Performance Pay for Cyber Pros?

The government must institute some type of performance-based pay system in order to retain the expertise critical to combating cyber threats, an expert on cybersecurity human capital said Thursday.

Patrick Gorman, former associate director of national intelligence and now a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton, told Wired Workplace that while the mentality among the younger Generation Y workforce is often focused more on mission than it is on money, it may take some type of variable or performance-based pay system in order to keep such workers engaged and interested in staying in their federal cybersecurity jobs.

"The mission and prestige of working for government is actually quite high ... but at the same token, you're going to have to have some type of variable pay or pay for performance like we had with [the National Security Personnel System] to try to entice people to stay around once they come in," Gorman said. "Government is going to have to have pay for performance and also accept the fact the people are moving in and out of government and industry. And that's actually a healthy thing, not something they should frown upon."

A recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that while there are about 1,000 security professionals in the United States who have the essential cybersecurity skills, the government really needs about 10,000 to 30,000 professionals to effectively prevent and respond to cyber threats. Gorman noted that current scholarship programs for security professionals --notably those at the National Security Agency and the National Science Foundation - only turn out about 1,000 to 2,000 scholarships per year. "Booz Allen hired about 2,000 cyber professionals last year, and we're just a small firm," he said.