“When you’re young you see only possibilities, and when you’re older you see the frustrations of getting others to listen. Older workers are often a threat to management, while younger workers are not,” Shaw said.
Employees under 30 also tend to have fewer financial obligations, outside of student loans, making it easier to leave an unsatisfying job.
Daniel Crystal, a Department of Homeland Security employee, explained, “I work with a lot of interns, and many of them are driven by a desire to make the government better. But they also aren’t usually tied down with a mortgage, family, etc., which means the cold, hard realities of adulthood haven’t kicked in yet. Finances can make people stick with a job they don’t like, because somebody needs to keep the lights on.”
With many recent college graduates struggling to find jobs, young people may be thankful to even have landed a government job at all. “Younger feds are ‘happier’ just to get a fed job in this economy,” said a Department of Defense employee who wished to remain anonymous.
Younger feds may also get different treatment on the job. “I wonder if younger feds are happier at work because they are required to be trained and probably can be promoted on merit,” said Carol Davison, an employee at the Department of Commerce. “But as you move up the pyramid, good assignments, training, opportunity, promotions, etc., become harder and more political.”
Mark Hammer, an analyst in the Canadian public sector,” also pointed out that young government employees may be happier because they perceive a greater sense of flexibility in their jobs — at least initially. “Younger workers, being newer workers, are more likely to be ‘tested out’ on a variety of tasks and roles, where older workers may well have found, or been assigned, or simply tripped and stumbled, into a niche that is now theirs.”
Tenure, more than youth, also plays an important role in job satisfaction. New federal employees may be more likely to accept a “no” answer from management the first time around only to grow frustrated later. In other words, ignorance is bliss when you’re new on the job.
“The odds of something being taken at face value and perceived as fair drop once you know enough about where you work,” Hammer said. “It could be the best place to work in the world, but you can’t help knowing that a decision could have been rendered much more favorably for you.”
Younger workers may be more satisfied with their jobs, but in general they're in good company, according to Federal Diary columnist Joe Davidson. Of the 266,000 employees who participated in theFederal Employee Viewpoint Survey, 70.7 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with their jobs.
The Partnership’s findings indicate that job satisfaction begins to wane among young federal workers by the third year of employment.
Said Shaw, “Yes, there is a honeymoon phase, but the more complicated question is how do we make it last longer. Maybe what we need to do is look at things that affirm and reward passion and fresh ideas.”
What is the key to achieving satisfaction in your federal job? Are age and experience a factor?
Tell us in the comments section or on Twitter using the hashtag #FedBuzz
Read more on PostPolitics.com and the Fed Page
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