New NASCIO Survey Details State Government IT Challenges
m00osfoto / Shutterstock.com
Private sector opportunities pay more, making it difficult for states to attract and retain top workforce talent.
With cybersecurity as one of the critical duties for the nation’s state chief information officers, there is one big problem they all share in their mission to protect state IT assets: attracting and retaining the personnel talent they need.
According to a National Association of State Chief Information Officers workforce survey released Thursday, nearly 92 percent of the states indicate that salary rates and pay-grade structures are human resources obstacles that make it difficult to hire new employees and retain the staff they have.
Eighty-six percent of states reported difficulties in recruitment to fill vacancies.
And 46 percent reported that it can take between three and five months to fill senior-level IT positions.
Those were some of the key takeaways from NASCIO’s 2015 IT workforce survey of 49 CIO’s from U.S. states and territories.
According to the survey:
A major concern for state CIOs continues to be the significant number of state IT employees who are eligible for retirement or have been eligible, but postponed retirement due to the economic downturn. ...
As more baby boomers reach retirement status, knowledge management and succession planning have become critical for state CIOs to consider. At the same time, recruiting and retaining younger employees pose unique challenges and opportunities for states to align new priorities.
Adding to the challenge for state governments: IT opportunities in the private sector often pay more.
A 2014 joint state cybersecurity survey by NASCIO and Deloitte Consulting underscored this tough budgetary reality: “Private sector opportunities and salaries are traditionally better than those offered by government. Not surprisingly, state [chief information security officers] are struggling to recruit and retain people with the right skills, and they will need to establish career growth paths and find creative ways to build their cybersecurity teams.”
Read NASCIO’s full report here.
