Enabling a High-Performing Public Sector Workforce | Navigating the Pathway to a Desired Outcome

The talk of the town for a while now has been around staffing shortages. This encapsulates different industries across the globe, and the public sector is no different. In more recent years, COVID has played a big role in resulting in this outcome, and now whilst, COVID is historic news, it is still playing a role in this. With the world opening and available and accessible, the desire to travel is rising. There is a noticeable trend in people travelling overseas for a significant period of time or relocating and opting for remote work that fuels and complements their travel itineraries.  

On the other hand, work-from-home, flexible work hours, and contract roles are highlighted and are favoured in the job-seeking, interview, and acceptance processes. This coupled with the pre-conceived ideas about working in the public sector amongst a younger generation of incoming workforce, poses a challenge for public sector recruitment teams. What tools are available to them to make their organisation look attractive? What goes into their workforce planning strategy in order to ensure that they are recruiting enough roles in order to be able to fill the gaps once their older generation retires, or opts for a different work set up? 

We have heard the phrase ‘future of work’ for several years. But if there was ever a time, when we should address it, it is now. This is the future of work, and it’s here to stay. So, how can the public sector adopt and adapt? Furthermore, those organisations that house different teams that sit within and look after the organisation’s staff i.e. talent acquisition, HR, and people and culture teams, collaborate and drive effective and efficient outcomes and deliver the work at hand. 

Whilst in conversation with public sector recruitment professionals, the top four challenges that were echoed across were: