Uncle Sam Needs You

By the year 2004, up to 50 percent of government workers will qualify for retirement. The country needs more than a few good public servants.

by Julia Hanna

In the tumultuous weeks that followed the 2000 presidential election, nonstop media coverage often tossed off such phrases as “constitutional crisis” and “government meltdown,” raising the fearful specter of a rudderless nation drifting perilously off-course. But while the country craned its neck at the Florida “situation,” another crisis — largely absent from the national consciousness but, many would argue, far more troubling — continued to unfold.

The facts are these: by 2004, up to 50 percent of government workers will qualify for retirement; 65 percent of those employees are managers and technicians in the Senior Executive Service. What’s more, the people qualified to replace these workers are a scarce breed. Even with the caveat that these numbers represent a worse-case scenario, the problem augurs significant change for the public sector workforce and is a source of growing concern for anyone taking an interest in government affairs.

This forecasted gap is rooted in a confluence of inextricable factors that are at once demographic, economic, political, and cultural. It is a unique and confounding situation that most agree has been a long time coming, and in the search for a solution, few see evidence for an easy fix.

The cycle began some 40 years ago, when young people, inspired to serve John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier and Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, elected government service as a rewarding and well-respected career choice. Many of these workers are ready to retire after 30 years of service or more, with some planning for early retirement at age 55, in order to seek new challenges in the booming economy.

Exacerbating the reality of a largely “graying” workforce is the wave of government downsizing that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. “It’s hard to remember now, when there’s talk of dividing up surpluses in the trillions of dollars, but just a decade ago we had the highest deficit in our history,” remarks Peter Zimmerman MPP 1977, head of Executive Programs at the Kennedy School. “Strapped as they were, many agencies froze hiring or even cut back on staffing.”

At the same time, the government’s reputation went into decline. Cataclysmic events such as the Vietnam War and Watergate have long been symbolic of a general loss of faith in the country’s political leaders. But many point to a subsequent series of presidential administrations that portrayed government workers as a burden to an already bloated system as a more specific source for the negative perceptions many citizens continue to hold today.

“Obviously, you can’t separate the attractiveness of government service from how people view the institution as a whole,” says Kennedy School Professor Steven Kelman. “The negative attitudes are embedded deep in our culture. What we really need are 10 more shows like The West Wing to make young people realize that public service is not something to put in quotation marks or to be cynical about. It’s a fulfilling and important way to spend some or all of your life.”

“Educating government leaders continues to be a central focus of the Kennedy School’s mission,” states Dean Joseph Nye, who confirms that he has been watching the current trend in government employment closely. “Through its teaching, research, and outreach, the school provides a crucial focal point for advocating the importance of government. I do remain optimistic about the school’s role in that sense, regardless of employment cycles.”

Witnessing the impact and rewards of service and leadership was the primary motivation for his own choice of career, says former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson. Simpson, former IOP director, whose father was a state politician, remembers, “I saw a guy who was his own man and didn’t care if he got beat as long as he was following his gut and his head.” A reversal in cultural attitudes, Simpson believes, will come in part from the same sort of firsthand experience. “It’s a government of laws, but of men and women too,” he says. “People change their minds about government workers, for example, if they see the postmaster who is a member of the Rotary Club and becomes a leader in the community. It sounds corny, but that’s the way it really works.”

One of several initiatives focused on leadership in government at the Kennedy School, the recently organized Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston hopes to eliminate the aura of inaccessibility many feel surrounds government and to create more realistic expectations between the public sector and the citizens it serves. “The critical issue is to get at how people inside and outside the government perceive and engage each other,” states Executive Director Charles Euchner. “Interaction needs to be increased on both sides in order to develop a more mature attitude about what public service entails.”

In addition to sponsoring cross-disciplinary internships and fellowships in public service for Boston-area students and graduates, Euchner says that the Institute hopes to serve as a clearinghouse for information and research on the government. “We want to show that government doesn’t have to be a strange, Alice-in-Wonderland experience,” he states.

The sense of distance and disenchantment that the Rappaport Institute plans to address often results in an odd disconnect between overall opinion of government and satisfaction with particular agencies and services. “If you ask a general question about government, people will respond negatively,” comments Zimmerman. “But if you ask how they feel about the drinking water, or the police, they’re quite satisfied.” He also recalls a school-sponsored orientation program for Reagan political appointees. “These people were coming from the perspective that government was the enemy, and it was their job to fix it,” says Zimmerman, noting that surveys taken at the program’s conclusion showed surprising results. “Invariably, participants mentioned discovering that the problems being worked on in government were far more complicated than they had imagined. They also remarked on the competence and professionalism of the people they encountered. To a person, they were positively impressed and affected — it changed their attitude towards government.”

