Podcast
Civil Rights for Civil Servants
Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.
Listen to the podcastNews, rights, tools & learning
Federal Employee Resource Center
Search timely updates, plain-English explainers, practical guides, podcasts, and mindful-action resources. Start with the question you are trying to answer.
Federal Tax Debt and Your Federal Job
A new Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report has understandably raised anxiety among federal employees. According to the report, the federal-workforce tax-delinqu...
Federal EEO and MSPB Settlements Under Scrutiny
House Oversight Chairman James Comer has opened an inquiry into why the federal government pays to resolve so many federal employee grievances, pointing to federal-sector EEO and M...
FMLA for Federal Employee Burnout
A federal employee recently asked the question many workers quietly carry: “If I take FMLA for burnout, will it end my career?” The honest legal answer is no—not by itself. Needing...
USDA Relocations and Federal Employee Rights
When a federal agency pushes out a researcher with 37 years of institutional knowledge, the loss is not abstract. It shows up in weakened programs, broken mentoring pipelines, dela...
Voluntary OPM Skills Survey: Know Your Rights
OPM’s Federal Workforce Competency Initiative survey has understandably unsettled many federal employees. According to the transcript, the survey was sent to roughly 550,000 employ...
CDC Telework Accommodations and Disability Rights
For many federal employees with disabilities, telework is not a preference. It is the difference between being able to perform the essential functions of a job and being pushed out...
OPM Health Data and Federal Employee Privacy
Federal employees have reason to feel uneasy right now. The identity-theft protection offered after the 2015 OPM breach is beginning to expire, ten years after enrollment, even tho...
FEMA Restructuring and Federal Employee Rights
The FEMA Review Council’s final report uses unusually stark language: it recommends that the government “close the chapter” on FEMA as federal employees know it. For career civil s...
NIH Word-Scanning and Federal Employee Rights
Recent reporting from Government Executive says NIH employees are being required to run grant applications and progress reports through a text analysis tool that flags terms associ...
Federal Employee DOGE Email Responses Show Dignity and Professionalism
Many federal employees remember the February 2025 “what did you do last week” email not as a routine workplace request, but as a moment of shock. According to the transcript, feder...
Federal Worker Credit Protection Act Explained
A missed credit card payment can feel personal, even when the cause was completely outside your control. For federal employees affected by the 76-day DHS shutdown, the harm was not...
Federal Employees Deserve Recognition Without Fear
The Service to America Medals—the “Sammies”—have long been treated as the Oscars of federal service. This year’s 25th annual ceremony carried a quieter message: many federal employ...
More ways to learn
Choose the format that helps you understand what is happening.
The Mindful Federal Employee is part of a broader public-education ecosystem from Shaun Southworth, Lydia Taylor, and Southworth PC. Use the resource that fits the question and the moment.
Mindfulness
Work Peacefully
Use practical mindfulness tools to create space between workplace pressure and the decision you make next.
Explore mindfulness resourcesAbout the people behind the work
Shaun Southworth & Lydia Taylor
Meet the federal employment attorneys behind this public-education work and the podcast Civil Rights for Civil Servants.
Meet Shaun & LydiaThe Federal Employee Briefing
The important developments, without the all-day scroll.
Join 3,900+ federal employees getting sourced workforce news and practical next steps on weekdays. It is a free public-service resource from Southworth PC.