NASA Chief Information Officer Renee Wynn promised herself growing up that she would never go work for the federal government. That promise clearly didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wynn said her mother, father, stepfather and grandfather had all worked in various federal agencies, and she\u2019d been thoroughly exposed to the federal workforce as a child. Her mother even wanted her to become a spy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to do that, that\u2019s what everybody else is doing, I really want to work in the private sector,\u2019\u201d said Wynn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, while working at Booz Allen Hamilton on a contract for the Environmental Protection Agency, Wynn said that she fell in love with the agency\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe work I was doing was looking at schedules and doing database management associated with the cleanup schedules for the most polluted, most toxic sites in the United States, and I really came to love the mission. So, when a job opened up, I applied immediately, and I frankly have never looked back,\u201d said Wynn. \u201cFor me to go to work and gain a paycheck, I needed to love what I was doing. It couldn\u2019t be about the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Wynn, who began working for the EPA in 1990, the missions of agencies, and their ability to make employees feel like they\u2019re contributing to something bigger, is one of the strongest motivations for people to join the federal workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Stephen Rice, deputy chief information officer at the Department of Homeland Security, working for the federal government offers the kind of satisfaction that is impossible to get in the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice joined the federal workforce with the Secret Service in 1991, and said that, originally, he was just looking for any job. However, after the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, Rice was assigned to the Secret Service duty desk to compile a chronology of events surrounding the attack as leads came in to the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was something that just kind of stuck with me,\u201d said Rice. \u201cThe ability to make sure that you\u2019re available, understand the value to the mission, understand that you\u2019re part of something bigger than yourself, and at the end of the day that the U.S. government has such tremendous impact on citizens\u2019 lives that you don\u2019t really understand until you\u2019re immersed in the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Wynn and Rice joined the government decades ago, their experiences with mission-driven federal work hint at a primary motivator for millennials joining the workforce: meaningful work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traditional motivators<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Donald Kettl, professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, where baby boomers often sought out federal service for the stability it provided, millennials are more concerned with making a difference in the work that they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMost don\u2019t imagine that they will work in the same job for five or 10 years, let alone for their entire careers,\u201d said Kettl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat means traditional benefit programs \u2014 like pensions \u2014 matter relatively little. Having jobs where they feel valued and can make an impact matters much more. That puts far more focus on employee engagement, development opportunities and networking than was the case in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The federal government is one of few sectors that still offers pension benefits to its employees, and retirement benefits have recently been a sticking point in congressional budget negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom a personal perspective, a lot of federal jobs are pretty high scope, and they\u2019re very, very responsible positions,\u201d said Wynn. \u201cAnd while it\u2019s hard to have a public-sector equivalent, I think that one of the things that the government should do reasonably is make sure that when you\u2019re giving up a portion of pay [\u2026] offering them security and some retirement benefits and health care will give them a better employee. We want the best and brightest, and if we can\u2019t compete on salary then we ought to compete on giving them a more stable life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, according to Kettl, this focus on pensions and benefits may be a moot point for new employees entering federal service. He questioned how much risk the government was taking on if it assumed that millennials would adapt to current policy, rather than policy adapting to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s a case where the emerging battle over changing employee pensions, something that the Republicans are pushing and Democrats are fiercely opposing, might be a case of fighting the last war,\u201d said Kettl. \u201cThe big, important and often overlooked question is how best to get the next generation of government employees into the workforce \u2014 how the environment will have to change to do so \u2014 and the new contributions that the new generation of workers will make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Xavier Clark, a current graduate student at George Mason University and intern at DHS who plans to work for the government after graduation, said that millennials not wanting stability in jobs is largely a misconception, from his perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am looking for a job that allows me to impact policy, affords me mobility and allows me to have stability,\u201d said Clark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI always knew that working for the federal government was not going to be the most lucrative opportunity,\u201d said Rice. \u201cBut in addition to pay, pensions and benefits, I take the longer definition of benefits to include more than just health, dental and life insurance. It\u2019s knowing you\u2019re part of something bigger than yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Rice, innovations like social media have helped younger generations to realize the impact they can have on the world around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that