The recent elections made it clear the public wants and needs something different from public agencies. But far too many public agencies are constrained by a “compliance culture” that limits their discretion to adopt workforce practices known to contribute to better performance. That was a key point in a National Academy of Public Administration report, “No Time to Wait: Building a Public Service for the 21st Century,”

“What government most needs is a fundamental transformation, from the culture of compliance to a focus on performance. . . the single most important challenge: investing in and improving the performance of the two million professional civil servants . . .”

The report focused on the federal government but the problem is pervasive at all levels of government. It flows from the extensive importance of enforcing laws as well as the history of civil service systems. It flows from work environments where there is mutual distrust between leaders and employees. It’s reflected in the resistance to ‘return-to-office’ mandates.

The Origin of Compliance Cultures

Compliance cultures were the norm in all sectors decades ago. The phrase emerged recently but the related practices originated early in the 20^th century. The owners in the early factories maintained tight, top-down control, making all decisions. A new practice then was “scientific management’, a phrase that refers to the application of supposedly scientific principles to improve economic efficiency and labor productivity. Workers were managed as extensions of machines. (Charlie Chaplin highlighted the role of workers in his 1936 movie, “Modern Times.”)

That approach to management relied on industrial engineers to analyze workflows and worker physical actions. Every worker’s action was dictated and documented, resulting in lengthy job descriptions. (That explains government’s multi-page job descriptions.) Workers who failed to follow orders were fired. It triggered the violent labor/management clashes depicted in movies. It was the dominant management philosophy until the 1990/91 recession. It continues as the norm in the millions of small businesses.

That way of managing naturally influenced the legislative bodies that drafted the early civil service laws. The federal system was formalized in the Classification Act of 1923 and largely continued in the 1949 Classification Act. State and local government civil service laws were also enacted in that era. New York state, as an example, created the Department of Civil Service and the Civil Service Commission in a 1925-26 reorganization. Maryland’s ‘merit system’ was created in 1920; California’s system in 1934.

A common thread of civil service systems at all levels of government is that they were adopted to address the same concerns and reflect the same workforce management philosophy.

The laws introduced bureaucratic and time-intensive administrative requirements. They are the reason “Personnel” offices are seen as barriers to change. Civil Service Commissions also support compliance cultures. Every time a commission rules on an employee complaint, it reinforces the argument for continuing the past. It also confirms now outdated practices. Regulations similarly reflect the past.

In today’s “change is the only constant” environment, laws are out of date soon after they are passed. The COVID crisis and working remotely changed boss/worker relationships. Now it’s the impact of technology. The world of work in all sectors is clearly not the same. Notably, civil service systems are rigid and unresponsive to dynamic labor markets. In hindsight, it’s clear – the systems were not conceived for today.

The Business Shift to Performance Cultures

The ‘90/91 recession prompted companies to delayer – eliminating layers of management – to enable them to respond quickly to market developments. That increased a manager’s span-of-control, giving workers more autonomy and more discretion to make job-related decisions. The decade also saw the rapid growth of knowledge workers who are most productive when they are trusted and empowered. Personal computers and cell phones exploded in use, supporting increased worker autonomy.

Now it’s taken for granted but in many fields, workers are fully productive with little, if any, direct supervision.   Self-managed workers know what they need to accomplish. That’s always been true in fields like medicine and the law. The COVID crisis and working remotely made it clear many workers prefer it.

The decade also marked the beginning of three now prominent workforce trends – high performance organizations, great places to work, and employee engagement linked to performance. A key point is that each trend contributes to better organization performance. The trends are based on evidence that in a supportive environment workers are more productive. Each trend is associated with supervisory practices that are very different than the typical government work environment.

As the NAPA report argued, public agencies need to make the ‘transformation.’ That word has been used in the past – Don Kettl’s 2002 book, The Transformation of Governance is an example – but in too many jurisdictions, the transformation has yet to begin.

The research on employee engagement, started almost three decades ago by Gallup, makes two key points – (1) engaged workers perform better and (2) it highlights the importance of effective front line managers. They are the keys to engagement and improved performance. That explains recent articles like, “The Importance of Good Managers: The Linchpin of Success,” a Forbes column posted in August. When workers are not engaged, their productivity, innovation, and retention decline. Government agencies now report engagement scores but it’s rare to find analyses linking engagement and performance.

All of this contributes in the private sector to what is seen as a performance culture. One source defines it as a “system that engages, develops, and inspires a diverse, high-performing workforce by creating, implementing, and maintaining effective performance management strategies, practices, and activities . . .” It’s a holistic approach to management that supports employee careers and well-being. Both workers and customers benefit. The DOGE initiatives have taken government in the opposite direction.  

It Starts with Leaders

Companies have a decided advantage – business competition makes performance an issue at all levels, from executives to front line workers. Companies are always looking for ways to improve year end results. It’s somewhat different but also true in healthcare and higher education. Improving performance is the mantra of every CEO. It’s shared by all executives. The obvious point is they stand to benefit financially as a team from better performance.  Countless consultants are ready to help.

Government is different in one key respect. Elected and appointed leaders have rarely worked as leaders in large organizations – that is companies with thousands of employees. Many are lawyers. That’s true for leaders from both parties. In their election campaigns, and early in their time in office, their focus is rarely agency performance, except for conservatives working to limit government.  

Holding elections every two years adds to the problems. Candidates are normally critical of current office holders. They advocate for new policies and argue for change, claiming they have better answers to current problems. Appointees often come and go even more frequently. Again, many do not have the experience needed to understand and effectively address management issues. Since it typically take months to build support for policy changes – and even longer to gain employee commitment and develop requisite skills, the regular transition to new leaders is a barrier to improving results.

It’s common, at least initially, to find a level of mutual distrust shared by new leaders and employees. The history of labor/management disputes has been the theme of movies. When government unions won legal support starting in the 1960s, it added a new barrier to changing workforce management practices. The unions and labor laws that gained prominence now half a century ago created cultural barriers to agreeing on change initiatives. Today surveys show workers do not feel the psychological safety needed to propose new ideas or to cooperate when the impact on their job or careers is uncertain. Not surprisingly, until employees are convinced proposed changes will not hurt their careers, their cooperation is unlikely. It’s a barrier that cannot be ignored.

Clinton’s Reinventing Government Shows the Potential

President Clinton’s ‘reinventing government’, led by Vice President Gore, enabled agencies to realize highly publicized performance gains. The announced goal was “to make the entire federal government less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment.”

The first report was released six months after the initial announcement and already there were 384 recommendations promising to save about $108 billion. The initiative continued and eventually eliminated around 426,000 jobs and cut “thousands of pages of regulations.”  The reward for employee suggestions was a $6 Hammer award, a symbolic award highlighting the $420 absurd accounting cost in DOD reports.

The savings, along with a tax increase, enabled government to realize a budget surplus in the last four years of Clinton’s presidency.  In FY2000 the surplus was a record $237 billion. (The inflated savings were $445 billion.) That’s only the second time the budget was balanced since 1960.

John Kamensky, who was a deputy director leading the reforms, summarized the reason for the broad success: Enabling “civil servants to see themselves as part of the reform can be a huge force-multiplier in getting action from all corners of the government.” To emphasize the point, the intent was to “invent a government that puts people first.” One of the four operating principles was, “Empowering Employees to Get Results.” 

But when George Bush took office, the country had other priorities: the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, the AIDS epidemic, creation of the Homeland Security Department, and in 2003 the invasion of Iraq. He also signed a tax cut in his first term that affected budget. That highlights how new leaders often take government in new directions.