The new year is going to be a busy one for state and local governments. Not only will they have to confront several issues related to public employee benefit program management, they'll have their work cut out for them to attract and retain skilled employees and provide financial security to workers.

Research from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence points to a need for the role of retirement benefit programs as workforce management tools will need to be more fully understood—particularly since changes to benefits have had a negative impact on governments' ability to attract new employees.

More innovative tactics, such as auto enrollment, are needed to help employees save and improve the effectiveness of benefits without necessarily spending more money on benefits. Such actions are necessary as increasingly actions are taken to reduce benefits for public sector employees as part of "reform" measures.

This will be particularly important in the face of recruitment and retention challenges, with some positions proving more difficult than others to staff. These include police, engineering, IT, emergency dispatch, accounting, and skilled trade positions.

As state and local governments seek to implement innovations put in place by peers more in the vanguard of change, they will find themselves restructuring HR policies, as well as focusing on employee engagement, use of technology, and external communications to develop what the Center for State and Local Government Excellence considers the "Workforce of the Future."

In addition, changes to policies that determine whether employees may return to work post-retirement could not only help with recruiting issues and workforce management flexibility but also improve retirement system actuarial soundness.

Another way to address staffing issues is rising interest in government staff sharing across jurisdictional boundaries. The Center recommends a "rigorous implementation protocol" which can drive effective consideration of key factors.

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Instant Insights /

2019 trends for state and local government benefit programs

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