The States as Employers-of-Choice Project is an ongoing collaboration between the Twiga Foundation, Inc. and the Sloan Center on Aging & Work. The project aims to shed light on the dynamics of aging in the state public sector workforce and the responses of state agencies, such as with the adoption of flexible work options.

In 2008, the study collected data from 222 state agencies in 27 states, surveying them about their assessment of the aging population, awareness of perceptions of older and younger workers in their agencies, and action steps in recruitment, engagement, and retention of workers. Additionally, an ongoing intervention draws on this information to:

• Provide webinars to state agency leaders on salient issues related to the aging workforce
• Develop toolkits to help state agency leaders move forward in their approach to the aging workforce
• Provide site visits to human resource professionals within state agencies

In 2009, the study will open a second wave of data collection designed to capture changes due to the intervention and due to the shifting economy.

The study is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

key research questions

The States as Employers-of-Choice project uses the awareness to action framework as a guide for the project. Questions addressed include:

• How have state agencies assessed the effects of the aging workforce on their agencies?
• How do state agencies view workers at early career, mid career, and late career?
• What policies and practices do state agencies take to recruit, engage, and retain workers across the life course?
• How do state agencies differ from private sector companies, and in what ways are they alike?

selected findings

• The seven most prevalent flexible work options included the following: take an extended leave for caregiving (66.2%), request changes in starting/quitting times from time to time, (45.8%) choose a schedule that varies from the typical schedule (alternative schedule) (41.2%), take paid/unpaid leave for education or training (36.9%), transfer to a job with reduced pay and responsibilities (33.6%), work a compressed workweek (29.2%), and have input into the amount of overtime worked (23.8%).
• Along with improving morale (62.9%), other top motivators for offering flexible work options noted by the agencies in the States as Employers-of-Choice Survey included: to help employees manage work and family life (66.9%), to retain employees (62.4%), to manage today's workforce effectively (62.4%), and to increase commitment and job engagement (60.0%).
• The top four priorities ranked as "important" or "very important" among state agencies were: increasing productivity through increased efficiency (97.3%), management of workforce talent (95.3%), organizational ethics (93.5%), and cost leadership (89.8%).
• The most important financial priority for both state agencies and private employers was increasing productivity, which ranked the highest among the entire list of concerns (97.0% and 89.1%, respectively). Cutting personnel costs was the only financial priority that the private sector (62.8%) felt was a more pressing concern than did the public sector (57.4%).
• Cost leadership (i.e., reducing economic costs below those of competitors), was identified as a priority in both the private sector and public agencies. As 89.8% of state agencies in the Employers-of-Choice Survey cited it as an "important" or "very important" priority, it is clear that state agencies recognize that they are competition with other service providers.
• Respondents within state agencies viewed employees of all career stages as having specific strengths. Late-career employees were perceived most positively by state agencies with regard to having low turnover rates, having a strong work ethic, being reliable, and being loyal to the agency in comparison to the early- and mid-career employees. Mid-career employees were considered most likely to want to lead and supervise others, to be productive, to be creative, and to take initiative in comparison to the early- and late-career employees. Early-career employees were perceived the least positively in comparison to the other career stages for all ten of the positive attributes.
• When looking at the state agencies' perceptions of negative attributes of employees, late-career employees were perceived to be the most resistant to change, reluctant to travel, reluctant to try new technologies, burned out, and difficult to train. Mid-career employees were perceived to take a lot of time from work to deal with personal or family issues, and early-career employees were perceived to often look outside the agency for new career opportunities. While the early-career employees were perceived lowest on all of the positive attributes, they were also perceived to be the lowest on four of the negative attributes and highest on only one of the negative attributes.

state agency benefits & outcomes

Over the course of the intervention, state agency leaders have played an important role, both in suggesting topics for the webinars and publications and in guiding the development of the wave 2 survey instrument.

publications

• States as Employers-of-Choice (March 2009)
• Flexible Work Options in State Agencies (June 2009)
• Comparing the Priorities of State Agencies and the Private Sector (June 2009)
• Attitudes toward Workers of Different Career Stages (July 2009)
• State Population Aged 55+ with College Degree (March 2009)
• State Unemployment Rates for Persons Aged 55+ (January 2009)
• State Unemployment Rates by Age Group (June 2008)
• State Government Workforce by Age Group (June 2008)

contact

If you have any questions about the survey, please feel free to contact:



