From Crisis to Opportunity: Human Resource Challenges for the Public Sector in the Twenty-First Century

A great deal of attention has been focused on the human capital crisis in the public sector since the mid-1990s. Experts and practitioners give many reasons why the current crisis emerged. This article examines the important factors that led to the crisis, what is being done about them through presidential agendas, legislators, oversight agencies, professional societies, and public policy think tanks. Concerns are many in terms of a large number of upcoming retirements, early retirements, unplanned downsizing, difficulty in attracting new generations to public service, and the changing nature of public service. However, the human resource crisis also presents an opportunity to fundamentally change those features of public sector human resource management practices that have become outdated for contemporary organizations and position government agencies for the twenty-first century by meaningfully reforming the civil service. This transformation would require public sector organizations to take a more strategic view of human resource management and to give greater policy attention to human capital issues.