Coincidentally, just as the crisis was breaking across the country, a report to Congress delivered a scathing assessment of outdated personnel systems, failed recruiting processes and a lack of a hiring pipeline of students and recent graduates that, taken together, severely impeded federal agencies' capacity to maintain a qualified workforce and jeopardised their ability to fulfill their vital missions.

The report was prepared by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, established in 2017 to research public service challenges. The commission was charged by Congress to review the military selective service process as well as ways to increase participation in military, national, and public service to meet national security and other critical needs of the nation.

According to one of the authors of the report, retired Navy judge advocate Steve Barney, a strong federal workforce was crucial to the security, public health, and prosperity of the nation, and the COVID-19 pandemic made that clearer than ever.

The report pulled no punches, warning that federal civil service personnel systems required urgent attention. "The difficulties facing government hiring are so severe that the Government Accountability Office identifies strategic human capital management as a 'high risk' area in need of transformation if the government is to work effectively and efficiently," the report noted in its introduction.

It went on to say that while there was a demonstrable willingness among younger people to work in government agencies, existing practices effectively blocked younger Americans and workers with critical skills from entering public service and jeopardised the ability of federal agencies to replenish their workforce in the face of a looming wave of retirements.

The commission, chaired by a former Republican congressman, Dr Joe Heck, warned that modernising the civil service was both politically and technically difficult. It put forward a raft of recommendations in what it said was an attempt to address "near-term, urgent problems and long-term, structural issues." These included revamping existing personnel processes and replacing them with "a modern, talent-management approach to enable the federal government to be competitive with other employers in the future".

With roughly one-third of federal employees eligible to retire in the next five years, such changes were critical to ensure that the federal workforce was stable, the United States retained its competitive edge, and governmental missions to serve the American public were not endangered.

"Public officials and civic leaders should also recognise the work of public servants as vital to the security and well-being of the nation and avoid negative and disparaging comments that undermine morale among the current public sector workforce and discourage Americans from pursuing public service careers."

At the top of its list, the report urged policymakers to fix basic federal hiring processes. In many federal agencies the candidate qualification and assessment processes "are fundamentally flawed", the report noted, allowing poorly qualified candidates to advance through the hiring process.

"These failures occur despite the availability of better alternatives, such as involving hiring managers and subject matter experts - who are best prepared to determine whether a candidate is qualified - in resume reviews, as well as using validated online assessment tools... When applicants apply for federal jobs, HR generalists typically review resumes and rate candidates by searching the resumes for keywords in the job description.

"In some cases, software is used to automatically match keywords and score resumes. These approaches miss applicants with relevant skills and experience that do not lend themselves to an exact keyword match; they also advantage applicants familiar with the process who craft resumes that closely mirror job descriptions," the report noted.

Many agencies also relied on a candidate self-assessment, which was not a valid method of evaluating applicants. Many applicants marked "expert" on every item, regardless of their actual qualifications, in order to advance in the assessment process; and many highly qualified applicants who attempted to rate themselves honestly were rejected.

The report recommended that job descriptions be short and accessible without government jargon and that agencies accept standard one-page resumes and eliminate the candidate self-assessment questionnaire. Federal agencies must empower subject matter experts and hiring managers to accurately assess the applicants' qualifications, and all agencies should have access to standard online assessment tools. The commission also recommends a comprehensive revamp of hiring preferences and non-competitive hiring options that would help attract qualified veterans and national service alumni to the federal civil service.

Another key recommendation is that federal agencies adopt functional internship and recent-graduate hiring programs. "To attract new generations to public service, the nation needs innovative approaches to build a pipeline between postsecondary education and public service. The commission recommends creating a Public Service Corps - equivalent to the military's Reserve Officers' Training Corps - for the civil service, granting scholarships in exchange for a commitment to work for a federal agency."

A proposed new Federal Fellowship and Scholarship Centre would streamline and promote programs to develop students with critical skills and leadership ability for federal employment. The commission would also establish a government-wide goal of 30,000 annual recent-graduate hires by 2026, rising to 50,000 per year by 2031.

In terms of workplace culture, the report urged the adoption of "a high-performing personnel culture" and investment in their human capital capabilities. According to the report, cyber security and health care personnel systems should be streamlined and made available to all agencies. The commission recommends that federal employee benefits must accommodate all career paths, while protecting valuable benefits that help agencies retain employees who make public service their career choice.

It noted: "Elevating and investing in the human resources function; developing agency workforce plans to hire, retain, and reskill qualified individuals; and empowering agencies to communicate with the public about their mission and to promote service will foster a culture in which agencies make full use of available personnel authorities to meet agency workforce needs."

A key focus of the report was a perceived failure to address critical skill shortages, noting that federal agencies especially struggle to hire workers with critical skills through existing personnel systems. Basic aspects of the General Schedule were out of date - for example, the classification system had no place for data scientists - even as technology and industry standards rapidly progress.

At the same time, the federal government's compensation and benefits packages were uncompetitive for many occupations, especially for employees who valued career mobility. In addition, the most-sought-after individuals were often actively pursued by private companies and rarely spent time searching the government jobs website.

"It is highly revealing and worrying that in FY 2018 more than 85 per cent of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) vacancies for scientists and mathematicians received fewer than three qualified - not best qualified - applicants."

Clearly, the federal government was unable to attract and retain individuals with the skills needed for it to succeed now and in the future, and it should critically evaluate how its benefit structure and hiring practices have underperformed and should consider new ways to promote entry into areas of critical need.

The report was especially critical of existing measures to recruit cyber security experts. It stated that federal agencies did not sufficiently involve cyber security and IT subject matter experts and hiring managers in the recruitment, qualification, and assessment processes when hiring technical talent.

"Agencies with a cyber security mission cannot quickly expand the civil service workforce with the technical skills, unique platform knowledge, and appropriate clearance needed in an emergency," the report warned. Noting with concern recent state-sponsored cyber attacks against the government's security clearance database, US weather system satellites, and US election systems, the report said these demonstrated the daily threats posed to government entities in cyberspace and their far-reaching consequences.

It proposed a reserve program that permitted agencies to call up cyber security experts who could provide additional cyber capacity at times of greatest need. "By building the reserve program around cyber security experts who have left government service for other opportunities, the program would also help the government to maximise the value of taxpayer investment in developing their expertise."

The commission calls for a "demonstration project" of a civilian cyber security reserve, which would compel former government cyber security professionals to return to full-time employment if an agency leader decided it needed their resources. The pilot would be open to former civilian cyber security employees of the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and transitioning members of the military with the right qualifications.

According to the employment website Cyber Seek, there are more than 500,000 unfilled cyber security jobs between the public and private sector in the United States today.

In an interview, commission chair Joe Heck said the nation needed to be better prepared for the future. "I urge Congress and the president to consider the commission's recommendations to create a stronger culture of service in America and a more resilient nation in times of crisis," he said.