On-Boarding and Retaining Staff in the Federal Government Training Workshop Best Practices and Lesson Learned

Hiring federal employees was never an easy process, and so it was especially frustrating to both line managers and HR offices when a new hire might leave after just a year or two. In today’s budget environment, with hard or soft hiring freezes, and early out and buyouts becoming ever more common, it is especially important that once a job offer has been accepted that the agency be able to retain the new hire for a reasonable period of time. With fewer people around to perform the agency’s mission, the mission can be jeopardized, or at least the work unit’s performance may be threatened, by even one ill-timed departure.  There is also the growing risk that once a position becomes vacant, the organization may lose the FTE, as the agency’s Budget Office is ever more likely to “sweep up” vacant slots to better manage FTE and their associated personnel compensation and benefits budgets across the agency.

The workshop will explore best practices in onboarding and retaining federal employees, especially in a budget constrained environment.