of support, and high levels of professional and personal risk are the kinds of stressful challenges diplomats have always faced to one degree or another, as the State Department deals with budgetary and policy decisions, leadership quality, and the general political climate. In recent years, and in particular during and following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, State employees have experienced a significant increase in workload with no additional staffing or resources. Lingering effects from the January 2017 to May 2018 hiring freeze at State made matters worse. The pandemic upended work routines as well as family life. Department employees were compelled to do even more with even less. The increased workload produced shorter deadlines and eroded the demarcation between work and personal life. It was as if we were in the trenches with no air support, or other reinforcements, and relied on each other and employee organizations to talk through these experiences as coping mechanisms to safeguard our mental health. Many employees reported their concerns to Balancing Act about deteriorating supervisor/employee relationships, with no effective mechanisms to resolve these increasingly uncomfortable situations. Some supervisors were routinely requiring Foreign Service and Civil Service employees to work beyond normal business hours and on weekends, without allowing for the legally authorized overtime or compensatory time off for Civil Service and nontenured Foreign Service employees. Based on these findings and the challenges in interpreting complex overtime regulations, Balancing Act leadership worked with the Bureau of Global Talent Management in 2022 to pull together a cable, 22 State 107214: “Taking Care of People: Overtime and Premium Compensation Policy Guidance and Reminders.” Workplace Conditions at State: Change Is Coming BY STACY D. WILLIAMS Survey results found that the number one factor causing employees to consider leaving the State Department was poor supervisors.
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