Bussell, Chirkis, publish research in IJCRA

NCU Learners’ federal workforce trends assessment published in refereed journal.

Prescott, Arizona–September 10, 2007 — Northcentral University (www.ncu.edu), an innovator in online higher education, is pleased to acknowledge a publication by two of its PhD candidates, Ken Chirkis and Steve Bussell. Their paper, "An Examination of the Federal ‘Brain Drain’ in the Department of Defense (DOD) Civilian Sector" has been accepted for publication by the refereed Journal of the International Association of Case Research and Applications (IJCRA). The paper will appear in the December 2007 edition.

Both Bussell and Chirkis are graduates of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and are pursuing PhDs in business at NCU with a concentration in aeronautical science. Chirkis is a safety engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake and Bussell is a project engineer for the Tactical Weapons Office within the Naval Air Warfare Center, so they are uniquely positioned to see the practical impacts of the federal policies and trends addressed in their publication.

Ken Chirkis (L) and Steve Bussell.

The authors examine aspects of federal employment and employment policy dating from 1981 on and project data forward as far as 2012. Their conclusions regarding prospects for the federal workforce are summarized in part by this excerpt:

If large numbers of employees retire over a relatively short period and agencies are not effective in replacing them with the appropriate number of employees possessing the needed skills, the resulting loss of institutional knowledge and expertise could adversely affect mission achievement.

The observations of the authors about the near-term future of the federal workforce border on the bleak—they foresee the loss of nearly 900,000 experienced federal workers over the next five years, alone—but the paper also offers suggestions that might improve this outlook.

Bussell and Chirkis make significant recommendations in the paper, including improvements in the recruitment and training of federal human resources personnel, as well as the implementation of a more formalized mentor/mentee system to improve employee performance and retention.