Advancing Public Service through Public Servants with Sara Mogulescu (Volker Alliance)

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urgency is becoming more apparent to more people. And while that doesn't sound like progress, in some ways it is, right? Because we're starting to get more people into the conversation and recognizing that public service is a key ingredient to democracy. Welcome to Management Matters ORG, the award-winning National Academy of Public Administration

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podcast where policy meets practice. I'm Terry Gerton, president of the Academy ORG. This month, aligned with the federal government's public service recognition week, we're focused on our grand challenge to modernize and reinvigorate the public service. In this episode, I'll chat with Academy Fellow Sarah Mogulovsky PERSON, President of the Volker Alliance, on how she's working to advance both public service and public servants.Sarah, thanks so much for joining me today.

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Thanks for having me.

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Well, I know that you have thought deeply about the future of public service throughout your own career and now as president of the Volker Alliance ORG. So before we get into specific policy recommendations, tell us a little bit about your journey. How'd you get where you are today?

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Ah, that's a good question. I like thinking about that. I'm actually a lawyer by trade. I went to law school and practiced for a few years, but I think I could have

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kept doing that and it would have been fine. But what really, really interested me was the policy side,

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the law's effect on people, the thinking about what the law should be and how to make it stronger and more fair. So I left the practice of law and went to work for the Vura Institute of Justice ORG, which is a not-for-profit, focused on criminal justice reform. And I did some work in both juvenile and criminal justice reform for almost a decade. Loved that too. But realized that there's so many different kinds of policies to be informed about and thinking about and wanted to make sure that I had a little bit more breadth of my experience and was asked to come help start a consultingfirm that was focused on the public sector. So our clients were exclusively government, not-for-profit foundations, and did a lot of work. I like to think of it kind of as innovation work, working to design new programs and implement them with government partners and private partners, foundation partners. And it was a great experience. After almost a decade of doing that,I really wanted to be back in a place of mission and not watching from the sidelines or bouncing from mission to mission to mission, but actually driving toward a mission. And my job search brought me to the Volker Alliance, was at the time looking to hire an executive vice president. And it really felt like a great fit because there's so much that can be done and thinking about the role of government,the world of government and the role of public servants. And I was very fortunate because I did, when I first started at the alliance, got a chance to spend time with Mr. Volker PERSON before he passed at the end of 2019. And I spent a good bit of time trying to understand what he wanted for the organization and what really motivated his thinking about our importance. And he didn't, it wasn't about financial regulation or all the things that he's best known for, right? Inflation, anti-inflation. It was about public service and howI prepared, talented, diverse public service is one of the essential pillars of democracy. And he was very prescient in his thinking. And he really thought a lot also about the importance of public service education and that to be an effective implementer and doer in the public sector, you have to have some skills. You have to develop some muscles and skills that you may not have. And he believed in the power of schools of public service to deliver appropriate preparation. So now, in my role, I can draw on all of those experiences, you know, my legal background, my

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role as an advocate and reformer, innovator. And now here we are in the mission-driven space.

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And it's really, it feels like the right place for me.

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I love that story. And I love the exposure that you've had to policy and practice in and out of government. And now clearly you at the Volker Alliance are sitting right in the middle of our grand challenge for this month about modernizing and reinvigorating the public service. And so when we think about this grand challenge, I mean, there's a buffet of issues and ideas we could pick from. But let's start at the beginning because I know one of the focuses of the Volcker Alliance ORG is really on the pipeline. And we are facing a full employment economy.What attracts people to public service in this kind of tight private sector labor market?

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That's an excellent question. I mean, I like to think that it doesn't matter whether the economy is good or bad or the labor market is tight or not, but we actually wish more people were attracted to public service no matter the day, time, or place. There's an enormous hiring need that we see at the federal, state, and local levels of government. You see applications to these jobs on the decline over time. You see that there are gaps that we need to fill. So while, yes, there are people that are attracting the publicservice and are raising their hand and we think there could be many more. And that's part of what we try to do at the Volker Lines ORG. Things that are attractive and are worth naming, right, it is an impact-oriented career. Working for government allows influence, and it allows you to change the way citizens experience the world in really tangible and important ways. On the other side, I think not just impact for the job seeker, him or herself, government's a very stableopportunity with benefits and with holidays and with sick leave and with retirement plans. And it is, you know, we often get stuck on this issue of salary, private versus public, but don't always think about the range of benefits that come with an impact-oriented and well-balanced career. So those are some of the things we talk about. So impact, opportunity, and yet,

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the government recruiting and hiring process can be really difficult for both job seekers and agencies to make the match, right?

