When Federal CIOs and Hiring Staff Work Together for IT Talent

Numerous reports have pointed to the need for agency chief information officers to connect with their counterparts in the human capital office to determine how best to recruit, hire and retain top information technology talent into the federal government.

That will be one topic at this year’s CIO Council Boot Camp, taking place June 18-19, in Washington, D.C. Bill Zielinski, deputy commissioner for systems and CIO at the Social Security Administration, writes in a blog post on CIO.gov that he, along with Reggie Wells, chief human capital officer at SSA, will talk about the importance of fostering a CIO-CHCO relationship.

“Having the right people in the IT organization is a core responsibility of a CIO,” Zielinski writes. “To be successful, CIOs need a human capital strategy that enables managers to bring top-notch candidates onboard to fill the roles that are critical for smart IT delivery. It takes a lot more than a stack of resumes from qualified candidates to make this happen. The Social Security Administration’s success in finding and keeping top talent results from the strong partnerships between IT and HC staffs.”

Zielinski notes that aligning the goals of the IT and CHCO offices with the agency’s mission has helped the agency better position itself to recruit and retain a workforce that is “ready to confront the technology challenges of the next generation.”

That relationship should go both ways, of course. CHCOs should also seek out relationships with agency IT leaders to determine how they can best leverage IT to deliver better services, from analyzing workforce data to reforming the federal hiring process. According to a recent Partnership for Public Service report, only 30 percent of agency CHCOs see technology as key to success in their role. 

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