With the rise of AI, workforce planning is critical. But many governments don’t do it.

Long-term workforce planning is a crucial management tool, and with the advent of generative AI, there could hardly be a more propitious moment to deploy it.

In fact, a working paper by OpenAI, OpenResearch and the University of Pennsylvania last year predicted that 80% of jobs in both the public and private sector would likely undergo some change due to the emerging technology.

As one state human resources official told us, “We don’t have a grasp on how artificial intelligence is going to affect our workforce. So, I think we need to do a better job staying on top of these trends.”

But, like many beneficial initiatives in state and local government, workforce planning has never come close to achieving its full potential. In the past, there have been times when its use has gained traction, though it’s never come close to being a widespread effort. In recent times, it’s been especially far from the top of many governments’ to-do lists.

Distractions that were present in past times multiplied during the pandemic. “During COVID, I think everybody was scrambling just to fill positions,” says Jason Swarthout, Pennsylvania’s acting deputy secretary for Human Resources and Management. “It was all reactive mode. Workforce planning when it was probably most critical, probably took a dip because everyone was scrambling just to fill positions.”

What’s more, daily workforce challenges, the decentralized nature of many government organizations, competing priorities and limited resources tend to squeeze out the capacity for long-term strategic thinking.

The challenge is clear: We need to know “what we have now, what we need in the future and how to close the gap,” says Bob Lavigna, a public sector HR expert who spent many years heading up Wisconsin Civil Service and later directed human resources for the University of Wisconsin.

Barriers to Progress

But there are a lot of impediments to getting there.

Consider Oregon, where a February audit critiqued the state’s lack of a “clear, consistent or comprehensive approach to identify what the state government needs to do to support the workforce and ensure it has the skills required to meet present and future obligations.”

That audit also revealed planning deficiencies nationwide. A website search conducted by Oregon auditors found that only 7 out of 50 states require workforce planning via policy, rule or statute. Only 16 states had a workforce planning webpage or statewide HR planning staff, only 17 had a statewide workforce plan and just 20 provided a planning guide for agencies.

Inconsistent resources are just one impediment. “Many states feel they don’t have the resources to do it, in the way they want,” says Leslie Scott, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives.

Other problems mentioned by state managers include short and busy legislative sessions that make it difficult to get answers for needed system change; in heavily unionized states, bargaining schedules also make timely changes in job descriptions, compensation shifts, or training needs difficult to move on speedily.

Additionally, for elected and appointed officials whose eyes are on the next election and not on the longer-term future, providing resources for future planning may not be a top priority. “I think it’s political will. Do our elected leaders care about what’s going to happen five or 10 years from now? Typically not. They care about how they’re going to get reelected next time,” says Lavigna.

Workforce planning for states is particularly difficult when HR management is decentralized. As the Oregon audit explained, the state’s structure has resulted in a “fragmented approach” that interferes with “the holistic flow of information.” This frustration is one that is frequently expressed by HR managers in other states, and in local governments as well.

“It’s a structural issue because departments frequently operate independently,” says Lavigna, who is now a senior fellow with UKG, a private technology company that works with states on a variety of HR management issues.

In contrast, a more centralized structure can help deliver workforce planning goals more successfully. Pennsylvania has a hybrid approach with HR directors reporting to the central office, but working closely with their customer agencies, where they can be knowledgeable and attuned to the very different needs in corrections, transportation or economic development.

Still, the agencies are in close contact with the HR office within the Office of Administration. Does that help them move in the same direction? “Yes. It absolutely does,” says Neil Weaver, secretary of administration. “We are constantly in conversations with the people in the agencies—getting everyone in the same boat to move forward.”

One other major advantage of Pennsylvania’s approach is its centralized and standardized data—a crucial element for guiding workforce planning. “We have one source for the truth of what our workforce looks like,” says Swarthout. “We have dashboards that are controlled centrally and that each of the agencies can use to look at their demographics and put a plan together of what they want to do.”

Elusive Solutions

Based largely on its document search, the Oregon audit points to a handful of states that auditors believe have particularly strong workforce planning processes. But two HR officials in the states named were as inclined to talk about their shortcomings as their successes.

While the Louisiana Department of Civil Service helps agencies by tracking turnover and retirement data and has been working on the development of employee competency or skill data, Byron Decoteau, state civil service director in Louisiana, sees a lot of room for improvement. He says Louisiana’s last statewide workforce planning survey was in 2016. The object of that survey was to identify key positions that might be vacated in the next couple of months and the critical competencies needed for those positions. “But I didn’t feel it was very representative of the entire executive branch because we didn’t get a lot of responses.”

He also feels that more should be done to track the workforce trends that states will face in upcoming years.

Michaela Doelman, chief human resources officer in Washington state, is also reluctant to characterize Washington as a leader in this area. While the Human Resources Division of the Office of Financial Management puts out reams of workforce planning information, it’s up to agencies to actually follow through. As she says, “Some departments—like transportation—are heavily involved in their own workforce planning efforts, but others don’t have the resources or time.”

Another of Doelman’s concerns is the all-encompassing and yet somewhat vague sense of what workforce planning is. Currently, the strategies and objectives on her workforce planning website are largely geared to short-term change—the need to track and plan for retirements and to develop succession plans to fill leadership positions that are opening up.

Doelman is hoping that an upcoming new enterprise planning system, and new efforts to develop employee skill and competency data, will help. But currently, disparate technology approaches inhibit efforts to standardize and share data. “Our systems don’t talk to each other,” says Doelman. “We can’t make a unified case to the legislature to invest in our workforce if we don’t have statewide data to show.”