he terrorist attacks onNew York and Wash-ington on Sept. 11 re-minded the nation justhow important thefederal public serviceis in times of crisis. The

night after the attacks, President Bush said,“the functions of our government con-tinue without interruption. Federal agen-cies in Washington . . . will be open forbusiness tomorrow.”

In the days and weeks following theattacks, it became clear that not only wouldgovernment be open, it would take on agreatly expanded role. Almost immedi-ately, Congress and the Bush administra-tion agreed on a $40 billion spendingpackage to fund recovery efforts and beefup the defense, intelligence and securityagencies. The major airlines called for thefederal government to take over securityat the nation’s airports. The Bush admin-istration created a Cabinet-level Office ofHomeland Security and members of Con-gress began pushing for it to become a full

Cabinet department with a hefty budgetand wide responsibilities. Commentatorsacross the political spectrum acknowl-edged that the United States was enteringa long-term crisis in which the size andcapacity of the federal establishmentneeded to grow.

In order to serve the nation during timesof crisis or calm, a healthy public servicemust pass five tests: It should be motivatedby the public good, recruited from the topof the labor market, giventhe tools to sustain highperformance,be rewardedfor a job well done and be trusted by thepeople it serves. By these measures, thefederal public service is at risk.

The challenges facing the public ser-vice are evident in a first-of-its-kind tele-phone survey of 1,051 federal employeescontacted at home by Princeton SurveyResearch Associates on behalf of theBrookings Institution’s Center for Pub-lic Service, which the author directs.Given a rare chance to talk candidly abouttheir work without a supervisor looking

over their shoulders, these federal em-ployees describe a civil service with bothstrengths and vulnerabilities.

The survey clearly shows that the fed-eral workforce has a core of deeply com-mitted employees who serve the publicwith pride: The vast majority of federal employeesare proud to tell their families and friendsthat they work for the federal govern-ment, describe their organizations as be-

ing trusted and arelargely satisfied with thepublic respect for the

type of work they are doing. Half of federal employees say their or-ganizations are very good at helping peo-ple, and substantial majorities say theirorganizations are either very or somewhatgood at running their programs and de-livering services, being fair in their deci-sions and spending money wisely. The majority of federal employees saythey are given a chance to do the thingsthey do best, can describe how their jobcontributes to their organization’s missionand believe they are personally con-tributing a great deal to that mission. Substantial major ities of federal employees say the people they work withare open to new ideas, willing to helpother employees learn new skills and con-cerned about helping achieve their or-ganization’s mission.

Unfortunately, these positive views aretainted by persistent perceptions that thefederal government does not give its em-ployees the tools to do their jobs well: Substantial minorities say their organi-zations do not have enough access to in-formation, technological equipment andtraining, and a majority believe their or-ganizations do not have enough employ-ees to do their jobs well. Four out of 10 federal employees rate themorale in their agencies as somewhat or

SPECIAL REPORT

This report is based on a nationwide, repre-sentative telephone survey of 1,051 federalgovernment workers and 500 private sectoremployees, conducted under the direction ofPrinceton Survey Research Associates (PSRA)and led by PSRA Vice President Mary McIntosh.Interviewing was conducted between Feb. 7and June 1, 2001. The interviews averaged20 minutes in length, and interviewers madeup to 20 calls to each sampled respondent toattempt to complete an interview.

PSRA interviewed federal workers across theworkforce: 177 Senior Executive Service (SES)members; 107 Presidential Management In-terns (PMIs); 213 General Schedule managersand supervisors; and 554 GS employees. Mostof the PMIs came from the classes of 1997,1998 and 1999. Likewise, PSRA interviewed

247 private business managers and supervisorsand 253 private rank-and-file employees. Thetotal federal government and private businesssamples were weighted to reflect the actualproportion of managers and nonmanagers ineach sector.

For results based on the total sample offederal workers the margin of error is ±3 per-cent. The margin of error for federal workersubsamples is ±9 percent for PMIs; ±7 percentfor the SES; ±7 percent for GS managers; and±4 percent for GS employees. For resultsbased on the total sample of for-profit busi-ness workers, the margin of error is ±4 percent.Sampling errors, variations in how questionsare asked and practical difficulties in con-ducting a survey by telephone can all introduceerror or bias into the findings.

ABOUT THE SURVEY

Now is the time to rebuild the federal public service.

