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- 'How Government Built This - Strengthening and Empowering Our People & Culture’ – How Empowerment leads to Innovation 

# 'How Government Built This - Strengthening and Empowering Our People & Culture’ – How Empowerment leads to Innovation 

*Welcome to “How Government Built This,” a  podcast and blog post series developed by the Department of the Treasury’s  Bureau of the Fiscal Service Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation (FIT)  in collaboration with**the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory  Council (ACT-IAC)**.**This series will spotlight trailblazers exploring the intersection of innovation and            Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access or DEIA across government. Resources and links mentioned in each podcast will also be available at actiac.org/thebuzz.*

**Tom Vannoy, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Wholesale Security Services, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Department of the Treasury**

Tom holds an MBA/MS in Information Systems Management and BS in Human Resource Management from the University of Maryland – College Park.

Tom is also the proud Father of a 15 1/2-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son who are primarily raised by Alison (Alie), his very understanding wife.  They also have four dogs that are spoiled by various members of the family:  Rosie, Snowflake, Hazel, and Maggie.  Recent hobbies include reading books about coaching, cycling, and video games.

Tom has been the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Wholesale Securities Services for nine years where his staff conducts the operations for all Treasury auctions.  Tom is a strong advocate for employee development, a strong work culture, and having fun.          

**What is empowerment? What does it mean for an individual  or workforce to be empowered?**

Tom believes that empowerment is unique to everyone, so can speak  as both an employee and a leader who manages other employees. Looking back to when  Fiscal Service’s Do Not Pay program was set up, Tom was a program manager  overseeing 3-4 people, and making decisions. He operated independently but  wasn’t executing decisions fast enough to keep the program moving on schedule.  Tom’s own executives pulled him aside and stressed that providing he wasn’t issuing  “dumb” decisions, they trusted him and his decisions. Knowing he had this trust  and backing felt incredibly empowering.  Looking back to this role, Tom felt  the most empowered of any of his roles because of this conversation with his  executives. 

Tom works to create an environment where his own employees  can feel as empowered as he did. In Treasury auctions, where Tom works now,  there is a low-risk appetite because of the need for precision. In this  constrained environment, empowerment is about clarifying to employees how much  risk is acceptable in their work. With this knowledge, employees understand when  they can try something new without having to get many approvals and when approvals are  not needed. Governance is a good thing, but it can stifle empowerment and discourage  innovation and new ideas.

**Being empowered positively affected your mental state,  but did it also change how you approached your work?**

Because of his leadership’s  trust, Tom felt in charge and that he was able to make decisions beyond his  normal scope of responsibility. Having this confidence in his decisions allowed  him to issue timely decisions to keep the program moving in the right  direction, rather than having to wait for approval. 

**Empowerment clearly benefited you as an employee. How did  it benefit your leadership and your organization?**

 Creating the Do Not Pay program resulted from a request by  the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The program had an aggressive  timeline, resulting in an entrepreneurial environment. Since Tom was empowered,  he was able to make decisions to meet the demands of this tight timeline and  keep the program on track. 

**In a risk averse area like Treasury auctions, how do you  balance giving employees autonomy to innovate or take risks in one area with  the need to be precise and accept almost no risk in another?**

It’s important to be clear and specific when speaking with  employees about the culture of the organization and its mission. Tom meets with  each employee in their first month on the team to discuss the culture of the Wholesale  Securities Services (WSS) organization, whose tagline is “one team, one  mission, precisely delivered.” 

He explains expectations, values, and behaviors to new  employees and collects feedback from his employees regularly. In these  conversations he stresses that accuracy and precision are needed in Treasury  auctions and delineates what areas or work are  more risk tolerant and which are not. For example, in areas such as strategic  planning and management, there is more room to take risks because they don’t  directly affect the primary business. 

Setting clear expectations early also gives an employee the  opportunity to quickly determine whether the organization and autonomy they  have aligns with their own expectations. If an employee feels that the  organization isn’t a good fit for them, Tom will help them find another team  that is more aligned with their needs and expectations.

**Empowerment is closely tied to employee engagement and  being excited to come to work. In a hybrid environment, it can be difficult to  feel engaged. How do we overcome this barrier?**

Tom is a firm believer in the idea that, “culture eats  strategy for breakfast.” For this reason, he is focused on the culture of the  organization and incorporating employee feedback when there’s something that  can be improved. Engagement in a remote workplace requires leadership to be  explicit and up front about expectations and what it’s like to work in the  organization. The interview is a two-way street; even as you’re interviewing  potential employees, they should be interviewing you.  

