As I pointed out in my last post, now may be the best time to shape up and tighten down all aspects of your HR programs, and particularly your approaches to retention and recruiting. In the days to come, agency HR is likely to face challenges on all fronts—from Congressional measures to limit the size of the government workforce to aggressive competition for talent from corporations emerging lean and hungry from the recession.

Our team at TMP Government has been wrestling with the implications of this long view, and we have identified several areas where your agency can get the most bang for the buck in holding steady amid the disruptions to come..

Let your workplace culture shine. Of course you want to attract the best and the brightest with your employer value proposition, but you should also make sure that the work environment you provide has comparable staying power with the top performers you already have on board. Don’t be naïve: other agencies, pressed by attrition and scarcity on the recruiting front, will be looking to poach not only your stars but your supporting players too. Take pains to keep all your valuable performers satisfied that your agency’s culture meets all their needs for support and personal development.

Fortify your employer brand. What’s the net recruiting value of making the top tiers in the Partnership for Public Service’s “Best Places to Work” ranking? It’s certainly high today, and will likely skyrocket amid tomorrow’s inter-agency competition for the best talent. Qualified students and other potential recruits who are inspired by the public service ideal are still out there, although admittedly not in the high numbers of a year or two ago. Ask yourself how well your agency stacks up against others as a potential employer in the eyes of an intelligent and discerning candidate. Then let a frank assessment of your existing brand guide you in a good faith effort to refine it—i.e., to make the reality of your workplace match the promise of your branding.

In recruiting, engage the most promising individuals at the right moment. Although ‘targeting’ may sound a bit harsh, it’s exactly the right idea when it comes to identifying the segments of candidates most likely to advance your agency’s mission and at the same time thrive in your culture. Smart ‘audience’ research is the key to productive engagement; the more precision you achieve in this task, the more successful and cost effective you’ll be in engaging and on-boarding recruits likely to stick around for the long haul.  Focus the same precision approach on choosing outreach events and media. Not all online and/or social sites will be equally productive for all agencies or for all circumstances. Study and refine your results on the fly. Don’t just shoot from the hip.

While you have time, spend it on supercharging the efficiency of your HR processes and systems. Chances are that the next few years will be marked by shrinking resources in government HR departments. The agency that can make the most of what it already has will have the advantage. Focus right now on getting your systems and processes up to snuff. Agencies that can bring successful candidates on board quickly will have an edge. Increased online communication and interactivity among recruiters—and among recruiters and interested candidates for that matter—will help the best HR departments keep a handle on recruiting quality individuals as fiscal and operating restraints tighten.

Not one of these countermeasures is in itself a solution to the challenges you face, but, implemented together, they should help you steer a straight course through the gale warnings on the horizon. 

Considering looming trends in Congress and attitudes reported to be widely held among Americans, it makes sense for Federal HR strategists to start right away with contingency planning for a significantly altered recruiting and human capital environment. And I don’t mean Band-Aid solutions. The atmosphere that’s taking shape is likely to impact recruiting in the government for the next several years at least.

The political trends—not to mention the drift of public opinion—are clear. Certain current and incoming members of Congress have put the size and salary structure of the Federal workforce on the legislative agenda. Recent (and mutually contradictory) surveys on government compensation compared to that of the private sector—characteristically amplified by the media—have raised the visibility of both the salaries and the sheer numbers of Federal workers in the public eye. And let’s be honest with ourselves: the salad days of high enthusiasm for government service among young job seekers—approaching a peak barely two short years ago—appear to be gone for a while.  What’s more, the dreaded retirement exodus—admittedly overhyped in the press for a decade—can still exert some destructive force on the Federal workforce and on the embedded experience and know-how your current agency team embodies.

The impact of these and other emerging conditions on how your team manages the work of your agency can be substantial and, in the worst case, disastrous. So, as I said at the top, it’s not unwise to plan for the worst case—i.e., a shrinking workforce and parallel restrictions on compensation and on how many recruits you can bring onboard to handle your agency’s mission. Given these impending threats, your future could be all about competing to attract and retain the best talent available, and doing so with limited resources. And remember, you will be competing on two fronts:

• First, with a corporate sector emerging from a recession and playing human capital catch-up, and then
• with other Federal agencies that need to retain and replenish their workforces under the same bleak conditions that you will be facing.