TBy Paul C. Light

very low. Almost half say that their jobperformance has little or no bearing ontheir chances for promotion. Three out of five federal employees de-scribe the hiring process in their organi-zations as confusing, four out of five callit slow and a quarter say it is not fair.One-third of employees also complainthat their organizations do not do a goodjob of either attracting or retaining tal-ented employees. One-third of federal employees say theyare dissatisfied with the opportunities foradvancement, not because they do nothave the skills or credentials needed for

promotion, but either because they see lit-tle room at the top for career civil ser-vants or because they believe the system foradvancement is not fair. Federal employees say a quarter of theirpeers are not performing their jobs well.One-fifth of federal employees blame thatpoor performance on a lack of training,nearly one-third say that the poor per-formers are not qualified for their jobs,and almost two in five say their organiza-tions are not asking enough of employees.

Federal employees also blame Congressand the President for much of what ails thegovernment. Two out of five say the Pres-

ident generally acts in ways that worsen themanagement of their organization,and threeout of five say the same of Congress. Em-ployees also have little good to say about theClinton administration’s reinventing gov-ernment effort. Nearly one-half of thosewho say their organizations have been rein-vented in the past five years said the changesmade their jobs more difficult to perform.

Despite these frustrations, the federalworkforce fares pretty well in comparisonwith the private sector. The matched sam-ple of private employees also interviewedfor this report were more likely than thefederal employees to have joined their or-ganizations for the pay and security, andmore likely to come to work each day forthe salary, not the nature of the work or adesire to serve the public good.

The private sector gives its employeesthree distinct advantages over govern-ment employees in doing their jobs, how-ever. First, workers in private firms aremore likely than federal employees toview their senior leaders and mid-levelmanagers as competent. Second, privateemployees are more likely to say their or-ganizations have the resources and theemployees to do their jobs well. Andthird, private employees believe their or-ganizations are better at hiring, retainingand promoting talented employees anddisciplining poor performers.

Overall, the survey suggests that thefederal government has a much betterworkforce than it deserves. It does toolittle both to support its best employeesand to discipline its poor performers. Itspends too much time experimenting withthe latest management fads and too littleproviding the information, technology,training and staff needed to achieve thegovernment’s mission. In short, it asks toomany of its employees to do the nearly im-possible day after day.

WHY THEY JOINEDThe first and perhaps most importantcharacteristic of a healthy public service PH

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is that its members are motivated first andforemost by the public good. To the ex-tent the federal government builds a hir-ing and promotion process that rewardslongevity over performance, however, itwill tend to attract employees whose firstconcern is job security.

That appears to be the case among manyfederal employees. When asked why theytook their first job in government, federalemployees focus largely on security. Givenpairs of possible explanations to consider,59percent say a secure paycheck was a moreimportant reason for joining governmentthan doing something worthwhile, 65 per-cent say job security was more importantthan helping the public and 66 percent sayjob security was more important than pridein the organization they joined.

Not all employees say they came to gov-ernment for security, however. Of the fourmajor groups covered in the survey—members of the Senior Executive Service,General Schedule managers, GeneralSchedule employees and Presidential Man-agement Interns—SESers and PMIs aremuch more likely to say helping the pub-lic, the opportunity to make a difference,doing something worthwhile and pride intheir organizations were the reasons fortaking their first jobs in government.

WHY THEY STAYHaving entered government for differentreasons, the four groups have very differ-ent motivations for staying put. Whenasked,“Why do you come to work every

day?” 32 percent of survey respondents saythey are motivated solely by the pay andcompensation, 30 percent by the nature ofthe work, 15 percent by the work ethic, 5percent by the common good, 3 percentby the chance to be with co-workers andfriends and 17 percent by a combination

of some or all of the above.When separated into the four groups,

however, the SESers and PMIs are muchmore likely than GS managers and em-ployees to be motivated by the chance toaccomplish something worthwhile,by pridein their organizations and by the commongood and are much less likely to focus onpay and compensation. Forty-four percentof GS employees and 25 percent of GSmanagers say they come to work every dayeither solely or partly for the pay and com-pensation, compared with 20 percent ofPMIs and just 13 percent of SESers. Con-versely, 36 percent of PMIs and 20 percentof SESers come to work either solely orpartly for the common good, comparedwith just 9 percent of GS employees and 17percent of GS managers.

The PMIs emerge as the most idealis-tic group of employees in the federal work-force, in part because they are nominatedfor the prestigious program based on theircommitment to public service. GS em-ployees emerge as the group most con-cerned about job security, in part becausethey are the lowest-paid workers in thesample. It is easier to care about the com-mon good when you are fresh out of grad-uate school than when you work in the

lower-paying jobs or the ones constantlytargeted for outsourcing and downsizing.

Once again, it is important to note thatfederal employees are less security consciousin their daily work than private employees.Private employees are almost half again aslikely to say they come to work for the

compensation than federalemployees, and less likelyto focus on the nature ofthe job and the work ethic.