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Definitely. I mean, on the job seeker side, there's a lot of obstacles, right? I think first and foremost, there isn't one job market. There isn't a government job market. It is just supremely fragmented when you think it's not just the federal government, but I could live in Kansas City and within 30 minutes driving, I could reach a number of differentgovernment entities, municipalities. And it's not as if there's one place to go and look for a job. If I'm interested in working for government, I have to work really, really hard to find opportunities. So that's one thing, the fractured nature. The other thing is, well, there's a few other things, that the hiring process, government processes are typically very convoluted and very long. It often takes much more time from when you apply to a job and move through the process and to actually get a job offer than it does in the private sector, and that is an impediment to job seekers. For younger job seekers,there are very few touch points where government is coming and making its case, right? If you're on campus and you are a sophomore, you might well run into the representative from Deloitte and get opportunities to learn about what they're doing and potentially have an opportunity for a summer experience that helps shape your world. Government recruiters, it's much, much more difficult for them to come and have a physical presence on campus, not only because they're fragmented, but because they're overreach,they're oversubscribed and overburden. Internships are just extraordinarily valuable. And we know that internships help drive career trajectories in a very positive way when they're available. They're not always available in government. And if they are available, they're often unpaid, which make them inaccessible. So that's just a few, I think, of the job seeker impediments.On the recruiter side or on the government side, you know, there isn't, while you think there would be an incentive to collaborate government recruiters working together, and there's some, some, you know, beginnings of that in different places, they're competing with one another. They're not only competing with Google and Deloitte. One probation office is competing with the probation office 30 miles down the road. And so the incentives to collaborate are not there. It's also really hard,I think, for government to make a compelling case. We always talk about, oh, everybody knows what NASA ORG is. We know it would be great to work for NASA and go to the moon, go to Mars LOC. But it's very hard to understand what government jobs are and to translate the opportunity into an experience that is compelling. I think that's a challenge for government to do, particularly when it's fragmented. And maybe there's ways that we can help groups of government recruiters and representatives do do that. And then there's ways that we can help groups of governmentrecruiters and representatives do that. And then there's, I had mentioned this before, but it's worth reiterating bandwidth, right? There isn't, you know, not every, not every government agency has an enormous recruiting department or HR department. Of course, they have some, but with the kinds of resources that you see in the private sector, you just don't see that in the same way. Yeah, yeah, that's a really clear

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outline, especially from both the job seeker and the government recruiting perspective. The Federal Office of Personnel Management ORG recently released some new rules on the Pathways program to make it easier to bring recent college graduates into entry-level federal positions and to make federal internships more broadly available. So that's a good indicator of progress and customer-centered, customer-focused design, I think, maybe.But kind of speaking more broadly, does the government have the right tools and authorities to even reach today's job seekers? It's hard.

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I mean, I would just, before we even get to that, I would really like to endorse the changes that have been, that are coming to the Pathways PRODUCT program and to the idea that we do need to focus on converting interns into full-time employees, and we do need to broaden our approach to who qualifies and how we count time. The work that's happening there is just important. I think we'll have, we're thinking about ways that we can make sure that the news is outon the changes to the Pathways PRODUCT program and also to think about really proactive ways we can connect students that we're working with and who have expressed interest in impact in government to opportunities in federal government through this program. I mean, there are structural impediments. It's hard. In some ways, you know, you can't treat the federal government, the state governments andmunicipal governments all in the same one-size-fits-all kind of way. They have different assets and different impediments to really recruiting in a way that is consistent with the times which we live in 2024. But, you know, the need is there. And as long as we need people to fill these roles, I think we're going to have to drive innovation to make room and space.

