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June 28, 2011 By Cindy Waxer
For all its benefits, cross-sourcing employees has its drawbacks. For example, two individuals came to Charlotte to work on a utilities project. They were extremely well received, Stovall said, but one of the two people was later offered a promotion back in the county. As a result, Charlotte had to reconfigure the project and “backfill the position with a city resource person,” Stovall said, — an unanticipated snafu that took nearly two months to sort out and ultimately derailed the project timeline.
Even Mecklenburg County encountered pitfalls as outsourcing its own employees put a strain on the organization’s truncated resources. “There has been more demand placed on the county for IT projects and business process consultants,” said Simmons. “Sometimes we can’t meet the demand that’s being asked of us right now.”
Nor should CIOs assume that shifting IT professionals from one government agency to another is a seamless transaction. “You still screen employees to determine if they’re a good fit for your team and you still have to write a contract,” said Johnson. “It’s hysterical to me how hard it is for one government agency to contract with another.”
Luckily there are a number of factors that can make for a successful cross-sourcing strategy. For starters, Simmons said it’s critical that CIOs communicate the benefits of the arrangement openly and honestly to all employees.
“We told our employees we have an opportunity to strengthen our partnership even more with the city and with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, to save jobs, generate some revenue and get some extra training funds back into our budgets,” Simmons said. “And they said, ‘OK, that sounds like a good idea. I’m for it.’ No one has resisted or pushed back.”
Picking the right employees to outsource is also crucial. “You have to put your best foot forward,” said Simmons. “You’re trying to strengthen your partnership [with another agency]. I wouldn’t put someone there who’s not about change and trying to do something different.” For this reason, Simmons said she “tried to choose the most experienced employees who would see this as a great opportunity.”
So too can the proper training get cross-sourced employees up to speed on a new department’s inner-workings. “Like any major project,” said Johnson, “you have to take employees and explain the context in which they’re going to work, our structure, how we get work done and the politics among our various groups.”
Shifting employees from one government agency to another will create challenges. But with the proper communication skills, interagency relations and commitment to knowledge retention, more and more government agencies may just realize that they’re better off loaning than laying off their employees.
Cindy Waxer is a journalist whose articles have appeared in publications including The Economist, Fortune Small Business, CNNMoney.com, CIO and Computerworld.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/pcio/articles/IT-Jobs-Saved-Local-Governments-Staff-Sharing.html
Brilliant strategy and execution. County CIO's would be wise to consider the value their (larger) IT organizations can add to (smaller) local governments. Sharing PMO resources, analysts, and other technical resources is a great way to make government more effective and efficient through the advanced process improvement methods that a larger shop can bring to (usually smaller) local governments. Budget wise, local governments are more likely to consider those (valuable) resources as more of a luxury to have, and consequently not have enough or any of them. Sharing is a great way to afford the talent that's needed to move a less mature shop up a notch or two.
Great article knowing that other communities are getting the sharing initiative's off the ground and saving jobs as well as the most important factor, dollars. I think though you have to do a little calling and researching because Peter Cooper of the El Paso County in Texas has been doing this for some time now. He has successfully merged the 2 entities (city and county) information technolgy departments. With the City's Manager Joyce Wilson, and the approval of the both councils they both have scaled the processes and ensured success for innovative process and operations, is taken care of at both organizations. I would certainly see what they have done and the amount of savings they have ensured. But great article that CIOs are working together for their communities.
I read this article last month. I think that state governments should consider executing such a plan on a larger, enterprise scale and offer these types of IT services to state agencies, non-profits, municipal governments, etc., that are required to cut their IT budgets. Consolidating desktop support and other IT functions is a start but giving consideration to outsourcing project management and other IT non-technical IT functions is as important in my opinion. If outsourcing is the way to go, then why not outsource from within the organization? I believe what Meclenbury County (NC) has done is a brilliant show of innovation and leveraging the expertise IT professionals bring to the table with minimal impact to their ability to stay employed in the current economic recession.