President-elect Barack Obama has started to rebuild leadership at the top levels of government. With few exceptions his nominations for Cabinet and advisory posts have been highly respected. But this process should not end with the president's team. Federal agencies are badly in need of new talent at every level.

Experienced managers and technicians have been leaving at an accelerated rate for years, and they are not being replaced by new recruits. Going forward, the General Accountability Office estimates that an additional one-third of senior workers will leave by the end of Obama's first term, taking with them the institutional memory needed to maintain core government systems.

It is useful to understand how this problem developed. Most important, since Ronald Reagan first said "Government is the problem, not the solution," opinion makers of all political stripes have made government service seem a particularly bad idea. Little wonder that people who might have considered this career made other choices instead.

Downsizing, complexity contributed to loss
There are systemic reasons as well. First is downsizing. During the 1990s alone, 400,000 jobs were eliminated from the federal government. Staff who remained had to absorb the duties of lost colleagues.  At the same time government got more complex. Software systems became more numerous and specialized. Major new assignments were piled on — think Medicare Part D, new weapons systems, and the Transportation Safety Administration. The resulting burnout caused attrition to accelerate as staff retired early or found other work.

It is easy to see the impact of these losses in agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can no longer protect us either from toxic toys or toxic assets. But skills are being lost in many other less visible but equally important areas.

All this indicates an urgent need for new talent. Some elements of a solution are already emerging. Excitement about the new administration alone will certainly give a boost to recruitment efforts. Obama's proposal for a National Service Academy is also a positive, practical step. However, its projected numbers are small compared to the gap. Additional recruitment strategies are needed.  

Lower barriers to job entry
First, we need to make it easier for people to get their first government job. Several years ago the Brookings Institution found that over two-thirds of liberal-arts graduates are strongly interested in public service. The problem is they can't get in the door. The civil-service exam process typically takes at least six to nine months. Recent graduates usually do not have the resources to wait that long, so they take other jobs. This barrier to entry must be lowered.

We must also create more entry-level openings. This could be done by reducing "staff augmentation," which is the practice of using contracted staff to do the same jobs as federal employees. Contracting for services makes sense in areas where the government lacks specialized skills. But using contractors to do regular government work is expensive and adds no value. 

These issues can be addressed first by hiring entry-level professionals as temps until they pass civil-service exams.  This will get new graduates into federal jobs quickly. These staff can be trained to support managers and technicians in the most critical areas while being paid what they will receive as regular employees rather than at consulting rates.  Most of these individuals will gain civil-service status within a year, allowing the government to phase out the contract positions.

This approach will not just have immediate benefits. Experience with internship programs indicates that many of these recruits will stay and become the next generation of senior managers and technical staff.

Use better recruitment methods
In the longer term, federal human-resource managers can implement better recruitment techniques, starting with ones that are already working in many state and local governments. For example, post exams online for frequently filled positions and score them within two weeks. Develop broad entry-level job descriptions to get recent graduates into the system more easily. Accept some credentials as equivalent to a civil-service exam — i.e. take a degree in accounting or project management as sufficient proof that a candidate is qualified for a particular post.

Through these and similar strategies we can ensure that Obama's success in recruiting his leadership team can become a blueprint for the federal government as a whole.

Rich Gehrman is a management consultant to government and higher education in program development, finance and human resources. He is a former director of Finance and Administration for the City of St. Paul.

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