The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the public sector to undertake unheard-of changes in its processes to counter the paralyzing restrictions imposed by the pandemic. We haven't seen changes of this extent, executed at such a speed in the public sector in decades!

Take telehealth, for example—or work-from-home policies for government workers—these were unthinkable just a few years ago. And so it is with virtual courts and online education. Who imagined that suddenly, doctors would see patients only on video and not face-to-face? Or that all education would be online? But here we are in 2021, with government machinery working remotely, digitally, meeting citizens' demands while adhering to safety protocols like social distancing, remote work, and online query resolutions.

The digital infrastructure to support a remote workforce is sorely needed now.

How do you manage work orders, maintain public assets or complete citizen-facing service requests for FOIA without even being physically present at the office?

The public sector's way of looking at how work is done will have to change drastically. In short, government bodies must re-engineer their processes to meet the changing demands of citizens, partners and stakeholders in the new normal.

Process re-engineering in the context of the public sector

Hammer & Champy, considered to be the fathers of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), defined it as "The fundamental re-thinking and radical design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance."

BPR is the process of fundamentally and radically changing the way work is performed to achieve performance improvements. 

We must differentiate BPR from Business Process Improvement or BPI, which involves improving a particular function rather than the entire end-to-end process. It entails streamlining specific tasks or a single organizational function, department, or business unit. In contrast, Hammer describes Business Process Re-engineering or BPR as a drastic way of re-thinking how businesses work and eradicating the old methods altogether to bring in greater inefficiencies. 

The term Government Process Re-engineering or GPR applies the principles of BPR to governments, municipalities, or administrative departments.

Government Process Re-engineering (GPR) improves performance

Public sector departments and institutions have considerable differences in processes and workflows from those of private organizations. 

When applied to government workflows, BPR practices have a positive effect on administration, meeting citizens' demands, and service quality. It can reduce the processing time of service requests, improve customer satisfaction, and improve transparency and responsiveness in their services.

GPR delivers overall improvements in institutional or departmental performance while reducing the cost of service delivery.

Delivering online services—what we now call e-Governance requires comprehensive re-engineering of traditional processes and workflows that government bodies followed for years.

GPR is not a simple organizational streamlining and restructuring but a large-scale, end-to-end reform of governance methods and processes undertaken in a bid to improve performance and service quality.

Government processes: Understanding the need for change 

Today's citizens expect government agencies to provide the information as quickly as a Google search query! Taxpayers want immediate access to public information and get their service requests processed online, on-demand, with real-time status updates. Business owners want their permit requests or business licensing documentation addressed in the blink of an eye (or at the click of a button, to be precise!)

With the emergence of e-Governance and the new normal, it is essential to review and re-engineer government processes to make them more efficient and effective. For example, it may be mission-critical capital budget approvals or audit reporting and accounts payable workflows—the rapid technological changes brought by COVID-19 and the emergence of e-Governance make GPR indispensable.

Challenges in implementing process improvements or redesign

Poor buy-in from top management leaders and end-users poses major hurdles in re-engineering government processes. Even when there is a clear need for change and technologies like document management, automation and workflow management are available, top executives are often difficult to convince.

Government agencies must bring in professional workflow consultants with experience in re-engineering processes that can successfully create this buy-in at the leadership level and help the institution to manage enterprise-wide changes that are the hallmark of GPR.

Here's how workflow consultants handle the situation:

• They address any fears employees have about the technological changes that usually accompany BPR strategies. 

• They assure employees that process automation will not replace their jobs—in fact, they will become more efficient with streamlined workflows.

• They explain the reasons for changes to specific processes and introduce the new digitized or automated solutions. They may also give end-users a trial to seek their feedback and assure them that their opinions are important.

• They make the process measurable, establish a clear success/failure metric, and set clear expectations around the expected output from the staff.

• They sensitize staff members and leadership that sometimes, pervasive changes result in a temporary dip in productivity following implementation of the new process before it improves.

When the staff and leaders understand the extent of change, its importance to their performance levels, and what is expected from them to support the changes, it increases the likelihood of success for the GPR project.

The role of process automation and document digitization in GPR

According to a survey by Deloitte, 79% of government officials indicate that automation is making a significant positive impact on their business, suggesting that adoption of automation is likely to continue despite the pandemic. 

In addition, the survey indicated that governments with solid digital infrastructure were able to rapidly adapt to the new virtual world, while those relying on manual processes struggled. 

The first step in radically changing government workflows is to digitize all public service records. Next, document-intensive processes must be transformed and streamlined into automated, paperless processes.

Here are five basic steps to digitize government workflows and bring in automation to streamline operations:

1. Scan and index government records for long-term retention and compliance.

2. Manage the digitized documents in a secure, robust records management system. 

3. Allow citizens to self-serve and eliminate data entry for employees with online forms and public access licenses.

4. Respond to FOIA requests in a timely, consistent manner with workflow management software.

5. Make audits hassle-free by streamlining reports and eliminating spreadsheets and Access databases.

RDS provides records management solutions and end-to-end document digitization services. We provide advanced document scanning, intelligent data capture and indexing services to government agencies to help them re-engineer cumbersome, document-intensive processes. 

We provide comprehensive implementation and support for OpenText AppEnhancer, a state-of-the-art document management system that manages records, streamlines municipal processes and builds public trust. 

RDS deploys process management and automation solutions to suit every government need, whether front-facing citizen services or backend processes like capital budgeting or audit processing.

Our workflow consultants show you how to reduce operational costs and improve process ROI. We have got you covered with everything from stakeholder management, process design to process monitoring and security. Talk to RDS today for a discussion about our business process management consulting services and technology solutions.