Federal News Radio recently surveyed Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) to discuss the current budget situation and the resulting challenges for agencies. The anonymous survey was distributed to 47 CHCOs over the summer of 2012. According to the responses they received, CHCOs are currently facing several problems, ranging from recruiting new talent to retaining the talent that they have.
Workforce morale challenges were universal across all of the CHCOs surveyed. According to the survey, 41 percent of the responders claimed that the current federal pay freeze and proposed employee benefit cuts were making it harder to recruit and retain talented employees. It was generally accepted by all responders that budget cuts had impacted morale and retention at some level.
This is troublesome for federal agencies for many reasons. As employees get disenfranchised and leave, hiring freezes and recruitment issues make it difficult to replace them. This results in other government employees having to step up and shoulder a larger portion of the load, or the mission doesn’t get accomplished.
With the fiscal cliff looming and government spending expected to either stay stable or decline across all agencies, the salaries of federal workers could remain stagnant for the foreseeable future. When the allure of public service and making a difference begins to fade in the face of pay freezes, federal employees need something else to keep them satisfied in their jobs and keep morale high.
Telepresence solutions could be the answer.
The adoption of telepresence solutions in federal agencies opens the door to fringe benefits and flexibility that previously were unavailable, such as telework.
The flexibility afforded by telework is proven to help improve work-life balance and make employees more productive. In addition, telework helps to cut commute times, which can give federal employees hours back in their day that they would normally lose stuck on a train or behind the wheel of a car. This can drastically increase morale of employees, and even serve as a benefit that can be used when recruiting new talent.
Telework fueled by telepresence solutions can also help to offset pay freezes by delivering efficiencies and savings to federal employees. Teleworking employees may fill their vehicle up one or two times less a month, or spend less on train or bus tickets. They may also spend less on food, coffee and other minor expenses each day. Individually, these little savings may seem insignificant, but over time they can put quite a bit of money back into the wallets of federal employees.
But despite these benefits to morale and mandates to increase workplace flexibility, some agencies have been slow to adopt telework for their employees. One of the most cited reasons for this is managerial concern that they’ll loose the ability to effectively collaborate, communicate and manage employees outside of the office.
Telepresence solutions help agencies overcome these obstacles and make telework a reality. Telepresence enables managers at federal agencies to have face-to-face interaction with their employees. This ensures that communication and collaboration between managers and their employees isn’t diminished because they aren’t in the same location.
And the ability to enable telework and flexibility is just one benefit that telepresence solutions have on workplace morale. Telepresence solutions allow federal workers to attend the events and conferences that they wanted to attend before travel budgets were cut. They can even provide professional development and educational opportunities by allowing federal employees to attend via video from their office or home.
Finally, should employees leave and further strain the already strapped federal workforce, telepresence solutions can increase productivity and make employees more efficient. Telepresence meetings reduce time wasted while traveling. They also allow more spontaneous and rapid interaction between employees, as well as improved information sharing.
CHCOs may be feeling the sting of penny pinching in federal budgets, but pay freezes don’t have to be a reason for recruitment and retention problems at agencies. By embracing telepresence solutions, employee morale can be bolstered with telework, professional development and workplace flexibility.