GUEST COLUMN.

When I started my job as a non-permanent, entry-level state government employee in August of 2007, I figured I’d be there for maybe a year before moving on. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d remain a government employee for the next 18 years, culminating with the last three working as the State Chief Human Relations Officer in Washington.  

In every role I’ve had, my lens has always focused on what outcomes we should be trying to achieve for the people and the communities we serve (a lesson instilled in me by my first boss in state government).

As I move back into private sector, I wanted to share a few reflections gathered from my work on the front lines of state government.

·        Systems were designed in a way that created the disparities that exist, and system changes are the only way to get a different outcome.  People often complain about the lack of progress in government programs. Take efforts to reduce homelessness as one of many examples. Many don’t fully understand how government systems themselves contribute to lack of affordable housing, disjointed economic assistance processes, etc.

Frequently the problem is that we haven’t fully undone the ways in which systems were designed to contribute to these problems (i.e. not everyone who contributes to unemployment insurance premiums gets to collect unemployment benefits so they’re more likely to experience an eviction if they’re laid off).

Most of us want the same outcomes (fewer homeless people on the streets) but it will take undoing some systems and redesigning them, which requires law changes, government structure changes, and system and delivery changes to get that different outcome.

·        Government employees are some of the most passionate people I’ve ever met. I joined state government with a passion for change but with the assumption that most everyone was just an apathetic bureaucrat there to collect a paycheck. I’ve worked with and met people from every state agency in Washington and can attest that almost everyone I’ve met takes pride in being a public servant, understands the responsibility of being good financial stewards and that we exist to serve the people of Washington, and is wanting to make the work better.

Sure, there are a few who aren’t, but that’s true in every organization. By far, government employees are here because they want to serve the people and improve our communities and oftentimes, are just as frustrated as everyone else when Government doesn’t function well (see bullet above for why it’s usually out of their control).

·        Talking to your elected officials (individually and through larger community groups) does make a difference. Vote for the people who are truly listening to constituents vs. those who have a pre-set agenda for themselves. In my job with Washington, I would frequently get emails or calls from elected officials because of conversations they had with their constituents. Bills were written and laws were changed because of feedback that voters provided to their elected officials. And those were the good ones!

 I’ve also worked with elected officials who came in with their own personal agenda that they pushed just for their own sake, even to the detriment of their constituents.

Elected officials who are committed to seeking out feedback from their constituents provide the best way to ensure we have the representative democracy our constitution envisioned. 

·        Cross-sector, cross-agency collaboration is the only way we’ll make any real progress.  One of the more frustrating parts about working in government was seeing really good initiatives die because they hit a wall when it required someone from another organization or team to pick it up. Whether it was territoriality, funding streams, conflict of priorities, or countless other reasons, most of the times I’ve seen work fail is because it requires more than just one agency to complete.

COVID was a perfect case-study that when we all had a unified mission (save as many lives as possible by keeping people, safe & healthy) and an urgency to get as much traction on it as possible we can accomplish impactful change. I was also fortunate that my last major initiative to move our state to a skill-based workforce was successful in executing phase 1 (skills-based hiring) despite having multiple state agencies and teams within those agencies needing to participate because we were able to generate a shared set of goals and agreement on how we would prioritize this work in our already overfilled plates.

So, as I leave the government workforce, I do so with eyes wide open about the challenges of funding, the complex authorizing environment, and the hurdles of bureaucracy.

Ultimately the keys are in the hands of voters. Government works best if they elect the people who will represent our democracy and take the time to invest in making government work, provide feedback (either to their elected officials or directly to the government entities) in issues they care about, and contemplate joining the government workforce to share their skills!

The contents of this Guest Column are those of the author, and not necessarily Barrett and Greene, Inc. 

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