Local Governments Face Talent Management, Retirement Challenges
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An assistant city manager in the Bay Area suggests placing a “greater emphasis on cultivating talent and helping it flourish.”
The silver tsunami—it’s a term that is a looming cause for concern within local governments. Retirements are an inevitability in any organization, including those in the local public sector. And recruitment and retention can be a challenge, too, especially since opportunities in the private sector often come with higher salaries.
This spring, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers released its 2015 IT workforce study, which illustrated the various challenges to attract and retain top IT talent. During NASCIO’s mid-year meeting a few weeks ago in Alexandria, Virginia, workforce and talent development challenges were discussed in depth.
There’s “thousands of years of experience walking out the door” in state government IT shops around the nation, Jim Smith, the chief information officer for the state of Maine, said during one panel discussion.
Going from the state level to the local level, thousands of years of experience is also walking out the doors of plenty of city halls and other local government administration buildings around the country, either through retirements or public sector workers finding more enticing professional opportunities elsewhere.
Matt Bronson, the assistant city manager in San Mateo, California, recently participated in a 360 Review Q&A interview feature with Emerging Local Government Leaders and discussed a wide range of local government topics.
Route Fifty wanted to spotlight two specific passages from Bronson’s ELGL interview related to workforce development and challenges of attracting and retaining top talent.
Citing talent management as one of three areas where local governments need improvement:
Talent management needs to be a greater area of focus. Local government needs to place greater emphasis on cultivating talent and helping it flourish to develop future leaders and help the organization. A related area is changing organizational culture and systems to reflect today’s needs. Most organizations still function under an old model of top-down, command-and-control management. Organizations need to change to be more adaptive, collaborative, and focused on performance and results. This involves both changing an organization’s culture and the systems, structure, and processes to make this sustainable. This type of organization can work not only for the younger generations coming into the workforce, but also for other generations in providing a better work environment to serve the public.
And on preparing a local government organization for a retirement wave:
Local government is preparing for this ongoing wave though more work is needed given the rapid pace of retirements. Over the next five years, nearly the entire Executive Team in my organization will likely turnover after a long period of stability. We need to accelerate leadership development programs and reach all levels of the organization not just those at the top. We also need to create programs such as internal and external rotation programs such as San Mateo County’s Management Talent Exchange Program to provide experience in different areas of local government. Lastly, we need to realize that our future leaders will likely not stay for as long as previous generations and thus we need to build an even deeper talent bench.
Read Bronson’s full ELGL 360 Review interview here.
(Photo shoot trekandshoot / Shutterstock.com)
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