Hiring talent is only one step in actually benefitting from it

Federal agencies have gotten better at hiring specialized talent in recent years. Special hiring authorities have helped, those and intern programs. To really get the most benefit from hires, though, requires making sure they’re placed in the right jobs. My next says agencies don’t always do such a great job on that count. Long-time federal management observer Bob Tobias joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

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Interview transcript: 

Tom Temin And you’ve hit on an important point. If you hire someone that’s really good in STEM to do your artificial intelligence, just to make an absurd example, don’t put them in accounting, is what you’re saying.

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Bob Tobias I am Tom, I am. The federal government’s been having a terrible time hiring Gen Z. And the recent report from the intelligence agency said, we’re hiring and we’re hiring really, really qualified people. And woman there, Kimberly King says, quote, we’ve got more talent than we can possibly onboard. And they come in such interesting backgrounds, having done internships, cross-disciplinary programs, speaking a language, doing engineering, plus math. It’s phenomenal. Close quote. Now that’s really, really good news. But the challenging news is not much thought has gone into where they get placed. Do they have a package for regular pay progression? And then along the way in their career, do they get some upskilling opportunities? But most important are the supervisors creating an environment where these folks want to be in give their discretionary energy? There’s been little work done on any of those issues.

Tom Temin That’s a good point. That discretionary energy, and Generation Z, they often get knocked because they’re entitled and they don’t want to work hard or this or that. My experience personally with them, or at least the very, very late millennials, the very young millennials and the just newly minted to the workforce, Z people actually have a great work ethic, in my experience. And they understand the norms and requirements of corporate or organizational work, but they do need to be handled and communicated with perhaps differently than we old boomers did with one another. But if you’re sensitive to that, you get a lot out of them.

Bob Tobias That’s a fact. And so if I’m not adaptable as a supervisor, if I don’t assume it’s my responsibility to create an environment that motivates those I lead, they come and go very, very quickly. So I think that needs to be a focus. Just like I think when they get hired, instead of just slipping them into a spot and saying, well, we’ll move them around later. Later, they’re gone. They come and they lead. The IRS is experiencing that. They’re hiring a lot of people, but they’re having large turnover because they haven’t done the work of preparing supervisors to really lead these people.

Tom Temin And yet, a place like the IRS has very real and very challenging positions that could sustain someone. Their technology updates that they’re trying to get through, and have made some progress. And that’s an ongoing task. So I think the implication there too, is that the supervisors have to, and that’s not always easy to do, it’s easy to say, but have to get their nose out of the day to day grind themselves so they can have a more strategic picture of the people that they’re supervising and where those people should be headed.

Bob Tobias That’s it. I think you’ve nailed it, Tom. Supervisors have work that only they can do, and that is creating relationships with the people they lead. That can’t be delegated, it can’t be ignored. And so if they’re always doing, and not creating the relationships they need, these folks will go very, very quickly. I’ve done an exercise with students, at AU over the years and I’ve asked them, so what behavior did your boss exist when you were willing to give you a discretionary energy? Always, they had my back. They delegated authority. They trained me. They cared for me. All of these things are related to the relationship they have with the supervisor. And if they don’t do that, they leave.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Bob Tobias. He is a retired public administration professor and federal union president. And yes, well, and I think implied in all of that is the element of trusting people. And I’ve found, again, my own experience is that if you trust people, they will rise to what it is you want them to do. It’s the same thing with dealing with, say, volunteers in a volunteer situation. If you let them do what they’re there to do, they do a better job than if you worry about every detail and try to micromanage it.

Bob Tobias Exactly. If you’re looking over my shoulder all the time, I don’t like it, I don’t want it. I want you to trust me. I’ve never, ever been involved with any organization that’s in trouble and you do interviews. And the first thing people say, well, I don’t trust my boss. This is not a trustworthy environment. Trust is really the cancer in the workplace associated with dysfunction. So if the supervisor isn’t spending time creating trust with those they lead, they leave.

Tom Temin All right. And then the idea of skills that have shelf lives, that’s a little tougher to deal with because you want to keep people, the current word is upskilled or currently skilled. And sometimes training is the first thing that gets scuttled when a budget feels tight in federal agencies. And so what are some strategies for making sure that people skills are kept up to date? Because that also feels like an investment the organization is making in them if they get trained.

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Bob Tobias Exactly. And if they don’t, they leave. These highly technical jobs that the intelligence agency are hiring for are based on the most recent technology skills, but technology changes. In the private sector you work for a consulting firm, they keep those skills updated. Not often in the federal government did the skills get new skills taught as part of your career development. But you have someone who’s around for five or 6 or 7 years, their shelf life skills are gone, and they need more training. So they have 5 or 6 years with the federal government going with a consulting firm, since they were with the federal government going with the consulting firm increases their value and that’s where they go. So the federal government spends the investment for the first 5 or 6 years and then loses them.

Tom Temin And then when they go to the consultant firm, they really understand the meaning of the word eating you’re young, because that’s what happens in those big places. And would you say also to that it’s good to keep a loose grip on such people, and maybe in some ways it reflects well on your management skills and your organization. If people get so good that they’re sought after by other places.

Bob Tobias Well, yeah. If you are a supervisor where people want to come and when you have a vacancy, you have a lot of people who are internal people who apply for it. That’s a good thing. But I think it’s also a good thing, Tom, if agencies have a longer term approach to the life cycle of employees they hire, that takes planning and it takes oversight and constant work. And not many agencies are doing it or doing it well.

Tom Temin And it also makes you it makes it incumbent on you to make sure that the people you have have multiple skills, so that when someone inevitably leaves, you’re not stuck. Other people can fill in until you get that job filled.

Bob Tobias Yeah. So some people, have been doing a couple of jobs for a long time, and now some agencies have cash to hire in the past, sometimes not so much cash to hire. So there is this sort of agency imperative, I want to fill these slots before Congress changes its mind. Like now, continuing resolution for a year would wreak havoc on planning to fill vacancies in the future because they won’t be there.

Tom Temin Or just invent a program and use inflation reduction money, which is there’s billions left over there. And if you can’t get the appropriation, there’s always leftover big ticket appropriations from some of these big crises.

Bob Tobias Well, yeah, that takes congressional approval as well to switch funds for an agency to switch budgets. But the point is, how well am I planning? How well am I thinking forward, as opposed to reacting to the present?

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