Tay McNamara, PhD, Co-Director of Research
tay.mcnamara@bc.edu  |  +1. 617. 552. 8971

For questions regarding participation in the project, please feel free to contact:



Bob Davis
davismcs@msn.com  |  +1. 208. 850. 9261


states as employers-of-choice team

To schedule a conversation with any of our researchers or staff, please contact Chad Minnich, Assistant Director, Marketing & Communications, at 617-552-3122, or minnicch@bc.edu.

Elyssa Besen	Research Assistant Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Doctoral Student Lynch School of Education, Boston College Elyssa Besen is a Research Assistant at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work and a doctoral student in the Applied Development Psychology Program in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. She earned her BA in Psychology from Brandeis University. She is interested in studying the impact of work on adult development.
Melissa Brown, MSW	Research Assistant Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Doctoral Student Graduate School of Social Work, Boston College Melissa Brown is a research assistant at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work and a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Social Work at Boston College. She also collaborates on the Family Caregivers of the Elderly Project, being conducted by the Families and Work Institute.
Vanessa Careiro	Undergraduate Research Assistant Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College
Bob Davis	Program Director Twiga Foundation, Inc.
Patricia Kempthorne	Founder and Executive Director Twiga Foundation, Inc. Following the founding of the Family & Workplace Consortium in 1988, Patricia founded the Twiga Foundation in 2000 in an effort to inspire, promote and maintain a family-consciousness at home, in the workplace and in the community. As part of the Governor’s Generation of the Child initiative, Patricia has also served as the co-chair of the Governor’s Coordinating Council for Families and Children in Idaho. A leading advocate for family and children’s issues, Mrs. Kempthorne continues to work with a number of programs with a special focus on the prevention of substance abuse in communities. Mrs. Kempthorne, also, serves on the St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital Board of Directors, Board of Directors, University of Idaho College of Business and Economics Advisory Board, St. Luke’s Women’s Advisory Board and the Republican Women’s Federal Forum Advisory Council.
Tay McNamara, PhD	Co-Director of Research Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Tay K. McNamara is the co-director of research at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. Due to her past experience in using large datasets, she both serves as an internal consultant and to oversee research projects related to secondary data sets. Additionally, her current research projects include secondary analysis related to work in countries around the world and a primary data collection project dealing with state agencies as employers.
Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, PhD	Director Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Associate Professor Graduate School of Social Work & Carroll School of Management, Boston College Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes directs the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. She is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work, and has appointments at the Boston College Carroll School of Management and the Business School at Middlesex University in London. She was the Co-Principal Investigator for the 2006 National Study of Business Strategy and Workforce Development and the 2007-2008 Age & Generations Study. Her current work includes oversight of the 2009 Talent Management Study. She will be leading the 2010 Generations of Talent study with colleagues from around the world. She was invited to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging as an issue expert, and recently co-edited a special issue of Generations (2007) that focused on aging and work. Dr. Pitt-Catsouphes was a recipient of the 2007 Work-Life Legacy Award. She serves on several boards and advisory committees, including the National Advisory Committee for Workplace 2010 at Georgetown University, the Strategy Board for the Association of Work/Life Professionals at the World of Work, and the Purdue Center for Families. Dr. Pitt-Catsouphes’ articles have been published in a number of scholarly and practitioner journals. She was a founding co-editor for the international journal, Community, Work and Family. Her publications include The Work-Family Handbook: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives and Approaches to Research, published by Erlbaum Publishers (2006) which she edited with colleagues. She received her BA from Tufts University, MSP from Boston College, and PhD from Boston University.
Michelle Wong, JD, MSW	Research Assistant Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Michelle Wong is a Research Assistant at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work. Her research focuses on public policy in the United States, both at the state and federal level. Michelle’s prior work includes analysis of federal employment laws, research for the States as Employers-of-Choice study and state profiles focused on labor force demographics.