TMP Government: Digital Marketing and Media Solutions

2009 Best Places to Work: How to Get Your Agency Ranked at the Top

Americans have a long-standing passion for rankings. But although we're enamored by surveys and polls, it's rare for us to have tools that explicitly turn indexes into action items. The good news is that regardless of where your agency stands on the recently released Best Places to Work in the Federal Government 2009, we can take concrete steps to improve your rank.

Since 2003, the Partnership's biennial Best Places to Work has become the most comprehensive rating and analysis of employee satisfaction and engagement in the federal government. Yet the top-level comparisons, based on OPM's Human Capital Annual Survey, have usually garnered most of the interest, and agencies have lacked a "clear way forwards."

This June, for the first time, the Partnership began releasing its online Best Places to Work Guide. Government HR executives and managers can now learn how to make the most effective use of the comparative datasets. The guide offers a step-by-step approach, from examining the responses to implementing new processes and even cultural changes.

Better recruitment. A key element, of course, remains recruitment. Top ranked agencies, like winning sports teams, tend to "reload." Faced with the ubiquitous issues of time-to-hire, impending retirements and luring Gen Y, they still perpetuate a "virtuous cycle" of filling vacancies and preparing for stepped up demand brought by the Stimulus Package and budget increases.

But what if your satisfaction and engagement ratings remain flat? TMP Government's employer branding process addresses this issue when we encourage agencies to “mind the gaps” between leadership aspirations and employee workplace realities. Through focus groups and additional surveys, we can probe further into the HCAS findings.

For example, why do certain top performers, who typify the kind of employees you want, stay with you? Is it work-life balance, mission, training or interest in the work? Or is it merely inertia? If they weren't working for you, where would they go? What do they find attractive about specific public or private sector organizations? Most important, would they refer a good friend to work for you?

Government 2.0: improving environments, shaping workforces

The "Best Places" criteria become more valuable as job seekers have greater access to your employees and alumni. Current employees tend to be the most credible source of information about your workplace. Recent alumni have a similar status. Today Web 2.0 technologies of Government 2.0, such as social networking and blogs, can circulate this peer-to-peer information faster than you can get out your messages. As a result, the typical job seeker can more easily get the employee view of your workplace than your aspirations for change.

Transforming your organization into a "best place to work" then requires two-way internal communications. First, you might consider ways of engaging your employees in the process itself, from participating in focus groups to posting ideas on an intranet site. Second, you can determine what compelling messages might resonate with your workforce, encouraging them to become "brand ambassadors." They can then push out information about your progress.

Both government and private sector have found that being ranked highly in satisfaction and engagement can pay welcome dividends in recruitment. You can not only publicize your ranking, but you can also take advantage of testimonials from satisfied employees and the good will of grateful alumni. Fortunately the new Best Places to Work Guide offers tools, tips and guidelines to help you improve your workplace, shape your workforce and enhance organizational effectiveness.

For more information on the guide, please visit www.bestplacestowork.org. For more information on how we can help you use your findings to recruit top caliber employees, please email us at info@TMPgovernment.com or contact your TMP Government representative.