Through personal leadership and inspiration, you have been driving a historic effort to encourage federal agencies to become more family-friendly. Your 1994 and 1996 directives to agency heads on the family-friendly federal workplace led agencies to review and improve their efforts to help employees balance and integrate work and family demands. Your signature on the Family and Medical Leave Act not only provided federal employees with additional flexibility in meeting their life needs but was a powerful signal of your determination to help all American families achieve a better balance of their many responsibilities. Your proposed expansion of that Act would furnish employees with valuable additional time off to meet important medical and educational needs. This is critical because across the country, American workers are struggling to balance the demands of work and family, searching for ways to maintain a healthy family life and a satisfying and productive career. We now know that family-friendly initiatives, properly administered, not only result in stronger families, but in more efficient and effective workplaces and better service to our customers. At a time when a great deal of attention has been given to the significance of this issue, I am presenting you with this update on where the federal government now stands in this important arena. It is clear from our review during the past year that the necessary policies and programs are in place. In fact, in many areas, the federal government can be truly proud of its leadership position and its role as a model employer.