Federal agencies face growing pressure to improve operations, strengthen cybersecurity, and increase overall efficiency, despite limited resources and outdated systems. However, success does not have to be measured in the most expensive technologies.
By adopting collaborative partnerships, both with industry partners and within the government, and a strategic modernization approach, agencies can drive meaningful results rather than simply increasing costs. This collaborative approach helps streamline processes, support knowledge transfer, and reduce vulnerabilities, resulting in better service delivery to the public.
Introduction
You are going to see a lot of bringing together tools and technologies at that top agency level which will then be available for all within the agency to use. This will drive fewer redundancies and strengthen the security posture.
Tricia Belman, Managing Director for Federal Financial Services
Maximus
Learn more about how collaborating with Maximus can help your organization streamline processes, expand its knowledge base, and enhance efficiency.
Improving government efficiency through collaboration
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Collaboration to optimize resources amid challenges
Beyond effective industry-government partnerships, unlocking greater efficiency requires collaboration across government agencies and departments. For example, while the government understands the criticality of cybersecurity, agencies have often taken an incremental approach, using different tools and solutions to accomplish the same goals. Belman sees this disparate approach as an opportunity for improvement.
“I think you are going to see some pulling together of enterprise-wide solutions that give a total visual picture,” she said, adding that a stronger, more collaborative security posture will not only facilitate better growth, analysis and protection of data but also eliminate costs.
“Why do we need to have 10 instances of the same tool in the same agency when you could buy just one enterprise license and have everything in one place?” Belman asked.
The White House is already demonstrating a commitment to leveraging tool consolidation and collaboration to drive greater efficiency across the government in many of its actions, including the AI Action Plan and executive orders centered on eliminating waste and consolidating procurement.
“You are going to see a lot of bringing together tools and technologies at that top agency level which will then be available for all within the agency to use,” Belman predicted. “This will drive fewer redundancies and strengthen the security posture.”
Collaboration to enhance and streamline security and tools
Outcomes-focused modernization
For government agencies, collaboration requires a foundation of one cohesive, united team.
“Almost as if there is no difference between agencies’ full-time employees and those they have contracted with — one team, one mission,” said Tricia Belman, managing director for federal financial services at Maximus. “Each brings their own skill sets, but they’re so blended you can be in a room and not know who a contractor is or who is government.”
Agencies are encountering several headwinds creating challenges and loss of efficiency, including recent reductions and reassignments in the government workforce, as well as an aging workforce. Both of these complexities add risk of institutional knowledge loss.
Data shows that 28% of federal workers are 55 and older, while fewer than 9% are younger than 30 — a significant difference from the overall workforce, where 22.7% are under 30. This indicates a need to fill gaps left behind as the government works to attract new talent.
Collaborative partnership models are a stabilizing force as agencies experience the complexities tied to higher than typical levels of attrition. They facilitate knowledge sharing and resource optimization in all directions — between industry and government, and between highly experienced and more junior staff.
“It’s a reshaping of the workforce and the workforce balance of subject matter experts, senior folks, mid-level folks, all the way down to the junior level,” Belman said. “Many junior folks come in with knowledge of new technologies that can be combined with the senior folks to achieve the right balance to ensure the job gets done and we develop the next generation of leaders.”
To fulfill its role as a collaborative partner, Maximus focuses deeply on optimizing its own resources, including implementing advanced resume and skill tracking through AI-powered talent intelligence tools like Eightfold, according to Belman. Eightfold’s talent management system provides skills assessments, career progression plans and greater visibility across programs and clients.
“To manage our workforce of the future, we need the ability to move people around to different projects, know when they are becoming available, know when their skill sets are needed elsewhere, and track what clearances and requirements are needed to work on different projects,” Belman said.
This cultivation of internal talent results in effective knowledge transfer to agency partners. When contractors focus on skills development and set up their own employees and organizations for success, that knowledge benefits agency partners. This means honing not only technical skills but industry expertise.
“Someone might be a fabulous developer and know all there is to know about a technology, but if they don't know the customer, the business of that customer, and how the work they're doing affects upstream and downstream systems, they're not going to be successful in their role,” Belman said.
"To manage our workforce of the future, we need the ability to move people around to different projects, know when they are becoming available and know when their skill sets are needed elsewhere."
Tricia Belman, Managing Director for Federal Financial Services, Maximus
Collaboration and consolidation sound good in theory, but success requires a strategic, measurable approach to transformation. The current environment of quickly evolving workforces and technologies calls for quick wins to show progress.
“We can’t say it’s going to be a year before we have any results,” Belman said. Implementing agile, industry-tested approaches to modernization, such as bite-sized goals, 90-day sprints, and specific metrics for success — will help agencies more quickly demonstrate value and continue to progress. Or as Belman summed up: “What are we bringing to end users at the agency and American citizens themselves?”
In many ways, success for government agencies is customer experience, that of the agency’s internal end users and the people it serves, and Maximus is deeply invested in enhancing and improving experience. Maximus has both a depth of knowledge as subject matter experts and a future-focused approach to transformation that makes it an ideal collaborative partner.
“Citizen focus has been in our DNA since the beginning,” Belman said. “From supporting the IRS through filing season to helping veterans get their benefits, we have wide-scale technology expertise and customer and government expertise that is unmatched.”