Federal HR professionals face the critical challenge of helping the government attract and maintain a high-quality workforce at a time of looming retirements of large numbers of workers, but much of the HR workforce “is ill-prepared to meet this challenge,” according to the Partnership for Public Service.
It said the federal HR workforce dropped by 20 percent from 1991-1998, from 22,917 to 18,305 workers, although it has rebounded to about 20,000 today. “Significant expertise and institutional knowledge was lost and many of the anticipated advances in technology, streamlined operations and regulations never coalesced, leaving HR offices understaffed,” it said. It cited an International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR) study finding that many of those hired in recent years were administrative and clerical workers who were promoted without the needed training to be full-performance HR professionals.
It also cited a 2000 OPM survey of federal HR executives in which 94 percent indicated there was a gap between requirements and actual competencies for HR professionals.
High turnover is another problem, one that likely will continue since two-thirds of HR professionals are over 45 years old and are nearing retirement eligibility.
“Federal HR professionals have a disproportionately large impact on the rest of the federal workforce, and an investment in attracting and developing highly skilled HR employees will pay enormous dividends in improved organizational effectiveness. We must invest in the federal HR workforce today in order to have a first class federal government tomorrow,” the report said.
