Government Technology - January 2008 - (Page 43)

“Even though we are still in phase one, I am already getting calls from departments asking when this is going to open up for them to come in.” The State and Consumer Services Agency will be the first to go live on the system, along with its 16 subsidiary agencies, including the Department of General Services, Department of Consumer Affairs, the State Personnel Board and the Franchise Tax Board. Every hour, 330 baby boomers turn 60, according to the 2006 U.S. Census. The Partnership for Public Service predicts the federal government will lose more than 550,000 workers during the next ﬁve years. Meeting a Need At the Franchise Tax Board, CIO Cathy Cleek said the database is a necessary step toward meeting California’s HR needs. “We need to find talented people to work in the state,” she said, “and if we can get retired people who want to go back into the work force part-time, I think that is fantastic.” As government moves to fill those needs, HR experts say public-sector technology initiatives like Boomerang mirror what has been going on for some time in the private sector. “You pick your profession: They all maintain job pages, job banks. So having one that is just focused on these government workers seems like a good idea,” said Charles Ingersoll, senior client partner and head of the government practice of global recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International. Recent studies suggest that such efforts are becoming increasingly common in the public sector. The International Public Management Association for Human Resources studied such efforts in the public sector. In its most recent surveys, the organization found that 57 percent of responding organizations utilize some type of automated applicant tracking application, system or solution. Twenty percent use a homegrown IT solution or system for applicant tracking. For those organizations without an existing automated applicant-tracking application, 40 percent plan to implement one in the near future. As in the Boomerang program, the Internet plays a significant part in technology-based recruiting. Seventy-six percent of respondents said applicants could contact human resources, ask questions or request information via the Internet. Fifty-one percent take applications online. Overall, 44 percent of responding organizations said they use some type of Web-based recruiting tool. Simple Solution As a piece of technology, Boomerang is deliberately simple, to the point of being stripped down. Virtually all registrant information can be filled in with a mouse click or a pull-down menu: last agency worked for, skills and experience. “We decided to have as few fields for questions as possible. You don’t want to come in as a retiree and give this big old explanation of what you are doing. That’s why we ask them just to go through this list and check the box for what you want to do,” Armani said. No confidential information is collected: no Social Security number, no driver’s license. Registrants can also input their preferred work schedule — those returning to government service can work up to nine months in the course of a year, with that time being broken up in any number of ways, to be decided between worker and supervisor. For departments, the lean registration information makes it easy to quickly sort potential candidates. “Then when they find someone with certain skills, it will be up to them to go through the data collection and to refine their skills,” Armani said. Backing it all up is the workhorse of database technology: The Franchise Tax Board developed the SQL database that is the core of Boomerang’s technology. The database runs on the Microsoft platform, written primarily in .NET. While this may seem bare bones compared to applications running in the private sector, it still is a good first step, said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus, an industry analyst firm that evaluates technology implementations from a return on investment perspective. Based on past observations, she predicted that once Boomerang is fully operational, managers will begin looking for ways to enhance its functionality. “We are going to see a lot more sophistication, a lot more development,” she said. “I would be surprised if they continued with such a limited sort of site.” Meanwhile, with the system still in its earliest days, counties and cities already have been calling to ask whether they might borrow the Boomerang code. Armani says he isn’t surprised, considering the financial logic that underlies the whole affair. “The state doesn’t have to pay benefits to these folks, because they already receive benefits,” he said. “At the same time, these retirees can come in and supplement their own income, on their own schedule.” 43 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - January 2008

Government Technology - January 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene CIO Sightings Four Questions for... Spectrum Location, Location, Location Digital Governor Back to the Drawing Board Waukesha Goes Green Collaring Dangerous Dogs Public Sector Goes Web 2.0 Bounce Back SACWIS Rollout Simple Strategy Products Personal Computing How It Works signal:noise

Government Technology - January 2008

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