How to Recruit Government Employees for User Research: A Practical Guide

Government employees are some of the hardest participants to recruit for user research. Not because they are unwilling, but because everything between them and your research session requires approval from someone else.

Manager sign-off. Union clearance. Security vetting. IT access requests. Calendar blocks that cannot move. A 60-minute usability session that takes 5 minutes to schedule with a commercial participant can take 3-4 weeks to arrange with a federal employee.

Yet government employees are often the most important participants you can recruit. They are the daily users of internal systems, the operators of public-facing services, and the people whose workflows determine whether a government digital product actually works. Skipping them because recruitment is hard means building products based on assumptions instead of evidence.

This guide covers how to navigate the approvals, find willing participants, run sessions that respect their constraints, and build ongoing research relationships within government agencies.

Key takeaways

Government employee recruitment requires 3-4 weeks of lead time minimum. Manager approval, union clearance, and security vetting all add layers that commercial recruitment does not have
Partner with agency HR or digital transformation offices. They can pre-approve participants, handle internal communications, and remove bureaucratic blockers
Keep sessions to 30-45 minutes. Government employees have rigid schedules with little flexibility for longer commitments
Use internal channels (agency intranets, newsletters, Slack/Teams) for outreach. External recruitment platforms rarely have access to government workers
The Paperwork Reduction Act does not apply to research with government employees. They are not “members of the public” under PRA, which removes a major regulatory barrier
Over-recruit by 15-25%. Government participants cancel more often due to meetings, emergencies, and approval delays, not lack of interest

Why are government employees so hard to recruit?

Five structural constraints make government employee recruitment fundamentally different from recruiting commercial users.

Manager approval is required and slow

Government employees typically cannot participate in research during work hours without explicit manager approval. Unlike commercial companies where a Slack message and a calendar invite is enough, government manager approval often requires:

A written explanation of the research purpose
Confirmation that participation will not affect the employee’s duties
Approval from the employee’s direct supervisor and sometimes their supervisor’s supervisor
Documentation that the research is authorized by the agency

This process takes 1-4 weeks depending on the agency and the manager’s familiarity with user research.

Union rules add another layer

Many government employees are union members. Depending on the collective bargaining agreement, participating in research during work hours may require union notification or approval. Some unions consider research participation a change in work duties that falls under negotiation provisions.

What to do: Ask your agency contact whether union notification is required. If it is, factor an additional 1-2 weeks into your timeline and provide a written description of the research that the union representative can review.

Security clearances limit access

Employees who work on classified or sensitive systems may be restricted from discussing their workflows, showing their screens, or participating in sessions where their work is observed. Even unclassified systems sometimes have restrictions on external observation.

What to do: Work with the agency’s security office to determine what can and cannot be discussed or shown in a research session. Design tasks around non-sensitive workflows or use sanitized test environments.

Rigid schedules with no flexibility

Government employees often work fixed schedules with limited control over their calendars. Meetings are booked weeks in advance. Lunch breaks are short and regulated. Overtime requires pre-approval.

What to do: Offer sessions at the edges of the workday (early morning, late afternoon) or during lunch. Keep sessions to 30-45 minutes. Never ask a government employee to stay late or come in early without confirming their overtime policies.

IT procurement blocks tool access

If your research requires the participant to use a specific tool, download software, or access an external platform, government IT policies may block it. Federal computers have strict software restrictions and many external URLs are firewalled.

What to do: Use tools that work in a browser without downloads. Confirm with the agency’s IT team that your research platform is accessible from their network. If not, bring your own device and hotspot to the session.

How to find and recruit government employee participants

Partner with internal champions

The single most effective recruitment strategy is partnering with someone inside the agency who can facilitate access. This is usually:

Digital transformation offices (18F, USDS teams, agency CDO offices)
HR or workforce development teams who can send internal communications
Product owners who already work with the employees you want to research
Innovation labs or internal UX teams that have existing research relationships

Ask your internal champion to send the recruitment message. An email from a colleague inside the agency gets a 5-10x higher response rate than an email from an external researcher.

Use internal communication channels

Channel	How to use it	Response rate
Agency intranet or internal portal	Post recruitment notice with screening link	Medium
Internal Slack, Teams, or chat groups	Direct message to relevant teams or channels	High
Agency newsletters	Include a short callout with link to screener	Low-medium
All-hands meetings	2-minute pitch with QR code to screener	High
Manager-to-team referrals	Ask managers to nominate team members	Highest

Manager-to-team referrals produce the best results because the approval is built into the recruitment. When a manager nominates someone, the approval step is already done.

External recruitment platforms

Most commercial participant recruitment platforms do not have government employees in their panels. Government workers rarely sign up for research panels because their participation requires employer approval.

Exceptions:

Platforms with NASPO (National Association of State Procurement Officials) approval can recruit within government networks
CleverX’s verified B2B panel includes pre-screened government and public sector professionals with role verification, which removes the uncertainty of whether participants actually work in government
Accessibility-focused recruitment channels can source government employees with disabilities for accessibility compliance testing

Recruit through the research itself

If you are testing a product that government employees already use, recruit through the product. Add an in-app banner, a post-task survey link, or a feedback button that invites users to participate in a research session. This reaches employees who are already engaged with the system and does not require external outreach.

How to screen government employee participants

Screening government employees requires different criteria than screening commercial users.

What to screen for

Role and system access. Confirm the participant actually uses the system or performs the workflow you are researching. Government job titles are often generic (“Program Analyst”, “Management Analyst”) and do not reveal what the person actually does.

