RESEARCH

The 21st Century Civil Servant

A new report, “Can We Improve Public Service in the Federal Government,” challenges the federal government to nurture a federal workforce that keeps pace with the economy and society that it governs. Kennedy School authors Elaine Kamarck, lecturer; Steve Kelman, professor of public management; and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., dean of the Kennedy School, prepared the report following a fall executive program on the Future of Public Service.

The government’s effort to keep up in the new, competitive age has been “piecemeal” at best, conclude the authors. Today’s organization of federal jobs remains as it was back in 1949, when almost 90 percent of federal workers were clerks. Despite an enormous increase in the variety and skill levels of today’s average federal worker, government continues, say the authors, to operate “under a rubric of legislation, regulation, and practice designed in and for another era.”

The challenge for the federal government in the 21st century, say the authors, is to govern an information age economy “where computers have replaced punch cards, and the Internet has replaced the overnight pouches of information sent from the field to the headquarters.” To attract talented people back to government service, they conclude, government must find ways to market the “meaning” of government work, streamline the hiring process, and provide salaries that are competitive with private sector salaries. “The information age needs a government of information workers,” conclude the authors.