One thing to do whether another shutdown comes or not

There are several key takeaways in FCW’s post shutdown survey results that government contractors should pay attention to.

The biggest one? More than 60 percent of respondents expect another partial shutdown when the continuing resolution expires on Feb. 15.

Slightly less than half of the nearly 400 respondents said their agencies are planning for a shutdown on Feb. 15.

Combining those two data points tells me that you should be talking to your customers about that. How can you help? What did you learn about stopping and then restarting operations? Where did the contractor workforce fall short?

Whether another shutdown comes or not, these are important questions to ask and can help you serve your customer better.

It is worth nothing that over half (52.2 percent) of respondents expect their agencies to recover in three weeks or less, and 26.6 percent said that it would be 4-6 weeks. Only 21.2 percent said it would be longer than six weeks.

Compare this to our survey of government contractors, where 33.3 percent said it would take their company over six months to recover.

That says a lot about the different perspectives of government employees versus contractor employees.

But it also tells me that it is easier for agencies to bounce back than for contractors to bounce back.\

For example, contractors are waiting for invoices submitted before the shutdown to be processed and paid. That will take time.