Establish A Niche, And Work Will Follow

Throughout government agencies, IT departments are e-mailing and calling retired civil servants and military veterans in a plea to return to work. There are ever-widening staffing shortages, thanks to an initial wave of baby boomers retiring from the federal, state and local workforce. California, in fact, has created a database dubbed "Boomerang" to hire back retired state employees. The life of an agency worker--an existence once perceived as the very definition of rigidity--is now seeing a warmer reception for concepts like flex hours and telecommuting, perks that government employers are now embracing in an attempt to keep and recruit talent.

In Missouri, it's gotten to the point where state CIO Dan Ross has created an avatar of himself so he can recruit virtually at sites like Second Life. "I'm more than 50 years old," Ross said, with a chuckle, "and here I am with this avatar, trying to convince young people to come work for us."

Ultimately, however, Ross and other IT managers at state/local/federal agencies realize that recruitment can only go so far--that the best way to close staffing gaps is by increasing IT project awards to VARs. "More outsourcing is inevitable," Ross said. "Those companies have deeper pockets than we do. They can spend more money to hire IT people. Their offices tend to be in big cities that young people like, as opposed to the smaller towns that we'd put them in."

The baby boom refers to those Americans born between 1946 and 1964. As of Jan. 1 this year, the oldest of the baby boomers became eligible to receive their first Social Security checks. Some industry insiders believe that the baby boomer retirement wave will not be as initially dramatic as certain news reports have stated, but few deny that the gradual shift will result in more outsourcing.

"The mass exodus of baby boomers is overstated," said Glenn Davidson, managing director of public sector for EquaTerra Inc., a Houston-based solution provider. "In many cases, their children are still in school. Their parents need care. There's an economy in recession--with stock losses, less equity in homes and uncertain pensions. So those eligible for retirement are remaining employed longer. But when they do retire, solution providers should be in position to benefit. Modern technology increases productivity, meaning less people are required to do the business of government."

A projected 45 percent of the federal government's IT workers will be 50 years old or older as of this year, according to Input, a Reston, Va.-based industry market-research firm. By the end of fiscal year 2010, 58 percent of supervisory and 42 percent of nonsupervisory federal government workers will be eligible to retire, Input reports. VARs that proactively assist agencies in preparing for these retirements--with respect to making sure that the remaining agency employees can capably oversee IT systems; "storing" needed IT systems knowledge via effective solution packages; and providing tech tools that enhance recruitment/training/retention methods--will be in a much better position to take advantage, according to Input.

"These types of solutions represent significant opportunity," said Deniece Peterson, a senior analyst at Input. "The retirement issue may be the motivating factor. But these are solutions that agencies will need in the long term, regardless of whether retirements happen in a flood or a trickle."

State and local agencies are feeling the same pressure. More than four out of five state CIOs indicate that they're already having problems filling vacant IT positions, according to the Lexington, Ky.-based National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). They're looking to Web 2.0 and social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace as a means of recruiting. Tennessee's IT departments and agencies are using college students as co-op workers. And Oregon has launched a program that allows employees to take college courses on state time. The state/local situation is said to be more challenging than it is for federal agencies because of recruiting dynamics, among other considerations.

"In state/local agencies, employees generally come from local communities," said Breck Marshall, a senior executive overseeing North American public service sales for Accenture, a New York-based solution provider. "In the federal space, virtually everyone in the U.S. is a 'target' employee. As a result, we've seen a trend toward states borrowing talent from agency to agency as opposed to concentrating efforts on growing the talent pool."

In Missouri, Ross used his avatar at a recent virtual job fair on Second Life and received 400 responses, and he's planning another similar effort in the summer. But, given that 60 percent of his IT workforce is eligible for retirement over the next 10 years, he realizes job recruitment won't be enough.

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