MISSION MOTIVATIONWhatever their primarymotivation for coming towork each day, the keyquestion for a healthypublic service is whetheremployees care abouttheir organizations’ mis-sions. On the one hand,63 percent of federal em-

ployees as a whole say they can very eas-ily describe how their jobs contribute totheir organizations’ missions, and 55 per-cent believe they personally contribute agreat deal to helping accomplish their or-ganizations’ missions.

On the other hand, significant gaps ex-ist between the four groups. Eighty-fourpercent of SESers, 78 percent of GS man-agers and 72 percent of PMIs say theyknow how their jobs contribute to theirorganizations’ missions, compared with 61percent of GS employees. In turn, 71 per-cent of SESers and 66 percent of GS man-agers say they contribute a great deal toaccomplishing those missions, comparedwith 54 percent of GS employees and, sur-prisingly, only 37 percent of PMIs. Theymay come to work in the morning tomake a difference for their country, butPMIs appear to leave at the end of the dayfrustrated by their inability to do so.

These divisions among the various lev-els of government occur throughout thesurvey: Only 32 percent of GS employees andPMIs say they have a lot of say over whathappens in their jobs, compared with 63percent of GS managers and 81 percent of SESers.

A CALL TO JOB SECURITY

When asked whether their organizationsencourage employees to take risks or trynew ways of doing their work, 43 percentof GS employees and 51 percent of PMIsanswer not much or not at all, comparedwith 26 percent of GS managers and 20percent of SESers. When asked whether their co-workers are open to new ideas,19 percent of GS employees and21 percent of PMIs say not muchor not at all, compared with 9percent of GS managers and 3percent of SESers. Nearly one-quarter of GS em-ployees and PMIs strongly orsomewhat agree that their workis boring, compared with one-tenth of GS managers and aboutone-twentieth of SESers. GSemployees are twice as likely asGS managers and three times aslikely as SESers to describe theirjobs as dead-end positions withno future.

Simply put, many lower-levelfederal employees do not feelthey could contribute to theirorganization’s mission even ifthey wanted to. While 60 percent of GSemployees say their jobs allow them tomake a lot of decisions on their own, only32 percent say they have a lot of say overwhat happens in their jobs. In contrast, 88percent of SESers say their jobs allow themto make a lot of decisions, while 81 per-cent say they have a lot of say over whathappens in their jobs. Despite the rhetoricabout empowerment of employees in thereinventing government and total qualitymanagement reforms of the Clinton ad-ministration and the first Bush adminis-tration, many lower-level employees donot believe they have the full authority todo their jobs.

‘SHOW ME THE WORK’ The survey results suggest a simple path to-ward making entry-level federal jobs moreattractive to the nation’s most talented cit-izens: Focus on the mission, not the secu-rity. Despite their clear commitment tomaking a difference when they joined gov-

ernment, the PMIs interviewed believethey are not contributing in tangible waysto the mission of their organizations. Fartoo many are bored by their work and be-lieve that they are not given a chance todo the things they do best. These findingshelp explain why retention rates among re-

cent PMIs are falling. According to a re-cent Merit Systems Protection Board study,69 percent of PMIs recruited from 1982to 1989 were still in government afterthree years, compared with 59 percent ofthe PMIs recruited from 1990 to 1994. Ifthe trends hold, less than half of the PMIswho entered government in the fall of2001 will still be there in 2006.

Just 36 percent of PMIs believe theirjobs allow them to make a lot of decisionson their own, and even fewer (32 percent)say they have a lot of say over what hap-pens in their jobs. That’s not the kind offrustration that higher pay, student loanforgiveness and better job advertisementswill solve. They are not saying “show methe money,” but “show me the work.”

Given these patterns, it should not besurprising that the four groups surveyedhave different levels of job satisfaction. GSemployees are the least satisfied with theirjobs overall. PMIs are the least satisfiedwith their pay and benefits. SESers are

the most satisfied in all categories, and GSmanagers fall in between the other groups.All four groups, though, see significantmorale problems in government. Over-all, 41 percent of those surveyed say themorale of the people they work with is ei-ther somewhat or very low.

Statistically speaking, it is im-possible to determine what iscausing the low morale. It couldbe the product of the constantreinvention, sporadic hiring, payfreezes and pressure to contractout more and more civil servicejobs. It also could be the prod-uct of the Bush administration’sproposal this year to give federalcivilians a smaller pay raise thanmilitary personnel would get,thus breaking with the long tra-dition of pay parity between thetwo workforces. But whateverthe reason, there is no questionthat a substantial number of fed-eral employees believe their col-leagues are wearing out.

THE TALENT WARThe second characteristic of a

healthy public service is that it aims forthe top of the labor market when it hiresnew employees, not just for the top of thepool that happens to be available. A healthypublic service recruits aggressively, payscompetitively and provides the kind ofwork that talented Americans want.

