Investing in Human Capital

ight budgets and continuing pressure to reduce or at least limit the growth of the federal workforce make it more critical than ever for managers to invest in developing and enhancing the skills of their staffs. As of the end of fiscal 1997, federal employment was at its lowest level since 1961, and the trend continues downward.

Fiscal pressures will continue to require productivity increases that only more creative use of technology can bring. Despite real differences in the recent bitter budget debate, neither party was arguing for increases in the federal workforce. At the same time, the public expects the kind of user-friendly, around-the-clock service they get from other service providers, from catalog stores to banks. For the public sector manager--or any manager for that matter--decreasing staff resources and growing customer expectations translate into acquiring and keeping a workforce that is far more flexible and can respond to ever-changing technology.

A virtual certainty about the workplace of the future is that the tools will change at an ever-increasing rate. Those who are not constantly refreshing their skills risk becoming obsolete and unemployed. And there is no reason to believe that the leading-edge user of technology will be able to survive without frequent retraining. Indeed, the half-life of each succeeding generation of technology and of the skill sets needed to use it can be expected to continue to decrease.

For the information technology workforce, the challenge is even greater. An IT executive who does not understand the potential (and pitfalls) of the Internet and intranets is of limited value. But for the year 2000 problem, programmers who write COBOL are as useful as coopers and blacksmiths. While there is still a limited market for their services, few organizations can afford to pay for their labor-intensive art.

Funds available for training continue to shrink. Fortunately, the same technology that is creating pressure for more training is also a potential source of training. Technology can help multiply the effects of limited training dollars and help ensure that information your staff gets is current. Technology-based training tools fall into two general categories.

Distance learning. State governments are in the forefront of figuring out how to deliver training to widely scattered populations. Rich, diverse curricula are fairly easy to deliver in densely populated areas, less so in rural, remote areas. Traditional approaches were quite simple--bring the student to the teacher or the teacher to the student. Both are expensive and time-consuming. Today, states are using two-way video to unite geographically dispersed teachers and students. They are creating virtual universities on the Internet to give students access to a range of courses from multiple learning institutions. California, for example,offers an online catalog of 1,700 distance learning courses and 106 electronic academic programs. (See "Government Technology Leadership Awards" on page 39, for more about the California Virtual University.)

The Defense Department, with its widely scattered workforce, has been among the leaders in providing distance learning on the federal level. The Army National Guard has used two-way audiovisual systems to link U.S. based instructors with troops in Europe.

Other agencies have begun long-distance training, as well. The Energy Department's Safeguards and Security Central Training Academy in Albuquerque, N.M., uses satellite-based interactive television to deliver programming to 22 Energy sites and more than 100 sites at other agencies. In December 1996, the Housing and Urban Development Department opened a Washington-based distance learning center for staff and contractors at 56 sites.

Computer-based instruction. For several decades, the education industry has promised us the benefits of programmed instruction--self-paced, computer-based courses. Those promises are finally coming to fruition. The need to retrain and upgrade staff to handle every new software upgrade has forced both software vendors and training technologists to create more sophisticated tools. Virtually every software package now includes a help function and tutorials. A new industry has developed that produces training products that go beyond software-vendor tutorials.

Agencies too are developing computer-based instructional tools and decision-support systems keyed to their unique applications.

Ultimately, today's government executives and managers must make investing in human capital a part of the regular process of managing. That means figuring out what knowledge and skills the organization's employees need or will need, evaluating the current skill sets of the existing workforce and those being recruited, and devising an orderly plan for continually upgrading staff skills. Employee development cannot be a box a manager checks off as part of the annual performance appraisal and then ignores the rest of the year. Worse yet, it must not take the form of rewarding employees by sending them to training conferences if money is left over at the end of the year. Instead, employee development must become an organic part of day-to-day management and strategic planning. A comprehensive, economical development plan cannot ignore the benefits offered by the nontraditional training tools now available.

Franklin S. Reeder consults, writes and teaches on information technology and public management. He has taught at the University of Maryland and The George Washington University and next spring will teach at Syracuse University and the Georgian-American Institute of Public Administration.