Federal agencies called unprepared for future wave of retirements

Most federal managers are not placing enough priority on workforce issues, specifically in preserving the knowledge and skills of employees nearing retirement, according to a new report by global technology firm Tandberg.

The report, "See: The Future of Government," found that agencies are not prepared to pass on the knowledge and skills of the current workforce, which could hamper upcoming transitions. Specifically, 61 percent of federal managers indicated that their agency did not have a knowledge management policy.

"If you combine the retiring workforce with the new generation coming in, we have to understand how we transfer the knowledge and attract those workers into the workplace," said Joel Brunson, president of Tandberg Federal. "We have to be very sensitive going forward, or we're not going to attract that young talent into the government."

The report, based on an August 2007 survey of 171 federal managers, gauged awareness of federal workforce issues and gathered opinions on knowledge management infrastructure.

The government faces a potential wave of exits over the next decade as about 60 percent of federal workers overall and 90 percent of senior executives become eligible for retirement. Despite this, only 22 percent of those surveyed cited retirement as an issue of major importance to the federal government.

Of most importance, managers said, was the war in Iraq, the move to a new presidential administration and a looming health care and Social Security crisis.

Older federal employees and those with longer careers in government service placed a higher priority on the challenges posed by the retiring workforce. Thirty percent of federal managers older than 46 and 26 percent of managers with more than 11 years of service named retirement as a key issue, the survey found.

"As people near retirement, they worry more about who they're passing the baton to, to do the work and pass on the knowledge," Brunson said.

In the area of developing future workers, 82 percent of managers reported that their agencies conducted training for new hires. But only 57 percent said they offered new process and procedure training to facilitate continual learning. These findings showed a clear need for a focus on post-hire training, including education on best practices developed by new employees' predecessors, the report stated.

Despite high recognition of the effectiveness of multimedia tools for training and knowledge management, federal managers reported mixed results in their use. While 86 of respondents identified video recordings as a somewhat or very effective format to pass along processes and information to the next generation, only 20 percent reported leveraging the technology for such purposes.

Meanwhile, Brunson said the key to training a new generation of workers was understanding their needs, of which work-life balance and flexibility are critical. "We need to stress that employees own a stake in their career going forward," Brunson said.

He added that one major key to attracting younger workers is leveraging technology and implementing telework policies across agencies. He pointed to a January report that found managers' attitudes toward telework were more favorable if they supervised teleworking employees directly, and even more positive if they were teleworkers themselves.

Brunson said Tandberg plans to conduct an additional study to determine the optimal recruiting and retention tools government can use.

"Agencies have to diversify, expand and adapt to the current training methods out there so we can clearly align and pass the baton to this generation and the next generation of government workers," he said.