Whats key to the Obama administration being able to govern

effectively over the next four years? As I wrote in my last

article, the new administrations success depends not just

on the presidents ability to articulate public policy, but also on its ability

to implement it at the department, agency, and program levels.

Doing so requires that the president and his key political appointees

work through the federal workforce to advance the administrations

public policy agenda. That means engaging federal employees to support

the goals of the new administration. Driving such engagement in

the federal bureaucracy is often difficult, however, because the government

is far from an efficient, smooth-functioning machine. At the start

of this new administration problems such as inadequate staffing, huge

caseloads and a lack of clarity about \[agency\] mission plague many

federal agencies, notes Washington Post staff writer Ed OKeefe. Many

of these affect the basic operations of government. These endemic

organizational issues confront the new administration as it also tries to

orient the federal bureaucracy to new White House priorities.

Given such realities, this article offers some advice to new leaders,

now assuming the reins of power in various federal agencies, who

onmust

effectively engage the federal workforce to support

President Obamas public policy goals.

Recent Survey Report Findings

Findings from Watson Wyatts 2008/2009 WorkUSA

survey report, Driving Business Results through Continuous

Engagement, offer many practical suggestions new agency

leaders can use to boost employee performance and

align federal workers with critical new agency goals

enunciated by the Obama White House. Although these

findings are based on private-sector research, they are

relevant for incoming administration political appointees

and senior government executives who want to

bolster the operating performance of government, engage

employees, and foster strong organizational transparency

and accountability.

The following subsections discuss the findings most

significant for senior government executives.

Employee Engagement and

Organizational Performance

Strong employee engagement correlates to strong

organizational performance. Backing up earlier Watson

Wyatt survey research, the 2008/2009 WorkUSA survey

found that highly engaged employees work at companies

with 26 percent higher revenue per employee, 13

percent higher total returns to shareholders over five

years, and a 50 percent higher market premium. The

data suggest that companies that increase employee

engagement levels can expect to significantly improve

their subsequent business (financial) performance.

This correlation applies to leading and managing

employees in the federal sector. Strong business performance

equates to strong organizational performance

based on robust employee engagement and productivity.

Employees who feel engaged with the goals of

their organization are going to be more productive than

less-engaged employees, as the survey findings suggest.

That engagement can translate directly into improved

organizational performance and an agencys ability to

accomplish its stated public mission. For this reason,

government executives need to focus on developing

effective engagement strategies and using them as a

lynchpin to strengthen their agencys overall operating

performance.

High- and Low-Engagement Employees

Research findings show that the differences between

high- and low-engagement employees are striking,

and these differences are clearly reflected in workplace

performance. Highly engaged employees are twice

as likely as less-engaged workers to be top performers

in their organizations. Three-quarters of highly engaged

employees exceed or far exceed job performance

expectations. Highly engaged employees also miss fewer

days of work due to illness. They are more resilient in

dealing with organizational change, and they identify

more closely with their company and its products and

services than less-engaged employees.

For political and career government executives, its

critically importantespecially in the early days of the

new administrationto focus on orienting their agencies

to the Obama administrations public policy agenda.

They should start by articulating a strategic vision for

their agencies that directly supports the White Houses

stated (and emerging) public policy priorities. This message

should include ways the agency will move forward

to implement new public policies and outline the roles

and responsibilities agency employees will play in that

processat the departmental, programmatic, and work

unit levels. Setting specific performance goals with regard

to these objectives is also critical.

In doing so, agency leaders should appeal to the

public-sector motivations of federal workers, emphasizing

the critical role frontline employees play in implementing

public policies and programs and stressing how

the activities of individual employees on the job can

directly impact the delivery of services and programs

to citizens. In communicating these messages, agency

leaders have a unique opportunity to generate fresh excitement

in frontline federal workers and create strong

employee line of sight to new agency mission goals.

Opportunities to Engage Employees

Employee engagement typically starts high (at the

point of hiring) and declines with tenuredropping

9 percent in the first year and more than 12 percent

over five years. However, there are many opportunities

throughout the employment life cycleduring on

boarding, goal setting and performance feedback, career

discussions, and elsewherewhere leaders can engage

employees and strengthen employee commitment and

alignment.

