In the past, most local — defined as state, municipality or province — government organisations believed that their talent management strategies were effective and that they had a solid understanding of current and future needed skills. In our original survey, almost half reported struggling to compete for talent with their private sector counterparts, and a similar picture existed within national governments.
However, various studies report that 70–95% of the public sector is experiencing a crisis in talent retention and acquisition. Innovation in talent retention and recruitment strategies is needed for the successful future of the public sector.
This challenge is not new, but it has risen to a new level. Every two years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) releases a high-risk list of federal operations in need of transformation. Strategic human capital management has appeared on this list since 2001; in 2021, it was flagged as an area that has become worse. The GAO’s assessment stems from government’s inability to hire and retain individuals in critical fields, including cybersecurity, enforcement of tax laws and management of IT acquisitions.1
The world health crisis that occurred in the early 2020s accelerated and emphasised prior findings showing that for governments to meet the demands of politicians, citizens, businesses and other constituents within increasingly diverse urban communities, they must simultaneously meet the ongoing challenge of ‘doing more with less’ and address four key areas. They must actively pursue the transformation of public services and enable the necessary technology to support this objective while responding to increasing public demand for government transparency. To meet these challenges, it was indicated that governments must also contend with the difficulty of recruiting, developing and retaining talent in an increasingly competitive market. Transformation, technology and transparency remain key areas of focus for the public sector, and talent is the critical area of focus.___________________________________________________________________________________________1 ‘Government can win the talent race – Here’s how’, Deloitte, 23 May 2022.
Future of Finance: Government Series
The 2014 CGMA® report, Managing local government performance – Transparency, technology, talent and transformation, outlined a new role for finance in helping local authority leaders address key performance management challenges.
In this new series, we revisit key topic areas, generating new insights for government finance professionals.