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I love that you raise that word innovation because that's how I was going to ask you the next question. Because given your innovation background and your focus on government agencies, have you seen some techniques that maybe are really effective in getting people from interested to hired? Who's got some innovative practices out there? I'm interested to hired. I mean, number one,

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internships. We've talked about it. I don't want to beat a dead horse here. But the connections that you make with actually understanding what a job is and what the professionals are who mentor you and are there to help you think about professional development internships enormously important. Cool to hiring is another thing that, you know, just as I was talking about fragmentation, the opposite of fragmentation is saying, let's work together and gather applications togetherand be able to pull from the same pool to try and fill a range of roles. And that, you know, that allows for some real economies of scale where we can pull, you know, interested people in faster. And also if they aren't going to make a match in one place, they might be able to be referred to another that they had not thought of independently. We have been hosting virtual job fairs with our partners in the federal government, with some partners in the state government, with our not-for-profitpartner, the tech talent project ORG. And what's nice about virtual job fairs is that you get over that issue of how am I going to get to all these campuses or how am I going to get to all these places. And you also have an opportunity to provide programming, right? Some compelling thoughts about why this, what is this career path? What are your opportunities in it? And then to be able to get online in virtual space, but to get online,and talk to people in the roles about what they do and what they're looking for on their team. That, you know, the human element of this is so important. It's not just the nature of the job description, right, or the portal by which you submit your job. Those things matter. But ultimately, human beings connect with one another and can make a case to each other about both what the opportunity is and what the value a candidate can add when they connect. So we are big fans of virtual job fairs and continue to push forward with those. I love that. And they've come a longway. Well, COVID helped us learn how to be in that space. Yeah, well, we'll come back to COVID in a minute.

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But this idea of innovation and best practices leads me right into a question about the Volker Alliance ORG. And what big initiatives you're looking at these days regarding both public service and public servants. Sure.

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I love talking about our work. So you're just going to have to cut me off if I go on. But, you know, we have a big bucket of work around public service education, which I alluded to up front. And the kind of anchor of that work is an initiative called the Dean Summit ORG, which is a collaborative of the leaders, deans and directors of schools of public service around the country. Our Dean Summit is now 70 strong, more than 70 deans and directors of schools of public service around the country. Our dean summon is now 70 strong, more than 70 deans and directors. And they come together not for the purpose of competing with one another, which is oftentheir posture, competing for resources, for students, for rankings, for all of it, but rather to think about how to elevate the reach and impact of the field. So that is a place where we find a lot of very constructive work. And the latest Dean Summit EVENT initiative is something that we call the constructive dialogue curriculum initiative, where 14 schools have raised their hand to say we want to integrate tools that helpus teach students how to bridge divides and how to engage in constructive dialogue. And we want to do it in all different, maybe we'll do it in a course, a new course, maybe we'll do it in an existing course, maybe we'll do it at a new student orientation. But we want to create something new and we want to learn from one another as we do it. So that's a new Dean Summit initiative that we're excited about. I guess one of our bigger signature initiatives is called the Next Generation Service Corps ORG.And this is a network of programs that we've helped universities start that engage undergraduates in public sector problem solving and collaborative leadership skills. So we have now more than, well, more than 20 schools in our Next Generation Service Corps ORG network, and they are pulling students from all majors, not just policy students, not just history students, students of all majors to participate in a learning experience that takes, that exposes you to public service values, that helps you solve problems together and that that builds leadership skills that we think are specific to work in government. And we're very excited about that. There are more and more students entering these programs every semester. And we're thinking about ways to draw them to government opportunities and to connect them to things like the Pathways PRODUCT program and other state and local opportunities that arecoming online.

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Can I just interrupt you for a minute?

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I just want to like clap hands for that one because as we've found over the last several

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years that we've been engaging in that dialogue along with you that people think that you have to be in the PA ORG program to be in government. And we need environmental engineers, transportation engineers, scientists, human services, folks, social workers, all of that. There's space for every one of those majors in public service. And yet universities typically haven't connected those dots.And so I'm so excited that you have that program to really help people think that whatever they're studying, there's a role for them in government.

