Long-standing challenges in federal personnel management lie ahead for the Trump administration in its efforts to restructure the government, a report from the Partnership for Public Service says.
These include for example skills gaps identified by GAO and others in mission-critical fields such as cybersecurity, contracting and the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
“The Trump administration also may find these skill gaps magnified as members of the baby boom generation continue to retire in large numbers, a phenomenon that coincides with the government’s difficulty in attracting members of the millennial generation to public service,” it said.
One idea raised in the report was to rely more on short-term employees, following the model of some research-oriented agencies, the U.S. Digital Service and GSA’s 18F program that use term appointments to bring in top talent to work on specialized projects.
The report also warned that agencies “will have to work on keeping morale high and assisting their employees in continuing to accomplish their agencies’ important goals. That means keeping employees engaged in their agencies’ missions and communicating and guiding the career workforce through changes as they occur … without a successful change-management strategy involving career employees at every level, federal workers could become disengaged and might leave.”
