Brittany Ballenstedt

Attracting, retaining and developing key IT talent remains the top challenge among federal chief information officers and chief information security officers, according to a new survey.

The survey of 59 federal CIOs, CISOs, information resource management officials and congressional oversight committee staff by TechAmerica and Grant Thornton, found that 52 percent of respondents indicated that IT workforce issues -- training, recruitment and retention -- remains their biggest challenge. In fact, one respondent said they were “five years behind in terms of talent.”

Securing America’s future in science, technology, engineering and math fields requires more than expanding opportunities for women. Promoting interest and opportunities for minorities also should be a national imperative, particularly as more than half of children born in the United States today are of minority descent.

That was the topic of a symposium at the National Academy of Sciences that sought to find solutions for providing minorities and women with proven pathways for obtaining good jobs and a higher standard of living through STEM education. The event, hosted by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, highlighted that now, 60 years after the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, education in the United States remains separate and unequal for many minorities, children with disabilities and those living in high-poverty areas.

STEM is one area that has great potential to reverse that trend and help the United States maintain a competitive edge, experts noted.

The Homeland Security Department would receive additional hiring and compensation authorities for cybersecurity professionals under new legislation introduced and approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The bill (S. 2354), sponsored by Sen Tom Carper (D-DL), would enable the DHS Secretary to make direct appointments, set rates of basic pay and provide additional compensation, benefits, incentives and allowances in order to recruit and retain critically needed cybersecurity personnel.

“Unfortunately, the demand for cybersecurity experts in the government greatly outpaces the supply, and many agencies have had difficulty attracting the best and brightest and retaining those already in service,” Carper said in a statement.

The new flexibilities would bring DHS in line with recruitment and retention tools currently offered at the Defense Department and National Security Agency.

While DHS has a broad cybersecurity mission, it does not currently have in law any tools to hire faster, pay higher salaries or offer retention bonuses. The flexibilities offered in the legislation would help the department improve its ability to compete with the private sector and other agencies to hire and retain the most skilled cyber workforce, Carper said.

The proportion of women in information technology leadership positions has moved little over the past decade, and that statistic may even be trending downward, a new study suggests.

The new 2014 CIO Survey by Harvey Nash of 3,211 chief information officers worldwide found that just 7 percent of respondents are women, a drop of 2 percent over the 2013 survey. While nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of CIOs recognize this gender imbalance and have implemented diversity programs, the proportion of women in IT over the past decade has remained “stubbornly low,” the report stated.

Women IT leaders are slightly more common in the United States, however, with females representing 11 percent of US respondents, Harvey Nash found. Another bright spot is that when compared to other fields, such as human resources, a greater proportion of women in IT are promoted into senior positions.

While there has been some positive progress in improving interest and aptitude among students in science, technology, engineering and math careers, the number of available jobs in such fields continues to significantly outpace the number of available people qualified for those jobs, according to a new analysis.

The new US News/Raytheon STEM Index, released in April, found that STEM employment in the US has increased by more than 30 percent, from 12.8 million jobs in 2000 to 16.8 million in 2013. And while the number of undergraduate and graduate STEM degrees granted increased during that time, the proportion of STEM in terms of total degrees granted has remained relatively flat, the study found.

“Just using the government’s data, which is quite a conservative estimate, it’s clear that STEM is an important and growing part of the economy,” said Brian Kelly, editor and chief content officer of US News & World Report. “Beyond that, we know that STEM skills may be required in as many as 50 percent of future jobs.”

The research also suggests that there’s little evidence to show that government actions -- including President Obama’s 2009 Educate to Innovate initiative -- have had any significant impact. While certain areas, like the number of STEM degrees granted, STEM employment and the number of STEM-related AP tests have gone up since 2009, areas like SAT scores have remained flat while other key areas have declined, US News and Raytheon found.

Mobile work is dramatically changing the federal workplace -- effectively moving some federal offices from a place where employees go to work to a place where they go to share ideas.

That was the theme of Mobile Work Exchange’s spring Town Hall Meeting in April, where the General Services Administration and other agencies talked about a workplace transformation that brings together concepts like telework, human resources, facilities management and information technology to improve employee engagement and collaboration and also reduce agency spending in areas such as real estate.

For GSA, which in early 2014 unveiled its 1800 F headquarters building that features open, collaborative workspace, the total workplace transformation has not only positioned the agency as a more appealing place to work among young employee recruits, it also has led to the death of the federal snow day, said GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini.

With research showing a vast shortage of skilled talent to fill cybersecurity jobs, it may be time for the United States to make cybersecurity a national imperative in much the same way it did with aerospace technology, nuclear science and biotechnology.

That’s according to Sam Visner, vice president and general manager of CSC Global Security, who said that while attention is being brought to the issue through programs like the National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education, or NICE, as well as the National Institute of Standard’s and Technology’s recent cybersecurity framework, not enough is being done or coordinated to truly make those efforts effective.

“We have uncoordinated initiatives, but not a national strategy coupled with a national program,” Visner said. “We have in the case of NICE a broad statement of policy but not what I would consider to be the level of programmatic strategy and resources to be a national imperative.”

The talent pipeline of female workers in science, engineering and technology fields is on the rise, yet many women -- faced with hostile work environments, extreme work pressures and isolation – are fleeing these in-demand fields in droves. That’s according to “Athena 2.0,” a new report by the Center for Talent Innovation, which surveyed women in science, engineering and technology (SET) fields in the US, Brazil, China and India, and found that while women make up nearly 50 percent of SET college graduates in every nation, roughly one-third of them say they feel stalled and are likely to not only quit their jobs within one year but to leave their respective SET field entirely.

“There’s unique challenges that women in different industries face,” Tara Gonsalves, a senior research associate at the Center for Talent Innovation, told Wired Workplace. “Women in science are struggling against the lab coat culture, women in engineering are facing the hard hat culture and women in technology are facing the geeky, late-night hacking culture.”

In the United States specifically, the majority (80 percent) of women love their work, yet many feel excluded from male-dominated “buddy networks” and lack female role models. Most SET women (86 percent) in the US also lack sponsors or mentors, and nearly half (46 percent) believe senior managers more readily see men as leadership material. In addition, many SET women in the US (54 percent) say they are eager to get to the top of their organizations, yet nearly one-quarter (23 percent) feel a women could never get a top position at their company. US respondents also felt their leadership does not endorse (62 percent) or implement (75 percent) ideas from SET women.