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And whatever you're studying, even if you're a biologist, you may want to have an impact on the world you live in, right? Right. And so, I mean, biologists definitely want to have an impact. I don't want to tell you about biologists. But the point, though, is that that's really the common thread is that you can learn about how to be influential in the public sector, no matter what your expertise is. Just a couple of other quick things about the work that we do.We're starting a new initiative that's really about building a leadership pipeline in the criminal justice space in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation ORG. We're calling it the Safety and Justice Challenge Future Leaders Network, and we're working to build leadership development programs that encourage underrepresented candidates and existing public servants to pursue leadership roles across the criminal justice system. These are typically state and local roles, and that'll be rolling out in 24 and 25. And we have a big bucket of work, which we've done in some in partnership with Napa GPE.It's our public finance portfolio where we've really built not only a constituency of interested state and local policy makers who are focused on best practices and budgeting, but we've also built a theory of what excellence in public finance looks like and how we can understand whether states are doing the best that they possibly can for their citizens.

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You are really tackling some big topics there. I mean, there's revolutions in public finance thinking about how even communities can adopt new tools and techniques and authorities and getting people to understand what those are, first of all, and then ensuring they have the capacity to actually implement them is such a big thing. Criminal justice and justice impacted individuals everywhere are bringing a diverse set of folks with different lived experience into that space can have so much impact on outcomes. We hope so. We feel very fortunate to be partnering with so many very

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brave and impact-oriented organizations that we just can't do this stuff alone. Well, where are you seeing progress? Well, I mean, the next generation service core, we have more than 20 schools and we started with one, you know, Arizona State University ORG started itself, but they are sort of the beacon of building a program that pulls folks from all different majors in undergraduate study into a cohort. And now we have more than 20. And five of them are HBCUs. We see an appetite for collaboration. The Dean Summit EVENT is an example of that. I think people know that we cannot go as far when we're working independently andcompetitively as we can when we collaborate. So I appreciate that. I think we're also seeing an appreciation of the urgency of the issues we've been discussing, Terry PERSON. I mean, these are not, like, in the press kinds of issues that there are so many issues that kind of shake us every day. And these are long range issues that we're talking about. Public sector workforce development. It's a long play and it's an important one. But more and more people with given the talent crisis and given, you know, the questioning that we see all around us aboutgovernmental institutions at all levels, urgency is becoming more apparent to more people. And while that doesn't sound like progress, in some ways it is, right? Because we're starting to get more people into the conversation and recognizing that public service is a key ingredient to democracy. And to me, it's progress.

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Really sort of creating the burning platform, right? Or the melting iceberg or whichever metaphor you want, that gets people motivated to start to drive change. But one of the things that struck me as you were listing those really key initiatives is that the more you move into the solution space, the less you can count on checklists and processes. And the more you have to think aboutpolicy and the implementation of that policy, it seems really difficult to get HR policy and practices aligned. Does that been your experience? It's hard to move.

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It's hard to move big things, right?

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And it's particularly hard to move big things in government

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where the culture isn't always,

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of course it is often,

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but it isn't always inclined toward change and technological innovation and all of that. It's hard. But we, you know, I think part of what we need to do is meet people where they are and understand what HR professionals need, what they wish they had, how they might work better together. We're discussing ways of bringing career professionalstogether both on campuses with their counterparts and government and thinking about ways to do that. When you want to work hard at something, you're going to find ways to make progress. You just have to keep at it. That's what Mr. Volcker PERSON would say.

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It's a good reminder in the back of our head. So we're sort of talking about big macro initiatives, but you've also just taken on the vice chair responsibilities for the Academy ORG's standing panel on public service. So thank you very much for stepping into that leadership role with us.How do you envision integrating the expertise of Academy ORG Fellows into the practical work that you're undertaking with the Volcker Alliance ORG to modernize and reinvigorate the public service? Yeah.