The government also faces stiff competition when vying with other sectors of the economy for skilled labor. “Our mission is to train public leaders,” states Nye. “While I don’t object to having some portion of our students go into the private sector, obviously it would be disappointing if too many did. The university needs one business school, but it doesn’t need two.” He notes that in their first job after graduation, half of the school’s students enter government, 20 percent enter the nonprofit sector, and 30 percent enter the private sector. “Some may enter the business world and then go back and do government work at some other stage in their lives,” Nye remarks. “Generally speaking, we don’t have the career civil servants one sees in Europe; there are more ‘in-and-outers’ in the American system.”

The enticement of private sector wages, benefits, and flexibility is an undeniable lure for job seekers in today’s market. With starting salaries that are sometimes four to five times higher than that of an entry-level position in government, business holds an unshakable financial edge when it comes to recruitment. “The relative monetary sacrifice that smart young people make in choosing government has increased dramatically in the last 30 years,” notes Kelman. Business, comments Zimmerman, was considered a somewhat stodgy, unimaginative vocation 40 or 50 years ago, but during the past 10 years, the allure of entrepreneurism has inspired unprecedented numbers of Bill Gates wanna-bes, who seek the gratification of creating something all their own.

Joshua Secunda MPA 1997, senior enforcement counsel with the Environmental Protection Agency, worked in the private sector before completing a degree in the school’s Mid-Career program. “After graduating from law school, I went directly to New York and started to make about $200,000 a year as a trial lawyer,” he remembers. “I bought a condominium in Greenwich Village, got my BMW, had a cool place in Southampton to entertain women, and hated it. I bought more stuff, hoping I would love it, and I did not. It wasn’t because I had a Thomas Merton experience. For me, there were limits to job satisfaction.”

With loan burdens an inevitable fact for any graduating student, Secunda is sympathetic to the pragmatic urge to accept a high-paying position, and admits that with his first child on the way, he’s not certain he could turn his back on a larger salary. For now, however, the financial trade-off is well worth it. “The work is incredibly rewarding. People here care savagely about what they do,” Secunda remarks. “The savagery that I found in New York was about money and who had it.”

“I think a lot of public-spirited things happen in the private sector,” says Gillian Cohen MPP 2000 at the Department of Education. “But I appreciate that the mission in government is more clearly focused on serving the public good.” Cohen is a participant in the Presidential Management Intern (PMI) program, a competitive, “fast-track” entry to government that includes rotating assignments and a high level of exposure to policy-making decisions for candidates who exhibit leadership qualities. Pay discrepancies aside, Cohen notes that confronting negative public attitudes is another significant personal challenge. “It’s an esteem issue,” she says. “It’s sad that the will of the people is not always behind those who are doing some of our most important work.”

“I don’t think it necessarily follows that people who are motivated by money are the best workers,” remarks Mark Safford MPA 1990, a management and program analyst at the Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center. “The people who work here are dedicated — they believe that what they do benefits the country, and that’s a very valuable commodity in itself.

“Many of those who go into government tend to be self-motivated,” he continues. “The crux of the matter is, what makes them decide to enter public service, and how do you promote that quality?”

As New England’s senior official for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Lee Willis SEF 1987 is well acquainted with the demands involved in recruiting qualified candidates for government positions. He views the forecasted shortage of workers, however, as a prime opportunity. “It’s the best time I’ve seen in my 26-year career to consider federal employment,” states Willis. “We’ve just implemented special rates so that agencies can pay competitive salaries to employees in information technology positions. We’re also engaged in a long-term study that will eventually increase mobility between occupations and speed up advancement in pay for those who possess the core competencies required to do a job.”

In addition to the PMI program (which is administered by OPM), Willis described an internship program in develop-ment that will be targeted at candidates with a master’s degree or specialized work background. “My experience is that if we use more current, private sector techniques for reaching people, we can find quality candidates,” he says. “Over time, I’ve seen a smaller, leaner government develop that has become more entrepreneurial in its thinking. Necessity is the mother
of reinvention.”

As the government evolves and seeks more creative methods for attracting qualified workers, few in either political party foresee it shrinking in size or seem ready to make the once fashionable suggestion of eliminating entire agencies. “Government will continue to be one-third of our GNP for a long time to come,” states Nye. “And the need for people to run it is not going to abate in any way.”

Julia Hanna is a freelance writer living in Cambridge.