How Covid-19 is helping to digitise the public sector

The public sector has perhaps faced the biggest challenge of any industry during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Like many organisations, public institutions and agencies are dealing with a dynamically shifting situation, as science and government advice fluctuates with each stage of the crisis. Yet they have done this while being on the front line of the pandemic response. Indeed, the reality for the public sector is that, for all the talk of the ‘return to work’, many of their employees have never been at home.

Given these circumstances, it might be a surprise to find out that public sector executives believe that the pandemic has actually created an environment for innovation. And ServiceNow’s recent Work Survey shows exactly that.

91 per cent of public sector executives globally say Covid-19 has given their organisation the opportunity to rethink how work is done. Moreover, 96 per cent of executives say their organisation has transitioned to new ways of working faster than they thought possible.

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Far from retreating, public sector organisations are seizing the opportunity to double down on digital transformation, innovation and change. The questions now are what can we learn from this? And what comes next?

At the start of the pandemic issues with how departments and agencies were handling workflows were evident. Departments were struggling to break down internal silos in order to carry on working efficiently during Covid-19 because they were unable to report correctly – even on Covid-19 itself. However, that’s also been a remarkable spur to action.

Indeed, in many places public sector organisations have responded as well as, if not better than, their private sector peers. Look at the citywide testing infrastructure that has been rolled out in Liverpool. This happened at an unprecedented pace – something that is seldom associated with the public sector. Vaccine rollouts are being designed to happen within the month.

Behind these successes there is undoubtedly a desire to break through governance structures and accelerate transformation. I’m seeing this attitude snowballing across the public sector as more and more departments see that efforts to speed up are delivering real benefits.

In fact, it’s not just that it’s working, it’s that these efforts have worked under extreme duress in a constantly shifting scenario. And this success has brought a realisation among many public sector leaders that they can work effectively at pace.

The achievements of the public sector this year will be incredibly powerful in making that happen. Whereas no one has had to deal with these challenges before, now there is a model or a template that can be reused.

We’re exceptionally proud of the fact that ServiceNow has been a major part in that process. At the start of the crisis we created our Safe Workplace app suite in under seven weeks to help organisations maintain productivity while keeping staff safe.

These apps ensure that organisations can respond in the right way – with proper measurement and reassurance for employees to know their environment is secure. Now bodies such as the Home Office are building these tools into the foundation of their operations.

This re-energising of digital transformation in the public sector is incredibly encouraging. Indeed, our Work Survey confirms that 74 per cent of public sector executives believe changes to company operations due to Covid will eventually result in cost savings – and 70 per cent will direct these savings to further digital transformation efforts.

This is vital. For all the understandable joy around the recent announcements that significant progress is being made on vaccines, it is also clear that the challenges we face aren’t going anywhere just yet.

There is still an urgent need to build the public sector’s resilience, its ability to respond swiftly to further change, and to continue to move at pace. ServiceNow is very much at the forefront of ensuring that this transition happens, as smoothly and as quickly as possible.