All this seems to promise a bumpy ride for Federal recruiters, managers and planners alike. So get ready. In my next post, I’ll bring forward a few suggestions about dealing with this potential nightmare for the agency manager and human resource specialist.

Judging by their efforts, the most pro-active practitioners of social media outreach in the government are turning enthusiastically to the mobile web, Facebook, and other Gov 2.0 modes as they strive to expand their respective agencies’ prestige and audience reach.

For those of us who are focused on recruitment, it’s a little surprising that most of these initiatives don’t begin with the intent of attracting new hires. Still, these leading agencies are building their brands and that, done well, results directly in more informed and enthusiastic recruits.

Here are three examples of federal organizations that are demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of the power of social media, although each emphasizes a different aspect of the challenge:

• the U.S. Army’s IPhone application,
• the White House’s use of video on its Facebook page, and
• the EPA ‘s development of guidelines for its employees’ use of social media.

The Army has released an IPhone app that allows access to a vast store of materials, including content from the Army’s Facebook and Flickr pages, as well as all the video products on its Web site. Released in mid-December, the app achieved more than 20,000 downloads in its first month alone, soaring to a Top-25 ranking for free news sources at the iTunes App store. Take note of its Find a Recruiter facility if you need evidence of the app’s more direct contribution to recruiting. You can find out how to download the app at www.army.mil/mobile/.

Best Practies case number two is the White House, which recently posted a seven-minute video on its Facebook page. The video is a professionally produced mini-documentary about the White House advance team’s trip to an Ohio town to prep for a presidential visit. From a branding standpoint, this slice-of-life coverage, complete with jiggly hand-held camera work, reinforces the authenticity and appeal of everyday activities by the team. Other agencies—particularly those with a more urgent mission to recruit employees actively—can find a polished model here. This is exposure to on-the-job reality at its best, an indispensible tool for reinforcing the appeal of an agency to the community of potential recruits, which is almost always more expansive than agency human capital planners imagine.

My last case is not flashy in any way, but underscores an emerging need in federal social media use: how to ensure that overenthusiastic employees don’t go overboard with the tools at their disposal. EPA’s guidelines are judicious and prescient. Among agencies that encourage informed employee/brand ambassador use of social media, this is a first. In the hope that other agencies will emulate it, I’m reprinting EPA’s handy flowchart below.

In our view at TMP Government, this is a question that sorely needs to be asked. My colleague John Bersentes and I have attempted to frame an answer to this puzzle in an article forthcoming in the March issue of The Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership.

We raise concerns about issues like…

• competition with the private sector for talented Latinos
• the relative scarcity of Hispanic-Americans in regions where the Feds recruit most heavily
• the absence of visible high-level government champions for Hispanic inclusion
• the absence of multi-agency, common-cause initiatives to tackle the challenge
• the possibility that agencies are unconsciously channeling bilingual Hispanics into customer contact positions and effectively discounting their qualifications for other career paths

The government’s lack of progress on this front is a very serious problem—especially considering the rapid growth of the Hispanic workforce in the American economy at large. If the Feds continue to lose ground here at the accelerating pace we’re observing, there will almost certainly be formal mandates from the top to kick Hispanic recruiting into gear. But I’m just wondering if a state-of-emergency catch-up policy is really the soundest human capital policy.

You can find a long excerpt from John’s and my article right now on ERE.net. Your best bet is to go here to read the posted excerpt and add your comments.

Given the government’s reputation in some quarters as a stodgy, slow-to-adopt monolith in matters of online communication, some might expect Web 2.0 social media tools, spreading so infectiously in the private sector, to have little appeal among the feds (at least during this decade).

Federal Computer Week gives the lie to this cliché in two articles published earlier last month. FCW ranks the federal agencies most successful in using Twitter and Facebook, respectively, to engage the public. The reach and social media savvy of these early adopters might surprise you.

The agencies on either or both lists are not—primarily—reaching out with a human capital and recruiting agenda top-of-mind.  Even so, if you’re inclined to regard these social media programs merely as plain old information dissemination, you’re understating their influence on their audiences. That’s like calling a popular music concert just an exercise in listening enjoyment. Yes, the description may be accurate at its core, but—especially if it’s a rock, R&B, or hip-hop event—it doesn’t quite capture the full experience of being in the auditorium.

