Agencies urged to pitch job flexibilities to attract applicants of all ages
Research shows government is ahead of the curve on alternative work schedules, but doesn't get the word out.
The federal government should expand its use of flexible schedules and promote them more widely if it is to become a model employer for workers of all ages, workforce specialists told the Senate Special Committee on Aging on Thursday.
"Any creative and effective system to engage older workers in the federal government has to include a specific and focused effort on increasing flexibility in the workplace," said Chai Feldblum, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and co-director of Workplace Flexibility 2010, a research and advocacy group. "Workplace flexibility can't be the tagline; it has to be the headline."
Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, said the federal government's challenge was less a matter of tailoring policy to older workers than crafting policies and workplaces so that all workers would feel their work was valued and aligned with a strong mission. He noted that in the Partnership's 2007 Best Places to Work survey, agencies that showed satisfaction gaps between workers younger and older than 40 revealed cultural issues, rather than policies or programs that needed to be changed.
Nancy Kichak, associate director of strategic human resources policy at the Office of Personnel Management, said OPM has taken steps to require agencies to consider flexibilities more carefully. Among other things, agencies must evaluate their job postings using the Career Patterns initiative to see whether those jobs can be done by teleworkers or handled part time, and must make those flexibilities clear to applicants.
But Barbara Bovbjerg, director of education, workforce and income security issues at the Government Accountability Office, said OPM could do more to help agencies share best practices for implementing workforce flexibilities such as telework and alternative work schedules.
"Agencies, with OPM's help, must plan better, take advantage of flexibilities already available to them, and share information on promising practices," Bovbjerg said. "These practices can help make the federal government a model employer for all demographic groups."
Feldblum said that while the federal government is ahead of the private sector in implementing certain flexibilities like telework or alternate work schedules, government isn't a model because it has done a poor job advertising its own efforts.
"I don't think you are yet [a model] in a way that the American public understands," Feldblum said. "I don't think it's marketed well. I think there is significant potential, it is not being leveraged yet in the way that it could be."