Once the pandemic struck, the public and private sectors alike were left with no choice but to work from a remote setting. Everything from work meetings to court hearings began taking place from living rooms and makeshift home offices.
Even as the world continues to open up, that sense of comfort that comes with no commute, more flexible work hours, and the ease of working from home has many uninspired to return to the office. This contingency has undoubtedly played a role in the labor shortage many organizations have struggled to overcome. To make matters worse, the public sector already has a substantially harder time with recruiting than private businesses.
Local governments will need to consider a modern approach to hiring that allows for flexible work days from home. The solution: a hybrid government work culture.
Read on for everything you need to know about the future of government work, and how a few days at home a week will improve recruitment efforts, morale, workflows, and retainment.
There are many obvious benefits to working from home. Hours are saved every week not commuting. Virtual meetings come with a fresh sense of casualness, as people can wear comfortable, non-professional clothing without shame. The 9 to 5 no longer needs to be set in stone as people can opt to work different hours. Work can get done from home, a coffee shop, or even a remote location.
Studies show that putting these powers in workers’ hands can increase happiness, improve productivity, and reduce turnover, making it a win-win for everyone involved.
In a recent article published in The Hill, Liz Farmer, a fellow at the Rockefeller Institute’s Future of Labor Research Center said, “Governments have long been talking about things like streamlining and putting things online and AI and all that cool tech stuff. But the pandemic really forced their hand. There is a strong sense that governments need to be able to provide services in a way that is what their constituents expect, but with fewer people behind the scenes.”
With local and state governments struggling to replace exiting workers, government telework offers benefits that many antiquated local government entities likely haven’t considered or thought possible.
Here are some of the top benefits of letting government workers work from a remote location:
While the benefits of remote work culture are apparent, there can be challenges that arise with allowing employees to go remote.
Here are some of the challenges that come with allowing government employees to work remotely:
To embrace the benefits of working in-person and working remotely, government leadership should consider a best-of-both-worlds scenario: hybrid government work culture.
As the name implies, hybrid work culture is a structure that embraces a combination of working from home and working in-person. The week is generally split between several days of in-person meetings at the office and several days of employees working from home.
Embracing hybrid work means that your employees will get to reap the benefits of both structures.
These benefits include substantially less time commuting every week, in-person interaction to boost camaraderie and work culture, and workflows that allow business continuity in an emergency event that prevents in-person attendance.
Establishing the processes that will allow for virtual government employment might sound like a challenging task. Fortunately, recent legislation and innovations in govtech mean that government virtualization is not as difficult as it seems.
Here is a list of things you’ll need to do to let government officials work from a remote capacity:
Government management software is cloud-based infrastructure that allows all government departments to go paperless, work from anywhere, improve workflows, and store documentation securely in the cloud. And, with billions laid out for improving local digital infrastructure in the text of the American Rescue Plan and Infrastructure Investments and Job Acts, you can apply for grants to acquire this technology via federal funding.
To learn more about how federal legislation can assist in going digital, read on:
What Does the American Rescue Plan Mean for Municipal Governments?
What Does the 2021 Infrastructure Bill Mean for Municipal Governments?
With government ransomware attacks occurring more regularly, you’ll need to take preventative measures to ensure that hackers can’t steal your precious government data. Provide municipal workers with official government laptops so that they can work remotely and securely without using personal computers.
Train government employees on the best practices to work from a digital format. By encouraging use of official laptops and emails and educating officials about phishing scams and other common hacking tactics, you can ensure that a remote work structure won’t pose a threat to government cybersecurity.
To learn more about government cybersecurity, read on:
Government Cybersecurity: How to Prevent Ransomware Attacks
How to Train Government Officials on Cybersecurity and Ransomware Attacks
As you roll out your remote work game plan, be sure to keep everyone in the loop. Let government officials know that they can anticipate working from home at least several days a week in the near future.
Constituents will also need to be made aware. Let them know that they can do things like filing permits and licenses, paying parking tickets, or requesting government documents from your government website instead of in-person.
Government virtualization of workflows to allow for hybrid work culture is a win for everyone. Government workers can work safely and securely from the comfort of their home and your government leadership can expect better productivity and quicker workflows as a result of going digital. Plus, a few days in the office a week means that you won’t have to worry about the loss of work culture or productive in-person meetings.
To learn more about how government management software can help you to embrace remote government jobs, book a free consultation.
For more helpful resources for your local government, read on
Virtual government workflows mean that your employees can work in a remote fashion. That means that you’ll have an easier time finding government talent, will see a boost in productivity from workers, and can fully embrace a modern, digital government infrastructure.
While remote work offers clear benefits, meeting in-person a few days a week is still wise. Meeting in the office will allow leadership to keep an eye on employee performance, encourage distraction-free meetings, and to maintain camaraderie across the department work culture.
Recent federal legislation offers grants for local governments to embrace digital infrastructure. Apply for grants to pay for government software that will automate government tasks and allow employees to work from anywhere. Buy secure laptops for employees so that they’re not working from a personal computer. And, train government workers on the best cybersecurity so that private government data isn’t at risk of being stolen.
Sources