The federal government is going to have to get more hip if it wants to recruit the self-obsessed, Twitter-addled youngsters known as Generation Y to run all its fancy computers, according to a new report [pdf] released jointly by the Department of Defense and the White House.
As the report explains, the federal bureaucracy faces a generational problem: The Baby Boomers who populate it are starting to retire in huge numbers, and the younger generations that the government needs to hire to replace them are, well, different. The pressure is especially intense when it comes to the growing federal IT sector, which needs to beef up its workforce to run increasingly computer-dependent government operations. And the tech sector is, of course, especially dependent on the skills of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters who are uniquely unsuited to the endless paperwork and stringent work rules common to government work. That means, according to "Net Generation: Preparing for Change in the Federal Information Technology Workforce," that the government is going to have to change its ways.
"Managing in the Net-Gen World will take more time, and perhaps more patience," reads the slickly produced report, prepared with sociological and demographic analysis on the career proclivities of 17-to-31-year-olds from "generational thought research" firm nGenera Insight. "Net-Geners will expect more feedback, more often, both to recognize their accomplishments and to help them move to the next stage in their work project. While they will want flexibility in how they do their work, they also need structured accountability and deadlines. Routine meetings will bore them and the formality, slow speed, and repetitiveness of government bureaucracy will frustrate them."
So what's a massive, hidebound, faceless civil-service administration to do? Well, since "Net-Geners" grew up under the influence of a decade-long "concerted, nationwide movement by parents, teachers and counselors in the 1980s to build their self-esteem" by offering rewards for the most routine accomplishments, the federal government will have to keep patting them on the back and offering treats. The report recommends increasing the use of "Time-Off Awards," for instance, giving young IT professionals a $100 bonus and a day off for a job well done (or maybe, you know, just a job done). The authors also predict that the new model federal bureaucrat will need more "peer recognition programs" and the occasional "congratulatory letter or certificate presented by senior management" to be persuaded to stay on the federal payroll.
And because the kids these days "see their job fitting into their personal and social ... lifestyles, instead of the opposite," bureaucrats are going to have to get used to letting them basically do whatever they want, whenever they want:
They may want to take a break in the middle of the day to get reinvigorated. They like to learn on the job. And, they are more adept at switching from work to play to work in their task orientation. Creating an environment that enables playfulness, creativity, and collaboration can improve morale, reduce employee absenteeism from the job, and ultimately reduce overall attrition.
"Net Generation" was drafted at the initiative of Vivek Kundra, the White House's technology evangelist and chief information officer, and its anthropological approach to assessing the needs and desires of young prospective government employees misses the mark somewhat. At a time when the size of the federal workforce and unemployment are hitting historic and generational high-water marks, respectively, it seems rather pointless to strategize about how the government can bend over backwards to attract new workers. Baby Boomers certainly didn't flock to government jobs because they like filling out paperwork and complying with rigid regulations. They liked the job security and the pensions.
And one of the key features of bureaucracies is that they don't change — they just produce lengthy reports about how they should change. No matter how self-involved and distracted the "Net Generation" is, the Department of the Interior isn't going to be installing foosball tables at all its offices across the nation anytime soon. Every generation that entered the federal workforce was young and carefree once. The bureaucracy will break the "Net-Geners" — just like it broke their forebears. Peer recognition programs and work-as-play gimmicks are no match for the government service code.
— John Cookis very happily employed in his new-economy perch as senior national reporter/blogger for Yahoo! News.sunshine
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