While all segments of the public ser-vice—federal, state and local—need topromote themselves better, the federal ser-vice has the biggest mountain to climb. Asked which careers offer the greatest po-tential for their children and students, only11 percent of parents and 24 percent ofhigh school teachers interviewed for aHarris Poll in June 2000 said governmentwas the place to go. Fifty percent of theparents and 75 percent of the teachers puthigh-tech careers at the top, followed byeducation, health care, finance, law, enter-tainment, retail, construction, manufactur-ing, social services and agriculture. Only 41 percent of 2,600 14- to 29-year-olds interviewed by Princeton Survey Re-

ON A MISSION

search Associates in 1998 said that govern-ment is a good place to start their careers.Of those who did, local government was thedestination of choice by a margin of morethan 2-to-1 over the federal government. The federal government is running deadlast as the destination of choice for gradu-ates of the nation’s top public policy and ad-ministration graduate schools. Three-fourthsof the classes of 1973 and 1974 went togovernment for their first jobs, comparedwith just 49 percent of the class of 1993—and the federal government lagged behindthe state and local sectors within the gov-ernment category. Equally troubling, fiveyears into their first jobs, students from theclasses of 1973 and 1974 were much morelikely to still be in government than werestudents from the class of 1993.

Unfortunately for government, today’slabor market rewards rapid advancementand the acquisition of skills and challeng-ing work, not loyalty or endurance. Yetnearly a third of federal employees are notsatisfied with opportunities for advance-ment, and one-fifth feel the same about theopportunity to develop new skills.

The federal government has one advan-tage over the private sector, however. It hasa distinguished record of endeavor and can claim great success in a host of areas

that call young Americans to service today.To the extent that talented citizens aremotivated not only by the opportunity tojoin in the fight against terrorism but totackle other tough, important problemssuch as protecting the environment, en-suring civil rights, providing health careto the elderly, promoting internationaltrade and reducing disease, the federal gov-ernment is the place to be. (Go towww.brookings.edu/endeavors for a list

of the federal government’s greatestachievements of the past 50 years.)

The problem is that federal agencies dolittle, if anything, to advertise the rewardsof public service. The Council for Excel-lence in Government reports that stereo-types of government employees as idiotshave ebbed recently with the exit of bum-bling sitcom characters, such as the sneakypostal worker Newman on NBC’s “Sein-feld,” and the arrival of competent gov-ernment officials on new programs, suchas NBC’s “The West Wing.” But only thearmed services have sustained advertisingcampaigns that celebrate the benefits ofpublic service.

The federal government is particularlyinept in advertising its jobs. A surprisinglylarge number of openings are never postedpublicly. According to a 1999 study bythe Office of Personnel Management, asmany as one-third of all job openings arenot publicly announced, let alone postedon the agency’s USAJOBS Web site(www.usajobs.opm.gov). And when jobsare posted, agencies often use advertise-ments that are nearly unintelligible.

Once government finds a willing re-cruit, it is also notoriously slow in hiringhim or her. Asked to choose among ad-jectives that describe the hiring process, thevast majority of federal employees say theprocess is both confusing and slow. Bycomparison, private employees say theirhiring systems are faster, simpler and fairer.So much for the notion that slowness issomehow integral to fairness.

STANDING STILLThe federal hiring process has created aslight but undeniable long-term decline inthe overall quality of the federal workforce.Overall, 31 percent of federal employees saythe quality of the senior people in their or-ganizations has declined over the past fewyears. Forty-two percent say it has stayed thesame and 24 percent say it has increased. Theperceived erosion continues throughout thehierarchy, where 22 percent say the qualityof middle level managers has decreased, 52percent say it has stayed the same and 24 per-cent say it has increased. (It is important tonote that federal employees

GIVING THEIR ALL

SOMEWHAT SATISFIED

Continued on page 42

T o find out how the federal work-force really stacks up against theprivate sector, Princeton Survey

Research Associates polled both groupsearlier this year. So who’s better? It dependson what you’re measuring.

Uncle Sam clearly has the more moti-vated workforce. A little more than 30 per-cent of federal employees say their mainmotivation in coming to work every day isto pick up a paycheck,but almost half of pri-vate employees say money is the motivat-

ing factor. Private sector workers are lesshappy with their work, salary and benefitsthan their federal counterparts, and theydon’t think they have as much opportu-nity to accomplish something worthwhile.

On the other hand, private sector em-ployees have better things to say abouttheir organizations’ hiring systems, callingthem fast, simple and fair. Government

FEDERAL VS. PRIVATE:Whose workforce is better?

employees describe the federal hiringprocess as slow, confusing and unjust.

