Governments are run by people—from postal workers to election officials to firefighters. Depending on what we call these workers, and where we stand politically, we have different beliefs about their warmth, their integrity, or how competent or innovative we think they are. Harvard Kennedy School Professor Elizabeth Linos and her team at The People Lab have begun an ambitious study to understand how Americans perceive government workers and how government workers feel about their jobs. Linos and her team have just released a report based on a national survey on how Americans view public workers. It’s part of their new research under the Public Servant Project. We spoke with her about what she found. We share her lightly edited remarks below.
Q: Why did you launch the Public Servant Project?
At The People Lab, we strongly believe that you can’t solve any of the large social challenges of the day—whether it’s housing policy or transportation policy or economic development—if you don't think deeply about what it takes to invest in a functioning public sector. And at the heart of a functioning public sector are the people—the people of government who deliver services and develop and implement policy.
In a series of online, nationally representative surveys, we’re trying to track how the American public views government workers or public servants. We’re thinking about how those beliefs about government workers—those perceptions of who works for government and what they’re like—might then reflect who wants to work in government, how much we trust our institutions, and how we think about the role of government overall.
In a parallel stream of research, we also aim to elevate the voices of public servants themselves to better understand their experiences. Ultimately The Public Servant Project is asking what it would take to recruit, retain and support government workers.
Q: What did you learn about how Americans view public servants?
When we measured how Americans feel about public servants on four key dimensions—warmth, competence, integrity, and innovation—in general, the American public is pretty favorable to public servants. Most Americans think of public servants as warm and competent and honest.
At the same time, most Americans also think that public servants are not innovative. And when you ask Americans to compare public sector workers to private sector workers on any dimension, they rate public servants less favorably than their private sector counterparts.
Q: How do political parties shape perception of public servants?
Even though on average, Democrats view public servants much more favorably than Republicans, we see a lot of variation by the occupation of the public servant they’re thinking about.
When we ask about firefighters, for example, Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike have really favorable views about firefighters. When we ask about librarians, we see a little bit of a split—where Democrats view librarians as more innovative than Republicans.
And then for some occupations, we see pretty large political gaps. So, for example, when we ask about election officials, Democrats view them as much more honest than Republicans. And the trend reverses for things like law enforcement, police officers or ICE. For ICE agents, we see the largest gap in favorability between Democrats and Republicans.
Q: How does people’s perception of government workers influence whether they want to work in government?
We asked Americans whether they would consider a job in government to begin with. What we find is whether or not someone would consider a job in government is strongly correlated with their perceptions of public servants.
If you find public servants to be more warm or competent, you’re more likely to consider a job in government. Integrity is a really key component of that. The strongest predictor, at least numerically, of whether or not you would consider a job in government is whether or not you think of public servants as honest.
“It’s the same job. It’s the same person in government. But words matter and they change who we’re imagining on the other side.”
Q: How does the language we use to discuss government workers change perception?
We describe government workers in different ways. Sometimes politicians or the media will call them “bureaucrats.” Sometimes they call them “government employees,” or “government workers,” or “public servants.” And we wanted to see whether or not these labels change not only who people are imagining on the other side, but also how they view them.
It turns out this really matters. When we called the people of government “bureaucrats” their favorability goes down pretty significantly compared to when we call them “public servants.”
When I ask you to imagine a “bureaucrat,” it turns out you’re much more likely to imagine someone of the opposite political party than if I ask you to imagine a “public servant.” You’re also likely to rate them as less warm, less competent, less honest, and even less innovative.
It’s the same job. It’s the same person in government. But words matter and they change who we’re imagining on the other side.
Q: How do perceptions of public servants impact perceptions of government overall?
We asked people about their broader views about government efficiency and government waste. It turns out if you view public servants as more competent, as more warm, as more honest, you also see government as more efficient and less wasteful.
Q: What’s next for your research?
There are over 22 million people who work in federal, state, and local government, delivering all sorts of services, from trash collection to emergency preparedness. And while it’s really important to hear how the general public views public servants, we also thought it was critical to elevate the voices of public servants themselves.
Yet, despite the critical role that they play, we have very little systematic, high-quality evidence about their experiences at work.
We just launched Public Servant Pulse to learn how public servants in state and local government are faring during this time. This is a nation-wide effort and asks government workers questions about job satisfaction, burnout, and engagement, as well as their perceptions about what’s going well at work and what needs to improve so that they can do their jobs better.
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Photograph by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
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