It's important in a remote environment to have employees  feel part of the team and feel trusted. When the pandemic hit, Tom’s team went  from being in person, having physical auction rooms, and requiring leadership  approval to telework to going fully remote. As he hired new employees into this  fully remote environment, he retooled the onboarding process to have these employees  feel part of the team and feel trusted.

Looking beyond WSS to the broader organization, the bureau  established Fiscal Challenges to present problems and invite employees to form  teams to tackle them. Participants were provided with analytical tools and data  sets and encouraged to take time to explore. Tom heard great feedback from  employees who participated and appreciated the opportunity to learn about  something outside their own day-to-day responsibilities. They gained exposure  to new tools sets and new colleagues outside their own spheres, and this  increased their engagement as their horizons expanded. An important part of  engagement and empowerment is creating an opportunity for growth.

**What would you say to leaders who are skeptical or afraid  of employee empowerment?**

It took courage for Tom’s leadership to trust him and his ability  to make decisions. Tom has experience working for people who’ve felt  comfortable trusting him with autonomy and for people who did not feel  comfortable. Leaders must develop this comfort to succeed. As you move up in  your career, you become less of an expert and more of your accomplishments are attributable to of the work of the people you oversee,  and so it’s important that they feel empowered and supported. Without this  culture of empowerment, the organization is fragile and may not continue to  succeed after you leave because people have become dependent on you managing  everything and issuing every decision. If you can’t get comfortable empowering  others as you move up in your career, it’s going to be more difficult to reach the  success level you’re used to. 

**Any final thoughts on engagement and empowerment?**

 Tom feels strongly that the more engaged your workforce is,  the more you’re likely to accomplish. Micromanaging is not a strategy for  success. Also, Tom recently heard someone articulate that “belonging” is where  Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEIA) intersect. Feeling like  you belong and that you are part of an organization is foundational to feeling  engaged and feeling empowered. 

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 Fiscal Service recently held a challenge empowering all employees  to look at the way we do business, take advantage of some learning  opportunities on evaluating a process, and propose recommendations. To get  started the following four questions were provided: 

How can Fiscal Service improve service offerings to increase  accessibility and equity?   *... think  about our customers who are unbanked, those with limitations related to  technology, or those with language barriers, to name a few.*

 How can Fiscal Service improve accounting and reporting? *...  think about addressing fraud risk, the effective use of data, or something as  simple as eliminating/improving the use of a spreadsheet.*

 What can we do to address data quality, accuracy, and  integrity across the enterprise? *& think about improvements to how we  collect data.*

 How do we ensure our modernization and transformation work is  addressing a customer need/problem?  *...  think about how we deliver training and how we communicate with customers  (e.g., reducing the number of touch points and steps in a process for  customers).*

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The following employees were participants of the top two teams. 

**Kuhu Parasrampuria Attorney Advisor,  Office of the Chief Counsel and Grace Lim, Management and Program Analyst,  Office of the Chief Data Officer**

**Does this idea of empowerment and engagement resonate  with you?**

Grace is fairly new to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and  since day one she has felt empowered by her leadership. It’s important for  leadership to establish a culture of empowerment and set an example for the  rest of the organization. There is a virtuous cycle or multiplier effect in  which empowered employees empower those around them and are more apt to raise  new ideas.

**We talk a lot about how leaders empower their workforce  or how an organization empowers its workforce, but how do employees empower  their peers?**

When your colleagues speak up or ask challenging questions,  they are showing that psychological safety exists in the organization or space.  The ability to question is such an important part of being empowered. When you  see someone else model this behavior, it gives you the confidence to also raise  questions and contribute.

**What drew you to the Fiscal Challenge? What made you want  to take on this challenge on top of your existing workload?**

 Kuhu explained that participating in the Fiscal Challenge  was an opportunity to do something different from her usual work, specifically  finding process improvements in another area of the enterprise. It was an  opportunity to network with and meet people out of her circle. Having joined  the bureau during the pandemic, it’s been challenging meeting people in a  remote and then hybrid environment. 

**Is there anything from the Fiscal Challenge that you’ve  been able to bring back with you after the end of the project?**

It’s clear to Kuhu that the bureau values when employees  suggest process improvements. Since the end of this Fiscal Challenge, she  practices identifying and speaking up about ways to improve processes in her  own office. Also, the relationships that Kuhu formed with colleagues in areas outside  the Office of the Chief Counsel and the subject matter knowledge that she can  tap from these new relationships enables her to work more effectively.

