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PLANNING FOR SUCCESS: HOW FEDERAL AGENCIES CAN SOLVE SUCCESSION CHALLENGES

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The federal workforce is in transition. With more than one third of its employees eligible for retirement by 2017, maintaining an effective workforce amid great turnover will be among agencies’ highest priorities. In order to achieve their missions, agencies must run smoothly through this workforce transition—but doing so requires understanding that succession planning is not as simple as doling out retirement packages and hiring new workers. “The government has to start looking at workforce planning more seriously and more holistically than it has in the past,” said Miranda Ashby, Senior Director of Federal Sales at Cornerstone OnDemand. “And they need to especially look at how they’re recruiting the younger generation of workforce. It’s not just that the older generation is leaving—it’s that they’re having such difficulty attracting the right talent on the other end of the funnel as well.” Attracting younger employees is critical to the maintenance of a healthy workforce because millennials are posed to represent 50 percent of the workforce by 2020. Workforce modernization hinges on the ability to attract bright, talented and engaged millennials with skillsets suited to each particular agency. Without doing so, agencies will not be equipped to adapt to the impending brain drain, nor will they be able to manage the tasks that need to be done in order to make mission. Yet, across the board, federal agencies have had trouble recruiting the younger generation.

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The problem is two-fold—the combination of a lengthy, formalized recruitment process and a PR problem. The recruitment process is bureaucratic and difficult to engage with. Countless reports show that even those actively interested in federal careers end up having accepted offers in the private sector by the time they receive a federal offer. “We need to streamline the recruitment process so that it reflects more of a modern approach and allows agencies to be competitive with their private-sector counterparts,” Ashby said. “And then I also think there’s some PR work that needs to be done. Millennials want to make a difference. They want to know that their work matters. If you think about it, the things that people are doing in the federal workforce change lives and have an impact—not just domestically but on the world. Somehow they need to better package that, promote that and create an easier entryway so that more people can get involved in the federal government workforce.”

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To face these challenges head-on, agencies need to adopt a new outlook on succession planning. First, they need to radically embrace millennials, and this means modernizing the workplace to incorporate new technology, learning opportunities and real-time feedback. By making the office a place of innovation, agencies will greatly improve their chances of attracting passionate, highly skilled, top-notch talent who can propel the agency through this time of transition. Next, agencies need to reevaluate the manner in which they go about the workforce transition. Succession planning is critical at all agency levels—not just for top leadership—and success hinges on developing new leaders from the moment they enter the federal workforce. This can be achieved by having the entire agency share the responsibility for succession planning. While agency leadership might have a broad idea of the talent landscape, it is the top- and middle-tier that have the power to truly identify star employees and those with leadership potential. Distributing succession responsibility across the agency empowers federal employees to seek their own learning opportunities, which in turn creates more leaders to recruit from. Moreover, it is critical to understand that much leadership training happens on the job—not only through formal training. By offering development opportunities—even those as simple as mentoring or shadowing—at all career stages, federal employees will be more equipped to address today’s succession challenges. And by taking pains to record the knowledge of existing management,

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incoming leaders will have the knowledge necessary to transition seamlessly to their new roles. Finally, agencies can greatly benefit from implementing unified talent management systems that help streamline HR processes and eliminate existing data silos. When information on recruiting, onboarding, learning and development, performance management, compensation and succession planning are all separated from each other, it’s very difficult for agencies to get the big picture. “Separation and silos make it extraordinarily difficult to get a holistic view of the things that are required to be successful,” Ashby said. “Agencies have to start breaking down those silos. I think that process integration is probably the single most important thing that any of the agencies can be working towards.” Solutions like those provided by Cornerstone OnDemand can help agencies on the path to rigorous succession planning and workforce recruitment by bringing all these disparate processes together on a single, easy-to-use platform. The combination of data integration with an intuitive interface allows agency leaders and HR experts to easily navigate and compile information across multiple workforce stages—from recruitment to retirement and everything in between. An integrated system makes it easier to gauge performance and identify everything from skill gaps to those with high potential, facilitating a new style of succession planning. By making incremental steps towards complete integration, Cornerstone’s software has the power to provide more efficient, effective and streamlined solutions. With the data onboard, agencies won’t have to worry about logistics. They can focus on preparing their new talent for a successful future.

33% OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR RETIREMENT BY 2017