OPM chief urges next president to promote public service

Office of Personnel Management Director Linda Springer on Wednesday called on the next president to recast Uncle Sam's brand, and said upcoming retirements would be manageable if government made the appropriate outreach efforts.

"As daunting as the retirement wave is, there is a huge pool [of potential recruits] out there for the asking and the taking," Springer said at a breakfast sponsored by GEICO during Public Service Recognition Week. "We just need to reach them."

But in the 25th annual observance of Public Service Recognition Week, Springer was not sanguine about the challenges government faces.

"The fact is, we have uneven brand recognition," she said. "The federal government as a whole doesn't have a good brand reputation, but individual agencies do," Springer noted, adding that NASA has an attractive public image, while the Internal Revenue Service "isn't exactly a magnet."

Generally, the public knows very little about what government does and how it affects their daily lives while also performing unique functions and providing a wide range of job opportunities, Springer said.

Other organizations have pointed out that the public's inability to connect government operations to their own lives was a significant barrier to recruiting and rebranding.

"We are so lucky to live in a free country where we have the highest standard of living and the best public servants in the world," Tony Nicely, GEICO's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said on Wednesday. "We count on public employees for safe highways, for safe travel through the air, [and] so many things we in the private sector take for granted."

The Partnership for Public Service tackled the issue of demonstrating the reach of government work in its annual report, using examples of everyday life to illustrate where government agencies play a role.

But Springer emphasized that the call to public service has to come from the president, without regard to whether he or she is a Republican or Democrat. "I believe that no matter who wins… if the first address [to the nation] is, 'No matter who you are, no matter what your background, if you want to come, there's a place for you,' I believe there would be an excellent response."