Every good IT management team is talking about the coming wave of retiring Baby Boomers. Well I just came across a report that might help. The Partnership for Public Service released an interesting report back in January entitled: "A Golden Opportunity: Recruiting Baby Boomers into Government."
The report, contains some startling numbers, such as "the federal government will need to hire an estimated 193,000 individuals to fill mission-critical positions in such areas as public health, accounting, and engineering."
The major premise: "Government has a golden opportunity to attract talented, experienced workers to federal service, but that agencies must take more action to effectively appeal to this cohort."
Why? Their survey suggest that older workers actually view the government with more skepticism than younger workers do.
This report challenges much of my current thinking about the coming exodus of government workers. Might experienced professionals who had 30+ years of IBM or EDS experience join the federal workforce? Yes, this issue is just as relevant for state and local governments as well.
Imagine this, a retired technology guru plays 18 holes of golf in Florida, before he/she connects to the Michigan state government office for a half day of work. Could this be a new working model?
I certainly think this report makes many sense, and it has major implications for governements around the US and the world. What are your thoughts?
Thanks for a good and insightful write-up. The report was interesting to read particularly because I myself am a baby boomer and have personally experienced some of the problems the report has highlighted.
Report seems to be exhaustively written but I noted some gaps. This report fails to take into account the hiring of contract workers and the widespread nepotism/favoritism. As long as a fed is allowed to hire a contractor, the incentive to hire and grow their own people is just not going to be there. Also, a contractor has a better shot to be hired than an outsider. The report also fails to provide insights into who eventually gets hired. My money would be on - 1) another fed 2) a contractor 3) an outsider --- in that order.
Talking about nepotism: I would really love to see a report that takes all high level officers of all the federal agencies and shows their movements withing the federal agencies and the people they have brought on board.
I think there are other issues needed to be fixed first before we can lead baby boomers to believe that we have a shot at a govt job, let alone call in from a golf course for half a day's worth of work.