Other countries share U.S. government’s workforce challenges

The U.S. government is not alone in the need to implement pay reforms and address talent gaps, according to a recent report by consulting firm KPMG. In fact, four other major countries are facing strikingly similar requirements, the report found.

The report found that officials from the governments of five major countries -- Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States -- view problems with the management of people, funds and technology as significant barriers to improving performance. Officials named two common workforce challenges: compensation -- especially when competing against the private sector -- and a shortage of talent.

According to Mark MacDonald, executive director for government at KPMG International, officials from all five governments cited performance-oriented pay systems as a solution. He said that while all the governments have General Schedule-like pay schemes, all are experimenting with pay for performance, with Australia and the United Kingdom making the most progress.

The report was based on a survey of 254 civil servants, conducted for KPMG by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a London-based consulting firm. All respondents had management roles; 37 percent were heads of departments, financial chiefs, directors, deputy directors or their equivalents. Seventy-six of the respondents were from the United States.

MacDonald also said that all five countries are facing major skills shortages, largely because large numbers of civil servants will soon become eligible for retirement. He added that Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia all have dealt with budget deficits over the last decade, leading to reductions in the size of their workforces.

"They got rid of a lot of the expensive people," MacDonald said. "That hollowed out a lot of the middle management, and now they need to search for talent not only at the entry level but also at the middle level."

Wayne Routers, secretary of Canada's Treasury Board, said in the report that to meet the recruiting challenge, the government will need to do a better job promoting public service to recent college graduates and supporting mobility between government agencies, the private sector and academia. "It's been a tradition to spend a whole career in one or the other," he said. "That's got to change."

The survey also found governments are not always focusing on the right initiatives to improve effectiveness. "The survey suggests this mismatch is partly due to the fact that, in general, performance and efficiency measures are most often introduced as governmentwide initiatives, rather than by individual agencies," the report stated.

Additionally, the survey found that governments are putting great value in public-private partnerships. But 43 percent of respondents cited a lack of skills and specialist knowledge as a major challenge in this area. Another 37 percent of respondents said that poor project management was the most pressing obstacle to implementing new initiatives.

Officials also noted difficulties in calculating the real costs of public projects as well as their benefits. Costs were a problem for 39 percent of respondents, and raising necessary funds was difficult for 31 percent, KPMG found.

MacDonald said the five governments could use the similarities to their advantage by sharing ideas and lessons learned. "We should actually take some comfort in the sense that the United States can look across the border for innovative ways of tackling problems and challenges," he said.