THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2023 31 According to GCLO Director Gabrielle Hampson: “Every post is different, but generally a quarter of family members at post find work inside an embassy or consulate, and about 17 percent work outside the mission, either teleworking or on the local economy.” Her office offers numerous online resources for job-hunting EFMs. GCLO manages 20 regionally based global employment advisers who can help family members explore employment and professional development options at post. Family members can access this free resource as they prepare to apply for positions at post or return to the States. In the last two years, GCLO saw a 2 percent increase in family members teleworking overseas and launched the Telework Overseas Guidance for Family Members page to offer guidance to EFMs interested in pursuing telework options. The Family Member Employment Report (FAMER) provides detailed information about the employment situation at post. It won’t tell you what jobs are open, but it will give you a sense of whether the posts you are bidding on have a large or small cohort of working spouses. GCLO’s Professional Development Fellowship Program offers EFM spouses and members of household grants of $1,000 to $2,500 for enrichment activities. The Network is a subscription newsletter that distributes information about job opportunities to spouses in and around the Washington, D.C., area. —D.S.G. Online Resources for EFMs What’s the Good News? It’s not all bad news, even if it sometimes feels that way to those of us trying to secure new jobs every time we move. The Bureau of Global Talent Management (GTM), GCLO, and even Diplomatic Security (DS) have joined forces to try to make things easier for spouses who want to work. Faster clearances. Several spouses told the FSJ the clearance progress seems to be getting faster. According to a DS spokesperson, they’re not wrong. DS recently overhauled the clearance process, partnering with GTM and the Bureau of Information Resource Management to create a “clearance coordinator program,” which began as a pilot in April 2020 and was phased in worldwide in 2021. Part personnel security specialist and part customer service representative, the clearance coordinator is “engaged across the whole spectrum of security clearance requests, from applicants for employment, to contractors, to student interns.” Using this new model, a DS spokesperson says they’ve reduced the time needed to process clearances from “55 days or even longer” to just two weeks. Increasing DETOs. Family members can earn noncompetitive eligibility through their overseas employment and use it to land Civil Service positions back in Washington, D.C. But what happens when they’re assigned overseas again? Michael Phillips, deputy assistant secretary for GTM, says many such family members are finding work as a DETO. In the last two years, says Phillips, the number of DETOs grew by 165 percent, with more than 200 Civil Service employees currently teleworking from posts around the world. And, adds Phillips, Civil Service DETOs now receive locality pay under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. (See Amelia Shaw’s article on DETO on page 33.) Expanding bilateral work agreements. GTM also supports family members who want to work on the local economy (the most common positions, according to Phillips, are in teaching, photography, and consulting). The State Department has 150 bilateral work agreements and de facto arrangements, and Phillips says these agreements provide opportunities for family members to work on the local economy at 84 percent of posts. In the past two years, the State Department has enacted two new bilateral work agreements, one with France and one with Oman. Educated People Marry Educated People So what do the other old-timers think of the never-ending quest for spouse employment? One spouse with more than two decades of EFM and Civil Service work experience rolls her eyes and says it’s obvious: “Educated people marry educated people—so we should hire them.” “I do not know of a single embassy or consulate that would say, ‘Yes, we have enough employees to get the work of the mission done.’” She continues, “And we have talented EFMs sitting around, waiting to work.” n
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