Stopping the Brain Drain

How human capital management software is helping to recruit the next generation of U.S. federal workers by Jill Colford

Yet again the baby boomers are having an impact on the American landscape. The issue this time is that this generation is now at or approaching retirement age and presenting critical, interrelated challenges: As huge numbers of workers retire, taking an enormous wealth of information with them, the pool of applicants to replace them has shrunk.

While the private sector is beginning to feel the effects of this demographic shift, the federal government is bearing the brunt. Nearly 70 percent of the 1.8 million U.S. federal employees are eligible to retire between now and 2011. And even though the entire 70 percent will not retire, the OPM projects that 40 percent will leave the work force. These statistics have prompted the government to face this problem sooner rather than later.

"The government is taking this problem very seriously," explains Blanche Shelton, human capitalist strategist for SAS Public Sector. "The crux of the problem is that there are so many people eligible to retire that if they do, there could be a huge brain drain on the government." The potentially dire consequences of a mass exodus of federal employees are not lost on the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress and the Bush administration. Strategic human capital management (HCM) has become a governmentwide priority that tops some impressive lists, including the GAO's high-risk list and the President's Management Agenda.

A loss of institutional knowledge that is this extensive could leave behind a work force so inexperienced that federal agencies would struggle to fulfill their missions. To meet this human resources crisis, the federal government is turning to sophisticated HCM software to help create solutions in the short term and map out proactive workforce-planning measures for the future. Previously, the government possessed only raw data about its work force and did not have the software to pull together its disparate pockets of information for analysis. "Earlier human resources systems were only designed to take that data in," explains Shelton. "The system was not necessarily designed to turn that data into intelligence and for you to see trends."

Advanced human capital software applications enable human resources executives to analyze employment statistics, forecast employees who are most likely to leave the government, predict attrition rates, identify any gaps in skills in their work forces and quantify human capital assets. Quantifying results is especially important now that the President's Management Agenda includes provisions in which budget decisions are based on an agency's performance in human capital management.

While traditional HCM software completes the automation of data, human capital intelligence software will facilitate a holistic approach to recruiting a new work force and predicting long-term trends before they reach a critical point. But government leaders – especially human resources executives – need to use the information to their advantage to combat some of the unique challenges inherent with government jobs.

"Traditionally, it has been harder for the government to recruit because it hasn't been viewed as offering the same benefits and salary as the private sector was able to," explains Betty Silver, marketing manager at SAS. But she is also quick to point out, "In today's uncertain economy, that also means that prospective employees are looking for the stability of a government job."

The leaders in the federal government see this perception shift as an opportunity and believe there are more solutions to these challenges. They also realize that the federal government needs to make extensive changes to the way it operates based on the information gained through work-force-planning research. That's why agencies across the board are engaging in aggressive recruiting, reducing the time it takes to make decisions, providing advanced training, and offering more competitive salaries and incentives.

Successfully implementing a new human capital management strategy is well within reach for agencies that continue to take advantage of the comprehensive capabilities of HCM software, especially those who use the information in unique ways. The U.S. Census Bureau is one such example. In researching the construction of a new facility, the bureau used its HCM software to determine the direction from which most of their employees would be commuting so it could place entrances in the most convenient locations.

While challenges abound, the good news is that the more often agencies use HCM software, the more possibilities they uncover from digging deep into their workforce analysis and applying that knowledge creatively.