2001
Staff can be won over when the benefits are made clear
By
Sarah Murray
The Financial Times,
20 June 2001
Government online sounds like a dream come true - agencies interacting with one another via the e-mail or an intranet, paperwork dramatically reduced with documents available to everyone on a web page, and online procurement systems creating opportunities for massive cost savings.
But what about the workers? Electronic government cannot succeed unless public sector employees - highly unionised and notoriously resistant to change - can be persuaded to take part.
This can be tougher than it seems. The introduction of new technology can often generate more rather than less work, making civil servants - who tend to see themselves as under resourced - reluctant to embrace it. E-mail overload -a phenomenon long complained about by private sector workers - is no less acute in the public sector.
Lack of training can be part of the problem. Research conducted on government internet use by the First Division Association, which represents the senior ranks of UK civil servants, and the Internet Intelligence Bulletin in 1999 found only about half of all senior civil servants expressed satisfaction with the levels of web training and support they received.
In addition, many government employees do not work alone in quiet offices - those manning benefits agencies are dealing with the public face-to-face. For these workers, logging on to an intranet or government website while fielding enquiries from someone sitting in front of them can seem a lot harder than doing the same thing on paper.
"Some of the sites are not easy to use," says Sandra Fielden, director of the Centre for Business Psychology at Manchester School of Management, which studies the impact of technology on stress levels within both the public and private sector. "If the site is not easily accessible, it takes time that people just don't have. And if you're in the front line, with people waiting to see you, a piece of paper you can glance at between appointments is often easier to use than a computer."
Of course, as technology improves, such disincentives will fade away. But beyond technical considerations, e-government represents a fundamental shift from a producer-led to a customer-oriented approach. And much of the culture of government is at odds with the knowledge-sharing requirements this brings with it.
Cultural change
To begin with, in a world where knowledge is power, public sector workers are reluctant to share information. Moreover, the fact that agencies have traditionally worked in isolation from one another makes sharing data across functional and ministerial boundaries difficult.
"The biggest challenge in e-government is the cultural change," says Douglas Holmes, whose book eGOV: e-business Strategies for Government is published this month. "The basic model of government today was devised for the post-war world when everyone had the same universal needs. Big ministries were set up to oversee each of these responsibilities and there was no real need to work with other agencies. They just got on with their own jobs."
The growing need for one-stop shop portals is changing all this. A site for small businesses, for example, can facilitate everything from paying taxes to applying for commercial parking permits, but this requires the tax authorities to work with the transport department. The close communication between departments and ministries needed to make such portals work will be tough to achieve.
"E-government will facilitate sharing of knowledge," says Linda Holbeche, director of research at the Roffey Park Management Institute in the UK. "But each department still works to achieve its own policy objectives and people will always be under pressure to get results for their minister."
Existing technology tends to reflect this. Dozens of different systems operate in the public sector, and few are able to communicate with each other. But because many have been closely tailored to the needs of an individual department, workers may be reluctant to abandon them in favour of a large global system that may not have been designed with their specific needs in mind.
Without clear evidence of how they are going to benefit from the new systems, it is hardly surprising some civil servants are reluctant to change their working practices. "Knowledge management systems work best when people are told it will take the hassle out of their work and that they'll also have a more interesting job," says Amin Rajan, chief executive of the UK-based Centre for Research in Employment and Technology in Europe.
Part of this means quickly demonstrating the improved efficiency brought by new systems. Robert Bolton, a consultant at KPMG who specialises in knowledge management in the public services sector, says that once people see a solution working successfully, they start taking an interest.
"If you can find a problem that's solvable you're halfway there," he says. "Then you can start to excite interest. Start small, but think big and then scale rapidly when you start getting buy-in. It's a case of winning people over."
And making life easier is not the only form of encouragement. A database giving people access to their colleagues' expertise, for example, can be the same database that managers use when looking for job candidates. Employees who realise that updating their CV could enhance their chances of promotion are more likely to do so regularly.
Strong leadership from the top is also seen as an important element in success, while reward and recognition - traditionally lacking in the public sector working environment - are powerful tools in fostering the change in working practices. "It's everything from the boss breezing in and personally thanking someone, to taking people out to dinner, giving them a promotion or putting them on a project team," says Mr Bolton.
Rob Brown, a member of PA Consulting's management group in the company's government and public services practice, believes that the cultural changes will be possible in the long run. "The positive side is that people who work in the public sector are usually genuinely motivated by wanting to provide services," he says. "And if they can see the benefits, they'll embrace the changes."
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