Movement in federal IT jobs increasing, panelists say

Relaxed retirement rules are allowing greater fluidity between private sector and government information technology jobs, government IT veterans said Wednesday during a panel discussion.

Panelists said employees hired under the Civil Service Retirement System are more likely to remain in government their entire career because their retirement benefits are based on average salary over their highest three years of pay, multiplied by a factor representing the number of years they served in government.

But more than 20 years after the last federal employee enrolled under the old retirement system, senior agency IT managers are starting to see a loosening of the "golden handcuffs" impression of federal careers. With the flexibilities built into the Federal Employees Retirement System, private sector employees are gravitating toward government work in greater numbers, panelists said. Conversely, federal employees are more likely to leave for opportunities outside government.

Sally Wallace, associate deputy assistant secretary for e-government at the Veterans Affairs Department and moderator of the Industry Advisory Council-sponsored panel, said senior agency managers must accept the fact that younger employees may not be interested in spending their entire careers in government.

"You would think that when you hire somebody, they're going to be loyal and stay at the agency like you have," Wallace said. "Now it's just a whole new world out there … I think you need to find the best talent and not be so disappointed when they go back [to the private sector] or move on."

Wallace said she joined federal service on Dec. 16, 1983, placing her under CSRS. Given the choice of postponing her start date two weeks and beginning her career under FERS, Wallace opted for CSRS. But she said she wonders how her career would have been different had she waited two weeks.

"If I had been under FERS, would I have just come to government [for a few years] and then gone to industry and [then continued to move] back and forth?" she said.

Wallace said older managers who are not accustomed to employees working in government for two or three years and then going back to the private sector, can act as a barrier to recruiting younger people.

Howard Ady, who served for 25 years as a senior government executive and is now director of BearingPoint's Government Wide Acquisitions Contract and General Services Administration Schedule Programs, said the government is increasingly recruiting from industry for technical expertise at every level.

Financial analysts are telling private sector employees that the federal retirement health care program is worth about $300,000 per person, which has drawn employees away from BearingPoint, Howard said.

Panelist Deidre Lee, deputy director of operations and chief acquisitions officer at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said government employees have a higher level of responsibility and experience compared to their peers in the private sector.

"I truly believe that when the last couple of us [under CSRS] clear out … there is going to be a recognition that [federal employees are] not only in demand, but you are very flexible," Lee said. "I think that's going to change the demographic of our workforce. Hopefully, more people will come into the government, and we'll have more exchange."

Gary Wetterhall, assistant program executive officer for the Army's Enterprise Information Systems, said he has seen a number of private sector employees hired at the grass-roots level of the agencies.

"We really want to get those younger guys in there that have some industry experience," Wetterhall said. "I haven't seen the flood gates open yet, but I've seen particularly in the area of IT some really good candidates."

Panelists spoke supportively of a proposal that would allow older federal employees to work part-time in order to make room at the executive level for younger employees while avoiding losing the older employees' institutional and program-specific knowledge.