State, local governments trying new strategies to fill workforce gaps, report shows

Governments have been experimenting with a range of initiatives to fill open positions, including marketing campaigns, hiring bonuses, pay boosts and modifications to job requirements — and they’re seeing results, according to a report published Tuesday by the MissionSquare Research Institute.

The annual report, which includes contributions from the National Association of State Personnel Executives and the Public Sector HR Association, centers on recruitment, retention, compensation, organizational structure and other priorities. The study, which surveyed 300 state and local government human resources employees, found that about 21% of government organizations reported full-time staffing increases of 5% or more, while only 2% reported decreases.

“The data indicate that state and local governments are making real progress when it comes to addressing their workforce shortages,” said Gerald Young, a senior research analyst at the MissionSquare Research Institute.

Young told StateScoop that the biggest challenge to filling gaps in the public sector workforce is competing with what the private sector can offer, especially when it comes to salary. Seventy-three percent of respondents considered their total compensation competitive, but only 60% called their wages competitive. As a result, 53% of government organizations have implemented broad-based pay increases in the past year.

“The public sector work through a budget process,” Young said of the fine line governments walk. “They don’t want to raise the pay for one position to the point where there’s not a career ladder, but also want make sure that they are competitive with, but not overpaying for, the labor they’re trying to attract.”

Targeted bonuses

The COVID-19 pandemic, Young said, led to significant decreases in staffing, similar to the economic downturn in 2008. However, the survey found that state and local governments were able to replenish their workforces to pre-pandemic levels faster than due to a new set of recruitment strategies.

One strategy is hiring bonuses.

“We were starting to see [more bonuses] in the last year or two, and either doing that across the board or more commonly targeting that to specific types of positions that they were having the most trouble rooting for,” Young said.

He said there’s a correlation between urgent vacancies, such as public safety or health care positions, and the amount of hiring bonuses offered.

The survey found that only 4% of public sector organizations offered bonuses broadly while 33% offered more targeted bonuses.

Another common strategy is diversifying job outreach. Young said governments have been expanding their efforts beyond “the tried and true methods of placing an ad or hosting a job fair.”

“Reaching out to individual neighborhoods in the community and trying to bring in people who already live in the community, perhaps out of a desire to be of service to the community in which they live, work, play, et cetera,” Young said, adding social media and video marketing campaigns to the list.

Succession

The report shows that more than half of the respondents have dropped some form of education degree requirements, with 8% eliminating them for more than 10% of budget-authorized positions.

“Though this is the first year we’ve collected this type of information on it,” Young said of degree requirements, “they are seeing more candidates apply for the positions, which is definitely a positive for them.”

The next challenge for state and local government leaders, the report predicts, will be ensuring they have enough workers to fill the vacancies left as older employees retire.

The survey found that 54% of respondents expect the largest wave of retirements to occur in the next few years, forcing human resources departments to develop formal succession planning processes.

“Succession planning and career development are such important priorities that they are paying very close attention to those issues and encouraging the development of more junior staff so if there is a gap in the more senior levels of the organization that there are candidates who can move up to fill those spots,” Young said.