As 2007 comes to a quick close, readers find it interesting to look back and see the most popular news items for the year.
One objective way to do that for those of us who write for this site is to take a look at the articles that were of most interest to our readers for this past calendar year. As in past years, the most popular articles concern the pay raise for the next year. One part of the site with the most hits is the estimated GS schedule pay rates for 2008. Our diligent webmaster came up with a formula and constructed a table for anyone to quickly calculate the locality pay rates for federal employees in 2008. This isn’t as simple as some may think.
This past year, we had the possibility of an average raise of 3% or 3.5%. Within each category, there are a multitude of variables. We are pleased that we were able to provide this service to our readers before it was available anywhere else. In fact, as of this date, as far as we know the FedSmith pay tables are still the only pay tables now available for readers to check out an estimate for their 2008 pay with an average raise of 3.5%.
Human resources consultant Bob Gilson tapped into a big area of concern for federal employees in writing about different aspects of sick leave usage among federal employees. In looking at the list, you will see several articles on this topic that generated considerable interest.
One new topic made this year’s list that is a surprise: tattoos or, more accurately, dress codes and federal employees. Author Steve Oppermann wrote a thoughtful article on dress codes that apparently hit a topic of interest in many federal agencies and this also cracked our top 20 list this year.
Retirement issues are always of interest to readers as well. That is reflected in the list of popular articles. Human resources expert Gary Koca authored an article on “Savings for Federal Retirees” that generated considerable interest. And John Grobe, also a human resources trainer and retired federal employee knew the interests of federal employees with articles such as “Windfall Elimination and Your Retirement Future.”
Our thanks to all of the authors who contributed articles to the site during the past year. These authors are obviously knowledgeable about the federal workplace and have willingly shared their knowledge and expertise with our readers to help them better understand the issues and concerns that are common in the federal government environment.
Here is the list of the top 20 articles on our site for the past year. Click on the article to read the entire article and the comments.
- 2008 Pay Raise on Track: What Articles Will Sway Congress?
- Understanding the 2008 Federal Pay Raise (Maybe)
- Which is the Best TSP Fund Over the Past Five Years? You May Be Surprised!
- The Federal Budget, Government Shutdown, and the 2008 Federal Pay Raise
- 3% or 3.5% in 2008? Check Out the Actual Dollars and Cents in Your Locality
- Why Are the 2008 Salary Adjustment So Unfair?
- Seven Secrets for Writing Successful KSA’s
- Shutdowns, Furloughs, COLA’s, Congress and the 2008 Pay Raise
- Windfall Elimination and Your Retirement Future
- Dress Codes, Tattoos, and Federal Employees: A Brave New World
- Savings for Federal Retirees You May Not Have Considered
- Preventing Sick Leave Problems: Steps an Agency Can Take to Reduce Problems
- Retiring Soon? Here Are Answers to Some Common Questions
- Sick Leave Abuse: Part 2 – Identifying the Problem
- President Bush to Federal Employees: Merry Christmas
- Ten Critical Mistakes Made by Federal Employees in Trouble
- Do You Know Your Retirement Service Computation Date?
- Applying for a Promotion or New Job? Don’t Make These Mistakes on Your Resume
- Sick Leave Abuse: Part 3 – Resolving the Problem
- When Bad Supervisors Happen to Good People: The Price of Poor Supervision
Thanks also to our readers for taking time to visit our site often. The FedSmith site has continued to grow over the past several years. 2007 is another record-breaking year for site traffic. In our first year of existence (a partial year), we had about 150,000 hits on our site. We were ecstatic over the initial response and it gave us the incentive to continue building the site. For 2007, we will have had over 65 million hits. Our computer hardware and software has obviously gotten much more elaborate to handle the load and we are continuing to expand our capacity to handle the increasing load. We read all comments from readers and get many of our ideas for articles and topics from these comments.
We look forward to having you visit often again in 2008!
