HR PRACTICES: THE BEST LAID PLANS. . .

Last Tuesday in our Management Update Section, we announced the publication of a study titled “2025 State and Local Workforce Survey Results,’ from MissionSquare Research Institute in partnership with the National Association of State Chief Executive Officers (NASPE) and PSHRA (The Public Sector HR Association).

Though we described the report as “one of the best ongoing sources of information on state and local government HR policies and practices,” we didn’t mention the number of surprises we found in this new data.

Over recent months in many interviews with people in state and local HR departments, we’ve heard about a number of workforce trends, including many that target improved recruiting, hiring and retention of public sector employees. We’ve written about trends based on the impressions we garnered from those conversations. But, for the world of HR at large, the survey indicated that there’s been somewhat more talk than action.

Following are a series of anticipated shifts in HR practice, followed by the data that gives a real-world understanding of how they’re progressing. This survey, in which 79 percent of respondents are local, is released on an annual basis and next year at around this time, we’ll revisit it and report again on what public sector workforce practices have gained wide traction and which haven’t.

OUR IMPRESSION: Many HR leaders and experts have emphasized the importance of HR data tracking.

FINDING: “IN HR tracking there was a decrease in those tracking the effectiveness of onboarding and mentorship (by 5 percentage points) and the cost effectiveness of hiring bonuses (by 7 percentage points.)”

OUR IMPRESSION: Give the expectation of a growing number of retirements, there’s been a great deal of discussion about the importance of succession planning.

FINDING: “Even given a list of likely components to a succession planning program, 61 percent reported not having any such elements in place.”

OUR IMPRESSION: In the last year, we’ve repeatedly seen an emphasis on paid family leave and its allure in attracting and retaining employees.

FINDING: 52 percent do not provide paid family leave.

OUR IMPRESSION: In an effort to more effectively recruit new staff, K-12 outreach “can be  an effective way to plant the seeds for interest in public sector employment down the road,” according to the report.

FINDING: Only 5 percent of respondents indicated that they were involved in K-12 outreach/civics curriculum.

OUR IMPRESSION: With an ongoing emphasis on recruitment, one might anticipate that state and local governments would be making every effort to get the word out in every way possible about the benefits of the kind of work they offer.

FINDING: “Building a campaign around public service was reported by 12 percent of this year’s respondents.”

OUR IMPRESSION: Given the expense and potential downsides of hiring bonuses (in terms of current worker morale and compression issues), you might think that there’d be evidence about their effectiveness.

FINDING: “Only 9 percent say they are analyzing the cost effectiveness of hiring bonuses.”

OUR IMPRESSION: With artificial intelligence the hot topic of the day (and a centerpiece of the agenda at the recent National Association of State Personnel Executives conference) it would follow that AI tools were already more widely employed.

FINDING: “The demand for AI tools in public sector HR is still low with only 4 percent of respondents indicating it was being significantly used for recruitment.”

 (It’s worth noting that the report indicates that “As job candidates themselves use AI tools to generate large numbers of bot-written and distributed applications, the need to use technology tools to manage that volume may increase.”) 

OUR IMPRESSION: We’ve been concerned, sometimes publicly, that there’s been a sharp decline in data collection about DEI, due to political shifts.

FINDING: Although there’s no question that many states and localities are backing away from their DEI initiatives, when it comes to data collection, the report found that when it came to data collection on turnover that included gender, race or other characteristics there was almost no falloff, with 51 percent saying they collected that data in the 2025 survey, compared to 52 percent in 2023.

OUR IMPRESSION: Cities and states have been widely implementing mentorship programs.

FINDING: “In 2018 mentoring was much more common with 25 percent of organizations sponsoring such programs. With the pandemic, that total dropped to 7 percent in 2022 and 2023 and while it has increased since, to 10 percent in 2025, mentoring has not yet reached that prior peak. 

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