"Mission. Impact. Scale." That's the short list from John Berry, Director of the U. S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), i.e. the President's Chief People Person. The comment came yesterday at the National Press Club during a leadership briefing on progress in hiring reform, hosted by Government Executive Media Group with support from TMP Government. Gov Exec's Kellie Lunney has captured the surprising figures from the presentation. As Berry says, the government is at last moving away from practices that may have once had meaning, but now can deter the best and the brightest from entering public service. A case in point came when Berry noted that government is 96 percent off "KSA Island," referring to the knowledge skills and abilities essays that applicants had to write whether or not the position called for writing skills.

I was especially interested when the moderator Tom Shoop, Government Executive Editor-in-Chief, asked about recruitment difficulties during this time of salary freezes and budget cuts. As you may know, I addressed this topic in the EDGE, our TMP Worldwide publication. In prefacing his question, Mr. Shopp referred to the three top motivators for Federal civil service as "Mission. Security. Benefits." Mr. Berry responded with an alternative list that has been corroborated many times in our research with leaders and employees: "Mission. Impact. Scale." Applicants join up to make a difference, creating a better world on a scale unmatched by any organization.

Fortunately if the present trend continues, those inspired job seekers will find that, as Mr. Berry put it, federal reforms are making it "easier to apply for, but harder to get the job." In other words, candidates can get beyond obsolete bureaucratic measures into an authentic meritocracy, where rigorous qualifications and competition are balanced with a meaningful use of veterans and diversity considerations. Under any economic conditions, America will obviously benefit from a principles-based Federal workforce.

There are several new wrinkles in the OPM government employee survey currently being distributed to your agency’s workforce. Among its most significant enhancements is timeliness: OPM is increasing the distribution frequency of this mainstay tool to every year, rather than every two years as before.

The survey also has a new name. Formerly the Federal Human Capital Survey (FHCS), it’s now the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, a rebranding that reflects an expanded emphasis on employee engagement and other morale factors. At the very top level, engagement denotes the degree to which federal employees identify with their agency’s mission and with the concrete ways in which their agency manages its workforce to support that mission.

But it’s clearly more complex and nuanced than that. A tried-and-true—very broad and basic--metric for gauging employee engagement is job satisfaction. The central question here: does a given employee feel included and appreciated by colleagues, supervisors, and managers for his or her talents and contributions? By and large, a disengaged team member usually falls somewhere on the scale between mildly cynical and entirely alienated. And you can be sure a disengaged team member is anything but fully productive and supportive of agency goals.

But what’s the connection between employee engagement and success at recruitment, an all-important element for both OPM and our TMP Government team? The tie-in is direct. As OPM helps agencies create workplace cultures that attract the best and the brightest, its survey results are core progress assessment tools. And they also form the basis for the Best Places to Work rankings from the Partnership for Public Service, which in turn directly influence many government job-seekers during the application process. Similarly, if engagement findings (and Partnership rankings) are favorable, they boost word-of-mouth enthusiasm among an agency’s own employees--in itself a powerful recruiting asset.

But will all these survey enhancements advance OPM’s stated objective of making the government “America’s model employer for the 21^st Century?” That’s an extraordinarily ambitious goal, certainly, but the energy and discipline that the OPM team is pouring into all its programs—not just the employee survey--gives this commentator some reason for optimism on this score.

If you’re interested, I can point you to an online copy of the survey instrument. But please wait to ask me until after the data gathering closes in mid-March.

Although employer branding has been around for years (Simon Barrow of TMP Worldwide’s UK subsidiary defined the term back in 1996), it hasn’t quite received presidential attention. In fact, government agencies, however, in spite of encouragement from OPM, have been slow to make it a priority. But all that’s about to change. In October, Harvard’s Kennedy School along with University of Maryland and OPM held a closed door meeting with members of the administration and Congress. OPM Director John Berry is taking key ideas garnered from the gathering to the president.  As reported by The Washington Post, one of the hot topics is that “Uncle Sam should do a better job branding and promoting his work. “

Agencies have their own reasons for being and need their own unique brands. The Post article states it well: “The Army and the Marine Corps know how to do it. Certainly money is a motivating factor for recruits, but the military, in part through TV commercials, has successfully branded itself as a place where young men and women go to become mature adults with a clear sense of mission. You can't say that about your average civilian agency.” [Emphasis supplied]

On October 28, with little press fanfare, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hosted what could have been a landmark event for the future of human capital management in government.

