Bruce Barge
Principal
Buck Consultants
Excellence in Public Sector
When the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS)—the largest pension fund in the U.S. providing retirement, health and benefits to more than 1.6 million public employees—had a concern about the aging of its workforce, it tapped Bruce Barge and Buck Consultants to help. CalPERS had a number of potential future leaders that they feared were too narrow in their experience since they only worked in one part of the CalPERS organization.
"We developed a process called the Leadership Skills Assessment Process, which is sort of a public sector form of succession planning," says Barge, who is a principal and the Los Angeles market leader for Buck Consultants, a human resources firm. "This was a way for [CalPERS' senior leaders to assess] people in the middle management ranks, identify those with the highest potential and then provide leadership opportunities and training that would prepare them for the future."
CalPERS, which has had an almost complete overhaul of its leadership team recently, was so pleased with the results that Chris O'Brien, the head of Human Resources, reached out to let Consulting know about Barge's work.
An aging workforce was also a problem for the State of California Judicial Branch, the largest judiciary in the U.S. Barge and his team took a similar approach, developing a succession-planning process, knowledge management and training and development activities to help the judiciary plan fill its most critical roles.
"Retirement is a bigger issue in the public sector because people are often eligible to retire in their mid- to late-50s," Barge says. "So, you're tapping into the bulk of the Baby Boomers sooner than in the private sector."
It's results like these that have landed Barge a Top 25 award for Excellence in Public Sector. "It's wonderful to work with public sector organizations," Barge says. "Private sector companies tend to be very motivated by the bottom line," he says. "In the public sector, people tend to be much more motivated by their mission. It really is quite energizing to see that dedication day in and day out."
—Joseph Kornik
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