I work for the government and I am NOT the enemy

Comment

Comment by Darrel W. Cole on March 8, 2010 at 12:32pm

As a former government employee and current consultant to government agencies, all you can do is be responsive and accessible with the public. And, be honest and tough when you need to be as well. Treat each individual as someone you need to win over, and build one relationship at a time. You can't stop the generalizations unless you are dealing directly with the person making them.

Comment by Andrew Krzmarzick on March 8, 2010 at 11:59am

I think we need to tell them what we're doing right!

Several efforts toward this end:

1. Partnership for Public Service/Washington Post "Federal Player of the Week"

2. Forum Question on GovLoop: "What Is Your Proudest Moment in Government?"

3. "IAmPublicService.org" Project

4. GreatAmericans.com

What if OPM partnered with the Ad Council to do a series of commercials designed to improve the public's perception of career government employees?

Comment by Bowen Moran on March 8, 2010 at 11:45am

Great post Sandy!

I think that the first step begins internally. The public may certainly have the perception that as a Public Servant, I do nothing all day but sit around on piles of gold while plotting how to undermine anything positive people are doing in their lives, but that perception isn't true. In fact, the most passionate, service-oriented people I've met in my life are public servants.

Part of the problem is that our organizations have sought to make us interchangeable - cogs in a machine. When you dehumanize a group, vilifying that same group becomes remarkably easy. We're not cogs - we're people. We're individuals with goals, dreams, passions and fears. For some reason, because we work for Government, we eschew advertising our humanity both to the public we serve and each other. I think this has to stop. When we believe that we are but cogs in a machine, we are less likely to celebrate the things that make us individuals, which cannot but be tied to the reasons we sought to join the Public Service in the first place. We're awesome, and we have a long and hard campaign of first convincing each other that we do something each and every day to be celebrated. We serve.

The next step is to bring that same passion to the public - let's start partnering. Let's partner first with each other, and then, with the public. Let's invest ourselves emotionally into what the citizens we serve are doing. Let's become allies, partners, and most importantly, let's become friends again.

Comment by Sally Smith on March 8, 2010 at 11:42am

Check out this commentary from the Partnership for Public Service, "Federal Workers, a Resource Not a Target"

http://ourpublicservice.org/OPS/pressroom/documents/Stier_3.3.10.pdf

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 5
• 6
• 7
• Next ›
• Page