Federal information technology employees need more training, better-defined career paths and competitive wages or they will continue to abandon the government for more lucrative careers in the private sector, a new Treasury Department report concludes.
In the report, "Responding to the Crisis in Information Technology Skills," Treasury officials predict the department could lose half of its IT work force in the next five years.
"The IT skills shortage is real. It is global. And, it is likely to be chronic," the report said.
Many of the issues Treasury faces affect most other federal agencies as well, the report concluded. Among the problems cited is the limited and outdated standards for IT workers in the General Schedule job classification system. Agencies need more highly skilled workers but are unable to offer them competitive salaries because of the classification system, the report said.
Job descriptions need to be updated and salary increases should follow, the report recommended. At Treasury, technical skills erode because the department's bureaus do not adequately fund training efforts, the report concluded. "In general, the federal government under-invests in training and does not differentiate in training its IT employees," the report said.
Treasury officials estimate the department spends 1.5 percent of its IT payroll on staff development. In comparison, world-class technical organizations spend 8 to 10 percent of their payrolls on IT training and development. To bridge this gap, the agency should establish guidelines to increase investments in IT staff, the report said.
Compensation, too, needs improvement, the report argued. Treasury has asked the Office of Personnel Management to look into giving agencies more flexibility to pay retention bonuses. The IRS, for example, was able to stabilize its turnover rate for computer programmers at 4 percent after it began to offer retention bonuses. Before the bonuses, turnover was twice as high.
In addition, OPM has been asked to look into redesigning the current job classification system. According to a report in Federal Computer Week, officials at OPM plan to address Treasury's proposals in a job classification study due out this summer, and may include them in an upcoming legislative package.