Help wanted in public service

After decades in which "big government" was seen as the source of many of the nation's problems, America is finally realizing that markets alone will not keep the country safe, secure, and prosperous. We need a strong, effective public sector, with a highly functioning workforce, for the well-being of the nation.

This will require a huge shift in our national mindset. The public, the media, and elected officials need to drop the destructive "gotcha" attitude toward civil servants, which has prevailed since the Reagan era, and which discourages talented people from joining government and undermines the morale of current employees. Instead of accentuating the negative, we need a culture that recognizes and rewards the dedication of government workers and restores the prestige and satisfaction of a civil-service career.

Change will also require money. As my colleague Jack Donahue has shown, federal wage levels have fallen further and further below the private sector over the past 30 years. Compensation levels need to be rethought. The federal government is the largest single employer in the United States, with 1.9 million employees (including 65,000 in New England). Average starting salaries for graduates taking federal government jobs is around $59,000, with slow and uncertain upward progress. At the top of the tree, relatively low pay and intense political scrutiny is making it hard to fill key jobs the administration relies on to implement its policy initiatives.

The federal government's people management remains rooted in another era. The idea of investing in the workforce - which is what drives superior performance at America's best companies - is still largely foreign to the civil service. While we entrust federal employees with public safety, security, and health, we spend less than one-third per capita on their training compared with private firms and the military.

Today the volume and complexity of government work are sharply increasing, but training budgets are actually being cut. By contrast, a recent survey of US industrial companies showed that training budgets are one of the few areas of spending likely to increase in 2009 - because good companies know that the financial payback from training is so high they are willing to invest in it even during a severe recession. The military also views training as essential to creating an effective organization of individually reliable members.

The lack of attention to people skills has sullied the government's image among potential recruits. Two-thirds of college seniors say they would prefer to work for private or nonprofit organizations, primarily because they do not see the federal government as a "caring" employer where there are opportunities for advancement. They are also put off by practical impediments - for example, 70 percent of graduates say they can only afford to wait four weeks to begin a job, but the federal government takes three months to make a job offer.

The United States needs a "Civil Service GI Bill" designed to train federal workers in leadership, management, procurement, and technical skills. Based on results from the handful of federal agencies that have undertaken such reforms, we project that $21 billion invested in the workforce over a decade will produce a payback of $300-$600 billion through better design and management of contracts, improved supervision, and reduced waste and duplication.

If we continue to be cavalier about the problems affecting the federal workforce, we jeopardize our future prosperity. Economic recovery plans will take longer and be more costly to implement. And we will witness a steady decline in the way that America is governed.

Today, as the country faces serious challenges on many fronts, we have an unprecedented opportunity to reinvigorate public service. Let's not let this moment pass.

Linda J. Bilmes, a lecturer in public finance at the Harvard Kennedy School, is co-author with W. Scott Gould of "The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service."