Private sector employees clearly have ahigher opinion of their senior leaders thanfederal employees do. And while federaland private sector employees are equallysatisfied with their opportunities to ad-vance and develop new skills, private sec-tor workers consistently report a higher

level of support from their organizations.Both federal workers and those in the

private sector have survived their share ofmanagement reform efforts in recentyears. But private sector employees saythey have been “reformed” less fre-quently—and that the efforts have had amuch more positive impact.

Surprisingly, federal and private sector

employees estimate almost identical num-bers of poor performers in their midst—roughly 25 percent. But private sectoremployees are far less likely than federalemployees to say that their employers don’task enough of poor performers. And theyare much more likely to say their organi-zations do a good job of disciplining thosewho don’t measure up.

were not asked aboutpolitical and career leaders as separate groupsbecause the survey was designed for useacross the public and private sectors.)

Although private employees say therehave been similar declines in the quality oftheir workforces, especially at lower levels,the private sector is not facing the huge re-

tirement wave that now confronts the fed-eral government. The Congressional BudgetOffice reports that three-quarters of the fed-eral workforce is older than 40, comparedwith just half of all employed workers in theUnited States. One-third of all federal em-ployees will be eligible for retirement by2005, with even heavier concentrations inhigh-impact agencies such as the Social Se-curity Administration, where ordinary at-trition and retirement will create vacanciesin well over half of the front-line jobs uponwhich America’s retirees depend.

Congress has ample incentive to ad-dress the retirement crisis. If there is onetruth in American politics, it is that front-line service matters to congressional for-tunes. To the extent Congress and thePresident temporize about the problemsin recruiting and retaining a talented work-force, they will likely feel the sting of voter

anger at the polls, including that of thegrowing ranks of federal retirees who willbe calling Social Security offices and get-ting busy signals.

LACK OF SUPPORTThe third characteristic of a healthy pub-lic service is that it has the tools and re-

sources to sustain and achieve highperformance. Highly motivated, talentedemployees can succeed for only so longwithout organizational support, nor willthey stay long in organizations that refuseto provide the tools, technologies, train-ing and structures that allow them togrow. Unfortunately, by almost every in-dicator, the federal government does notgive its 1.8 million civil servants the re-sources to do their jobs well. Far toomany federal employees succeed in spiteof their organizations.

Although most federal employees areeither very satisfied (36 percent) or some-what satisfied (42 percent) with the op-portunities they get to develop new skills,40 percent say the organizations in whichthey work only sometimes or rarely pro-vide access to the training they need to dotheir jobs well. Once again, PMIs were

the harshest toward their organizations,with just 10 percent saying that their or-ganizations always provide needed training.

Federal organizations do much better onproviding access to information and basictechnological equipment. Three-quartersof federal employees say their organizationsalways or often provide the informationneeded to do their jobs well, and 70 per-cent say the same about technology. If thereis a digital divide between the top and bot-tom of government, these employees donot see it: 70 percent of GS employees, 71percent of SESers and 72 percent of GSmanagers say their organizations always oroften provide the technological equipmentto do their jobs well. Only the PMIs offercomplaints, in part because their assign-ments sometimes involve rotations from of-fice to office—which may leave them withmore limited access to effective technol-ogy—and in part because they may havehigher standards for the kinds of technol-ogy necessary to do their jobs.

But staffing is where federal employeesfind the greatest fault with their organiza-tions—and no wonder. The federal gov-ernment has spent the last 15 years tryingto cut its civilian workforce, and PresidentBush began his administration by imple-menting the 36th hiring freeze of the pasthalf century. Although these hiring re-strictions were later lifted, the administra-tion has dedicated itself to putting tens ofthousands of federal jobs up for competi-tion with the private sector.

There are many good reasons to out-source federal work, not the least of whichare the faster, leaner hiring systems in the pri-vate sector that allow agencies to procureneeded talent immediately. Nevertheless,research on the true size of governmentsuggests that the number of service con-tractors has grown by roughly 500,000 jobsto 4 million over the past 15 years, even asthe federal civilian workforce has declinedby more than 400,000, to 1.8 million. It isnot clear whether these numbers reflect ajob-for-job switch, in part because the ex-ecutive branch has never been asked to trackthe movement. What is clear is that manyfederal employees now work side by sidewith contract employees who are doing

WORTH STAYING FOR

Continued from page 36

jobs once performed by civil servants.What is also clear is that federal employ-

ees do not believe their organizations haveenough employees to do their jobs well.Overall, only 15 percent of those surveyedsay their organizations always have enoughemployees, 25 percent say often, 34 percentsay sometimes and 25 percent say rarely.The complaints cut across the four em-ployee groups,with PMIs only slightly morelikely than their colleagues to perceive astaffing problem in their organizations.

