Local Agencies Can Foster Collaboration with Messaging Platforms

Modern collaboration tools have improved the experience for government workers, note Stanford researchers in a 2023 report, “The Evolution of Working from Home.”

“The same developments that facilitated a big shift to work from home also created greater reach and higher quality in one-way and two-way communications at a distance. These include the rise of the internet, better broadband infrastructure, better videoconferencing, the emergence of the cloud and better software tools for remote collaboration,” the report notes.

In hybrid work environments, seamless digital experiences keep employees engaged and minimize workflow challenges, says Bob O’Donnell, president of TECHnalysis Research. Many messaging platforms support multimodal forms of communication, which facilitates idea and file sharing and therefore strengthens connections among workers.

“One of the realities of the post-COVID working world for both corporations and governmental institutions is that to keep their employees as happy and productive as possible, there need to be robust tools that allow for remote collaboration, including platforms such as Teams and Zoom. People know they can be productive from nearly anywhere now, but only if the proper tools are in place to make that happen,” O’Donnell says.

Conference Capabilities Save Governments Time and Money

A Logitech-based system in a Williamson County conference room could include a mounted speaker, a consumer-grade LG TV and a camera with preset functions that enable it to zoom in on meeting attendees when they are speaking, making interactions seem more conversational.

“It’s very nice to have the focus be on them for a few minutes,” Semple says. “That really helps the folks who are remote feel a little bit more in-person than seeing this far-out view of the whole table.”

By ending the need to trek to one of the county’s eight dozen buildings to get together, Semple estimates the enhanced videoconferencing capabilities have saved thousands of employee travel hours and miles.

“A big benefit is that we are able to include a lot more folks in certain discussions and decision-making processes because we can quickly organize a Teams meeting,” he says. “If someone is across town or on a very tight schedule, we’re still able to bring them in and make them feel like they’re part of the meeting, when otherwise they wouldn’t be available.”

Scaling Cloud Services Increases Collaboration Tools

The Information Technology Department for Gilbert, Ariz., has implemented a number of solutions to help employees easily contact both the IT team and each other. These include SolarWinds’ cloud-based Service Desk IT service management platform and Adobe’s e-signature software, which is being added to enhance the town’s all-digital workflow structure.

Gilbert is also preparing to phase out physical phones and receive all calls through Microsoft Teams.

“That’s one of the things you immediately observe when you walk into some of our facilities,” says CISO Tony Bryson. “The lack of handsets on the desks is creating more real estate for the end user to work with, so there’s a huge benefit. For the most part, everything is done through the desktop, making it much easier and more portable for the user.”

Over the past five years, Gilbert has moved from an all-on-premises environment to having about 75% of its tech solutions based in the cloud, which has reduced the human capital investment that legacy application management can require, says CTO Sasan Poureetezadi.

“It saves the town time and money,” he says. “Longer term, it sheds technical debt. And when it comes to business continuity, disaster recovery and scalability, they’re using web services such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Having our communications systems run at that level provides reliability we could never have achieved on our own.”

LEARN: Microsoft Azure attestation can help government security.

Hybrid Collaboration Cuts Costs, Reshapes Work Culture

By using cloud-based solutions, Gilbert was able to reconsider its initial plan to renovate the town’s primary municipal building, which would have involved spending nearly $1 million to obtain temporary workspace trailers and outfit them with connectivity.

“As we continued to roll out these digital technologies for communication, it became evident that we could adjust that plan,” Poureetezadi says. “We quickly realized that we’ve got a virtual meeting presence, our ITSM is cloud-hosted. We’ve got everything we need to have people work just as effectively remotely as they could in a trailer when we do the remodel.”

The revamped building’s tech integrations — which include conference room microphones and cameras and desk space that employees can reserve when they’re in the office with their Dell or Apple laptops — helped inspire town officials to forgo a related construction project and instead offer staff members increased mobility, Poureetezadi says.

“We reimagined how people could work and be effective and productive using technology,” he says. “Ultimately, that equated to an official policy where many of our employees today are hybrid. Not only did that allow us to complete the remodel and not need trailers, but we also didn’t build another facility, which would have cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.”

Employees appreciate being able to work remotely, helping the town retain staff in a competitive hiring climate, Poureetezadi says. Gilbert’s hybrid-compatible tech structure has also played an integral role in shaping its workplace culture.

“It creates an environment where people feel more connected,” Poureetezadi says. “It really provides a high level of productivity and flexibility we never had before. Whether you’re on-premises or not doesn’t really have an impact on collaboration. It has fundamentally changed the way we work.”