Love for the CIO in the time of Coronavirus

Technologists everywhere have been tested during this pandemic, were they ready and will the new ways of working last?

Jo Cumper, our lead consultant for Digital, speaks to her network about how quickly and effectively they have moved to implement digital agendas during this pandemic.

The government has adopted many mantras to change our behaviour during the Coronavirus crisis – ‘Stay At Home”, Protect the NHS, Save Lives’ for instance. Taking ‘a digital first response’ is another. But just how well have front line service providers been able to meet this “digital first” challenge?

Changes to working arrangements have never been so dramatic, fast paced and widespread than in the last four weeks. But not all transition has been smooth – Ocado believed they were under attack, when their website crashed soon after the lockdown announcement. They were not. The weight of the traffic to their site, with three weeks of delivery slots being booked in one hour, caused the crash.

If the UK’s biggest online supermarket can’t cope with current demand pressures, how can our local government, key to the delivery of services to the most vulnerable in this pandemic, cope with the accelerated need for a “digital first” approach? The crisis is set to amplify three areas of digital readiness:

·        Technology

·        Agile working

·        Digital Skills

We spoke to ICT leaders to understand how front-line services, and the public sector, have reacted to the need to be digitally ready, right now.

How lockdown has accelerated the need for digitisation:

Getting the technology infrastructure digital first ready had long been on the agenda across the UK public sector. Often sponsored by the Chief Executive, the ICT team has ensured the infrastructure, applications and adoption of the Cloud has enabled end to end processes delivery. The technologist and change leaders continue to optimize control and utilize the latest enterprise tools and applications to automate and innovate.

Enter COVID-19. The workforce, now working from home, need to be able to log on and work, seamlessly and thus it proved to be the case. According to a Managing Director of a local government shared service, they were ready; “Public sector is being put under enormous pressure in its bid to respond to the crisis but with good planning, the majority of our workforce have been able to carry out duties ensuring the support of our people.”

Another CDO said: “My digital team have never been in more demand and have set up a lot of new digital services from scratch. This includes the form for vulnerable people wanting help and the back-end system to distribute help, and a Slack channel to help young care leavers support each other and get a sense of community.”

Agile working is less of a technologist’s issue and more of an HR issue. Presenteeism was still rife across the UK pre-lockdown, one look at the overcrowded TFL trains would confirm that. This cultural shift, based in trust, was long overdue. Paul Neville, CDO of the London Borough of Waltham Forest said: “Firstly, the whole organisation has had to change rapidly including setting up completely new services from scratch that hadn't existed beforehand - which is the definition of agile. The digital team has responded by providing online forms and reporting to support each new service and provide the public with the information that they need.”

Leading London Technologist, Fabio Negro felt we took this in our stride, saying; “This crisis has created a ‘new normal’ for our workforce working from home, it has removed some of the personal elements which help build a team, but it has reduced distractions and created another gear to allow staff to be ever more focused and creative in their endeavours to continue working as team .”

With the technology and culture in place to adopt a digital first approach, how well has the workforce been able to adapt itself to VPNs, Zoom Conferencing, MS Team Huddles and other digital platforms to work on. We know that Zoom has enjoyed a massive surge of daily use from 10 million to 200 million people on the platform. One London CIO said;

“Within London, we have seen a mesh of collaborations across public sector. Our Councils are sharing ideas and services and offering support more than ever. It has woken up the public sector community.”

Another felt there was need for this support: “Staff digital skills are very varied as you'd expect. The pandemic has forced people to learn quickly which is a good thing. managers have also had to learn how to manage people they can't see. We are working with HR on training for staff so they can use the tools we've given them in a way that's easy to understand.”

There is a sense that there is no going back from here, as many clients have commented. Fabio Negro, Managing Director, Digital Services thinks the future is bright; “This new normal has forced a lot of us think differently about how we work and the social and health benefits those new approaches bring to our staff. We will be considering enabling our staff to work from home more often and continue to be open to new ways of efficient, productive working.”

This view is shared by CDO, Paul Neville: “The organisation (and country!) have discovered home working and I don't think they will unlearn it!! This means the flexible working we were talking about is now the new reality. As a council we've moved to a more 7-day week cycle which means that staff become more flexible and are judged much more on outcome than being present. One thing we've talked about has been new expectations - we have delivered so many new services so quickly that the old barriers seem less important now!”

Organisations are now significantly more resilient and agile to changes in global economic and health winds. On top of these firmer foundations, we will see even more digitally enabled work processes and more data driven decisions. Although in its infancy in some organisations, optimisation will be enabled as more data is collected and utilised to the fore. What we have also seen is a more trusting work culture, presenteeism appears to be dead.

By working in a more agile way, we are seeing happier work forces improving their output and enjoying a more balanced life. Thank you, technologists, everywhere, you have given us our life back.

Penna have also adopted a digital first approach to recruitment. Our clients have enjoyed enormous success using digital platforms, you have find out more from Julie Towers’ article in the MJ, on Recruiting in the coronavirus crisis.

Or please do reach out to talk to Jo Cumper directly on [email protected] or call 07925 894 863.