Hello and welcome to Working It.
I’m Bethan Staton, deputy editor for work and careers, standing in for Isabel who is back next week.
This week the clocks moved to British Summer Time, which in London has coincided with warmer weather, sunshine and flowers peeking through the soil. This morning I cycled to work past cherry blossoms, and will cycle home in the light, too.
I find longer days make the working week a little more full of possibility. Time in the office feels like a productive, indoor interlude to the world outside, where the evening’s events might include a run round the park, pottering in the garden, or sitting in a pub garden until dark.
The new freedoms of springtime are the only mentions of any kind of “liberation day” I’ll make in this newsletter. However, I have been thinking a little about US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) cuts and what that says about how we value work and organisational management.
Turning federal employees into middlemen
In the past few months, tens of thousands of US federal workers have been fired, put on leave, or accepted buyouts, as the Trump administration tries to downsize government. We don’t know the full scale of these cuts: the New York Times estimates at least 13 per cent of 2.4mn federal workers could be affected, with departments like USAID effectively eliminated and others fundamentally altered.
Donald Trump says the cuts are eliminating “waste, bloat and insularity” and claims many of those fired “don’t work at all”.
But observers in and out of government report a very different employment picture. Of course, government departments can be improved, but organisations everywhere could learn a lot from some of the best features of working in these workplaces.
Leaders could do worse than reading Michael Lewis’s 2018 book The Fifth Risk — and a newly published update of essays called Who Is Government? Both books take a deep dive into the federal workforce, profiling no small number of committed, talented and expert professionals, in well-run organisations. Exactly the kind of people you’d want to be overseeing, say, the management of nuclear weapons, or nationwide distribution of social security checks.
William Resh, a management professor in the USC Price School of public policy, points out federal staff tend to be lower paid than private sector peers, but take the financial hit because they are motivated by other factors: commitment to public good, expertise and exposure to important, complicated “puzzles that they cannot unpack” elsewhere.
“They’re providing a subsidy based on . . . two, maybe three things,” Resh told me in a call this week. “Job stability . . . the intrinsic value of the work,” and “public service motivation”. These kind of motivations are closely linked to qualities other organisations also want to cultivate — expertise, supportive teams, or value-driven work. However, Resh says, in federal jobs they are all “being undermined right now”.
This is not just about Doge. Resh’s research shows years of outsourcing work to external contractors have resulted in more federal employees functioning as intermediaries, a loss of institutional knowledge and decline in morale. That has left departments more vulnerable to cuts and less able to make sure external contractors are doing a good job.
The way cuts happen may also be accelerating loss of talent. When organisations announce budget cuts, the people most likely to leave are high performers who can easily get jobs elsewhere. Lay-offs are also targeting newer hires, recruited because they have important skills government needs. Both are exactly the people “meeting emerging needs of government”, according to Resh.
It made me think of how the ways organisations in the private sector attempt to cut headcount — through return-to-office mandates or performance-based firing — risk creating the kind of environment that drives the best people away.
We haven’t yet seen the impact of the federal cuts. Warnings of enduring damage to everything from economic data to national security are enough to make even the most enthusiastic cost-cutter balk.
Accounts of the federal workforce show the systems that keep these dangers at bay depend on the skills and qualities of workers. Committed teams, good management, a strong mission and long-term institutional expertise are the kind of things all organisations should regard as extremely valuable. They are not easy to build back once lost.
Have you been affected by cuts to federal departments — or do you want to share you experience of being part of a government workforce? Get in touch at bethan.staton@ft.com
Five top stories from the world of work
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The first company org chart was a design classic: This lovely piece deconstructs the genesis of organisational charts — and poses fascinating questions about how design shapes our thinking about businesses.
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How Trump is exploiting Big Law’s identity crisis: Drawing on interviews with dozens of legal insiders, this excellent read dissects the implications of corporate law quickly ceding to the US president’s demands and priorities.
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The enduring pay gap for disabled people: Last week’s Spring Statement brought news of huge cuts to disability benefits — which the government says will get people back to work. For those with disabilities, however, inequalities within employment are just as entrenched.
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Meet the LinkedIn superusers: I had great fun interviewing the big-on-LinkedIn for this piece. As users leave other platforms, the professional network is adopting a new tone, with more influencers and bigger networking. What does this mean for our working lives?
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The use and abuse of investment bank bonuses: “Only tiny violins will play” for HSBC bankers who did not get bonuses on the day they were sacked, according to this FT editorial. Indeed.
A word from the Working It community
Last week, I wrote about unexpected ways that work can offer value — or not — and considered that explicit purpose is not always enough to make work meaningful.
Lots of you responded with thoughts on how you’ve been surprised by this in your career. One came from Marie-Sylvie, who worked for an international development organisation but was disappointed at the poor conduct of some colleagues. She writes:
I changed for a normal job in an international organisation with a more normal purpose, where I consciously developed my own concept which I called “care” towards others around me at every possible opportunity. “Care” in the world of work is called “love” in the private world but the need to remain discrete needs the use of a different vocabulary. This is incredibly effective in generating engagement and results. And by the way, regardless of the nonsense we hear these days, that is why it is so crucial to continue striving towards welcoming all others as they are.
How do you cultivate this sense of caring for others or meaning in your work in your work?
One more thing
One of the topics the FT’s Work and Careers coverage — and the FT in general — is preoccupied with now is the extent to which AI will change our jobs. This piece from the New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman begins with an example of the kind of AI-assisted work that would once be mind-blowing and will soon probably become normalised. It urges us to take serious the ways that AI could change our lives. If you’ve read any illuminating writing on the subject, or have expert knowledge on whether this piece gets it right or not, I’d love to hear. Email me at bethan.staton@ft.com.
Read the full article here