‘Finding unicorns’: US cities navigate IT workforce shortages

US cities are having to be flexible and creative to overcome workforce challenges, particularly for IT and technology-related roles.

Local governments face a perfect staffing storm following the pandemic-related ‘great resignation’, an increase in projects spurred by the influx of federal funding, and the public sector’s inability to compete with private firms on pay.

A Deloitte survey published earlier this year found that government and private sector leaders ranked talent and expertise shortages as the biggest obstacle to implementing infrastructure projects over the next three years.

As the Future of United States infrastructure report noted, today’s infrastructure projects require skills beyond construction to include internet services, data analytics and more. Technologies expected to have the largest impact on infrastructure include artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cybersecurity tools, as well as the Internet of Things and sensors.

At the recent Cities Today Institute City Leadership Forum in Dallas, several US Chief Information and Innovation Officers cited challenges with attracting applicants for open positions, retaining talented team members, and managing surges in staffing requirements. Many are adapting to keep projects moving.

Skills mix

Joan Sheffer, Deputy Director of Civic Information and Technology at Louisville Metro Government, Kentucky, said it is a challenge finding people with both the right technical and soft skills.

“Often, we feel like we’re looking for a unicorn – someone with a rare, seemingly mythical, combination of skills,” she commented.

“And what we sometimes find is that actually soft skills are more innate so if you hire someone with the aptitude, you can give them the technical training.”

However, she added: “So many of our IT positions are highly technical and there’s only so much in-house training you can provide.”

In practice, this means: “We’re flexible but we try to hold out for the right fit, as opposed to just getting a warm body in the seat,” said Sheffer.

Diversity

Louisville’s IT department supports 28 government agencies and a wide range of hardware and software.  It tries to promote staff internally wherever possible.

“You get the benefit of employees with institutional knowledge, and it helps you keep good people,” commented Sheffer.

She said the department has a low staff turnover rate. Other retention strategies in Louisville include allowing flexible and remote work. Some cities reported that their leadership discourages or doesn’t allow telework, making it even harder to compete in the battle for talent.

“We still realise the benefits of engaging face to face with each other as well as our customers,” said Sheffer. “So we try to do fun things to encourage people back to the office, but we don’t force them.”

This has included allowing people to sometimes bring their dogs to work and having an ‘open door’ policy that encourages interaction and relationship building.

Another issue compounding skills challenges is diversity, with women being typically under-represented in IT teams.

“It’s something that I’ve always been concerned about and when we do have open positions, we rarely have women apply,” said Sheffer.

It’s a long-standing challenge but as part of efforts to address it, Louisville is partnering with universities and even engaging at the high school level to try and get young people interested in STEM careers and opportunities in public service early.

Agility

Raimundo Rodulfo, Director of Information Technology and Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Coral Gables, said the city tries to avoid skills gaps by hiring people with “learning agility”.

He explained: “They come with a baseline of soft skills that we need, like customer service and project management, and a minimum of industrial skills from the private sector or academia. Then we train them and help them to develop quickly.”

“The problem today is retaining staff in the public sector,” he said. “When we hire them and train them so well that they become competitive in the market, we then lose them to the private sector. In the public sector, we can’t compete on salary like the private sector, so we have to also have the agility to retrain and to rehire because it’s a fact of life.”

Coral Gables sometimes takes on students who are still completing their studies and allows them flexibility in their work schedule.

“We know that some of the young students still in college have tremendous potential and they sometimes come with amazing solutions to problems that we veterans in the field didn’t think about.”

The city has also hired people even if they’re not available to start immediately.

“Good talent is scarce today, even more in the public sector, so we need to be flexible,” Rodulfo said.

He also believes in casting the net wide to find untapped potential.

“Look for talent in places like community organisations, civic coders, groups that meet to talk about technology,” he said. “They are from all walks of life. Look for that talent that is there and eager for an opportunity.”

Playing to strengths

While cities typically can’t match the private sector on salaries, they are trying to play to their other strengths, including providing a sense of public purpose.

On LinkedIn this week, Santiago Garces, Chief Information Officer for the City of Boston, appealed to those affected by the turbulence in the technology jobs market to look at public sector options.

He wrote: “To our friends, colleagues and all others impacted by the recent lay-offs at Twitter and other technology companies, I hope you consider a government job as your next adventure.

“Technology jobs in government are special, because we get to directly impact the lives of people at some of their most critical needs: connecting them with essential resources, supporting elections and the democratic process, allowing them to certify births, marriages, and even the death of loved ones.”

He added: “At the City of Boston we want to leverage skills and craft in product management, software engineering, user experience design and research, amongst others, to transform the way our city works so we can provide dignified experiences to our diverse residents and visitors. We want to power our transformation to a greener, more sustainable city.”

“We have exciting problems, an important mission, a generally stable and balanced work balance, and an incredible adventure,” Garces said.

Community infrastructure

The North Texas Innovation Alliance (NTXIA) is looking at how it can address two important issues at once: creating good jobs in the region and ensuring the workforce is available for new infrastructure projects spurred by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

“What we often see is that incremental increases in skills can make a dramatic difference, particularly to generational poverty,” said Jennifer Sanders, Executive Director of NTXIA, a regional consortium of nearly 30 municipalities, agencies, corporations and academic institutions.

“And if we’re spending trillions of dollars [in the US] on putting infrastructure in and everyone has the same deadline, how are we going to have enough people? We were already having trouble finding construction workers to build buildings, let alone complex infrastructure systems.”

The initiative is at an early stage, starting with identifying skills gaps and community needs in the region, evaluating training programmes that are already available, and exploring possible funding and partnerships. It could include rapid upskilling in areas such as fibre splicing and broadband deployment.

The approach could then be applied to other future-looking careers such as advanced automotive and logistics and systems design for electrification.

“I really love the idea that a lot of the folks that would benefit from these workforce training programmes also live in communities that will finally have the infrastructure they need,” said Sanders. “The idea that you then get to build the infrastructure that empowers your family and your community is something really amazing.”

Partnering

Even when staff are already in place, technology moves fast and CIOs are keen to keep their own skills and knowledge and those of their teams up to date. Some bring in experts for lunchtime learning sessions, for instance.

Technology companies are also offering learning platforms that can be used by cities and others. Nvidia’s Deep Learning Institute, for example, offers online training for developers, data scientists and researchers in artificial intelligence (AI). The courses are provided by Nvidia and industry partners and cover a range of topics relevant for cities, from predictive maintenance and cybersecurity to digital twins.

Alex Pazos, Senior Business Development Manager – Smart Spaces Metropolis, Americas, Nvidia, said: “Say there’s an urban planning team and they’re thinking about implementing a digital twin and they want to explore initially the concept of a digital twin – what tools are out there, what partners are out there – they can 100 percent leverage the Deep Learning Institute for that,” he commented.

Cities can use AI and digital twins to meet goals such as Vision Zero and decreasing emissions, Pazos said. Once they better understand the capabilities of a digital twin, they can further explore connecting with partners.