Page 18 - Federal Computer Week, January/February 2019

High-Impact Government Engagement
Boosting employee
engagement with PaaS
Platform as a service is helping government attract and inspire the new public servant
Phong Huynh
Principal, Deloitte
THERE IS NO denying that technology is changing the way everyone works. The pressure
on agency employees to transform
their productivity and level of customer engagement is particularly intense as people increasingly demand an experience from the government that matches that of the commercial world.
No one joins the government workforce to enjoy lengthy, bureaucratic processes that inflame customer dissatisfaction. Caseworkers join to guide program
recipients toward independence. Talent managers join to bring the best and brightest onboard and prepare them for employee success. IT professionals join to ensure that technology maximizes impact for important missions — everything from issuing driver’s licenses efficiently to making sure those in need receive health insurance.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) technology can facilitate that transformation by freeing employees from repetitive tasks, putting innovation at their fingertips and allowing them to focus on the customer. As a result, employees — and customers — will be more satisfied and engaged, which will also make it easier for agencies to recruit and retain top talent.
A streamlined, consistent experience
In particular, PaaS facilitates innovation in customer engagement by meeting users where they are digitally, including mobile, or in person. PaaS arms agency employees with consistent data and functionality so that they can see a comprehensive history of how they interact with customers
while working to eliminate overlap and inefficiencies.
For example, if a Department of Motor Vehicles’ average wait time is two hours, employees could use pop-up tents and tablets loaded with the necessary tools
to make the most of customers’ time by initiating many of their tasks while they wait.
That kind of consistency in the employee’s user experience is a key aspect of PaaS. It extends to how employees
Raj Yanambakkam
Senior Manager, Deloitte
navigate between programs, how they search, and how their tasks and dashboards are organized. And once an employee
is set up on the platform, he or she can seamlessly access any new applications and capabilities as they are added.
The consistency woven into a platform enables faster adoption of new technology and supports ongoing training. Those factors are essential for agencies that are seeing baby boomers retire and younger workers — with dramatically different technology expectations — take their place.
Service without silos
Furthermore, as agencies work toward the goal of delivering services to customers
as one government rather than multiple departments, consistency is absolutely essential. Indeed, the expanding use of PaaS technology is pushing government agencies to start noticing the many similarities they share. They all need to support customers, employees and partners, and solutions developed by companies
davooda/Shutterstock/FCW Staff
PaaS
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