The Benefits of Benefits

Under a law that President Bush signed in September, federal workers who make monthly payments on their student loans for 10 years will have the remaining balance absolved. The new loan forgiveness program generally will affect employees with low salaries. It comes on the heels of a five-year-old program through which federal agencies can pay off thousands of dollars of each student's loan debt as a recruitment and retention tool even for higher paid employees. In fiscal 2006, federal agencies paid off $36 million in loan debt for nearly 6,000 employees under the program.

The loan programs are some of the recently enacted benefit programs aimed at attracting talented workers to the federal government-and keeping them in government. Overall, agencies are awash in candidates for jobs and have a low turnover rate. But it's worth highlighting the many benefits of federal employment as compared to most private sector employers.

For example, many private sector employers allow workers to carry over only a week or two of paid leave from year to year. And many are adopting systems that combine sick and vacation time into a single category-paid time off-which reduces the amount of unused leave in their accounting ledgers. Meanwhile, federal agencies still have separate pots for sick and vacation time, and sick leave can be carried over fully from year to year. Federal employees also can earn compensatory time off for travel, a benefit rarely seen in the private sector.

Another unusual benefit is commuting cost reimbursement. Federal workers in the Washington area can get more than $110 a month to cover public transportation expenses. Uncle Sam pays its employees to get to work. Some private sector employees can pay their public transportation costs out of pretax earnings, but they don't usually get a free ride.

In addition, many agencies offer flexible schedules, such as nine-hour days, which enable employees to take every other Friday off. The federal government generally has an eight-hour workday culture, giving employees time to have a life outside work.

There are, of course, benefits in the private sector unavailable in the public sector, such as profit sharing and stock options, but the benefits that the federal government does offer can be just as attractive.

Federal managers and workers often talk about the downsides of working for Uncle Sam: the bureaucracy, the politics, the limited room for advancement, the stifling of creativity. They address the intrinsic values that can make the workday turn out to be either a grind or a joy.

The extrinsic benefits of federal employment are competitive with those offered by the private sector, and they should be touted to potential and current employees. Maybe it's the intrinsic issues of day-to-day life on the job that federal leaders and managers really need to improve to attract and retain talented workers.

Brian Friel covered management and human resources at Government Executive for six years and is now a National Journal staff correspondent.