Page 61 - FCW, April 30, 2016

With nearly 2 million employees,
the federal government faces a potential workforce shortage after an expected wave of workers retire in
the next two years. Called the Silver Tsunami, the term describes the rise
in the median age of the workforce thanks to a variety of factors, including the post-World War II baby boom.
The Government Accountability Office estimates that by September 2017, about 600,000 federal employees
— accounting for 31 percent of the government workforce — will be eligible to retire. That exodus will create myriad challenges for agencies, most notably the loss of skilled workers
who must be replaced with younger, less experienced employees.
Complicating matters further, agencies must continue to compete with the private sector for talent. Federal agencies can offer employees a unique work experience and opportunities to serve the public good, but traditionally lag behind other organizations when it comes
to key benefits such as salary
and workplace conditions.
To make federal IT jobs more attractive, agencies now find themselves on the hunt for unique ways to modernize, primarily through mobile technologies tapped and coveted by younger workers in the workplace.
“You cannot hire a researcher
at the Energy Department who grew up with an iPhone and hand them a laptop running Windows XP,” says Sean Ginevan, senior director of strategy at MobileIron.
Younger employees frequently look to work with common commercial systems they use every day, whether based in
iOS, Android, Mac OS or Windows, says Yuvika Rajan, a solutions engineer at VMware AirWatch.
The BYOD Conundrum
To accommodate mobile-first employees, federal IT leaders at some agencies have crafted bring- your-own-device (BYOD) policies, allowing employees to use personal devices for professional work. In 2012, the White House released
a BYOD toolkit to help agencies implement such policies as part of the Digital Government Strategy.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission piloted a BYOD program in November 2011, which included enticements for employees to
use personal devices for work, collaborating with attorneys and the employee union to draft rules that balanced employee privacy and government security.
The results helped the agency’s
FITARA Guidance
bottom line, reducing mobile device costs by 20 percent
to 30 percent while allowing employees to use the devices they prefer in their personal lives.
“Young IT professionals demand the freedom to work on the device of their choice,” says Faisal Iqbal, the chief technology officer of public sector at Citrix. “Whether in the office or on the go, the younger generation expects to be able
to connect with people, files and workflow tools, securely, from anywhere and on any device.”
Iqbal says that attractive mobile technology goes beyond personal smartphones and BYOD policies. He chooses to look at the broader picture of mobile working, which should enable full productivity
Congress passed parts of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) as part of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. The bill provides federal CIOs more authority over IT budgets and opens the lines of communication between CIOs and other agency leaders.
Observers say it’s likely CIOs will tackle mobility investments under the new authority. Jon Johnson, program manager for enterprise mobility programs at the General Services Administration, has acknowledged that some agencies don’t have a good grasp on
their devices and data plans. At an industry conference last year, Johnson said many agencies default to purchasing unlimited plans.
Joseph Klimavicz, CIO at the Justice Department, has already moved to a mobile device management system, tapping a solution from AirWatch to adopt a common infrastructure for all department components. As FITARA continues to roll out, more CIOs are expected to tackle mobility solutions in future budgets.
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