NAPA’s “Playbook” Outlines 6 Strategies to Improve Federal Recruitment, Retention

As agencies take over high expectations to improve federal recruitment and retention, they also get some new words of wisdom from the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA).

One September reportNAPA outlined six key strategies that agencies can implement to achieve better recruitment and retention, and by extension, agency performance and “organizational health”—or, in other words, the ability to deliver services, meet priorities and to accomplish the mission.

Agency leaders can think of the new report as a kind of “the game book,” which covers distinct strategies for measuring and improving their performance, according to Terry Gerton, NAPA president and CEO.

“Our claim in the report is really that you can’t not do any of the six,” Gerton said in an interview with the Federal News Network. “Which order you can do them in your agency depends on the most urgent problems you have to solve. But ultimately you have to put all those pieces together to build a strong, resilient, capable and healthy organization.”

The six strategies NAPA said contribute to better organizational health are: A “bold vision”; a supportive environment; effective communication with employees; continuous learning opportunities; modernized federal recruiting; and support from “central command” agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management.

For each of these strategies, NAPA detailed specific actions agencies can take to achieve their workforce goals. And, of course, each agency will have its own distinct workforce goals and objectives.

“It’s not complicated, it’s not dense — it’s really designed to be accessible to leaders at every level to start working on it,” Gerton said. “But there, (agencies) each have unique considerations, very unique constraints.”

The path to becoming a “healthy” agency has changed

The new NAPA report has been in the works for more than a year and comes at the request of OMB and the General Services Administration. It is designed to be easy to understand and something that agencies can pick up and read as needed. It is also an update of NAPA 2018 reportwhich set out some initial strategies for agencies to try to improve overall government performance.

In the years since the 2018 report was published, NAPA said there have been numerous developments in the challenges facing federal agencies and the workforce, including the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in hybrid work. Proposals that “harden” organizations, such as List F, and an increased focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility have also contributed to significant changes for the federal workforce, NAPA added.

“There were definitely a lot of questions about how people work together in this new environment,” Gerton said. “It’s an important time to revisit these kinds of questions and think about how you bring all these considerations into play to optimize the work you do and the impact of the work you do.”

Especially as more employees become eligible for retirement in an aging federal workforce, agencies are at a critical juncture in trying to integrate the right talent and skills to meet complex challenges. For NAPA, the processes that define how agencies recruit and retain employees leave much to be desired. But at the same time, agencies have an opportunity to make improvements by focusing on the factors that typically make a “healthy” organization, NAPA said. This can include things like incorporating interesting and impactful work, effective leadership, inclusion and psychological safety, the report explained.

What NAPA says can take agencies to the next level

One of NAPA’s six detailed strategies is for agencies to create a “bold vision” that clarifies the organization’s roles and strategies. Agencies can then break down their goals by creating measurable goals and establishing ways to track progress—for example, through a data dashboard.

In another strategy of the report, NAPA said it is also important to provide continuous learning and opportunities for skill development, for example by defining career paths at an agency, establishing coaching and mentoring programs and providing leadership training earlier in employees’ careers. .

But improving the overall “health” of an agency also relates to communication and engagement with federal employees, according to NAPA. The results of the 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) showed the highest employee engagement score ever at the government level – 73%. But at the same time, less than half from 2024 FEVS respondents agreed that management involves employees in decisions that affect their work.

“Are the organization’s leaders including everyone in the conversation and mission strategy, communicating effectively and engaging employees?” Gerton said. “You can’t just say, ‘here’s our bold vision,’ and then not engage your employees in the conversation about what you’re going to do with it.”

Agency leaders can get employee input by incorporating these discussions into already existing structures, such as annual performance reviews, NAPA said.

After receiving employee feedback, NAPA said agency leaders should create “action plans” to ensure they are truly addressing the issues employee input reveals. This can be by hosting listening sessions, discussing FEVS results and notifying employees of any changes they have made in response to feedback. Agencies can also elaborate OPM’s FEVS Dashboard to analyze the survey results more closely.

Part of the responsibility for improving organizational health also falls to leaders at OMB and OPM. Building on a federal employment experience note Earlier this year, NAPA said it was important for these two agencies to help ensure that the recommended strategies are actually implemented. For example, OPM should help agencies promote the use of shared certificates across agencies and create more government-wide employment opportunities, NAPA said.

Of course, improving the health of an agency is much easier said than done. In fact, NAPA said in its report that healthy agencies are “hard to build and easy to destroy.” But at the same time, Gerton said he’s starting to see signs that agencies are taking on the job and making progress.

“What we’re already starting to hear is that between the OMB guidance and this report, leaders now feel like they have the information they need and the guidance they need to start moving forward,” Gerton said. “Now that it’s accessible, people feel like it’s not so esoteric anymore, that this is really something they can do.”