**What did you learn about yourselves or your home  organizations after stepping out of them to participate in the Fiscal  Challenge?**

Kuhu learned how to navigate constituencies that would be  impacted by her suggestions. When suggesting process improvements, you’re  pointing out room for improvement, and it’s possible that the process owners can  take that personally. They may feel they or their work is being attacked, but  that’s not the intent. It’s important to always be rethinking and reassessing  what you do. Kuhu learned how to better secure buy-in from affected  constituencies and frame recommendations in a way that audiences would be more  receptive. 

Grace also feels that the bureau as an organization respects  her thoughts and ideas as an employee, and the Fiscal Challenge was one example  of that. She had always felt that her own office empowered her, but the Fiscal  Challenge was an opportunity to see that empowerment taken to a larger scale at  an enterprise level. 

**Any finals thoughts?**

Grace had a fantastic experience participating in the Fiscal  Challenge and beyond the Challenge has felt empowered in suggesting new ideas  and seeing those suggestions incorporated into existing processes. For Kuhu,  the Fiscal Challenge was a great learning opportunity that she hopes to see  continue at the bureau and at other federal agencies. 

**Dave Martie, Fiscal Analyst, Office of Fiscal Projections; Melissa Campisi,  Executive Assistant, Wholesale Securities Services; Donald Ricks, IT Project Manager, Program Management Branch**

**How did you find yourselves on a team together and what  was it like working with colleagues from across the organization?**

Melissa brought the group together after having worked with  both Donald and Dave previously. She had positive experiences with both and  immediately thought of them when she saw the Fiscal Challenge and needed to  form a team. 

**How did you land on your project and what was it like  tackling this topic that was outside all three of your areas?**

Donald relied on his cybersecurity experience to look at how  the bureau’s applications are used by customers and other external  stakeholders. The team was drawn to the opportunity to learn and collaborate on  a topic that was outside but touched on their areas of knowledge. Donald has  experience understanding cybersecurity deployments for activities and functions  such as logging into a bank account through multifactor authentication. For Dave,  this project was more outside his area of knowledge, and so the team divided  the work of the challenge in a way that aligned with their respective  skillsets. Donald applied his technical knowledge to dive into the details of  the project, while Dave focused on presenting the project findings in a way  that resonated with audiences. Melissa was somewhere in between Donald and  David in her background and role and supported both the testing and  presentation sides of the work. 

**We’ve discussed the benefits of empowerment and employee  engagement throughout this episode. What were some additional benefits you  encountered?**

Dave seized an opportunity to perform a detail outside the  bureau at the Department of the Treasury’s departmental offices as an  unexpected benefit of participating in the Fiscal Challenge. The detail was in  no small part a result of the Fiscal Challenge because an executive who heard  Dave brief his team’s findings was impressed by the presentation and took down  Dave’s name. When this executive later saw Dave’s resume in the applicant pool  for the Fiscal Challenge, he remembered Dave’s presentation and recommended him  for the opportunity.  

**Any last takeaways from participating in the Fiscal  Challenge?**

Donald sees work in the federal government as being  structured and often regimented with a clear path for how to do things and the  outcomes you expect. The Fiscal Challenge, on the other hand, was a unique  opportunity to do things differently. Donald is reminded of how Elon Musk, CEO  of Tesla, will host hackathons for outsiders to compete to try to infiltrate  his products. These events are opportunities to determine how vulnerable your  applications are. Similarly, in the Fiscal Challenge, Donald’s team was able to  analyze and test one of the bureau’s external facing applications to identify  potential security vulnerabilities. This will enhance the security of the product and  increase customers’ confidence in using the bureau’s applications.

Dave observed that some Fiscal Challenge teams comprised  members who belonged to the same office and were analyzing their own office’s  processes rather than another area of the bureau. This meant that these teams  would be uncovering pain points that could reflect poorly on their own  teammates or supervisors. The dynamic discouraged some of these teams from  pursuing these analyses. This meant the bureau missed out on an opportunity  for these teams to uncover potential pain points and opportunities for  improvement. Having formed a team from three different areas, Dave felt that  his team did not experience this dynamic. Cross-office collaboration fostered a  healthy dynamic both for Dave’s team but also for the entire bureau.

Last modified 04/26/23