Distributed Operations in Response to COVID-19: Assessing Workforce Perceptions of Productivity and Success

During the midst of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a large Navy Working Capital Funded government laboratory transitioned from a traditional on-site/physical daily operational presence to a distributed, virtual maximum telework posture. The direction given in March 2020 was that unless performance of a specific approved tasking was required at the physical workplace, the laboratory workforce was to telework from a safe location while practicing social distancing. To this extent, a majority of the organization’s workforce continued performing the duties associated with their programs and projects in a virtual and secure distributed environment. This new norm certainly raised questions and considerations related to the effectiveness of the workforce while under maximum telework. As a result, two surveys were conducted to assess the perceived work-effectiveness of the organization. The perceived work-effectiveness was assessed at the operational (work unit) level, focusing on project impacts of telework, and from the macroorganizational perspective. The first survey was conducted on a project that was 2 weeks into this virtual maximum telework environment. The second survey was performed one layer above the project at the division level, thereby extending the aperture of the data. Both surveys provided a great deal of information and insight on how project teams perceived work performance and effectiveness during telework. The purpose of the study was to understand the impact of distributed telework in workforce productivity and project success as well as assess workforce perceptions on the effects of telework.

Pengaruh Kepemimpinan, Kompensasi dan Motivasi Kerja terhadap Kinerja Pegawai Pada Institut Pemerintahan Dalam Negeri (IPDN) Kampus Sumatera Barat

This study aims to reveal: 1. The influence of leadership on employee performance. 2) Effect of Compensation on employee performance. 3) The Effect of Work Motivation on the performance of employees. 4) The effect of leadership on Work Motivation. 5) Effect of Compensation on Work Motivation at the Institute of Domestic Administration of the West Sumatera Campus. The population in this study were non-PNS employees of the Institute of Internal Affairs of the West Sumatera Campus, amounting to 89 people consisting of 1) Administration Section, 2) Academic and Collaborative Section, 3) Research Section, 4) Cultivation Unit, 5) Computer Unit and Language, 5) Government Laboratory Unit. The sample collection in this study used the census method, which is 89 employees of the Non PNS Institute of Domestic Administration, West Sumatera Campus. The analytical tool used is Path Analysis using the SPSS program (Statistical Package For Social Science). The findings of this study are: 1) Leadership has a significant and positive effect on the Work Motivation. 2) Compensation has a significant and positive effect on the Work Motivation. 3) Leadership has a significant and positive effect on Employee Performance with Work Motivation as a mediator between leadership and Employee Performance 4) Compensation has a significant and positive effect on Employee Performance with Work Motivation acts as a mediator between compensation and Employee Performance 5) Work motivation has a significant and positive effect on Employee Performance at the Sumatera Campus Institute of Domestic Administration.

The Radium Committee of the Royal Society and the fate of the substances purchased by it

In this article, documents relating to the history of the Radium Committee of the Royal Society are collated for the first time. Founded in 1903, the committee had its status enhanced in 1904, when the Goldsmiths' Company donated £1000 for the establishment of a Radium Research Fund. Two years later the fund was used to purchase 500 kg of pitchblende residues from the Austrian government. The French chemist Armet de Lisle was contracted to perform the first stage of extraction, and the process of purification was performed at the Government Laboratory during 1907 by the Government Analyst, T. E. Thorpe, yielding an estimated 70 mg of radium chloride. In 1914 the unexpended balance of about £500 was awarded to Ernest Rutherford, but the bulk was not used until 1921, when Rutherford had moved to Cambridge. The fund was then used to purchase radium that had been on loan to him from Austria before World War I. After Rutherford's death in 1937 the Committee was wound up, and the Society's radium was controlled on a more ad hoc basis. After Thorpe's work in 1907, the radium was lent out successively to several leading scientists until its existence was last recorded in 1953.