Leadership Forum: How to Motivate a Sequestered Workforce

Federal employee pay was frozen over the last few years, and it appears it will remain frozen for at least another year. In addition, the vast majority of Federal employees are looking at a 25% cut in pay. For the first time since its inception, the employee engagement score declined in the Best Places to Work Survey.

Leaders accept the responsibility to lead, but how should they lead? What should they say to those they lead to maintain the motivation that initially brought them to the Federal workplace?

Who Attends the Leadership Forum?

Leadership Forum participants are busy career federal executives who seek solutions to common problems that stifle the public policy implementation process. The attendees are key stakeholders of public policy: members of Congress, political appointees, SES career executives, union and association presidents, members of consulting and technology firms, and academics. These decision-makers recognize that collaboration is critical to successful implementation.

ISPPI provides well-known experts in public policy who faced the same implementation issues that plague Leadership Forum participants. These experts provide information and reveal the strategies and tactics they used to address implementation problems.

Ideas for Leadership Forum meetings come from meeting participants, and straight from the headlines. Some of the issues previously discussed include:

• Use of category ranking program
• Use of Balanced Scorecard System
• Forming public/private partnerships
• Developing agency culture to improve program outcomes
• Collective bargaining compatibility with pay for performance

The issues discussed at Leadership Forum meetings are broad-based. The lessons participants learn from their interaction with Leadership Forum experts provides participants the opportunity to learn and attain tools to be used to implement the changes necessary to improve agency performance.