He was a prominent member of the Committee for Equal Sharing of the Burden along with the Yesh Atid parliamentary group, in which he fought to extend the military service of soldiers from Hesder Yeshivas.

In the Twentieth Knesset, he and MK Avi Dichter (then the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee) sponsored the law to freeze funds that the Palestinian Authority received from the Government of Israel and used in conjunction with terrorism.

As Minister he is leading the ministry in building a national intelligence office whose main principles are future planning for crises and major events facing the State of Israel on multiple levels, with an emphasis on trends in the national-civil-international sectors for the Israeli government.

As head of the Human Resources Directorate from 2004-2008, Stern led the IDF's efforts to increase engagement in Jewish and democratic education.

He also helped conceive and led the project to introduce bone marrow transplant match testing to the IDF enlistment procedure, an effort that has saved more than 2,600 lives to date, 58% of whom are Jews from the Diaspora.

Stern's actions as a senior officer were subjected to public controversy in 2021, at which time he was serving as a minister, over having suppressed sexual harassment complaints.

In an October 2021 interview, Stern claimed that as head of the Manpower Directorate he ignored anonymous sexual harassment complaints, saying "people who have something to say about others should speak openly.

From 2010 until his entry into the Knesset in 2012, Stern served as the volunteer chairman of the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, chaired the Ethiopian National Project from 2012, and was a member of the board of directors of the Habima Theatre.