With over three decades of experience in public sector HR, Bob Lavigna gives managers the tools they need to leverage the talents of government's most important resource: its people. You know firsthand that your government workers are not underworked, overpaid, or mindless clones just carrying out the morally compromised work that politicians forced through the pipeline. Besides having to daily overcome the persona of being a government employee, your hard-working employees face enormous pressures and challenges every day and are asked to solve some of our country’s toughest problems, including unemployment, security, poverty, and education. To be able to return to their desks daily with the passion and commitment required to accomplish these overwhelming duties will require a manager who knows how to leverage talent, improve performance, and inspire passion within these true servants. In Engaging Government Employees , you will learn: Why a highly engaged staff is 20 percent more productive - How to get employees to deliver “discretionary effort” - How to assess the level of engagement - Why free pizza and Coke every Friday is not a viable strategy Engaging Government Employees rejects the typical one-size-fits-all approach to motivation. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence, this indispensable resource shows how America’s largest employer can apply the science of engagement to get team members passionate about the agency’s mission and committed to its success. Government employees are asked to address some of our nation’s most challenging issues, including unemployment, security, poverty, and education. It’s a daunting challenge on a vast scale, further complicated by dwindling or stagnating budgets, complex organizational structures, and ongoing morale problems. Only a highly effective workforce can deliver results. While pessimistic, disaffected em­ployees can create dysfunctional agencies, it’s been proven that engaged work­forces increase productivity by 20 percent or more. In Engaging Government Employees , Bob Lavigna gives public sector managers the tools they need to leverage the talents of their people. He provides a tailored, step-by-step process for measuring, nurturing, and sustaining authentic employee engagement that drives results. Named a Public Official of the Year by Governing magazine, and described as a “workforce liberator,” the author brings three decades of experience in public sector HR to the task of getting team members passionate about the agency’s mission and committed to its success. You will learn: • Why a highly engaged staff is crucial for government • Why one-size-fits-all engage­ment models fail in public sector environments • How to motivate employees to deliver discretionary effort • How to accurately assess the level of engagement in your organization • How to make sense of the employee survey data you collect • Why free pizza and Coke every Friday is not an engagement strategy • And more. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence and examples from every level of government, Engaging Government Employees highlights the unique challenges of public sector workplaces, and offers an original model to help America’s largest employer apply the science of engagement to dramatically improve performance. ROBERT J. LAVIGNA has more than 30 years of experience leading public sector human capital management organizations, including positions with the state of Wisconsin, Partnership for Public Service, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the University of Wisconsin. From Chapter 1 The Power of Employee Engagement and What This Book Is About    There are many other books about employee engagement, and some are excellent. But this book departs from the others in three ways. First, I focus on the science of employee engagement—that is, what the research clearly proves about the power of engagement to improve individual and organizational performance. Instead of relying on my insights “culled from my many years of experience” or “my work with many different types of organizations,” I emphasize what the engagement research has proven empirically and how these results apply to government organizations. Sure, I have experience with engagement, and I will cite some of these experiences as examples, but I don’t trust purely anecdotal experiences and don’t believe they necessarily apply to the situations or challenges other managers face. I don’t rely exclusively on my personal experiences to make the case for why government leaders, managers, frontline supervisors, and employees should focus on engagement. Instead, I rely on the research and empirical evidence. Second, my focus is government. There are other fine works on the science of engagement, but they don’t emphasize the public sector. In Chapter 4, I highlight the unique challenges government faces, the fundamental differences between the public and private sectors, and the