As 2010 ends, President Barack Obama has posed a new challenge to Federal recruiters. Just two years ago, on his first day in office, he promised that the government would "establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration." This commitment aligned with his pledge to make working for government "cool again." A struggling economy then combined with civic generation idealism to generate a surge in Federal applicants. Then on November 29, 2010, the President brought belt tightening home to the Beltway, encouraging a two-year freeze on government salaries.
Immediately, Jeffrey Zients, U.S. Chief Performance Officer (CPO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director for Management, responded to ABC News, "We do need to continue to recruit the best and the brightest to Federal service. I am confident that we have an overall value proposition for employment that is quite strong and a lot of people do want to serve and that this freeze will not get in the way of our efforts to bring in the best and the brightest."
President Obama created the CPO role to trim programs and save money. It seems significant, therefore, that in the midst of the deficit challenge, Zients remains confident in the government's employer value proposition (indeed that the term has become common parlance).
Fifteen years ago, when Simon Barrow of People in Business (a ZTMP UK subsidiary) coined "employer branding," the term was not yet ready for prime time in the public or private sectors. The fact that the concept now gets invoked at a time of crisis indicates its proven utility. It also highlights the intimate connection between government transparency and branding as it has evolved today.
Improving government via the two-way street
Brands are fundamentally decision-making tools. Traditional brands thrived because “marketers” knew more about customers than vice versa. The Internet threw a curve into that one-way street, and Web 2.0 has pretty much overhauled it. Social networking, blogs, easy-to-do video, mobile Web and peer rankings have created level markets, equalized by access to information on both sides. The 20th century image of devious marketer manipulation has steadily morphed into awareness that you serve your audiences with candor ... or soon they will be somewhere else.
Transparency has similarly affected government. As 2010 ends, Open Government has made strides. Many Federal leaders and employees have gotten a "hands-on" introduction to Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Some collaborate on GovLoop while some early adopters "tweet" and "blog." Meanwhile, OMB even has rules about persistent cookies, so agencies can better measure their Web traffic. Equally important, new citizen-centric sites like Data.gov and Recovery.gov, on which TMP has played an enabling role, have set new standards for following Federal funds and actions.
Yet, transparency is only beginning to show its potential to improve government. Consider that many bright technical, business and other professionals have shied away from business because of the "cloister syndrome," a belief that government jobs remain isolated from the latest trends and currents. This idea can start from the beginning of a job search and persist well after on-boarding. Horror stories persist of new hires not having computing resources for weeks and later having limited online access. For the so-called Net Generation or Millennials, this situation quickly proves intolerable. They are willing to sacrifice to improve the world, but they would like the assistance of a search engine.
Fortunately, this situation is changing. In tandem with the recent reforms, encouraged by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the use of Web 2.0 can alleviate the communication and information gaps that many job seekers experience. Two-way electronic technologies can turn job hunting and employer selection into a less stressful "matchmaking process." Unless security matters dictate otherwise, once hired, the employee can have access to the online tools necessary for working in a networked world.
This move toward a networked world has sweeping implications, even for the very structure of government itself.
In his foreword to the collection of essays entitled Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency and Participation in Practice (edited by Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma, O’Reilly Media: 2010), media savant Dan Tapscott comments, "This [Open Government] is government that opens its doors to the world; co-innovates with everyone, especially citizens; shares resources that were previously closely guarded; harnesses the power of mass collaboration; drives transparency throughout its operations; and behaves not as an isolated department or jurisdiction, but as something new—a truly integrated and networked organization."
Tapscott goes on to say that thanks to the Internet, there can be a resolution to the time-honored conflict of big v. small government, a controversy at the epicenter of budget and program cuts: "In the U.S. ... government is becoming a stronger part of the social ecosystem that binds individuals, communities, and businesses—not by absorbing new responsibilities or building additional layers of bureaucracy, but through its willingness to open up formerly closed processes to broaden input and innovation. In other words, government becomes a platform for the creation of public value and social innovation." [emphasis supplied]
Many young people today naturally seek a position where they can influence “public value and social innovation.” This promise of meaning, what we might call the psychological benefit of the “value proposition,” bolstered by Web 2.0 technologies, can attract tomorrow’s leaders to Federal employment.
If you would like more information on how you can define your employer brand and use Web 2.0 technologies, please contact John Bersentes at John.Bersentes@TMPGovernment.com.
Back