with the younger generations, they have gotten to the point faster of being a part of something bigger than themselves. It took me a little while to figure that out. But I think the millennials and Generation X, they are already there,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that is bringing them to federal service: their ability to make an impact, to make a lasting impact, with their knowledge and capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Federal demographics<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the fact that work in the federal government fulfills many of the making-a-difference requirements sought by younger generations, the federal workforce is still noticeably older on the whole than the private-sector workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 2016 Common Characteristics of Government report released by the Office of Personnel Management found that the average age of federal employees was 47.4. That same year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics\u2019 Employment Projections found that the average age of the American workforce was 42. And September 2017 Fedscope employment data shows that employees 50-54 represent the largest demographic within the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That same data set also found that nearly 74 percent of federal employees have served the government for five years or more, making the demographics of the federal workforce strikingly different than the stereotypical millennial worker, who will not remain in one place for more than five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jay Huie, director of the General Service Administration\u2019s Secure Cloud Portfolio, joined federal service two years ago after working as a private contractor, and said these longer tenures are likely attributable to agency mission as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a contractor, you generally have a chance to go really deep in an agency, diving into their mission and the organizational and cultural elements that have grown over time to make them unique,\u201d said Huie, a member of Generation X. \u201cI think that sort of history and love of the mission is why many people end up spending significant amounts of time within a single agency and get to see the transformation over time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are millennials that different?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The characterization of millennial workers as unwilling to stick with a job beyond the five-year mark may be simple generational stereotyping, rather than a stark change in new worker behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that I believe the statistics because I think I heard that about my generation, and my comment is, \u2018Well, wait until you get a mortgage,\u2019\u201d said Wynn, explaining that before getting married, buying a house or having kids, young people should be taking the chance to explore employment options. \u201cWhy not go experiment when your life responsibilities allow you to be more flexible?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since a 2014 Pew Research study found that baby boomers were nearly twice as likely to be married as millennials when they were the same age, it\u2019s possible that the younger workforce has not yet been driven to seek stability as quickly as previous generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is one school of thought that suggests they will eventually be relatively conventional,\u201d said Kettl. \u201cOnce marriage, kids and family obligations settle in, they will look for more stable jobs. Another school of thought suggests that both they and the job market have both fundamentally changed: that they\u2019re looking for careers that have impact, that they\u2019re willing to switch jobs to find it and that the job market itself will constantly present churning and new opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy view is that marriage will, eventually, bring an instinct for greater stability and security. But, more importantly, I do think there\u2019s something different in this generation, in the jobs that individuals seek and in the job market, which is going to lead to more job changes. In fact, most of the heavy betting is that this generation of workers will have far more jobs before retirement than previous generations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Clark said that he and others of his age group are attracted to stability long before those responsibilities set in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf we garner stability at a younger age, it gives us more room to grow,\u201d said Clark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my experience, employees generally want similar things, including a nurturing place to participate, the ability to own a chance for positive impact and recognition for their contribution. There are certainly those that group each generation\u2019s aspirations differently, however I\u2019ve found there\u2019s far more nuance and shared values across generations than separations between them,\u201d said Huie, adding that a diverse workforce often contributes positively to an agency\u2019s success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Wynn, to attract new talent, agencies need to \u201creturn to their roots\u201d by playing up the cool factor of their mission. For example, Wynn said, environmentalists join the EPA to make a difference in protecting the planet, former military servicemen and women join Veterans Affairs to look after their fellow veterans and people go to NASA because going to space is just so cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat is attractive is the fact you are truly helping to better lives,\u201d said Clark. \u201cSome might not think that, but it is the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is the honor of public service enough for a new generation of feds?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,67,15,33,69],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2853],"class_list":["post-22594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-hr","category-management","category-newsletters","category-pay-benefits"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"IXGDK6M4OJF7TO33SU3OIBK2MU","arc_canonical_url":"\/management\/hr\/2017\/12\/26\/motivated-by-mission\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n