The Public Manager Magazine Article
A Culture of Engagement Leads to Better Performance
Paula Ketter gives an overview of the December issue of The Public Manager.
Fri Dec 09 2016
The cover story in this month's issue examines employee engagement at the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). In the 2007 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government survey, FLRA recorded the lowest scores ever, finishing dead last among 31 small agencies.
In 2009, Carol Waller Pope was appointed as the new chair of the FLRA, and she quickly realized that she needed to pay attention to a demoralized workforce that had lost its connection to both the FLRA mission and its customers.
By increasing transparency and enhancing communication, she showed that employees were valued and that their voices mattered. Managers became involved in key decisions and employee work groups were formed to review and improve processes. FLRA collaboratively developed a new strategic plan that focused on the critical role that FLRA's staff plays in achieving mission success.
This case study affirms the strong belief that better engagement leads to better performance. "That's why it is important to view improving engagement as much more than a human resources activity or initiative," writes author Bob Lavigna. "It's about the organization creating a culture of employee engagement. And, as the FLRA experience illustrates, it requires leadership and strategy."
This issue also explores how agencies can become more efficient and effective when partnering with a third-party expert, how agencies need to increase their Hispanic workforce to fill key skills gaps in the future, how to shape your workplace culture to align with future needs, and how to improve your team's performance through several basic coaching steps.
These articles are all about increasing employees' performance. By doing that, managers can increase their department's efficiency and effectiveness. Managers are the lifeblood of any organization—the doers who implement the missions and strategies of their agency. This issue will give you best practices and lessons learned from many successful and past government initiatives.