Complaints about resources are notunique to the federal workforce. Privateemployees also complain about access toinformation, technology, training and under-staffing. But they are consistently lesslikely to complain than federal employeesare, particularly about staffing. Whereas 59percent of federal employees say their or-ganizations sometimes or rarely haveenough employees to do their jobs well,only 41 percent of private employees agree.This finding may help explain why privateemployees are more likely than federalemployees to see their senior leadershipas both competent and improving.

It may also explain why federal em-ployees have little good to say about Con-gress or the President. Sixty percent offederal civil servants say Congress generally

acts in ways that worsen the managementof their organizations, and 41 percent saythe same of the President.

On the whole,94 percent of federal em-ployees believe they are able to accomplishsomething worthwhile at work, comparedwith 88 percent of private employees. Butonly 25 percent of federal employees saythey trust their organizations to do the rightthing just about always, compared with 35percent of private employees.

RATING REFORMSAchieving and sustaining high performancerequires an organizational structure thatallows innovations to move easily upwardand that calls for accountability for whatgoes right and wrong to be placed on theright levels and employees. Accountabil-ity is nearly impossible, however, in orga-nizations that 40 percent of federalemployees describe as having too manylayers—a percentage nearly twice as highas that of private sector respondents.

Accountability is also nearly impossiblein organizations that are constantly re-forming themselves to keep up with thelatest management fads. Just as too little re-form can breed complacency, too much cancreate turmoil and uncertainty.

Federal employees believe the reinvent-

ing government efforts of the last five yearshave failed. Of the 73 percent who reportthat their organizations have been reformedor reinvented in the last five years, 49 per-cent say that the changes have made theirjobs either somewhat or a lot more difficult.The most damage was at the lower levels ofgovernment, where 50 percent of GS em-ployees say reinvention made their jobsmore difficult, while the greatest returnscame at the higher levels,where 60 percentof SESers report easier jobs in the wake ofreinvention. So much for reinvention’spromise of empowerment and efficiencyon the front lines of government.

When asked more specifically about themajor areas of reform that have dominatedthe federal arena over the past decade,SESersand high-level employees with at least 10years of experience give low marks to sev-eral key reinvention initiatives. Just 39 per-cent, for example, say the effort to measuregovernment results has been very or some-what successful, and only 43 percent givepositive ratings to attempts by agencies toreduce their internal rules. Fifty percentsay the movement to improve financialmanagement has shown success, and a lit-tle more than half say the same aboutstreamlining procurement regulations.

Efforts not directly tied to reinventinggovernment scored higher. Nearly 90 per-cent of high-ranking officials say the gov-ernment’s effort to improve informationtechnology has been very or somewhatsuccessful, and 67 percent say attempts toreduce fraud, waste and abuse in federalprograms have achieved success.

LACKING THE BASICS

REJECTING REINVENTION

The unenviable track record of rein-venting government may help explain twoseemingly contradictory findings from thesurvey. As already noted, federal employ-ees do not believe their organizations en-courage them to take risks. Nor do theybelieve that the word “innovative” de-scribes their organizations very well. But,the vast majority of employees also be-lieve that their fellow workers are willingto help other employees learn new skills,and say the people they work with aregenerally open to new ideas.

These findings suggest that the Bush ad-ministration’s effort to reduce the layers offederal management may produce impor-tant gains in performance. But the effortthus far has two problems. First, it relieson the same easily manipulated manager-to-employee ratio that undermined paral-lel efforts by both the Reagan and Clintonadministrations. Second, it has yet to includethe political layers of the hierarchy, whichaccount for between 25 and 40 percent ofthe layers across the government organiza-tion chart. Although Office of Manage-ment and Budget Director Mitch Danielssaid in July that political layers would notbe excluded from the review, there is no ev-idence yet that the Bush administration hasany more interest in reducing the numberof presidential appointees than previous ad-ministrations had. To the contrary, the ad-ministration appears well on its way to fillingevery political slot available.

Moreover, it is impor-tant to note that the Bushbudget has yet to set asideany significant funding forworkforce investmentssuch as training, tech-nology and additionalstaffing. Nor has the ad-ministration explainedhow its confidence in ex-isting recruitment andpromotion authorities,such as loan forgivenessfor new graduates or sim-plification of the pay sys-tem, can be reconciledwith a budget that in-cludes no new funding

for actually using those tools. Departmentsand agencies must find the money for re-cruitment, relocation and retention bonuseson their own, which often means canni-balizing training and technology budgets.Agencies must take the risk that their man-agers have the ability and motivation to usesimpler pay systems to reward high per-formance rather than longevity.

