Public servants — especially at the city and county level — play a vital role in delivering the critical services we rely on every day, leading our communities through successes and challenges. But there’s a lesser-known barrier that is keeping government agency staff from building resilient communities: talent gaps and outdated information technology (IT) knowledge.
Today, residents (e.g., people who live in a particular place, such as a city, state or country, and have some legal rights and obligations there), expect a seamless experience when interacting with government agencies, and municipalities are expected to keep up with constantly evolving government technology trends. But with budget uncertainty and chronic labor shortages, it can be challenging for government IT teams to prioritize technology training, which is critical to agencies’ ability to deliver swift, up-to-date and effective services and solutions.
Training Is the Solution
Well-designed government IT training is the key to relieving these pressures. When IT workers have regular and deep access to training, they’re empowered to create frictionless experiences within and across departments and when interacting with residents. Boosting specific skill-based training for government IT workers can enable agencies to save time and create more efficient processes. Agencies can then maximize their often-limited resources by allowing employees to focus their time and attention on improving the services they offer residents, rather than learning the basics.
However, not all government IT trainings are built the same. When government training professionals are designing programs or choosing a government approved, tech solution provider to partner with on these programs, they must look to convenient, accessible and comprehensive trainings to quickly scale their agency’s knowledge base, combat knowledge gaps and better serve residents.
Creating a Blended Learning Experience
A self-service training portal with access to a robust curriculum of both instructor-led and self-paced events is a powerful, cost-effective way to capture the necessary information needed for a skilled government IT team. Through an easy-to-navigate online portal, these trainings conveniently identify and provide solutions for the specific technology pain points and capabilities, as well as expand a team’s ability to self-serve on demand. These qualities are especially helpful for government agencies, who may have small budgets or limited resources but still expect high value from their trainings.
Training IT learning leaders.
Learning starts at the top. For leadership, the organization can provide a blended learning experience with both synchronous and hands-on trainings. Led by an experienced facilitator, learning leaders can go through the training and then disseminate the appropriate skills and knowledge to designated IT professionals when facilitating their own training programs.
This approach can create subject matter experts (SMEs) on a government agency team without overburdening other workers. Learning leaders can master specific topics, speeding up an agency’s IT capabilities and potential successes when their technology is used most strategically and effectively.
Government IT leaders leverage bite-sized, topic-specific and self-paced training to transfer a broad level of learnings to all members of a team at a typically lower cost. It’s especially important that team members can access these modules on a recurring basis. All employees, rather than just learning leaders, can then repeat these modules as many times as needed to ensure they retain their newly acquired skill sets.
In the long term, this training strategy can offer a government agency continued support. IT workers can reference these trainings as many times as needed to absorb the information or take a new training to help build context around a new project. They can also be helpful during a larger organizational transition, taking the pressure of establishing a baseline of information off of leaders’ shoulders. Team trainings can, therefore, be used more effectively, diving into deeper understanding of the technology to increase resident satisfaction.
Case Studies in Sarasota, Florida and Cleveland, Ohio
The impact of self-paced trainings is impressive.
Consider this example:
I’ve seen one training program in Sarasota, Florida, where 207 government IT employees had access to these trainings, utilizing 3,101 modules. This represents 1,171 hours of training, or 30 full weeks of training, which would have cost over $200,000 for a traditional in-person training for the same curriculum. Similarly in Cleveland, Ohio, 172 end users tuned into 3,312 modules, or 27 full weeks of training equivalent, saving an estimated $180,000 in training costs.
Looking Ahead
To solve government IT labor shortages and build teams equipped to best support their communities, agencies must invest in high-skilled training programs. But these trainings do not have to come at a high cost. There’re effective self-service training portals with various curriculum options to effectively fill in knowledge gaps where they are needed most. When government agencies prioritize stellar training for their staff, our communities and all of us benefit as a result.
