MSPB: How to make the most of the retirement wave

Large numbers of federal managers and supervisors are expected to retire in the years ahead, and as they do, someone has to fill their shoes.

A new report by the Merit Systems Protection Board says that creates a real opportunity and challenge for the federal government.

Peter Leeds, the project manager and senior research analyst at MSPB, explained:

This presents the federal government with a golden opportunity to replace them with a new breed of supervisor who is better able to manage and cope in a dynamic new work environment full of new management initiatives; a changing workplace where there is more knowledge-based work and many new initiatives such as pay for performance systems and teleworking environments that require a new type of supervisor who can manage in these environments.

Leeds said not only is the workforce changing: the workplace is as well.

The federal government is moving more and more towards matrix organizations and networks of supervisors where individuals are certainly reporting to multiple supervisors and it's adding complexity to the workplace such that it has changed the knowledge, skills and abilities of the modern supervisor.

The vision of the supervisor of the future, or at least of 5 to 10 years from now, is drastically different from the present, said Leeds.

The modern supervisor is going to have to balance oversight with empowerment as they learn to deal with a knowledge based workforce that is more educated, more independent and more internally versus externally motivated, so they're going to have to bring with it a new set of skills to cope with this. Those skills will be the ability to motivate people internally, to manage remotely in telework environments, to cope with a multi-sector workforce where there are more and more contractors they're going to have to manage through intermediaries. All of this requires a new set of knowledge, skills and abilities and agencies will now have the opportunity to replace these retiring supervisors with individuals who possess this skill set.

The report also suggests "agencies should take advantage of the coming retirement wave to recruit and select qualified women and minority applicants for supervisory positions by using focused recruitment and valid assessments while following the merit principles."