Meeting the Perfect Storm Bow-On in Public Sector IT

Today, while agencies have access to enormous amounts of data and the threat of data breaches is higher than ever, public sector IT departments face a perfect storm of workforce challenges that threatens to capsize and even sink efforts toward creating a digital government.

The “Silver Tsunami,” the retirement wave that is approaching as baby boomers reach Medicare age, impacts all industries, but the public sector is perhaps the most drastically affected. Between 30 and 40 percent of state workers are currently eligible to retire, posing an imminent threat of loss of key personnel, critical knowledge and experience by government IT departments.

As workers retire and agencies scramble to replace them, the second wave in this perfect storm has emerged in the form of millennials. The millennial workforce is vastly different from their baby boomer predecessors, who valued rich government benefit packages, stability, and have stayed in the same department for their entire careers. Motivated by innovation and focused on making an impact in their work, millennials expect a truly digital workplace, flexibility and rapid advancement. A meager six percent of millennial college graduates indicate they want to work in government. This causes serious competition for talent in high-demand technology roles in the public sector.

The last wave of the perfect storm—the wage gap—isn’t new, but it is an increasingly glaring problem, particularly for IT departments in all levels of government. While public sector employers offer total compensation packages that are competitive with the private sector, direct compensation in the form of wages is 35% less for public sector employees compared to their commercial counterparts. This makes millennials, who value benefits less than previous generations, difficult to recruit.

And there’s more. Not only do public sector workers get paid less, but the outdated and rigid job title and classification systems within agencies prevents IT managers from hiring and paying appropriately across the vast number of unique skillsets needed within the department as technology continues its rapid and unending change.

This perfect storm of workforce challenges has caused government agencies to chart a new course and to transform the way they operate. Use of three key strategies are helping public sector IT leaders find new efficiencies in operational changes.

1. Flexible sourcing. Hiring a combination of full time, part time, temporary and contract resources rather than the traditional department of all full time career employees, allows flexibility and rapid response to fluctuations, improves efficiencies and leverages contractors for hard-to-find or specialized skill sets.
   
   
2. Strong public-private partnerships. Along with flexible sourcing, public sector IT leaders are pursuing strong public-private partnerships with technology firms for a range of project-based and managed services. More and more CIO’s are outsourcing IT infrastructure and refocusing personnel resources on priority initiatives. The managed services model offers additional benefits like increased flexibility, predictable monthly costs, and increased reliability.
   
   
3. Modernization. The federal government currently spends around 70 percent of its budget maintaining and operating woefully outdated legacy systems rather than investing in new and more efficient technologies. By leveraging the government cloud for what used to be on-site functions, agencies can ensure their mission critical workloads are reliable, secure, compliant and fully supported without the heavy cost and personnel resources required for on premise solutions.

It is not enough for public sector IT to weather the perfect storm of workforce challenges. The issue must be taken bow-on, with proactive strategies to improve the ability to compete for new, skilled millennial employees who will help bring the IT function into the clear, calm seas of success.