State Workforce Expects Tech-Savvy Environment

One of the subtle challenges facing the state of Texas is a tech-savvy workforce that moves between the private and public sectors, has high expectations of technology use and has more constituents than in past decades.

Multiple state IT leaders have discussed the state’s employee shortage in the past three years, including the Department of Information Resources people and culture officer and the former Health and Human Services CIO.

The shortage has been largely attributed to salary and benefits, according to the 2023 Report on the Texas State Employee Workforce, but there are also subtle challenges within IT such as failed end-user expectations and remote working opportunities elsewhere.

Workforce numbers have dropped by about 5 percent in as many years, according to the report. There were 137,114 state employees in 2023, which was 7,879 fewer than in 2019.

A 140,000 average has been steady for 30 years, according to the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS) executive director.

“This is from the state workforce perspective. We have about the same number of state employees today as we had in 1993,” said Porter Wilson recently. “We’ve seen slight increases and slight decreases, but generally, the state workforce since 1993 has been at around 140,000.”

Wilson spoke during the Texas Association for Strategic Solutions and Collaboration in Computing conference earlier this month. He surmised during an executive panel discussion that the traditional state employee no longer comes in at 25 and retires at 55, but rather works between the private and public sectors throughout, and that the government is competing not only with higher salaries and benefits but newer tech tools.

Takeaways:

• Bring state technology in line with private-sector tech
• Allow employees to grow and use their skills
• Be mindful that agencies need to do more as the population grows

One presenter in another session reminded the audience that many public-sector employees — especially those aged 40 or younger — in large part had experience with no- to low-code programming or were introduced to programming as early as elementary school.

Wilson has been with ERS for almost 10 years, and his expertise is in pensions, health care, finance and related policy. He said he looks to his IT team to lead the agency to more efficient ways to serve constituents and also to empower 436 full-time employees.

“We need an internal mission to make sure that our team inside has the tools that they need to be able to take your calls, to help you retire, to answer your questions, to help you access your health insurance easily,” he said.