For many in these agencies’ social media audiences, that “experience” is charged with high value, and often as much as the information content itself. The truly committed among them gain what brand adherents thrive on—the felt sense that they are insiders and sharers. To me this seems like a pretty cost-effective way to tap the collective enthusiasm and energy of appreciative individuals, in effect, kick starting the social motor of brand contagion. In their efforts to cultivate attentive communities for the agency and the medium—not merely to distribute information—these leading agencies are showing that they “get” social marketing and Web 2.0.

Will the sponsoring agencies also reap recruiting benefits from these Gov 2.0 initiatives? Do you really need me to state this obvious benefit outright? As you build a compelling brand and a community of admirers, you will attract more and more qualified and enthusiastic individuals to your workforce. It's as simple as that.

Text in graphic on right:

Government Twitter leaders (FCW, September 10) 

• The White House: 1,071,927 followers
• CDC Emergency: 808,979 folowers
• NASA: 125.901 followers
• U.S. Army: 14,263 followers
• Smithsonian: 12711 followers

Government Facebook leaders (FCW, September 14)

• The White House: 327,592 fans
• Marine Corps: 83,144 fans
• U.S. Army: 49,416 fans
• CDC: 21,257 fans
• State Department: 16,386 fans

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. 

In a post earlier this year, I commented on a survey of 30,000 American undergraduates sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service. Among other findings, the survey identified factors that appeared most attractive to graduates for their first jobs out of school.

The top three potential attractors are:

• work/life balance
• job security, and
• the opportunity to serve a greater good.

As I’ve said before, all three attributes are (or should be) strong suits for federal recruiters, and the agency that doesn’t accommodate all three in its employer brand positioning is probably missing a bet. What selling point for government employment in general could be more compelling than the notion of serving the greater good--particularly in light of the surge in enthusiasm for public service inspired by last Fall’s election?

I’m not suggesting that you emphasize these three baseline attractors to the exclusion of your agency’s unique attributes—the particular challenges and satisfactions of your mission, the qualities that distinguish your workplace culture, your special programs for learning and advancement, and so on. Your recruiting proposition should draw on both government-wide and agency-specific selling points.

Even so, presenting your employment value proposition accurately and compellingly is just a start. You should consider a “push” strategy, which means propelling this authentic positioning outward into the talent marketplace, where it can work for you by engaging students who may be particularly inclined to favor your agency over others. Find the folks who find your values, culture, and mission compelling; if you handle the interaction right, you quickly find yourself in conversation with high-value prospects. .

So I’m suggesting two mutually supportive approaches here. First, make sure that your employer brand addresses the general strong points of federal employment as well as your agency-unique attributes. Second, consider “push” techniques like advertising, sponsorships, online search approaches, and even direct e-mail campaigns. In a nutshell, place your employer brand where it can attract the most attention from the most desirable and most motivated candidates.

As part of its 2008 Global Human Capital Study, IBM polled senior HR executives in more than 400 private sector companies in 40 countries. Federal human capital professionals might find certain of the study’s outcomes interesting.

Take the executives’ responses to the question “What do you see as the primary workforce-related issues facing (your) organization?” Here are the most frequently cited issues, listed in order:

• Inability to rapidly develop skills to address current/future business needs.
• Lack of leadership capability.
• Employee skills not aligned with current organizational priorities.
• Inability to collaborate/share knowledge across the organization.
• Inability to attract qualified candidates.
• Inability to build an engaged/motivated workforce.
• Inability to retain key employees.

A brief exercise. Let me propose an instructive little pen-and-paper exercise here. Without looking at the bullet points above, make your own list of the most important workforce priorities for government human capital managers. And then rate your agency or department on how well it addresses the priorities on your list.

Now reread the list from the IBM study: strategic skills development, leadership, strategic business alignment, collaboration and knowledge management, recruiting, employee engagement, retention. I’ll bet that most of these issues — with the possible exception of knowledge management — appear in your priorities list too. What’s more, if you were to write a functional description of the human capital mission in any government agency, which of these priorities could you possibly leave out?

The point in all this? Your agency’s most vexing workforce issues are just as insistent for your private sector counterparts, and they’re essentially the same around the globe. The positive thinkers among you might find this encouraging. For one thing, there’s certainly a much deeper pool of best practice models to emulate, since HR pros worldwide are grappling every day with these challenges. On the other hand, how comforting is it to realize that virtually everyone in the profession of human capital management is in the same pickle?