Time to
'rebrand' the civil
service?
By Alicia
Wong, TODAY
| Posted: 16 June 2009 0645
hrs
SINGAPORE: What if working in the civil service meant you
had at least half-a-day off a week to work on innovative ideas? Or
you could give suggestions via an employee online forum and have
others vote for your idea?
To attract the young, net-savvy generation into the civil service,
governments need to redefine the workplace, said Mr Steve Ressler,
co-founder of the United States non-profit organisation Young
Government Leaders, at the inaugural iGov Global Exchange held here
on Monday.
Drawing from well-known examples such as Google's popular workplace
and the United States Transport Security Administration's Idea
factory, Mr Ressler said the Net generation wants its voice
heard.
"Government service is seen as a place where people think
(employees) are lazy, not an exciting place to work," he said. It
needs to be "rebranded" as work that "makes a difference in the
world now".
The 28-year-old, who had joined the US government after graduation,
noted the lack of young faces in the organisation. In Singapore,
the perennial challenge is to draw and retain top young
talent.
A survey last June by the Singapore e-Government Leadership Centre
(eGL) found only 29 per cent of some 2,000 respondents would choose
the civil service as their first option, compared with 49 per cent
who preferred working for a multinational company.
While the recession may have helped change sentiments for the
moment - a recent BrightSparks survey showed 33.8 per cent of top
students were keen on working for the public service, up from 23.3
per cent last year - one participant nonetheless felt hiring
digital natives for the civil service was like "fitting a round peg
in a square hole".
In response, eGL research director Virginia Cha was confident that
showing the young generation that work in the government sector is
"doing good", will succeed in attracting them.
As Mr Ressler put it: "What we do is important now, in the
financial crisis, environmental crisis ... The government provides
very important services and we need good people there."
Head of Singapore's feedback unit REACH, Ms Bey Mui Leng, stressed
the importance of sincerity in engaging the young generation.
While previous generations saw the government as an authoritative
figure, the net generation – those born between 1977 and 1997 –
have "a whole generational mindset difference" there, said Ms Cha
who presented the survey findings.
At work, the young generation wants to be "empowered" to define its
responsibilities, they need to use web 2.0 tools and they function
better in teams, she said.
Mr Ressler said: "They want to move really fast ... want their
voices heard, and really value honesty and transparency. Some of
these cultural issues exist in other generations, but are
heightened in the net generation."
They have higher expectations of technology at work — being used,
for instance, to free email services like gmail, which have far
larger mailbox sizes than most work email.
Mr Ressler also suggested recruiting young people where they hang
out online, such as Friendster.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, universities are soliciting
applications for teachers via Facebook.
- TODAY/so
