The public sector employs more than two million people, many of whom will need to get to grips with a whole new way of working. Every probation officer, youth worker, housing manager, receptionist and librarian will need a much higher understanding of technology.
Intranets, portals, online purchasing and email are becoming core elements of the successful delivery of public services.
These changes not only have an impact on the culture and processes of government, but the skills required by those working in the sector.
New online systems will quickly become redundant if staff do not have the skills they need to operate them. Therefore, user training needs to be a fundamental factor in every new e-government initiative.
Training, however, is often an afterthought in many IT projects - both in the public and private sector.
Yet effective end-user training is essential if an organisation is to quickly reap the rewards of new systems.
Understanding training implications is a skill in itself, and one that IT professionals must seek to harness and develop. Ideally, when you are setting up the training programme, you need to consult those employees who will actually be using the system.
With their help, IT professionals need to second-guess potential problem areas, and deploy innovative methods to help people find their way around new processes and systems.
It is important not to assume knowledge; using an intranet may be perfectly natural to the IT department, but there are many jobs within the public sector that are more people orientated, and require only limited use of a computer.
Not only that, but some of the people your organisation serves could have equally limited exposure to IT, and will be relying on public sector staff to help them.
Simplicity and usability are fundamental factors in the implementation of e-government initiatives. These two principles equally apply to training - the more complex the programme, the less willing users will be to take part.
You may have to make some sessions mandatory, as voluntary classes invariably see a lower take-up than expected.
This can cause various problems in the early days of a new system, including a decrease in user productivity and an increase in help desk calls.
Online learning can also be an option, as some users resent the time they have to spend away from their work to attend training sessions.
All these issues need to be assessed in advance as part of the original scope of a project, so that users are trained and ready to use the new system once implemented.
As well as assessing the training needs for different e-government projects, you also need to assess the costs. Training is very much a hidden cost, and failure to allocate adequate funds in the original budget could have a massive impact on the success of the project.
Providing people with the right set of skills for delivering online public services is essential if organisations are to meet their e-government goals.
Meeting these training needs is a task which will be faced by thousands of public sector IT professionals in the coming months.
By honing your own skills and investing in advance planning, end-user training need not be a chore, but an enabler for the entire organisation.
Quelle: Vnunet
