Recruiting Senior Execs Is Getting Tougher in ‘Gotcha’ Climate, Survey Finds

Insults from Congress, a retirement wave and pay scales out-of-sync with heightened workloads have combined to crimp the government’s efforts to recruit fresh talent at the senior executive and professional levels, a survey of federal employees found.

A Senior Executives Association sounding of nearly 500 top-level employees shows “a lack of support, coupled with the pervading negative political climate and ‘gotcha’ mentality surrounding the federal workforce…is increasingly casting a dark cloud over SES and SP positions,” said the report released on Wednesday. “Without high-quality, potential internal and external job candidates, there is an imminent danger for the career leadership corps and the critical government programs and processes it manages.”

Incumbents in particular appear unimpressed with available new candidates for promotion. Respondents who have been in top agency jobs the longest (six years or more), the survey found, “felt somewhat more negative about the declining quality of both recent internal and external applicants than did those SES and SP employees who had been in their jobs for five years or less.” This jibes with a recent Office of Management and Budget update of cross-agency human capital goals, which found that less than half of hiring managers were satisfied with SES candidates, down from previous levels.

Respondents to the new survey who expect to retire or resign in the next five years were also more negative about recruiting qualified senior executives, citing the lengthy and discouraging application process. Logical successors, similarly, appear less attracted to the top jobs.

Individuals interviewed complained of the current political climate and lifestyle pressures that require sacrifice. “It is discouraging to many to be part of a group that is publicly vilified and mocked for doing incredible work,” one said.  “I have tried to recruit from my staff for my [Senior Level] position as I may leave soon,” said another. “None of my five GS-15s is interested because the increase in stress, oversight risk, loss of work-life balance and administrative burdens are not worth the small after tax increase in pay.”

Said a third, “The problem with government is there is no consequence for losing good people.”

The SEA survey, titled “Recruiting Qualified Career Leadership: How Are We Doing?” comes as the Obama administration is readying a set of SES reforms that would include changes in hiring. Some quoted in the new report complained of a meek defense by the Obama administration against attacks from Congress.

Many agencies, the survey showed, are taking steps to improve talent in the pipeline as well as modernize skill sets, such as managing a diverse and multi-generational staff, collaboration and accommodating change.

The association reviewed previous survey results before proposing solutions for replenishing the talent in the government’s 8,000 career senior executive and professional positions. Suggestions included: 

• Aggressively designing and implementing effective succession planning, mentoring, executive exchange and other leadership development and outreach programs;

• Providing timely and focused training on the new and emerging skills, abilities and experiences; and,

• Encouraging and enabling the Office of Personnel Management and agencies to continue simplifying the job application process while maintaining important safeguards against politicization and acceptance of under-qualified candidates.

SEA said its research shows that “time is running short to make these and other crucial changes to the career senior management system” to bend the negative trends. “Dissatisfaction of current SES [employees] probably has the greatest impact on recruitment,” one respondent said. “Empower the current SES workforce and get them excited – and that will, in turn, put the jobs in a positive light and positively impact recruitment.”

(Image via Jirsak / Shutterstock.com)