APPRAISING PEOPLEThe fourth characteristic of a healthy pub-lic service is that it performs its job welland is held accountable for doing so. If em-ployees are to be motivated by the chanceto accomplish something worthwhile fortheir country, they should be held re-sponsible for their performance, and, whenthey excel, be rewarded and promoted.

It is hard to imagine how the federalgovernment could hold its employees ac-countable for performance, however, givenits hyper-inflated performance appraisalprocess and its broad reluctance to disci-pline poor performers.

The problems with the performanceappraisal process are well known. Forbid-den by Congress to use quotas, most fed-eral managers do what comes naturallyand over-grade their employees. Between1991 and 1996, the percentage of GS 13-15 managers and supervisors who wererated outstanding rose from 35 percent to56 percent, GS 13-15 employees from 32percent to 49 percent, and GS 1-12 em-

ployees from 27 percent to 39 percent.If the Office of Personnel Management

has its way, however, no one will knowwhat the ratings are in 2010. The agencystopped publishing annual employee per-formance data in its 1999 Fact Book ofcivilian employee statistics, ostensibly be-cause it could not figure out how to pre-sent data from the increasing number ofpass/fail systems in its appraisal statistics.

At about the same time,OPM released astudy called “A Quest for the True Story,”which estimated that the true proportion ofpoor performers in the federal workforce wasjust 3.7 percent. Then-OPM Director Janice R. Lachance heralded the number asproving “that the federal workforce is not asanctuary for the chronically bad employee.”

POOR PERFORMANCE PROBLEMA much more troubling portrait of poorperformance emerges when federal em-ployees are asked to give a specific estimateof the number of their fellow workers whoare not performing their jobs well. Onaverage, the employees interviewed for thisreport estimate that 23.5 percent of theirco-workers are not up to par. Only 5 per-cent say that all of their co-workers do aneffective job.

Asked what might explain the level ofpoor performance, federal employees andmanagers are not particularly forgiving to-ward either their organizations or the poorperformers. Only 16 percent say the poorperformers do not have the training to dotheir jobs well. A littler more than 30 per-cent say the poor performers are simply not

HITS AND MISSESHow Senior Executive Service members and managers atthe GS 13-15 levels with at least 10 years of experiencerate recent government reform efforts:

Very orsomewhatsuccessful

Not toosuccessful or notsuccessful at all

Improve information technology 88% 11%

Reduce fraud, waste and abuse 67% 21%

Streamline procurement 54% 29%

Improve financial management 50% 38%

Reduce internal rules 43% 49%

Measure government results 39% 58%

POOR PERFORMER PERCENTAGE

qualified for their jobs, and 37 percent saytheir organizations do not ask enough ofthose employees.

The four groups of employees surveyeddiffer on both the number of poor per-formers and the cause of the problems. Notsurprisingly, given their role in both ap-praising and leading employees, SESers and

GS managers see less poor performance un-der their command than GS employees andPMIs do, and are more likely to blame thepoor performance they see on employeeswho are not qualified for their jobs. Onthe other hand,as the targets of criticism,GSemployees and PMIs blame poor perfor-mance on the organizations. But whoeveris to blame, all four sets of employees seemuch more poor performance than thereshould be in a healthy public service.

Unfortunately, all four groups of em-ployees share a belief that little can be doneabout the poor performance problem.Only 30 percent say their organizationsdo a very good or somewhat good job atdisciplining poor performers, comparedwith 67 percent who say they do not. ThePMIs remain the toughest critics of all,with 80 percent saying their organizationsare only somewhat good or not good at allat disciplining poor performers.

These ratings have to be balanced againsteach respondent’s self-assessment. Fifty-eightpercent of respondents say they are doing avery good job, and 39 percent say they arebetter than average. Just 3 percent rate them-

selves as average, and none say they are be-low average. This is an example of the “80/20rule,” in which 80 percent of employees inalmost any organization believe they are inthe top 20 percent of performers. Such is thenature of self-assessment, which is why in-dividual performance appraisal systems are sodifficult to manage and why quotas and

grading curves are so often used to trim thenatural instincts of managers to rate all em-ployees above average.

These ratings also have to be comparedwith the private sector, where private em-ployees estimated that 26 percent of theirpeers do not perform their jobs well inspite of the fact that nearly half also say theirorganizations do a very good or some-what good job of disciplining poor per-formers. It could well be that theperception of poor performance amongfederal employees would be much lowerif the government had an agile disciplinaryprocess, or that the perception of poorperformance in the private sector wouldbe much higher if its organizations had towork under federal rules.

Federal employees may rate themselveshighly, but they offer a mixed view of theirorganizations’ performance. Fifty-one per-cent say their organizations do a very goodjob helping people, and 41 percent say thesame about running programs and deliv-ering services. However, only 29 percentsay their organizations do a very good jobat being fair in their decisions and just 22

percent say the same about spendingmoney wisely.

