EXECUTIVE FORUMS

As part of our mission of advancing the science of government management, we assemble senior government leaders and their peer experts in academia and industry, holding several special roundtable sessions each year called "Executive Forums." These small, private gatherings are designed to engage high-level executives in topics encompassing emerging or perennial issues facing government. By invitation only, these senior executive events provide a rare opportunity for leading minds to share best practices, case histories, and new thinking.

The LMI Research Institute’s latest Executive Forum was on " Building an Acquisition Workforce: Integrating Requirements and Resources with Contracting." Senior managers from federal agencies, the academic community, and private industry discussed the benefits and challenges facing the federal acquisition workforce. The intent was not to identify solutions, but to exchange ideas on lessons learned and priorities for the future. Two guest speakers, a university professor who does research in this field and a senior executive in the federal government, began the discussion with their own observations on the requirements and resources needed to build a viable federal acquisition workforce.

Forum participants began by defining the challenges that face the federal acquisition workforce. They identified many issues, including the shortage of employees in the face of the looming retirement wave and the lack of public-service interest in the younger generation. 

The group acknowledged that the business model of the acquisition workforce is changing and requires a different skill set. The trend for the new generation of employees hired by the government is to take the skill sets they acquire from training and move to a more attractive place of employment. The biggest challenge facing the acquisition workforce is aligning the two issues of recruitment and retention in the face of a new administration. As a result, attracting and retaining a viable acquisition workforce is a difficult challenge:

1. A discord exists between senior managers and the younger workforce. The former resent the latter ’s lack of investment.
2. The upcoming workforce does not see government pay scales as competitive enough to invest more than minimum time and effort. 

The lack of leadership at civilian agencies—which are not accountable for performance outcomes—adds to this challenge. Because of this situation, younger employees can continue to cruise through government agencies with no governance.

The forum group concluded by discussing options and highlighting best practices for attracting and retaining employees with the skill sets necessary to keep the acquisition workforce competitive. The group agreed that the focus should not be cost and numbers, but the human capital crisis facing the acquisition workforce. The forum recognized the key steps in recruiting and retaining a viable acquisition workforce as follows:

• Develop a rewarding compensation system based on performance.
• Treat the acquisition workforce as a community by developing budgets for recruitment and training.
• Increase accountability of program managers and senior managers for performance-related issues.
• Increase funding and prevalence of internship programs.
• Identify the needs of the younger workforce and make public-sector work more attractive to them.

An article summarizing insights gained from the discussion will be published in the spring issue of The Public Manager, a leading quarterly journal sponsored by the LMI Research Institute and dedicated to practical solutions for government managers. Additional articles summarizing prior Executive Forum discussions are also available for review.

The next Executive Forum, in spring 2008, will highlight issues facing senior managers working with healthcare policy.

If you would like to recommend a speaker, topic, or attendee for an Executive Forum, please contact the Director, LMI Research Institute, by e-mail.