Unlocking Workforce Productivity in Federal Government

Unlocking Workforce Productivity in Federal Government With agencies tasked with delivering a modernized, streamlined and ultimately more citizen facing federal government environment, the focus on staff productivity and working practices has never been so great.

Happily, and echoing moves already showing success in the private sector, the rapid evolution of workplace technology offers new and exciting opportunities for federal planners to inject greater levels of flexibility, mobility and cost saving strategies into wider workforce approaches.

In fact, we don’t have to look too far into the future to see just how dramatic these changes may be on the daily routines of millions of public sector employees across the United States.

According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), nearly a quarter of all federal employees will be eligible to retire in 2016. They’ll be replaced, for the most part, by younger generations of connected and tech-savvy workers with radically different life experiences, interests and expectations. And that’s if they’re replaced at all.

Undoubtedly, an evolving digital workplace offers tremendous opportunities to automate and streamline tasks – for example, the self-service, web-based options now available for citizens calling into contact centers. It’s not always possible, but being able to leverage technology to do more with fewer people is certainly an attractive cost option.

Then there’s the ongoing recruitment issue. If the eligible 25% of the federal workforce retire on mass, this will undoubtable cause a major service delivery headache – one unlikely to be soothed in the shorter-term by job-for-job recruitment. And, of course, those states and counties already experiencing labor shortages will be the hardest hit.

Not only that, where are these new generations of federal workers going to sit? The ‘freeze the footprint’ targets of successive administrations means office space consolidation and agency co-locations are in the cards. And, of course, that means the pressure is on to support increasingly optimized and flexible working practices for employees.

The common denominator in all this is collaboration. Mobility and teleworking rely on it. Geographic and agency interworking requires it. And today’s (and tomorrow’s) social and connected workforce wants it. So this, in a nutshell, is what federal agencies need to deliver to get their departments working.

Undoubtedly, an evolving digital workplace offers tremendous opportunities to automate and streamline tasks.

Addressing federal priorities Increasing operational efficiency is a top priority in the face of budgetary pressures and constraints. Today’s federal agency IT decision-makers are looking to enable teleworking and accelerate productivity, making it possible for employees to locate and communicate with the people they seek in real time and seamlessly share and collaborate at will.

But that’s not all. The core objectives are:

• Boosting team productivity. Making greater team collaboration across local, remote and distributed sites, without undue complexity or infrastructure investment.

• Enhancing teleworking. Delivering optimized and secure environments that support BYOD-enabled ‘anywhere working’ and home-based users.

• Initiating flexible digital workplaces. Attracting and retaining top talent with today’s organizations depends on offering leading edge tools and an intuitive user experience.

• Reducing costs. Eliminating unnecessary travel, facilities and communications costs via conferencing, remote workers and leveraging IP communication technologies.

• Promoting innovation. Introducing more agile service-orientated architectures that emphasize system interoperability and the ubiquitous availability of data – and enable new technologies to be leveraged rapidly.

Where to start Many federal agencies are now looking at home working to save money, ensure continuity of operations during regional and national emergencies, and to provide a more citizen-friendly extended hours service. While this raises undoubted technical and operational considerations – not least the adoption of new approaches to training and evaluation – Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data certainly points to the improved performance and greater productivity of teleworkers.

What’s more, federal IT leaders need to respond to the demands of today’s mobile-first employees with BYOD policies that allow young professionals to work on the device of their choice. Whether in the office – or on the go – today’s workers increasingly expect to connect with people, files and workflow tools securely, from anywhere and on any device. And, as real estate rationalization begins to take hold, a growing percentage of federal employees will be working outside the traditional office environment.

In this brave new world, enabling a reliable and resilient voice infrastructure is just the start. With more and more teams working virtually, accelerating productivity means real-time communication and collaboration – via any channel – will become critical.

Delivering against this broad set of requirements, the direction of travel is, of course, towards an enterprise web-based team communication and collaboration cloud service.

The value of real-time online collaboration Today’s workforce doesn’t want to have to start or restart online conference sessions or waste time organizing all their emails, documents, conferences, messages and project notes. They want to collaborate, in real-time, with colleagues and partners, wherever they may be. For them, working at home or in a satellite office or remotely shouldn’t mean being isolated or disconnected from the information and tools they need to be productive – or being unable to contribute to and participate with the extended teams they are part of.

Unfortunately, traditional approaches that rely on multiple fragmented tools, information silos and disconnected systems get in the way of these aspirations – making it difficult to bring virtual teams together, across any network or device. It’s frustrating and overwhelming for workers, who want a better way to communicate and collaborate.

But as enterprise communications become more software-centric and open – and mobility becomes more important in the workplace – the integration of communications and business applications and processes is becoming more and more mainstream.

