In an effort to get government moving on practical hiring reforms, Office of Personnel Management chief John Berry is mandating a handful of audacious new HR measures. Berry, who calls himself "the Chief People Person for the Federal Government," has instructed all agencies and departments to shape up many of their human capital processes.                                       

We all know how complex and frustrating the process of hiring and on-boarding can be in the government. There’s been a hue-and-cry for years that the cycle has to be shortened and the process simplified. Enter John Berry, flush with the new administration’s energy, enthusiasm and optimism.

"We have, by and large, the best workers in the world," Berry told attendees in his keynote at July’s Excellence in Government conference," but we do not have the systems or policies we need to support them." His agenda for reform mandates just that, from streamlining the agency hiring process and making it more transparent to the public, to improving employee satisfaction and wellness.

Berry apparently means business with his SWAT team mandate, requiring each agency to appoint key managers and human capital staffers to their respective teams. Responsible for all aspects of the reform agenda in their agencies, the teams will address issues like mapping their hiring process, putting job announcements in plain English, notifying applicants at all stages, and involving hiring managers in the recruiting process. All agency SWAT teams were required to be in place and working by early July; they’re each on the hook for a full progress report to OPM by the end of September. To keep the teams motivated and productive, key OPM staffers have been detailed to each.

By December 15, all agencies have to submit action plans that both identify the barriers to hiring the best and brightest and also establish measurable paths to reversing these barriers and improving HR operations across the board. If you’re interested, I refer you to Berry’s June 18 memo which sets out all these mandates and goals pretty plainly.

For his part, Berry’s own goal is no less than "a complete refresh of the federal government’s people policy." A lot of folks are rooting for him, including this commentator.

As YouTube and Facebook remind us daily, cell phone and other spur-of-the-moment video has become a powerful one-to-many peer communication tool worldwide, particularly among Gen-Y populations. If you harbor any interest in recruiting members of this segment for your agency, can you convincingly deny that online video deserves an important place in your web toolset?

We’re all familiar with the swarm of nagging little reasons why an agency might shy away from web video, including rights questions, the perceived difficulty of making video clips 508-compliant, and just general institutional conservatism. But these perceived speed-bumps might just crumble as you consider—and argue for—digital video’s proven and widespread appeal to an essential recruiting demographic for your agency.

For the moment, let’s take employee-contributed clips off the table. I’ll grant you that government may not quite be ready for that, although several private sector companies—like Accenture and Deloitte—have carried this off quite successfully. Even so, this leaves lots of room for video shot simply and directly by the agency itself—stationary camera, no elaborate lighting, no A-B roll editing.

New tools mean new horizons for recruiting engagement.

Digital camcorders and desktop editing software have changed the video game entirely for the federal recruiter. Short video segments are simple and inexpensive to shoot and edit. They’re also remarkably easy to post online (even with 508-mandated subtitles). A good place to start? Short videos of individual employees describing their jobs and what it means to work at your agency. This is pure peer-to-peer engagement, personal and authentic and it’s ideally framed to appeal to the candidates you most want to reach.

USPTO Employee Profiles

 A few public sector organizations are already taking the lead in producing these employee vignettes or "realistic job profiles," as some have called them. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is one. I’m linking to their employee profiles here. You might also check out the short videos at Washington’s Metropolitan Police jobs site. Another example—this one repurposed for the web from a more elaborate video training piece—is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA piece illustrates yet another advantage of digital video. Baseline footage can be easily be edited and recombined for all sorts of online uses, from custo m email and mobile engagement to social media placement.

As you can see, nobody is aspiring for spectacular cinematic effects in these productions. In fact, a glitzy approach would likely be counterproductive. Online video for recruiting has more to gain from simplicity and here-and-now authenticity. It speaks in a real-world accent that many of your most promising candidates find much more convincing than the written word.