When my mom’s office installed a new software program she started coming home late. Instead
of meeting us at the bus after school, she would often have to stay late struggling with the program. In lieu of stories about the content of her job, when you asked her about her day, her answers often focused on how frustrated she was with the change and how ready she was to retire.
For employees who started their careers before the World Wide Web, interacting with new complex information technology (IT) can be difficult. Their needs when it comes to training and their willingness to adopt new skills differ from their younger peers. In the federal government, 30% of the workforce is at or near retirement age at 55 years of age or older. As older employees, who often occupy managerial roles, may be pushed to leave their agency in mass, their experience and knowledge leave with them. This has led to fear over brain drain and mass attrition. Worryingly, younger employees aren’t entering and staying in the government at similar rates, in fact only 8% of employees are under 30. A key way agencies are trying to address this issue is by enticing young employees with new tech investments. In just one fiscal year, 2021 to 2022, government-wide new IT spending increased by almost 8%. Despite millions of additional spending, little research has actually been done to investigate how new IT spending impacts the retention of existing older employees.
My research assesses the relationship between new IT spending, technically called Development Modernization Enhancement Information Technology systems (DME IT), and older employees’ likelihood of resigning. While IT may not be a primary factor in attrition, understanding if it affects people’s decisions is vital.
I used data from two sources, the General Services Administration’s Federal IT Dashboard and the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Viewpoint Survey, focusing on 20 large federal agencies. Some of the agencies include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of State, and the Treasury. The Federal IT Dashboard offered a line item breakdown of IT Spending for 2021 categorized as “new” and “old” tech. To account for differences in agency size and IT budgets, I found the percent of total spending for each agency spent on new tech. This allowed me to focus only on the new tech spending. I then used individual employee responses for the same agencies for the Federal Viewpoint Survey. I divided those responses into people 40 years of age and older and under 40. The survey doesn’t ask more in-depth questions about age, so this was a limitation of my study. Further research can be done specifically looking at people at or nearing retirement, 55 or older.
I ran a regression looking at how the amount of new IT spending affected both groups’ intention to leave their position. Understanding that there are numerous contributing reasons that people choose to leave their positions, I also controlled for 15 survey questions. Some of the control topics included, job satisfaction, perceived supervisor respect, opportunities for skill development and promotion, and due to 2021 being in the midst of COVID-19 perception of health and safety in the workplace.
After completing my data analysis for both groups, I found that there was no relevant relationship between new IT spending and people older 40 leaving, but there is a positive correlation between new spending and people under 40 staying in their job. This means that federal agencies can implement new tech knowing it has a positive impact on younger employees without fear of IT being a push factor for employees over 40. Ultimately, this research frees agencies to focus their IT governance initiatives on ensuring that training is effective for all age groups.
Kat Ellingson is a graduating senior at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public & Environmental Affairs.
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