4 Key Questions to Ask Before Deciding to Reskill or Recruit in Government
As a government leader, you often have to address unforeseen skills gaps when new policies or workforce transformations arise. At that moment, the challenge is to fill a gap while also deciding whether it is better to train current staff or hire new ones.
By asking the right questions early on, you can adopt a strategy that meets short-term operational needs and long-term workforce development. With a well-thought-out framework in place, agencies may make choices that improve their capabilities while keeping their teams working together.
How Urgent and Complex Is the Skill Gap?
One of the first things to think about is how quickly you need the capability and how hard it will be to develop internally. Hiring can take a long time in many public sector firms. Research shows it takes roughly 119 days, or around four months, to hire someone for a government job. Therefore, hiring someone may not always be the best option, even if the need appears urgent. Yet some jobs are very technical or compliance-driven. That means they require more knowledge, which makes it hard to improve quickly through training alone.
If the ability you need is quite specific and you need it immediately, it could be wiser to hire someone from outside the company. However, reskilling current employees can frequently get results faster and make the workforce more flexible in the long run when the new skills build on what they already know.
What Is the Current State of Employee Engagement?
A skills gap does not automatically mean you have trouble employing people. In certain circumstances, it shows that the current workers are not as engaged as they should be. Even if the team already has institutional knowledge, performance gaps may arise when people do not feel committed to their jobs or are unclear about growth opportunities. If you take the time to review engagement levels, you can decide whether it would be better to train your current team.
Teams with high engagement had 18% to 43% lower turnover and 23% higher profit. This research shows how strongly engagement affects stability and performance throughout an organization. If morale is already high and workloads are balanced, hiring more people helps the team grow without slowing down progress. Yet if engagement falls short of expectations, reskilling programs can reveal that the company cares about the long-term growth of its personnel. These programs can improve retention rates while also equipping agencies with the skills they need.
Decisions about the government workforce rarely affect only the present. Many agencies are dealing with rapid changes in digital services.
What Critical Skills Will Your Department Need in Three to Five Years?
Decisions about the government workforce rarely affect only the present. Many agencies are dealing with rapid changes in digital services, cybersecurity standards and data-driven policies. In turn, it is vital to think beyond your current personnel needs. Thinking about the next three to five years can help you determine whether a competence gap is just a short-term problem or a sign that the department needs to change its hiring practices in the long run.
This forward-thinking attitude is especially crucial because new technologies are changing how public services are provided. For instance, studies show that 75% of businesses are likely to use artificial intelligence (AI) within the next five years. This adoption rate demonstrates how swiftly technology demands are changing in many fields.
Hiring a specialist may be the quickest way to get a department up to speed in a whole new subject when they need basic knowledge in that area. However, if the goal is to build on existing strengths — such as helping analysts use automation technologies — retraining current personnel helps the workforce develop alongside those advances while preserving institutional expertise.
Do Your Current Employees Have the Aptitude and Desire to Learn?
Before hiring people from outside the company, you should take a closer look at the skills and talents currently within your staff. Many government workers have extensive institutional knowledge and skills that they can apply to other jobs with the right training and support. You can determine whether a skills gap is a training opportunity or a personnel problem by assessing whether team members want to learn new skills.
Internal mobility is a good sign that the workforce is ready to learn new skills. Giving employees more responsibilities and skills makes the organization more flexible and helps keep personnel. Employees are 75% more likely to stay with a company after making a move within it.
If the skills needed are significantly different from what current employees already have, or if they have shown little interest in professional development opportunities, hiring new people may be the better choice. When employees are willing to learn new skills and are flexible, reskilling can improve performance and keep the workforce stable over the long term while keeping vital institutional knowledge.
Making the Right Workforce Investment for the Future
It is not always easy to choose between retraining your present employees and hiring new ones. You can make better decisions that help your purpose succeed and keep your staff stable by considering factors such as urgency, engagement and more. With a strategic approach, the hiring decisions you make now can improve your department’s long-term capacity.
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