Digital Workspace

A More Flexible Federal Workforce Will Stay on the Job Longer

Modern, portable technology encourages employees to make government work a career.

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Ryan Petersen has worked in publishing for more than two decades, most of it spent creating award-winning content and strategy for CDW’s family of tech magazine brands. As editor-in-chief, he works with his team to develop compelling and useful industry-focused stories to share with the technology world. Outside of work, Ryan enjoys spending time with his children, traveling, online gaming, and following Iowa Hawkeye sports and Cubs baseball.

Today’s federal employees go where the work takes them. Portable technology lets them stick to deadlines in the comfort of their own homes, and they’re able to conduct research in outer space.

The government is leveraging this new flexibility, hoping to attract new IT employees who might have chosen the private sector, with its larger paychecks and infamously fun perks. For some, the chance to serve is a major attraction.

That incentive becomes stronger as agencies adapt to what modern workers demand. As noted in “The Modern Workforce Insight Report” by CDW, workers are using technology to make their jobs simpler and more efficient and, in the process, become better able to respond to customers.

Technology that allows both employees and customers to fill out fewer forms, jump through fewer hoops to get information and achieve goals faster is slowly making its way into the federal system, boosting morale for workers used to running legacy equipment.

Agencies Use Tech to Help Feds Work More Efficiently

Data analytics tools, such as those discussed in “Feds Embrace Data Visualization to Analyze Complex Information,” create new ways to examine information so that employees can see formerly invisible patterns and, from them, find better ways to do their job. The videoconferencing technologies described in “Agencies Reach Outside the Beltway Through Video,” provide ways for workers to reach out to customers who can’t get to a physical office.

Agencies are eagerly pursuing these new solutions, not only to work better and more efficiently, not just to improve the relationship with their primary customers, but also to keep talented workers in-house once they’re hired. More than one-third of government cybersecurity positions are open at any given time — slightly more than in the private sector — according to CyberSeek, an online provider of interactive job search tools and employment data.

The ability to connect with other agencies and with customers in creative ways may give federal cyberworkers a reason to stay on for the long run. The push to innovate and modernize, supported by the President’s Management Agenda, is also an impetus for those workers to stay.

Upgrading technology provides benefits beyond efficient workflow. It gives workers the flexibility to do what they need to do, wherever they need to do it, and creates an atmosphere that encourages them to stay.