Federal agencies now need to deliver this converged functionality, supporting the fluid workflows users expect and want – in one tool that supports guest access for citizens and partners and offers a natural user experience.

The good news is that today’s software as a service communication and collaboration solutions deliver all this and more. Easy to deploy and manage, and supporting flexible per-user licensing, it makes the delivery of varied and useful communication and collaboration services a natural evolutionary step.

Federal agencies now need to deliver this converged functionality, supporting the fluid workflows users expect and want.

A none-invasive approach to ubiquitous collaboration The question for federal IT leaders isn’t whether to enhance their communication and collaboration environments. It is how to deploy a ubiquitous collaboration application across an agency or department – while continuing to leverage the value of existing assets – email clients, communications tools and newer unified collaboration platforms such as Circuit from Unify.

Deciding what becomes the predominant and standard application is a tough decision. A non-invasive approach eliminates the need to choose at all – with solutions available that overlay all the agency’s disparate tools, and bring them together in a single place.

It’s great for users – allowing them to work with existing productivity tools. For agencies, all crucial conversations can be accessed and added to in one umbrella application. From a budget perspective, the ability to sit above (or integrate with) all existing productivity tools eliminates the need to fund costly rip and replace projects.

Your communication and collaboration evolution

Bringing together voice, video, screen share, messaging and file-sharing into a single platform agnostic application delivers a ‘single pane of glass’ collaboration tool that’s designed for the way organizations and people work today.

By overlaying existing productivity tools, agencies can continue to leverage their existing assets while embracing a wealth of additional business capabilities and services.

Freeing employees to work where they want, when they want and how they want, this open standards approach delivers seamless call transitions between devices while enabling full screen, file and document sharing – and more.

Quite simply, it provides the real- time insights, communication

and collaboration capabilities employees need to get on with the job in hand – without frustrating or unnecessary delays.

In this new ‘always on’ digital workplace, it’s easy to find people and knowledge fast. With just one click, teams can come together in a group conversation, share screens or upload and download files – and even send contextual chat messages during and after a session. What’s more, every conversation – including the information and files exchanged – is available to refer to whenever needed.

And that gives users a single unified view of all communications, content and collaboration, regardless of their location – or the device they’re using.

Let’s explore how the issues on your agency agenda are solved by Circuit, the enterprise WebRTC team communication and collaboration cloud service by Unify.

On your agency agenda Addressed by Circuit

Increase operational efficiency andincrease employee productivity

Enable greater team collaboration across sites – including remote and distributed locations – and interagency working

Consolidates voice, HD, video, screenshare,chat and file sharing in a single web-based platform that accelerates productivity – enabling communications in any channel and in real-time

Intuitive and easy-to-use real-time communication platform that enables people to collaborate and access files wherever they are – connect from a PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Android – moving active calls while in transition

Boost efficiency while cutting costs High quality voice and HD video eliminate the need for costly face-to-face meetings and keep employees productive; with no installation and per-user licensing Circuit is cost and resource effective

Support the wider adoption of teleworking strategies

IP-voice integration with video and web conferencing, chat, messaging, presence, one-number service and more enable workers to be productive at home, or on the move

Harness the power of digital technologies to bring teams together, organize projects and get things done

Initiate a flexible digital workplace with leading-edge tools and an intuitive user experience

Create conversations – searchable threads of texts, files and calls that can be shared with people, teams and external consultants and advisors – enabling mobile devices to become true communication and collaboration interfaces

HD video and natural conversation feed enables employees to work remotely, connect with colleagues and citizens, access the data and resources they need and share information ‘in the moment’ with others – all in one place

Exploring Circuit from Unify Circuit delivers a virtual meeting space that makes it easy to promote cooperation, interaction, opinion and idea sharing. Everything is organized in context, with relevant files and information shared over time kept in context. Employees can use voice, video or chat to collaborate as naturally as if they were in the same room.

Minimizing email overload, workers can instantly select an available colleague and open a direct conversation stream – adding additional colleagues or external contacts who will then have access to all the information and files exchanged before they were invited to join.

Users can quickly create workstreams and share any associated documentation, approvals or related communications – so that everyone has all related contextual content at their finger tips.

It can be deployed as a stand-alone application or integrated with, and run on top of, existing federal agency email and productivity tools. This allows agencies

to extend team communication and collaboration while continuing to leverage the value of their existing investments.

The good news is that everything stays private and secure. Conversations between individuals or teams stay private; data in transit is fully encrypted, with logically separated Circuit domains. As you’d expect, multiple layers of security and data retention and privacy policies ensure you stay safe and compliant.

Because WebRTC has the ability to convert any device with a web browser into a sophisticated communications device, users can work from a single communications app and enjoy more functionality from a single browser screen.

