By Lisa Carroll, Canadian Public Sector Lead, Microsoft Canada
When the global pandemic hit in March, the Government of Canada faced a significant challenge: shift its entire workforce to remote work immediately while responding to a surge in demand from Canadians for critical services. With unprecedented IT infrastructure and remote access and performance gaps, the Government had to quickly adopt best-in-class technology and undergo a significant digital transformation at record speed.
While many federal departments had implemented some form of remote working policy prior to the COVID-19 crisis, on March 16, the Government had to immediately implement new policy/processes for remote work for approximately 250,000 Federal Public Servants. Collaboration platforms, such as Microsoft O365 and Teams, were swiftly deployed across departments in order for the Government of Canada to support Canadians during this crisis to provide critical services remotely, while at the same time, protecting the health and safety of their employees.
The necessary adaptations made during the pandemic have allowed public service management and employees to see what can be accomplished– when supported by tools that permit effective remote work.
But it’s more than just tools, the public service must continue to foster a culture of accountability that rewards results over simply being “present.” Embracing this mindset will enable workers to create and collaborate regardless of where they are and also give managers more confidence to manage remote workers, with a focus on performance and accountability as opposed to hours in the office. In parallel, departments also had to urgently re-imagine the delivery of citizen services to a digital and remote model. While this work had been started in many areas, the need for immediate progress had never been greater. This transition is even more remarkable when you consider that the Government of Canada accomplished in weeks what most public sector organizations do in years.
Stages of Digital Transformation in Government: Analogue, Transactional, Service Centered, and Intelligent
In our work with governments from around the world, we have identified four common stages of digital evolution – and often, a government department is working within more than one stage at the same time, with some areas more advanced than others.
While less common now, many departments still have processes rooted in the first Analogue stage, which relies on paper submission, either by in person, mail or by fax, due to written signature requirements or in-person verification.
Many systems have progressed to the second transactional stage, meaning that public services are offered online; however, the technology is still limited. For example, forms for accessing services may be available online or information can be submitted through a website – but the end-to-end service is not connected across the public sector, leading to inefficiencies.
The third common stage of evolution is Service-Centered Government. Here we see services that meet the evolving expectations of Canadians – driven by increased focus on user demands and allows for greater flexibility when responding to changing policy requirements.
The fourth and final stage is Intelligent Government. This is where governments are innovating to offer much greater personalization in service delivery, but more importantly, to use these capabilities to improve wider government operations.
In today’s digital economy, the transformation to an Intelligent Government isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ it is critical to Canada’s economic recovery. It goes beyond adopting new technology – it requires a government that embraces a cloud-first approach and digital mindset.
Digital Transformation in Action: Transport Canada
As part of the Government of Canada’s response to COVID-19, Transport Canada was tasked with introducing a series of new measures to limit the spread of the virus and keep critical supply chains intact. While adjusting to the new realities of remote work, Transport Canada employees developed and introduced changes to defer the cruise ship season, limited international arrivals to four airports, and established new safety guidelines for travellers and workers in air, marine and road transportation.
“When the COVID-19 crisis hit, we were able to pivot seamlessly over the span of a weekend because our digital transformation was already well underway,” says Julie Leese, Chief Digital Officer, Transport Canada. “At Transport Canada, 90 percent of our workforce is currently working remotely, so our digital transformation goes beyond modernizing our processes. It extends to our people and our culture. With 6,000 employees, leveraging innovative technology like Microsoft Teams, has been instrumental in providing continuity and creating an inclusive and collaborative environment even when we are apart.”
Within the first few weeks of remote work, the Digital Services team deployed 700 tablets to support employees working from home; doubled the department’s network speed and increased the number of network connections; and rolled out Microsoft Office and Teams to all Transport Canada employees—up from about 50% in early March—to help them hold meetings, discuss strategies and resolve important issues in real-time.
“Canada’s transportation industry is very innovative. As the department that regulates the sector, it is imperative that Transport Canada keep pace and modernize processes to be responsive, agile and transparent,” says Leese. “By virtue of necessity, we accelerated our transformation, and it has opened up many new possibilities. To ensure we sustain this progress, a major focus is upskilling our workforce with digital training and tools to continue this incredible momentum and fuel ongoing transformation.”
The Path Forward: Fueling Innovation
Canada’s public sector is truly showing just how agile it can be with a strong digital strategy in place. “I’m inspired by the incredible transformation we’ve witnessed across all departments over the past few months, and excited about the potential to create a truly modern public service for all Canadians,” added Leese.
To learn more about innovation in action in Canada’s public sector, check out Microsoft’s ebook on Digital Transformation in Government.