It was a roundtable at the Ronald Reagan Building, sponsored in collaboration with some high-powered allies – Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Sound like a must-attend? Forget it. This off-the-record event is by-invitation-only, according to Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood. The invitation list is limited to only a few dozen participants from the administration, the unions, and a selection of thought leaders from both the private and public sectors.

We’re told that the group will discuss, among other questions:

• What will the government workforce look like (ideally) in five and ten years?
• What are the government’s greatest human capital needs in terms of people and systems, and what are the barriers to achieving these?
• How can the government improve its recruiting and hiring practices?

It’s certainly good news that these familiar topics are getting aired by some pretty heavy-hitters in the HR business. As the press is excluded from the event, OPM can do its part by sharing the outcomes of the meeting with its community of practice, and by cranking the good ideas that emerge into what, so far, has been its very promising agenda for federal workforce development.

A new study shows just where the federal government is staffing up.

Last week The Partnership for Public Service released their report on where the jobs will be in the federal government over the next three years. Thirty-five federal agencies were surveyed and the top areas of openings projected are medical, security, law enforcement, legal and administrative.

So, unlike many sectors, jobs are there. The next questions: How will they get the best people for the slots? Will OPM’s strategic plan for making government the model employer help recruit the 270,000 mission-critical government jobs that will need to be filled? Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, said in a Washington Post article, “Fixing the hiring process is a key component in making it work”

Is this deja vu all over again? Check out my colleague Mark Havard’s comments in his blog, Are we finally on the road to hiring reform? “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.”

That’s right the rumors are true: the federal government has fully acknowledged that it can no longer tolerate outdated hiring processes. Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management John Berry says in an interview with Wired.com, “Many of our policies and practices are – I wouldn’t go so far back as the 19^th century, but certainly the 1950s in terms of their approach. Our hiring, for instance, has become so cumbersome and so complicated that it is a nightmare…we need to make that simpler…allowing people a fair shot at a federal job.” And while Gen Y might enjoy retro for costume parties, today’s younger job seekers prefer a job seeking experience that blends with today’s transparent, anytime, anywhere environment.

Director Berry believes that these young people have much more to offer the feds than just a replacement for baby boomers, whose retirements remain uncertain due to the economy. “When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the average age of the federal workers who were at Mission Control – the people who got him there safely and got him home – was in the late twenties,” Barry said. “We’re not the first generation to try to involve young folks…the government did it very effectively in the 60s, and those people produced miracles.”

A draft plan (PDF) written by OPM to make the federal government the model employer is currently online and comments from the public are encouraged. The four overall strategic goals include, recruiting and hiring the most talented, providing the tools necessary to help federal employees succeed in their careers, hold leaders and workforce accountable for results and reward those with exemplary performance. Do you think the government is on its way to being “America’s best employer?”

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.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) and Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI), with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), presented a Federal Acquisition Intern Coalition (FAIC) workshop to help inform acquisition career managers and human resource professionals on how to find the right people for the future of government contracting.

The workshop, Turning the best and the brightest into America's Buyers: Finding the right people for the future of Government Contracting, included experts from OPM (Angela Bailey, Deputy Associate Director, Center for Talent and Capacity Policy) and myself (Ellis Pines, VP, Branding, TMP Government). Topics we discussed included, how to apply agency’s brand and mission identity to the contracting employment opportunities within an agency, targeting the ideal point where an agency’s needs and the job candidate marketplace intersect and proven methodology for conveying the message that government acquisition is a hot place to be in 2009 and into the future. A recorded version of the workshop is posted online: view video.

http://www.fai.gov/Videos/20090219%20FAIC%20WMV%20Sequence%2001.wmv