Information Technology Workers in the Federal Service

• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X05275509
• Published date: 01 September 2005
• Date: 01 September 2005
• Author: Gregory B. Lewis,Zhenhua Hu
• Subject Matter: Articles

10.1177/0734371X05275509

REVIEWOFPUBLICPERSONNELADMINISTRATION/Sept.2005

Lewis,Hu/ITWORKERS IN THE FEDERALSERVICE

Information Technology Workers

in the Federal Service

More Than a Quiet Crisis?

GREGORY B. LEWIS

Georgia State University

ZHENHUA HU

Georgia State University

Georgia Institute of Thechnology

Does the federal service face more serious problems in recruiting, motivating, and

retaining high-quality information technology (IT) profess ionals and adminis-

trators (PAs) than it does other PAs? Using a 1% sample of federal personnel

records for 1976-2003, we comparethe turnover rates, qualifications, andper-

formance ratings of federal IT and other PAs and examine the flexibility of the

federal service to raise IT pay in a tight labor market. Federal IT workers donot

have ideal qualifications; however, their performance ratings are as highand

their turnover rates are as low as other PAs, perhaps because the federal service

hires IT PAs at higher grade levels, promotes them faster, and pays them more

than other comparably educated and experienced PAs.

Keywords: IT employees; turnover rate; performance; federal service

Reports of information technology (IT) labor shortages economy-wide

combined with continuing concerns about a “quiet crisis” in recruiting,

motivating, and retaining high-quality federal workers (Levine & Kleeman,

1986) create worries of a “perfectstorm” brewing for the federal IT workforce.

The National Academyof Public Administration (NAPA, 2001) projects that

the federal service will lose one half its IT professionals to retirement during

the next decade, while its needs grow by one fourth. NAPA worries that the

combination of rapidly expanding demand in the private sector and a federal-

private pay gap as high as 16% in the IT field will leave the federal government

207

Authors’ Note:We are grateful to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for providing

the 1% sample of the Central Personnel Data Fileand to the Andrew Young School of Pol-

icy Studies of Georgia State University for funding purchase of the data.

Review of Public Personnel Administration,Vol. 25, No. 3 September 2005 207-224

DOI: 10.1177/0734371X05275509

© 2005 Sage Publications

unable to hire the number and quality of IT professionals it needs to manage

its $150 billion IT investment effectively. NAPA recommends a major over-

haul of federal human resource management to allow more flexible, market-

based pay geared more to individual performance than to internal equity. As

part of its strategy to address such problems, the U.S. Office of Personnel

Management (OPM) established special salary rates for IT workers to

increase their net pay by 7% to 33% (LaChance, 2000).

Empirical research casting doubt on the seriousness of the quiet crisis of

the federal service, however,sug gests the need to investigate howseriou sthe

federal government’s IT labor problem is and whether it differs in degree

from the general human resource challenges the government faces. Using a

1% sample of federal personnel records for 1976-2003, we compared fed-

eral IT professionals and administrators (PAs) and other PAs to determine

whether IT turnover rates are higher, whether IT PAsare less qualified and

perform less well, whether the qualifications and performance gap has wid-

ened over time, and whether the federal service has been flexible enough to

raise pay for IT employees in this tight labor market.

Our conclusion is that the federal service hires people with IT skills at

higher grade levels, promotes them faster, and pays them more than other

comparably educated and experienced PAs.Although federal IT workers do

not have ideal qualifications and appear to be less educated than other PAs,

their qualifications have increased slowly during the past 2 decades, at

about the same rate as other PAs. Their performance ratings are as high and

their turnover rates as low as other federal PAs.

THE QUIET CRISIS IN THE FEDERAL SERVICE

AND THE IT WORKFORCE

Levine and Kleeman (1986) argued that by the mid-1980s knowledge-

able observers recognized a quiet crisis of “quality, morale, and effectiveness

[in] the federal civil service” (p. 200). Volcker (1987) concluded that “the

federalgovernment...isincreasinglyunabletoattract,retain,andmoti-

vate the kinds of people it will need to do the essential work of the republic”

(n.p.), and the National Commission on the Public Ser vice (1989) he

headed noted “a widespread sense that the overall quality of federal entry-

level employees is declining”(p. 127). A recent “flurry of serious studies...

regarding an even more widely perceived inadequacy of government agen-

cies in recruiting, retaining, compensating, and motivating the nation’s

public service” led Lane, Wolf, and Woodard (2003, p. 124) to conclude

208 REVIEW OF PUBLIC PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION / Sept.2005