Our survey research found that even the most engaged

and enthusiastic employees can quickly become

disengaged when they perceive a disconnect between the

employment deal presented to them during recruitment

and the deal in reality. Regardless of an employees

motivation to join an organization, research shows that

employees can be engaged, provided an organization accurately

communicates the employment deal up front,

sets realistic expectations during onboarding, and lives

up to the employee deal after the employee is on the

job. In short, engagement comes from delivering on the

deal regardless of what it is. Top performing organizations

know how to do this consistently, beginning at the

point of recruitment and hiring.

As the new administration begins its term in office,

President Obama has a tremendous opportunity to issue

a national call to public service and to make recruitment

of high-quality people to government a presidential priority.

A new report, Elevating Our Federal Workforce: Chief

Human Capital Officers Offer Advice to President Obama,

calls for the president to do exactly that.

To effectively recruit and engage young people,

agencies must appeal to their sense of altruism and public

service, and commit to speedy recruitment and effective

onboarding as never before. They should also use

the mission as a talent recruitment and employee tool.

(Ive written about these issues in other Public Manager

articles.)

Once theyre actually on board in agencies, retaining

high-quality new hires requires agencies to take a

systematic and integrated approach to developing, mentoring,

and coaching young talent, giving people opportunities

for growth and professional development and

emphasizing the social significance of the work they do.

All of these things are critical to keeping new hires energized

and engaged on the job over the long term.

One particularly powerful thing federal executives

and managers can do to energize and engage employees

is to use career development and enrichment discussions

as an engagement tool and team-building strategy.

This can be a real job sweetener for employees at

all stages of their careers, but especially for members of

Gen X and Gen Y.

Our survey findings reveal that highly engaged employees

are eight times more likely than low-engagement

employees to say their organization does a good

job providing opportunities to advance. Theyre also

more likely to obtain information on career development

from supervisors, coworkers, and other sources in

the organization. Less-engaged employees, in contrast,

seek this information primarily through the Internet

and other external sources.

If managers show interest in the career goals of their

direct reports, its likely to improve their engagement,

bolster their morale, and contribute to their perception

that they are valued by their supervisor and considered

critical to the organizations success.

That said, career development discussions can be

tricky because opportunities for advancement diminish

as an employee moves up the organizational ladder.

For that reason, federal agencies may want to focus on

offering enrichment opportunities that enable people

to continue learning and growing and that keep their

jobs meaningful and interesting. Upward mobility is not

always the only way for an employee to achieve professional

fulfillment and career satisfaction, or even the

ideal, practical, or preferred way.

In some cases, federal managers and employees can

benefit from a segmentation strategy, which acknowledges

that not every individual is motivated at work by

the same things. Segmentation strategies can be used

in strategic human capital planning to attract, reward,

and retain certain kinds of employees with specific skill

setsor to help tailor the employment deal for an

employee on the basis of expressed personal and professional

needs, goals, and interests. Use of a segmentation

strategy is particularly practical in large organizations

with hundreds or thousands of employees.

Opportunities for Engagement

Organizational leaders need to find and leverage

opportunities to engage employees. As noted earlier,

Watson Wyatt Research shows that engagement levels

tend to start high and then taper off during an employees

early years on the job. For example, 71 percent of

survey participants who had been on board less than six

months said their company motivates them to do their

best work every day. That number drops to 57 percent

for employees on board six to twelve months.

Although some decline is inevitable, organizations

that identify opportunities and take action to reengage

employees at these times can minimize the decline.

Federal executives can use various techniques to effectively

build strong employee engagement. Ive already

mentioned career development discussions as an engagement

strategy (one that works particularly well in

building trust between immediate supervisors and their

direct reports). Table 1 lists other points of natural contact

between organizations and employees (both formal

and informal) that provide opportunities for leaders to

increase commitment, line of sight, or both, thereby

strengthening an employees level of engagement.

As shown, these opportunities can occur as a result

of formal human resources programs such as onboarding,

performance management, communication, and annual

benefits enrollment. All of these provide the opportunity

for an organization to reinforce key aspects of the employment

deal with employees in a very positive way.

Informal and impromptu encounters can also be

chances for engagement. An upbeat conversation between

an employee and a senior agency executive at an

agency or department function (an employee anniversary

ceremony or an annual recognition event) is one

example.

