Urgent recruiting to replace retirees, expanded buying through cooperative contracts and greater reliance on technology are becoming the norm, and public purchasers will see these trends expand even further in the coming years.
As the workforce ages, procurement professionals are scrambling to replace exiting employees. In fact, succession planning is one of the top five factors that will most affect procurement in the next few years. According to a 2015 Government Procurement survey of public purchasing officials, nearly one-fifth of the 498 respondents said they would be retired in the next two to three years.
This data was reconfirmed in a 2016 compensation and retention benchmark survey from the NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement, which shows many public procurement directors and managers are planning to turn in their badges. In the high single digits (7.2 percent for directors and 6.6 percent for managers), survey respondents said they were considering retirement in the next 12 months.
Exiting staff will only compound the issues with the heavy workloads procurement professionals already face. About 35 percent of public procurement professionals surveyed in Onvia’s “2016 Survey of Procurement Professionals” are stretched or working extra hours to meet deadlines.
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