Meeting an agency’s staffing needs has become more challenging in recent years. Several factors have increased the importance of projecting future needs, from the persistent increases in time to fill vacancies, to the rising demands of new employees as the share of the federal workforce that has reached retirement age grows. Federal human resources (HR) needs to be armed with more sophisticated workforce planning tools that can view the future hiring requirements of an agency through various scenarios.

Federal hiring is costly and takes longer than other sectors on average. In fiscal 2017, time to fill positions took an average of 106 days, the fifth year in a row it had. How does this measure up? Compared to the 23-day average in the private sector, federal employees take five times longer to hire than in any other sector.

Contributing to these increases is the shift in retirement rates (with over a third of federal employees now eligible for retirement), hiring mandates from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and congressional guidance related to hiring rates or grade distribution. Even in standard hiring cases, many agencies are working to catch up to changes that occurred years ago.

The Role of Workforce Planning and Analysis

With the time to hire likely to remain much higher than the private sector, agencies need to do their best to anticipate hiring needs using predictive modeling and analytics that provide insight into the number of expected hires, their grade-levels, and occupations. Workforce gap analysis can help evaluate the impact of turnover rates, retirement, quit rates and internal transitions across the workforce for up to five years into the future.

However, effective workforce gap analysis is more than just a high-level evaluation of when people leave and who may step up to fill important vacancies. Successful workforce gap analysis integrates four key steps:

1. Supply Analysis – What does the current workforce look like and what impact will variables like the number of years before retirement have on the current supply in five years?
2. Demand Analysis – How many people will be needed in the near- and long-term, and how will that demand be impacted by current workforce targets and expected policy changes?
3. Productivity Analysis – How productive is the current workforce, and what shifts are expected based on new or upcoming policy changes?
4. Gap Analysis – Finally, what’s the difference between the current projected workforce and the projected need of your workforce?

This is where many agencies start, but using technology can help agencies to use more sophisticated techniques to evaluate supply, demand and productivity variables in a more granular, accurate way.

Building a Sophisticated Model for Workforce Gap Analysis

With the right statistical model, workforce gap analysis becomes not only more accurate, but more specific in recommendations for next steps.

When building such a model for a federal agency, EconSys starts with a minimum of five years of historical data. Rather than broad stroke forecasting across the entire workforce, this data helps illustrate how each individual within the workforce will behave over a five-year model simulation. In other words, given the specific characteristics of each individual, the model determines the likelihood that each will experience an event that changes their position and continue employment with the agency.

By drawing on detailed historical data, the model used for workforce projections can consider a series of extremely detailed factors, including:

• Grade-level
• Duty Station
• Occupation Series
• Location
• Seniority

From these factors, the likelihood of key personnel events can be calculated on an individual basis, including:

• Retirement
• Termination
• Quitting
• Transferring
• Promotion

This level of modeling subsequently gives a federal agency a more detailed view of the current and future supply and the likelihood of key events, as well as the projected outcomes of those events.

Specific demand scenarios are run alongside the supply simulation to determine hiring needs throughout the five-year projection. Demand scenarios that are common include:

• Hiring Freeze Scenario – The model can project what the workforce will look like in the event of a hiring freeze that doesn’t allow for replacement of departing employees.
• Worker Replacement Scenario – This scenario projects the total number of hires that will be needed to maintain the workforce size while considering factors like the seniority of people who leave, positions they hold and the timeline for replacement.
• Market-Driven Demand Scenario – The model can incorporate specific market-driven demand for key roles in an agency. If you know there will be an increased need for IT professionals, cybersecurity specialists, or medical professionals, this scenario can project based on those needs under different circumstances.

Workforce gap analysis is only as accurate as the sophistication of the model being used. To ensure your hiring expectations are realistic and match the needs of your agency in three to five years, and that the long time-to-hire doesn’t negatively impact your operations, it’s important to follow each of the above steps and prepare for a number of potential outcomes. With this information in hand, it’s possible to guide your workforce for years to come and stay ahead of potential staffing shortfalls.

About EconSys

We help federal and state agencies to improve their operational efficiency, make better data-driven decisions, and empower State and Federal Governments to improve the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of HR operations to manage the “Hire-to-Retire” lifecycle. From consulting and staffing services to operational and analytical software, we have continued to add innovative and cost-efficient solutions that foster a highly productive and fulfilled workforce for our federal and state clients since 1990.