The public sector workforce predicts that within the next 20 years their offices will be dominated by highly sophisticated technologies that will drastically change the way they work.
The future gazing research commissioned by Ricoh Europe and conducted by Coleman Parkes reveals how public sector employees anticipate the arrival of a tech-evolved workplace which will make use of augmented reality (70%), desk-based robots (62%) and drones (62%).
“It’s interesting to note that respondents to the survey expect a relatively slow uptake of technologies in the next five to 10 years compared with their counterparts in education, financial services and healthcare,” says Richard Pinker, MD of Ricoh SA. “Yet they firmly believe that innovations will occur in their workplaces.”
These innovations include the arrival of carrier nodes (56%) – which could allow information to be transmitted directly to employee’s brains as electronic signals. For example, key data relating to core citizen services, internal initiatives, as well as local, national and EU-wide regulations could be transferred quickly to civil servants in advance of an important meeting.
“The same situation, driven by legislation, could occur in South Africa,” says Pinker. “It will undoubtedly occur at some point but the sooner it is realised here the better for government and citizens’ benefits.”
The advantages of a tech-evolved workplace, according to employees, signify a culture where information and communication can be better streamlined. More than half of respondents (59%) believe that establishing a tech-evolved workplace will give them better access to the information they need to do their jobs, while 55% say it will help them to complete tasks faster, and 51% agree it will help to improve employee collaboration.
Organisations can realign resources and personnel to deliver improved citizen services due to time and energy saved by adopting advanced technology and the core processes that underpin its use.
Yet, public sector leaders face a series of considerations. From the evolving economic climate through to the pressure to streamline business processes, leaders are still being tasked to do more with less. The research shows that 56% of European civil servants see costs, 46% security, but more importantly 43% their own government regulations as the greatest hindrance to the sector’s ability to embrace new technologies.
Other roadblocks to adopting new technologies:
* 33% employee resistance;
* 27% reluctance to adopt new ways of working or internal processes; and
* 27% the ability to connect with legacy technology systems.
Carsten Bruhn, executive vice-president of Ricoh Europe, says: “There is little doubt that the future public sector workplace will be different compared to today, as new ways of communicating and receiving information rise to the fore. A future where augmented reality could enable staff to step in and interact with building proposals and envisaged infrastructures is on its way.
“But as employees have revealed, there are still several key steps that need to be taken before they can benefit from future innovations. Small steps will include better digitisation of business critical processes, and reviewing ways that employees are accessing information. For example, the study shows that almost a third are still not using internal collaboration platforms, while follow-me printing and Web-based meetings are also underused.”
“Always-on, collaborative and interactive environments can only help to increase productivity and effective communication with citizens,” says Pinker.
Bruhn adds: “It’s exciting to think that new technology could help alleviate the pressure on public sector organisations trying to increase efficiencies and boost citizen-facing services. The year 2034 could well mark the point where the public sector tech evolved workplace was fully realised. It could also form the dawn of a new era when other workplace innovations, such thought-based commands, begin to become the norm.”
