TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT

In the June 15 issue of Government Executive, "Racing to Innovate," author Andrew Noyes addresses the challenges facing federal chief information officers. In a recent excerpt in the online version, Noyes reiterates a major point of his well-done article, that "federal CIOs are key to Obama's change agenda." That may well be the case. But in a slow-developing nomination and confirmation process, we may not see any real effect until the end of the president's first term.

Former Social Security Administration CIO Tom Hughes, now a government consultant, expresses his skepticism later in the article:

Nothing has changed yet. I haven't see a single rock star hired and that's disappointing, . . . The longer it takes to bring the right people on board the more the die is cast in terms of relegating CIOs to the same positions they have been in.

So what should we make of Hughes commentary - other than it's a veiled insult of Veterans Affairs' new CIO, Roger Baker (who many consider a James Taylor look-a-like). Well, many CIO jobs remain vacant. In part, that's due to the recent trend towards making them political appointments rather than career positions. Do take a look around government. Note the vacancies or the "actings" at important departments/agencies like Defense, Homeland Security, HUD, Labor, DoT, EPA and Social Security, to name a few. I mean no insult to the very capable career executives manning these open political jobs.

Our senior IT community, for the most part, missed out on affecting the fiscal 2009 budget, which they inherited from the Bush administration and the previous Congress. They largely missed the fiscal 2010 budget. This is true of Vivek Kundra, too, who had not been appointed when the fiscal 2010 request was being hastily assembled. But now they are missing out on development of the fiscal 2011 budget, which will go to OMB in early September.

It may be "a new day" for the CIOs in the future. But for many important departments/agencies, they've yet to see the crack of dawn.

When news broke several weeks back about the Census Bureau and the decision to scrap plans for the use of handheld devices and a so-called “high-tech count” in 2010 I can’t say I was “shocked.” I held off commenting because it brought back so many memories from 1980, from 1990 and from 2000. In fact, if I unearthed meeting notes, memos, and briefings from then, I likely could produce an account that mirrored what is swirling now: One of those “ripped from today’s headlines” accounts.

But it saddens me in so many ways:

In my industry/government conference wanderings, I stopped by Orlando this month for the annual IPIC conference. This is usually a "must attend" event in government and industry circles and has been around so long that few can recall what "IPIC" stands for. (Here's a hint: The first two letters stand for "Information Processing.")

So what was a hot topic for the government folks in attendance? Well, no surprise, it is the upcoming transition. For political appointees, it's all about their life after government, with only a little over 300 days left in office. For the careerists -- many of whom have never been through one before -- there was some apprehension about what will face them.

In the midst of that uncertainty comes a request from the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) leadership to several career government leaders to co-chair IAC's Transition Report effort. What is the drawback to such an invite? The industry co-chair is Mark Forman, now at KPMG and the first e-government czar at the Office of Management and Budget. Mark is a wonderful person -- bright, hard working, considerate. I think very highly of him. But how exactly would a career SESer (Senior Executive Service) explain his or her pairing with a representative of the previous administration to his or her new political boss? Even Sen. John McCain campaign officials are thinking hard about how and where to use President Bush in the upcoming election campaign. It seems that "fundraising" and "securing the conservative base" are the main tasks at present.

But let's keep a watchful eye on what careerist lands this plum assignment from IAC. I will organize the pool on where that person lands -- after the first 120 days under a new political regime (that being the so called "cooling off" period when an SESer cannot be moved). I hope there are openings at Unisys or InterImage.

The new president, coming into office Jan. 20, 2009, will face what the current head of the Office of Personnel Management has called a “retirement tsunami." According to many experts, 60 percent of the federal government’s rank and file workforce and 90 percent of its top managers will be eligible to retire in the next decade. OPM projections show that nearly 61,000 full-time permanent federal employees will retire in fiscal 2008 and that the number of retirements will peak between 2008 and 2010 – just as an incoming president seeks to launch her or his new administration.

Over the next five years, the federal government will lose more than 550,000 employees. But the market for recruits has never been more competitive and government employees are locked in a fierce contest with the private sector.

Over the last several weeks in Government Executive and elsewhere one has seen articles playing off the phrase coined by Office of Personnel Management Director Linda Springer of a pending "retirement tsunami." Brian Friel of Government Executive probably put it best: "Since the beginning of the decade, federal human resources watchers have been predicting a tsunami of baby boomer retirements that would empty government offices, leaving a handful of ill-prepared Generation Xers to handle all of Uncle Sam's work. How many times have we been told that half the federal workforce and 80 percent of senior executives would soon be out the door?"

The answer clearly is "too many times." I've discussed the matter with Human Resource experts in government and here is what I would come out with as a bottom line:

• The yearly increases in retirements projected by OPM were clearly too high;


• Retirements have increased, but not as much as expected;


• Lots of speculation on the reasons for the above, but no one seems to really know;


• Regardless, certain agencies -- Friel notes the Social Security Administration, others include the Federal Aviation Administration -- and certain occupations -- Federal Times has highlighted IT and medical
  personnel -- do seem to be getting hit harder; and finally,


• Strategic planning for Human Resources is still badly needed.

I think the last bullet may be key. This is a matter that has not gotten the proper attention in government. It took the "scare" of a retirement tsunami for the Government Accountability Office to put the issue on its high-risk list and for the Office of Management and Budget to add it to the President's Management Agenda. While the tsunami has yet to break -- and perhaps as a governmentwide issue or wave, it never will -- there is still a need for strategic HR planning. The real strategic thinker will look below the surface. She or he will see where the retirements are really coming and the needs really exist.

In other areas, in certain occupations, the government may actually want to encourage departures. Such positions may no longer be needed in the same numbers as in the past. In other cases, the losses can and will be devastating. Perhaps we can put the alarmist language aside. But if we do, let's not undermine efforts to strengthen government's HR planning capacities and the need for strategic thinking there.

What say you?