Agencies that seize these opportunities can improve

the job experience for individual employees in compelling

ways and help cement strong bonds between employees

and an organization. This can be particularly important

in a federal government context, where people

are typically driven more by a sense of altruism and commitment

to public service than by financial incentives.

Other Strategies for Continuous

Employee Engagement

The 2008/2009 survey data show that the level of

employee engagement (or disengagement) in an organization

depends on how effectively that organization

does the following:

Ensures that senior leaders set the strategic direction.

Employees look to senior leaders for insight into

how well the organization is performing and what

its goals are going forward. Trust and confidence

are high when senior leaders clearly communicate

organizational direction, are active and visible, and

behave consistently with the core values of the

organization.

Focuses employees at all levels on the customer. Organizations

that focus on putting the customer

first enjoy higher levels of customer satisfaction

and loyalty. Moreover, they tend to develop

employees who are passionate about what their

organization stands for. Given this finding, federal

agencies that focus on serving the needs of their

customersthe U.S. taxpayer or some constituent

group in the U.S. populationcan effectively galvanize

federal employees to engage around their

agencys core mission. This is especially the case

when federal workers have the chance to see how

the results of their work impact downstream stakeholders

or consumers of specific government

services and programs (such as disaster relief).

Clearly communicates goals to all employees and links

individual goals to corporate goals. WorkUSA data

continue to show that communication makes a

positive difference in employee engagement. Effective

communication from senior management

directly connects employees to the purpose of an

organization, creating a sense of collective resolve

and identity that helps accelerate progress toward

goals. Specific strategies for enhancing communication

in an agency include

having senior leaders take an active, visible

role in communicating with employees;

explaining the reasons behind major decisions

and increasing the level of communication

during times of stress or significant change;

reviewing communication processes to ensure

that information flows vertically from the top

down and from the bottom upas well as

horizontally;

soliciting employee feedback, particularly from

those who disagree with current practices and

processes (providing opportunities for anonymous

feedback);

ensuring that processes are in place to collect

feedback and that managers are trained to encourage

differing viewpoints;

acting on employee feedback, showing trust in

employees, and engaging them more fully; and

measuring communication effectiveness

using a mix of metrics that report on activity,

awareness and understanding, and behavior

change.

Conclusions

Federal agencies will continue to be challenged in

motivating and engaging employees, and aligning them

to meet critical organizational and governmental goals.

This is always the case in large organizations, private or

public sector.

This is an unusually good time for federal agencies

to consider ways of engaging employees around their

agency mission and the growing list of national service

priorities being articulated by the Obama administration.

The new administrations priorities include everything

from environmental protection and awareness (the

green agenda) to education, government accountability

and transparency, national defense, developing alternative

energy sources, and serving the poor and unemployed.

All of these areas of public policy are potential engagement

touch points for federal agencies with current

and prospective employees, and agency leaders should

leverage them to the fullest extent possible. Meanwhile,

President Obamas election has itself energized many

Americans to now consider careers in public service.

Thats likely to encourage more new college graduates

to consider careers in government in the future.

As this article outlines, government executives and

political appointees have a wealth of tools at their disposal

with which to engage federal employees. Engagement

programs and interventions should be designed

with the unique needs of an agency and its workforce

in mind and with the goal of helping federal managers

and executivesat all levelsrecognize and leverage

opportunities to engage with employees. Handling such

moments well is the key to strengthening employee

commitment and line of sight.

To develop effective engagement strategies in their

agencies, senior government executives need to work

closely with their agencys human resources team to determine

engagement priorities and develop a road map

for effective long-term employee engagement and retention.

Such strategies should also be embedded into

an agencys strategic human capital planning process and

periodically reviewed and updated to reflect changing

employee needs, workforce requirements, and organizational

priorities.

In the final analysis, high employee engagement

helps drive both individual and organizational performance.

Americans are looking for greater productivity,

efficiency, accountability, and transparency from government

than ever before, so effectively engaging federal

employees to meet the pressing needs of our country

must be a key priority of the new administration. Federal

employees, after all, are the very bedrock on which

the successful operation of the federal government rests.

They are also its everyday frontline representatives with

citizens and the key channel through which all government

programs and services are ultimately delivered to

the American public.