{"id":11582,"date":"2019-08-15T15:02:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T19:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opsweb.wpengine.com\/?p=11582"},"modified":"2022-03-12T12:44:12","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T17:44:12","slug":"we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/","title":{"rendered":"We can\u2019t improve government without understanding it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Welcome to Fed Figures, a new We the Partnership series that\nuses data to shed light on our nation\u2019s federal workforce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our mission at the Partnership for Public Service is to help\nmake our government more effective. But to improve the way government works,\nfirst we need to understand it. How many people work for the federal\ngovernment? How many of them are outside of the Washington, D.C., area? What do\nthey do? How has their work changed over time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By examining the latest federal workforce data, we can\nbetter understand the strengths of our government and the challenges that may\nundermine its effectiveness now and in the future. Let\u2019s take federal\ninformation technology as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Replacing aging legacy IT systems continues to be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/GAO-19-471\">challenge for many agencies<\/a>. But agency leaders aren\u2019t just grappling with outdated technology\u2014they\u2019re also dealing with an aging workforce. At the end of the second quarter in fiscal 2018, there were 20 times as many IT employees over the age of 50 as there were under 30, according to data from the <a href=\"http:\/\/fedscope.opm.gov\">Office of Personnel Management<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By using data to pull back the curtain on this issue, we can\nsee that if agency leaders want to <a href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/publications\/a-blueprint-for-leading-lasting-technology-reforms-in-government\/\">modernize\nfederal IT management<\/a>, they\u2019ll also need to grapple with a <a href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/publications\/mobilizing-tech-talent\/\">significant\nhuman capital challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next month on Fed Figures, we\u2019ll take a closer look at one of the most persistent myths about the federal government: its size. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are you interested in more insights on the federal workforce? Check out our other in-depth analyses in the Fed Figures series: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog-employee-engagement-is-more-than-just-a-survey\/\" target=\"_blank\">Employee engagement is more than just a survey<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog-you-dont-have-to-go-to-d-c-to-see-our-government-in-action\/\" target=\"_blank\">You don\u2019t have to go to D.C. to see our government in action<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog-a-different-way-of-thinking-about-the-size-of-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">A different way of thinking about the size of government<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you have ideas for future Fed Figures posts? Send them to us at blardy@ourpublicservice.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to Fed Figures, a new We the Partnership series that uses data to shed light on our nation\u2019s federal workforce. Our mission at the Partnership for Public Service is to help make our government more effective. But to improve the way government works, first we need to understand it. How many people work for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sort-date":"","content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7591],"tags":[9037,9134,8927],"class_list":["post-11582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fed-figures","tag-federal-workforce","tag-information-technology","tag-office-of-personnel-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>We can\u2019t improve government without understanding it &#8226; Partnership for Public Service<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Fed Figures, our new We the Partnership series, we will explore federal workforce data to help us better understand where government needs to improve and which solutions are most likely to generate results.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We can\u2019t improve government without understanding it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Partnership for Public Service is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that strives for a more effective government for the American people.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Partnership for Public Service\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/partnershipforpublicservice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-15T19:02:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-12T17:44:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Blog-headers_Fed-Figures-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"845\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@RPublicService\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@RPublicService\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"We can\u2019t improve government without understanding it\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-15T19:02:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-12T17:44:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":323,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Blog-headers_Fed-Figures-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"federal workforce\",\"Information Technology\",\"Office of Personnel Management\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Fed Figures\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/we-cant-improve-government-without-understanding-it-2\/\",\"name\":\"We can\u2019t improve government without understanding it &#8226; 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