Technology changes the way the server of the future works – 02/28/2023 – Market

The public service has entered the digital transformation for good in the last decade. The process was even more streamlined with the pandemic, creating mandatory virtualization. And within this process, the training of public professionals has become as essential as the new technologies aimed at public policies.

“When talking about technology, in a digital transformation agenda, we often fall into the fallacy and the error of thinking only about equipment, technology. But this innovation and digital transformation agenda starts with people”, says Tadeu Barros, director -president of the CLP (Public Leadership Center).

“This agenda is like an onion, with layers, and the nucleus of the onion is people. We need well-prepared people, who understand the business, so that, in a second moment, these people, knowing the needs of the public sector, the social demands, design processes. From that, comes the last layer, which is technology”, he says.

This report is part of the Professional Public of the Future series, an initiative of the Vida Pública nucleus in partnership with República.org, an entity dedicated to improving people management in the public service.

For Virgílio Almeida, professor of the department of computer science at UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), it is increasingly necessary for the public sector to have servers that know and know how to work with data science and also with artificial intelligence, which grows at a rapid pace.

“The government needs to train, qualify public servants, not only those who work on a day-to-day basis, but also those in strategic positions, in high positions. It needs to bring this mindset of data, of artificial intelligence, to make the service public better, more effective”, says the professor.

Today, the federal government, through Enap (National School of Public Administration), has developed courses in search of improving the skills and abilities of the civil servant. This need has grown with the pandemic.

“When you think about the server’s daily life, the pandemic had the role of bringing the new world. We had the semi-computerized world in the office, it was thrown into the virtual world and everyone had to learn”, says Roberto Pojo , Secretary of Management and Innovation of the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services.

Other bodies also seek to train servers to adapt to new technologies, such as in health, especially with the implementation of telemedicine.

Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo) has programs aimed at professionals from the public network and also those from the private network, who often work through the SUS.

“Nowadays we can no longer talk about health outside of digital. There will always be an electronic medical record, an exam that is inside a database, the digital vaccination card, the ConectSUS [aplicativo que registra toda a trajetória do usuário no SUS]this whole culture already exists”, says Claudia Galindo Novoa, coordinator of Unifesp’s São Paulo Telehealth State Nucleus.

“We are helping this professional who enters to continue being trained, and the one who is already in the public service, who, perhaps, did not enter in a digital way, not to be left behind”, he declares.

In addition to training, there are also program models aimed at employee management within the public service. The State promotes a follow-up model in which the server can present better results, through the personnel management program. It was created in 2015 and has been undergoing improvements, according to Pojo.

“The program aims to modify the management process in the administration, especially replacing attendance control by monitoring results. It appears very focused on the time of adoption of telework, but from 2019 we started to discuss its being expanded to have a better administration.”

“Instead of me controlling how many hours he sits in his chair, I manage the results of deliveries. It’s a much more effective way,” he says.

Carioca Tânia Scaffa e Adura, 48, resident of the south zone of São Paulo, has been an employee of the Federal Revenue Service since 2004. She has been working from home since the beginning of the pandemic, and says she is adapted to the management program.

“There are some rules that need to be followed. In addition to working the 40 hours a week, we also have a goal. I made a management program for the entire year. have to work and the processes they have to do”, says the server.

She could return to the Revenue building with the end of isolation, but she had the option of continuing her work at home, where she believes she will perform better.

“Talking to my colleagues, I realize that we are yielding more, delivering more working at home. We were very well trained, I don’t need anyone to do my work. Sometimes, of course, a doubt or another arises, then call a colleague , the leadership, discusses, holds a meeting. We have good support.”

Another point discussed within the advancement of new technologies is how much automation will affect filling vacancies within the public service.

“The adoption of technology will always have an impact on the workforce, there’s no way around it. It applies to both the private and public sectors. Obsolescence is happening faster and faster. There are still people in the administration who were hired to be typists, elevator operators. They took 20 years to become obsolescent. Today the cycle is shorter”, says Pojo.

“Part of the workforce adapts to new technologies, and part remains in services that were not automated until they retire,” he reports.

According to Professor Virgílio Almeida, many civil servants who enter the public service today already have the digital issue as part of their cognition, work execution capabilities. But there is a generation of older servers that could be called ‘non-digital’.

“Digital transformation has numerous advantages, but it can have unwanted effects, such as exclusion, unemployment, but all of this has to be worked through public policies. The government must seek automation, but automation that has a positive impact, be it in inclusion, in employment”, says the professor.