What We Wish We’d Known: Current and former Congressional staff on office setup, surviving week 1, and more

You might be overwhelmed on day 1, but you’ll be surrounded by people who’ve been in the same boat, and want to help.

On December 9th, 2020, Members-elect of the 117th Congress joined current members, staffers, technologists, scientists, academics, and advocates for the inaugural Tech, Science, and Data New Member Orientation Day, hosted by the First Branch Tech, Science and Data (TSD) cohort.

In the “Tech” section of the day, seven current and former Congressional staff offered new Members and staff the advice they wish they’d had when they got started.

For a full transcript of this conversation, please see here.

TL;DR (we know you have a lot on your plate right now):

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS:

You’re going to be totally overwhelmed on your first day, first few weeks. Be kind to yourself! Having clear and concrete goals will help you through the adjustment period, and be a guiding force to get set up in a sustainable way.

1. Spread out hiring your staff until you have a sense for your goals and needs. In that regard, hire for a range: it’s useful to hire some people with Hill experience who can help you set up quickly, but also to hire people with diverse skillsets who can share them with the rest of your team.
2. You’ll face down a huge correspondence backlog on day one, but you don’t have to rush into it: come up with a strategy to prioritize incoming mail, tell constituents who reach out that you’re getting set up, and then circle back to them later.
3. There are amazing formal and informal resources on the Hill, and it’s a culture that’s happy to share knowledge. Build your network of experienced staff you can lean on for advice, and explore the training resources they can point you toward, including formal Staff Academy resources, informal peer-to-peer training, and outside skill-building opportunities.

FULL VIDEO:

Ananda Bhatia, Legislative Assistant, Congressman Seth Moulton [D, MA-6]

Focus on setting up your new mail program, setting priorities for what matters to you most in constituent correspondence. Maybe your goal is to respond quickly or have a high degree of personalization, or to only respond to people who wrote personally or to every single campaign message. Those are the decisions that are going to affect how you set up your CRM, which is the biggest tech decision you’re going to make.

Chasseny Lewis, former Chief of Staff, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson [D, FL-24]

Avoid hiring your whole staff right away — push it to February, even, when you have a better sense of what you need, what your priorities are, what the decision-making hierarchy you’re going to set up looks like, and time to make sure you get great quality candidates. And wait to answer the mail until you’re ready!

Jonah Shumate, Chief of Staff, Congressman Rick Crawford [R, AR-1]

Learn from people who have done this before you: everyone has advice, but everyone can also share mistakes they’ve made, and you’ll almost learn more that way. It’s an institution that’s really focused on sharing, so take advantage of it. It’s also rapidly changing — there’s no one way Congress works, especially in times like these.

Keenan Austin Reed, Chief of Staff, Congressman Donald McEachin [D, VA-4]

Build your circle: there’s a lot of advice on Capitol Hill and not all of it will be right for you and your office, so reach out to some people you trust, who can help you sort through it all. In that vein, be gentle with yourself: set a few manageable goals for your first year while you get used to the pace Congress operates on.

Maia Estes, Chief of Staff, Congressman Anthony Brown [D, MD-4]

Echoing Chasseny and Keenan and Jonah, be gentle with yourself and with your staff as you get set up. Set a few goals with your Member and with your staff at the outset, since your goals will help you make decisions on setting up your office, and you shouldn’t hire until you have that set up. And have your phone script ready before day one!

Kevin Kosar, Resident Scholar, AEI; former Congressional Research Service

By the way — lean on the Congressional Research Service! There are better ways to spend your time and your staff’s time than falling deep into research rabbit holes, especially when there is an amazing resource like CRS available.

Rick Jakious, District Director, Congressman Seth Moulton [D, MA-6]

Three things: hire slow, take your time in getting back to people (but do get back to them — your reputation as responsive will come in handy!), and spend time to carve out your vision, mission, and values as an individual and an organization. Think about how you’re going to get your team to cohere, whether it’s tech tools that enable collaboration or a uniting goal and vision.

Yuri Beckelman, Deputy Chief of Staff, Congressman Mark Takano [D, CA-41]

Hire staff who think in terms of process: anyone can answer the phone, but you want someone who can set up and run an effective process for what happens when you put the phone down — how does that message get sorted, batched, acted on? Processes and structure are how you build institutional knowledge. Also, make decisions! The biggest thing that frustrates your staff and constituents is an unclear decision-making process. You can fix mistakes, but you can’t fix things you never acted on.

The First Branch TSD Cohort is a forum for information sharing and collaboration, bringing together innovators on and off the Hill focused on Technology, Science, and Data research and resources for Congress. The cohort is a forum for information sharing and collaboration, made possible by support from Democracy Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, and led by POPVOX.

For more information, contact tsd@popvox.com.