Asked which sector of the economy isbest at delivering services on the public’sbehalf, more than half of federal employeessay nonprofit organizations, for-profit busi-nesses or state and local governments, ratherthan their own employer. Only 32 percent

say the federal governmentis best at helping people,and a woeful 13 percent saythe federal governmentdoes the best job of spend-ing money wisely.

SEARCHING FOR RESPECTThe fifth and final charac-teristic of a healthy publicservice is that it has the re-spect and confidence of thepeople it serves, includingthe President and Congress.That means the public cantell the difference betweenwho makes the policies of

government—popular or unpopular—andwho carries them out. It also means that thePresident and Congress must tell the truthabout the true size of government neededto deliver the goods and services that Amer-icans have come to expect.

By these and other measures, the fed-eral service gets mixed grades from thepeople and leaders it serves. Presidentsand Congresses long ago decided it wasbetter to hide the true size of the federalworkforce through contracts, grants andmandates than to tell the whole storyabout the number of people it takes to de-liver the services provided by the federalgovernment. Politicians have also longsince decided they can get more mileageby denigrating public service in campaignsthan by celebrating it.

Until recently, Americans strongly be-lieved the federal government is not to betrusted. Trust in government surges in thewake of crisis,however,and reached its high-est levels since the 1960s following Sep-tember’s terrorist attacks. According to asurvey conducted by the Brooking Institu-tion’s Presidential Appointee Initiative in

DELIVERING THE GOODS

July, only 29 percent of Americans said they trusted the government in Washington to do what is right just aboutalways or most of the time. By Oct. 1, that number had jumped to about 65 percent. Although the confidencealmost always wears off over time, the recent gains do speak to an underpinning of readiness to rally around thefederal government when the nation is in trouble.

Moreover, there is no sign that Americans have reduced their expectations of government. To the contrary,Americans want more of virtually everything government delivers. Americans are much more likely to favorreinventing government over devolving or downsizing it.

In addition, 50 percent of Americans say they have a very or somewhat favorable view of the federal gov-ernment in Washington,and 69 percent feel thatway about federal workers.Americans may not trustthe government as awhole to do the r ightthing, but they do feel fa-vorable toward the insti-tutions and individualemployees that guard ourborders, deliver Social Se-curity checks, monitorfood safety, protect the en-vironment and take careof the nation’s veterans.

Nevertheless, only 30percent of Americans saythey would recommendthat their sons or daughters choose a government job over a private job, and the vast majority believe federal work-ers are motivated primarily by job security, salary and a steady paycheck. Of course, the latest survey shows thatis true of many federal employees.

Despite the mixed public opinions, half of federal employees say they are very proud to tell their friends andneighbors where they work, and 40 percent are somewhat proud. (And remember, the survey was conductedlong before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.) Nevertheless, nearly one-fifth of federal employees say they are notsatisfied with the public’s respect for the work they do. Fifty-four percent also say that the word “trusted” does-n’t describe their organizations well, and 52 percent say a similar job outside government would generate the samelevel of respect from family and friends.

A CALL TO ACTIONTwelve years after the National Commission on the Public Service, chaired by former Federal Reserve BoardChairman Paul Volcker, issued a report describing a “quiet crisis” in the federal civil service, it remains miredin neglect. The current personnel system was last overhauled in 1978 based on ideas from the 1950s that werebuilt on research conducted in the 1930s, using data collected in the 1920s by scholars trained in the 1910s.

Few of the promises made in 1978 to deliver a workforce as good as Americans deserve have been hon-ored, even as the bureaucratic sediment of one reform effort after another continues to pile up and as the callsfor random job cuts and privatization increase. In late 2001, the half of the federal workforce that has beenlisted as holding jobs that are commercial in nature under the 1998 Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act,must be asking whether they’ll be pushed out in the next five years. The other half must be wondering howthey will survive another round of downsizing and contracting out.

For the past 20 years, the federal government has been telling its employees to get out, retire early and find an-other job. Perhaps it is time for the federal government to tell most of its workforce to stay a little longer and tomake sure that poor performers are either disciplined or invited to leave.

Merely tinkering at the entry level with current authorities, such as recruitment bonuses and forgiveness ofstudent loans, will not restore the public service to good health. Hiring incentives will not convert frustratingjobs into exciting opportunities, and a faster hiring process only hastens the day when talented recruits start look-

ing for a way out. Absent a broad effort to remove persistent barriers to high performance, the federal govern-

the 21st Century warned seworld depends on the qualit

Unfortunately, the federal public and its leaders are neveact now to make sure that fe

HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES

ge