Public Sector
Human Capital Trends
The Public Sector Human Capital Trends is a companion report to Deloitte's Global Human Capital Trends Report. The evolution of each year's trends provides tools and strategies to help organizations remain competitive in meeting their mission and in the talent marketplace.
Download 2024 trends2024 Public Sector Human Capital Trends
As traditional boundaries break down, the world is redefining how work is done, where, and by whom.
These changes have an undeniable trends on both the workforce and management. Faced with increasing
demands for service and a depleted workforce, public sector leaders have an opportunity to reevaluate
traditional ways of managing people through the lens of human performance, recognizing that the
organization thrives when its people thrive.
We define human performance as a mutually reinforcing cycle with compounding, shared value for workers,
the organization, and society. When done correctly, this not only improves mission outcomes but also
allows the organization to address new concerns from the workforce, increase well-being, remain competitive
in the war for talent, and shift workforce responsibilities to focus on uniquely human work.
Explore our trends
When people thrive, organizations thrive.
For true sustainability, organizations need to create value for all people connected to them. It's not just a nice idea—it's central to better outcomes for organizations and humanity. Human connections—such as interactions with employees, contractors, customers, and residents—drive everything of value to an organization, including innovation, intellectual property, and retention, among others.
As human performance takes center stage, are traditional productivity metrics enough?
In an era of human-centered work, new sources of data and artificial intelligence can help organizations shift from measuring employee productivity to measuring human performance. Public sector organizations should review a balance of organizational and human sustainability outcomes creating shared, mutually reinforcing outcomes for both the worker and the organization.
Could less be more when it comes to trust?
Due to recent advances in technology, almost everything in an organization can become transparent. Greater transparency can help organizations build trust—or erode it. Public sector organizations must balance trust and transparency when it comes to obtaining employee data. Leaders need to consider the trends to their organization to ensure transparency is helping and not hindering.
What do organizations need most in a disrupted, boundaryless age? More imagination.
Technologies require the human workforce to adjust to a new way of working. As public sector organizations adjust to new ways of working, there is a need for human capabilities to help fuel innovation and adaptation. Scaling human capabilities, such as curiosity and empathy, can help organizations improve both mission and human outcomes.
Play and experimentation in digital playgrounds can drive human performance.
As technology continues to spark change in the relationship between employees and organizations, they need safe spaces to co-create their common future. Public sector organizations need a safe environment to explore and test new solutions.
One size does not fit all.
Rather than striving for one common culture, organizations should enable a “culture of cultures” tailored to the needs of local teams while aligning to organization-wide values. Public sector organizations can harness the productivity of microcultures by encouraging autonomy within each of these separate functions.
From function to discipline.
The future of work requires human resources to evolve, shifting from a siloed function to a boundaryless discipline integrated with the people, organization, and population it serves. When HR becomes boundaryless, the function can help develop people expertise across the organization, which will help weave a people-focused sentiment across the organization as well.
Evolve leadership to drive human performance.
Public sector organizations have long embodied the mission-driven model of work but now must broaden their focus to include a human-centric model to enable the health, development, and growth of their workforces. Leaders should play a critical role in the journey toward driving mission and human outcomes.
History of trends
Deloitte released the first Global Human Capital Trends in 2011, making it the longest longitudinal study on human capital ever done. Deloitte began releasing the public sector perspective, a companion report to the global report, in 2015. The evolution of each year's trends provides tools and strategies to help organizations remain competitive in meeting their mission and in the talent marketplace.
Our latest thinking on public sector human capital
Digging deep into the interplay of workforces and public sector organizations, our thought leadership pieces bring perspectives and observations that are shaping the way work happens across government agencies.
Research methodology
Deloitte's 2024 Global Human Capital Trends survey gathered input from 14,000 professionals across the world on a breadth of topics relating to the employee experience, readiness to meet challenges, and organizational priorities. Unique to this year's trends survey, Deloitte supplemented its research with both leader- and worker-specific surveys to uncover where there may be gaps between leader and workforce perceptions. The public sector survey data is complemented by several interviews with leaders who work with leading public sector organizations. These insights helped shape the trends in this report.
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