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I mean, we are just starting. So we had our very first steering committee meeting today. And I certainly have lots and lots of ideas. I'm excited to work with Kim PERSON and with you and your team and see where we go. I think, you know, one of the things that we're excited to bring into the mix is the leaders of schools of public service. Over the past, you have a number of fellows who are

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dean of schools of public service.

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And there's, I think, activating them and activating the connectivity between what's happening at their schools and what's happening with other fellows and other government partners. There's a lot of promise there.

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So I'm looking forward to kind of tapping into their wisdom and expertise in new ways. And I think, you know, and Kim PERSON and I have talked about this too, that we want to make sure that

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the conversations we're having with this standing panel are accessible and inclusive of many voices. So we want to leverage fellows' expertise and we want fellows to help us talk about real issues and identify real issues that are at the heart of what we're all working to achieve. But we want fellows to help us talk about real issues and identify real issues that are at the heart of what we're all working to achieve. But we want to be, we want to invite others in too and broaden the conversation and ensure that we're hearing from others that can teach us as much as we can provide expertise to into the space. So I think those are two of my hopes anddreams for that work. But again, it's really, really new. And I'm looking forward to just learning as I go.

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I love what you're talking about there because every fellow brings a network to the conversation. And just as you have the Volker Alliance Network and the Dean's Summit Network ORG and those deans have their networks and our former Chief Human Capital Officers have their networks. The Public Service ORG panel is really a place where we can kind of integrate and leverage all of those connections. So I'm very excited to see the direction that you guys are headed and I'm looking forward to maybe we'll touch base again,you know, six or eight months from now and see how it's going. Great. As we think about this month of May and the federal government's public service recognition week, what would you suggest that we can really do to reinvigorate the energy and focus and interest around public service more broadly, whether it's across all levels of government or even in the nonprofit sector. Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I don't think

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there's any shortage of answers. We're going to try lots and lots of things. We really believe at the Volker PERSON Alliance, and I think Mr. Volker is the believer in chief that our democracy depends on building a bench of change makers who represent the diversity of our country and have a stake in shaping its future. We need people to appreciate that being a part of public service and being a part of the work of government is about building the future of our democracy.And that is something we're working on with our Next Generation Service Corps ORG. We think democracy is a muscle that you kind of have to, you have to exercise it. You have to train it. You have to build it. And we want to start early and give people some of the form, you know, formational, foundational, foundational skills and values that they can carry with them throughout their careers. Like mine, hopefully they'll go in many different directions, right? I think also it's, there's a lot of complaining about public servants and about government. And what this week is really about is celebrating the impact and value that public servants deliver every day that you don't always see. And there is, you know,people talk about changing the narrative and that feels a little cliche, but I actually don't always see. And there is, you know, people talk about changing the narrative and that feels a little cliche, but I actually don't think it is. There's, there are hidden stories and there are people who are real people choosing to make decisions in their career and to work in places where they work their hearts out, their souls out, and they do amazing work. And I don't know, have you heard of humans of public Service? We have. We partner with them. Yeah. Oh, good. Well, Brian Whitaker, who is the director of Humans of Public Service ORG in his part time,in his off job, he's also the Chief Innovation Officer at the FDIC ORG. He is taken over the Volker Alliance's social media this week. Oh, I love that. Public do check it out. He did this last year. And what he does is he talks to people in public service around the country. He talks to people with different perspectives from different backgrounds, different racial or everything, right? And he has these wonderful videos. So I know that's not going to change the universe, right, just videos, but it is something that we need to all be doing, which is celebrating the people who are working so hard on our behalf. I love it. You're

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absolutely right. The more that we can tell the story in more media formats, the more people will hear it and see it. So, Sarah, thank you for the work that you're doing there at Volker PERSON to expand the universe of public servants and to advocate for public service. Thanks for joining us on the podcast today.

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Well, thanks for asking me and thanks for all the things you guys are doing. I'm really happy to, as always, be talking to you is a blast. So let's make sure we do it again. Absolutely. Thanks, Sarah PERSON.

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All right. Thank you. For our listeners, check back every Monday for a new episode from the Academy

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as we work to build a just, fair, and inclusive government that strengthens communities and

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protects democracy.