Agency and department. Different agencies have different cultures, tools, and processes. A researcher at the Department of Veterans Affairs has a very different experience than one at the Department of Energy.

Tenure and experience level. New employees and 20-year veterans use systems differently. Define whether you need experienced users, new users, or a mix.

Security and access constraints. Ask whether the participant can discuss their workflows, share their screen, or access external platforms during the session. This prevents discovering restrictions mid-session.

Sample screening questions

What agency and department do you work in?
What is your role, and what systems do you use daily?
How long have you been in this role?
Can you share your screen during a video call, or are there restrictions on external screen sharing?
Does your participation require manager approval? If so, has it been granted?
Are there any topics or systems you are not able to discuss with external researchers?

For more guidance on writing effective screeners, see our guide on how to screen research participants.

How to run research sessions with government employees

Scheduling best practices

Book 3-4 weeks in advance. Government calendars fill up fast and approvals take time
Offer 3-5 time slots. Flexibility increases participation. Include early morning (8-9am), lunch (12-1pm), and end-of-day (4-5pm) options
Send calendar invites with a clear subject line. “User Research Session: [Product Name] - 30 min” not “Quick Chat”
Send a reminder 48 hours and 24 hours before. Government employees deal with shifting priorities and may forget
Have a backup participant scheduled. Government participants cancel at higher rates due to last-minute meetings and emergencies

Session format

Keep it to 30-45 minutes. Government employees cannot easily extend a session. If you need more time, schedule two shorter sessions rather than one long one.

Start with a clear explanation of confidentiality. Government employees may worry that their feedback about internal tools could reach their supervisors or affect their performance reviews. Explicitly state that responses are anonymous and will not be attributed to individuals.

Use their environment when possible. If testing an internal tool, let the participant use their own computer and network. This captures the real experience, including the slow VPN, the locked-down browser, and the IT restrictions that affect daily use.

Record with permission, but have a note-taking backup. Some agencies prohibit recording of internal systems. If recording is not allowed, have a dedicated note-taker in the session.

What to do when sessions get cancelled

Government employee no-show and cancellation rates run 20-30%, significantly higher than the 10-15% typical in commercial research. This is not unreliability. It is the reality of working in an environment where a last-minute meeting with a deputy secretary takes priority over everything.

Plan for it:

Over-recruit by 15-25%
Schedule backup participants for every slot
Have an asynchronous alternative ready (a short unmoderated task or survey) that you can send to participants who cancel

How to handle compliance and ethics

PRA does not apply to employee research

The Paperwork Reduction Act requires OMB approval before collecting information from 10 or more members of the public. Government employees are not “members of the public” under PRA. This means surveys, structured interviews, and questionnaires with government employees do not require PRA clearance.

This is one of the few compliance advantages of researching government employees versus researching citizens.

Ethics and voluntary participation

Participation must be genuinely voluntary. Employees should never feel that their manager requires them to participate
Responses must be confidential. Never share individual responses with the participant’s supervisor
Document your ethics protocol in writing and share it with both the participant and their manager
If research involves sensitive topics (workplace culture, tool frustrations, process failures), consider using an independent third party to collect data so employees feel safe being honest

Data handling

Follow the agency’s data handling policies for any recordings, transcripts, or notes
Store research data on approved systems. Do not use personal cloud storage for government research data
Delete recordings and raw data according to the agency’s retention schedule
Anonymize all findings before sharing with stakeholders

How to build ongoing research relationships with agencies

One-time recruitment is expensive and slow. Building an ongoing relationship with an agency makes every future study faster.

Create a research participant database. With the agency’s permission, maintain a list of employees who have participated and are willing to participate again. Track their role, systems used, and availability preferences.

Share findings back. After every study, send a summary of findings (anonymized) to participants and their managers. This demonstrates the value of research and makes managers more likely to approve future participation. For guidance on communicating research impact, see how to present user research findings to stakeholders.

Embed researchers in agency teams. The fastest path to ongoing access is embedding a researcher within the agency’s product or digital team. This is the model used by USDS and 18F, where researchers sit alongside developers and designers as full team members.

Run “exposure hours.” Invite agency leadership to observe research sessions. When a director watches a real employee struggle with a system they approved, the value of research becomes immediately obvious. This builds organizational support for future studies.

For more on building sustainable research operations, see our guide on research ops and how to scale user research.

Frequently asked questions

Do government employees need to be compensated for participating in user research?

It depends on the agency’s ethics and gift policies. Many federal agencies prohibit employees from accepting gifts, including research incentives, from external parties. Check with the agency’s ethics office. If monetary compensation is not allowed, offer alternatives: a summary of research findings, a thank-you letter to their manager, or a contribution to a team event.

Can I recruit government contractors as well as full-time employees?

Yes, but treat them as a separate segment. Contractors often use the same systems but have different access levels, different approval chains, and different employment constraints. Their perspectives complement full-time employee feedback but should not be mixed in analysis without noting the distinction.

How do I get started if I have no existing contacts inside a government agency?

Start with the agency’s public affairs or digital services office. Many agencies have innovation teams (18F alumni, digital service teams, CTO offices) that are familiar with user research and can facilitate introductions. Industry events like Code for America Summit and digital government conferences are also good for building initial contacts.

Is remote or in-person research better for government employees?

Remote is generally easier because it eliminates visitor access procedures, building security, and the need for the participant to leave their desk. However, in-person sessions are valuable when you need to observe the physical environment (shared workstations, paper-based workflows alongside digital tools, or classified system setups that cannot be screen-shared).