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This article combines theories on emotional labor in public service and dirty work to argue that organizations should adopt an ethic of care to support their workers. The economics of public services undermine the consumer-sovereignty narrative in government, particularly where public servants are agents of social control and enforcement. Public servants cannot and should not behave according to a customer-service ethos in many important areas of public service. Emotional labor is the process by which workers manage the identity-damaging aspects of public service. This article critiques individual-level human resource management (HRM) approaches and recommends dismantling customer service expectations that are inappropriately applied in public-service contexts.

Working mothers in federal service spend about 20 min per day less on caregiving activities, compared to their counterparts in the private sector. This result holds regardless of the type of job they hold, their educational attainment, marital status, the number and ages of their children, or the employment status of their spouse. This is an important result to federal agency recruitment, which targets a similar labor pool as does the private sector. It is also important to the retention of human capital in federal government, which has sought to establish a reputation as a model employer through the development and implementation of family-friendly workplace programs and a culture that supports overall work–life balance. However, mothers in federal service spend more time at work compared to their counterparts in the private sector, which prompts one to wonder whether less caregiving time and more work time is true balance.

Public personnel management research and practices increasingly focus on creative human resource management (HRM) strategies for recruiting individuals with information technology (IT) expertise and retaining employees with institutional knowledge, particularly in light of impending retirements. Some agencies face unique workforce demographic challenges, while others face shifts in missions or technologies. For these reasons, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management relaxed some regulations to allow federal agencies to meet their staffing needs. This article presents an evaluation of the effectiveness of creative HRM strategies during the late 1990s, when federal agencies sought to hire and keep IT professionals to do Year 2000 conversions.

This study focuses on two grant programs administered by the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor: the Non-Traditional Employment for Women (NEW) program and Women in Apprenticeships in Non-Traditional Occupations (WANTO). These two grant programs were created to increase the numbers of women in nontraditional fields, and this analysis seeks to determine whether they had effects on women's participation in nontraditional occupations (NTOs): jobs where men dominate, usually blue-collar crafts and skilled trades, though not exclusively crafts and skilled trades. The study finds that WANTO and NEW substantially increased the chances that a woman obtained employment in an NTO.

During the 1990s, one program successfully increased women's participation in highly skilled, higher‐wage occupations where women are underrepresented, but the cases highlighted here reveal the important role of institutions and contexts in successful program implementation. In contexts where grant recipients obtained support from both policymakers and industry, longer‐term program institutionalization was more likely. Where policy intervention was viewed negatively, longer‐term integration of the program's initiatives, and therefore success of the program, was less likely.

AbstractNonprofit organizations have long provided an important space for women to establish roles in public life. Using establishment‐level data on for‐profit and nonprofit organizations, we show that the proportions of women in full‐time and mission‐critical positions are higher in nonprofits. In contrast, for‐profit businesses have more women in part‐time jobs and in jobs that are peripheral to the organizational purpose. We also demonstrate that the greater proportions of women in full‐time and mission‐critical positions in nonprofits are due to the use of inclusive work processes and transparent human resource management practices. Our findings provide evidence to pursue the aspects of nonprofit organizations that expand opportunities for working women.