The future of government work
GovCloud offers a new way of looking at how governments organize and deploy talent. Its thinking follows that of cloud computing — allowing governments to move beyond the workforce structure of yesterday in order to confront the challenges of tomorrow.
The way we work is changing. While government work is becoming increasingly complex, the public sector workforce structure, designed for the clerks of the 1950s, remains relatively unchanged. Moreover, when changes are made, they tend to be reactive, creating new, permanent structures that look a lot like the old ones. Given the well-documented budgetary pressures and burgeoning debt in countries around the globe, the status quo of simply adding layers of government agencies is unsustainable.
How, then, can governments change to meet future work trends? Creating an adaptable government workforce would require providing an unprecedented degree of flexibility. To accomplish this, we could draw from a game-changing concept in the technology world: cloud computing. Major organizations and small startups alike increase their flexibility by sharing storage space, information, and resources in a "cloud". Why not move beyond computing and apply the cloud model to the workforce? A cloud-based government workforce, or GovCloud, could comprise employees who undertake creative, problem-focused work. Rather than existing in any single agency, these workers could reside in the cloud, making them truly government-wide employees. Cloud teams could be directed by thinner agencies than those that exist today. Agencies and cloud teams could be supported by government-wide shared services that prevent the establishment of new, permanent structures by assisting with ongoing, routine work.
GovCloud fully incorporates new workplace concepts that are being utilized all over the world, in both the private and public sectors — models like flexible resourcing, shared services, and telework. It takes these ideas one step further to develop a truly transformative work environment: breaking down silos, minimizing redundancies, and offering career paths suited to our time.