What’s more, the use of a web encrypted tunnel and transport layer security means the security risks of a BYOD strategy are reduced – making it easy to initiate a secure communications environment in which employees can use the devices they’re most familiar with.

The case for teleworking

In the District of Columbia, for example, almost a third of federal employees commute over 180 minutes a day. That’s dead time which contributes to: unscheduled absences; poor punctuality; less availability; higher staff attrition; recruitment challenges; negative environmental impacts.

Moreover, ‘going to work’ requires a ‘place to work’ – premises, desk space, hardwired extensions, onsite facilities and so on. All of which cost money to provide. Plus, should that ‘place to work’ be hit with a disaster – natural or otherwise – productivity drops and costs rise as staff are moved elsewhere to carry on the day job.

By contrast, teleworking can be done anywhere, costs less money (for agency and employee), improves

staff morale, reduces sickness rates, enhances available talent (by being able to recruit countrywide) and reduces employee attrition. And it’s better for the environment.

In the private sector, teleworking allowed IBM to slash real estate costs by $50 million and saves Sun Microsystems $68 million a year. JD Edwards teleworkers are 20–25% more productive than their office-based counterparts, and American Express found their staff were 43% more productive. Not only this, the American Management Association found organizations that implemented a telework program realized an average unscheduled absence reduction of 63%.

The evidence is compelling. All that’s needed for teleworking to succeed in federal government is a small change in technology, and perhaps a larger leap in philosophy.

Teleworking can be done anywhere, costs less money (for agency and employee), improves staff morale, reduces sickness rates, enhances available talent (by being able to recruit countrywide) and reduces employee attrition.

The case for collaboration Federal agencies need their workforces to perform smarter, faster and more productively. And that means embedding collaborative technologies deep into processes – transforming the way organizations turn knowledge into action.

Collaboration platforms need to do more than simply enable employees to talk about their work – they need to create new ways for employees to do their work. And that means utilizing collaboration tools that help shape how work is performed – enabling greater innovation, higher productivity and better results and outcomes.

That means embedding technologies into the way work is performed so that using them becomes a natural and accepted part of the job.

Improving the speed and effectiveness of people’s efforts means giving employees the right kind of communication and collaboration tools, ensuring that these are integrated into business processes so that employees can get things done fast.

By eliminating the communication bottlenecks that get in the way of individual or team productivity, business goals can be accomplished more efficiently and effectively. That means enabling streamlined workflows that reduce cycle times and eliminate the ‘human latency’ issue that typically occurs when someone is waiting for information or approval from someone else.

Further Reading. Federal Insights Series This paper forms part of the Unify Federal Insights Series. Additional papers explore the key issues and opportunities of agency-wide transition to IP-based voice infrastructures, the evolution of service delivery to citizens, and the roadmap for effective, agency-wide emergency response. Access these papers at unify.com.

Today’s UC technologies typically converge email, IM, conferencing, mobile communications and persistent chat – creating an explosion of ways to be in touch. But Circuit provides a powerful way to organize and harness this diverse range of functionality to make real-time collaboration a reality.

Projects can be completed faster and with less effort. And improved information access eliminates delays and speeds up transactions. Delivering seamless information for mobility, information is available when needed – without wasting others’ time and effort. No more call backs or delays.

It all adds up to a more engaged and productive workforce.

Being rapidly deployed in public sector environments across the world, Circuit from Unify unlocks the people potential offered by the move to a digital workplace. It delivers new styles of work that address the complex questions of resource, recruitment, effective team collaboration and, of course, cost reduction. But more than anything else it enables contextual conversations that accelerate staff productivity – and ultimately this addresses many of the tactical and strategic concerns that lie at the heart of federal agency modernization efforts.

For more on how to drive workplace transformation in your federal agency, visit www.unify.com or call us on 800 310 6308.

Circuit from Unify unlocks the people potential offered by the move to a digital workplace. It delivers new styles of work that address the complex questions of resource, recruitment, effective team collaboration and, of course, cost reduction.

About Unify

Unify is one of the world’s leading communications software and services brands, providing integrated communications

and collaboration solutions worldwide. Our customers range in size from 5 employees to 500,000+ employees. Our

solutions unify multiple voice, video and data networks, connected devices and applications into one easy-to-use

platform that allows teams to collaborate effectively and efficiently – anytime, anywhere. The result is a transformation

of how the enterprise communicates and collaborates that amplifies collective effort, energizes the business, improves

employee satisfaction and enhances business performance. Unify has a strong heritage of product reliability, innovation,

open standards and security. Our OpenScape and Circuit communications solutions provide a seamless and efficient

collaboration experience – on any device. Together, the group’s global team of UCC experts and service professionals set

the standard for a rich communications and collaboration experience that empowers teams to deliver better results.

Unify is an Atos company.

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