Competing in the War for Talent

by Robert J. Lavigna
Senior Manager for Client Services for CPS

Public sector organizations across the nation, at all levels of government, are facing a rapidly-approaching workforce crisis. We all know the dimensions of this crisis by now:

• As the baby boomer generation moves toward retirement, government agencies face the inevitable reality of losing many of our most experienced and talented people. In some agencies and jurisdictions, 50 percent of more of all employees will become retirement eligible in the next few years.
• At the same time, the nation’s changing demographics are dramatically reducing the supply of new talent.
• While all sectors of the economy face these challenges, government is at greater risk because our workforce is older, on average, than in the private sector.
• The new employees entering government service today have far different career expectations and perspectives than the people they will replace.
• Rapidly evolving technology and new approaches to work require different skills, organizational arrangements, and ways of interacting in the work place; and
• The ability of government to attract the “best and brightest” has been severely damaged by decades of government bashing and our inability to compete financially for talent in key skill areas.

Much is being said and written about how to deal with this crisis in the near term, but I believe the long-term answer is strategic workforce planning. Indeed, the failure of government to conduct strategic workforce planning is one reason for today’s crisis. According to US Comptroller General David Walker, the absence of strategic workforce planning is a major reason why GAO placed “human capital” on its list of high-risk federal programs.

What is workforce planning? Simply stated, it is how an organization ensures it will have the right number of people with the right skills in the right places at the right times. Basic workforce planning involves:

1. Analyzing the organization’s current workforce and capabilities (e.g., the people and competencies currently available);
2. Identifying the organization’s future workforce needs (people and competencies needed to achieve strategic objectives);
3. Comparing the current workforce to future workforce needs, to identify people and competency imbalances (gaps and surpluses);
4. Developing HR policies, plans, and approaches to build the workforce of the future; and
5. Devising a permanent process to ensure that workforce needs and capabilities are continually assessed, imbalances are identified, and strategies to eliminate imbalances are put in place.

The technical aspects of workforce planning can involve a range of approaches such as environmental scanning, economic forecasting, employee turnover projections, work flow and workload analyses, strength and weakness assessments, benchmarking against best practices, process re-engineering, competency development, etc. However, regardless of specific technical approaches, the workforce planning process must be directly linked to the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. In other words, steps 1 and 2 of the planning process -- analyzing the current workforce and identifying future workforce needs -- must be directly and explicitly linked to organizational strategy.

Ideally, the result of workforce planning will be new policies, approaches and processes in all HR areas -- recruiting, classification, compensation, advancement, talent management, training, succession planning, labor relations, etc. These HR components must work together, as a system, to build the workforce and competencies critical to long-term success.

For example, let’s say a government agency conducts workforce planning and defines the key competencies its managers must master for long-term organizational success. One of these competencies might be “building partnerships.” The organization must then ensure that this competency is integral to all HR policies and practices -- recruiting, selection, compensation and rewards, performance management, promotion and advancement, succession planning, training, etc. This linkage must exist for all key competencies. In other words, it’s not enough for an agency to merely say that specific competencies are essential. HR systems must be structured around those competencies.

This workforce planning process is simple in concept and makes common sense. Why, then, aren’t more public sector organizations doing workforce planning? A recent public sector survey by the International Public Management Association for Human Resources shows that only about 1/3 of the respondents conduct formal workforce planning. Why is the percentage so low?

First, workforce planning requires an organization to assess the current skills and competencies of its workforce. Many public sector agencies organizations simply don’t have this information.

Workforce planning also involves strategically assessing the skills and competencies needed for the future. To do this, HR itself must develop new competencies, perspectives and tools.

Finally, workforce planning requires the commitment and cooperation of the entire organization (not just HR). It can be hard to generate the political will, resources and coordination to pull this off. In fact, in the survey I cite above, the most common reason why organizations are not conducting workforce planning is "lack of leadership."

Workforce planning isn’t just a good idea -- it’s an imperative. If we don’t make workforce planning a fundamental way of doing business in government, we simply will not be able to attract, develop, motivate and retain talented people, and we will not be prepared to compete in the imminent war for talent. The future of our nation’s public service is far too important to let that happen.