Communications of the ACM
Workforce Balance Boomerangs Toward Insourcing
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With public support from the Obama Administration, the Office of Management and Budget has a new mandate to reduce the amount of government procurement work that is outsourced to private contractors. While the new Obama directives undo some Bush-era outsourcing efforts, OMB wants government agencies to proceed with caution. As the OMB explains, there are other management tools as well for reducing an organization's reliance on private contractors. Professionals who deal with procurement policy and acquisition practices, both inside and outside government, are reacting to recent guidance from the White House and OMB.
In July 2009, the OMB issued a memo on managing the multi-sector, or blended, workforce. The multi-sector workforce is composed of private contractors and federal employees working in the same office to do an agency's work. The memo suggested that agencies find the appropriate balance between federal employees and contractors. As a result, OMB isn't in favor of simply insourcing work or reclaiming it from outside contractors. Agencies should take back only the work that is central to accomplishing an agency's mission. Before they do that, officials should first undertake a careful examination of what that mission is and which federal employees are essential to it.
From Federal Computer Week
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