Time and time again, technology has proven it can do a lot when it comes to cost-saving and creating more efficiencies. For tedious tasks within government roles, technology can be a complete game-changer.
At Granicus, we are committed to realizing many of these efficiencies and making them a reality for government organizations across the U.S. Here’s a look at just a few time-consuming tasks government employees are all too familiar with, and ways technology can streamline them:
Legislative Recordkeeping
Legislative recordkeeping has become an outdated, time-sink for government organizations. Just between meeting preparation and minute-recording, the amount of time and money wasted is tremendous.
By introducing streamlined technology into the recordkeeping process, time spent by staff each month in preparation of meetings can be reduced 50-100 hours, equating to $20,000 to $200,000 in savings per year.
Additionally, on average, governments are saving $40,000 to $100,000 per year by switching to an online and mobile agenda process. These numbers are enough to take a close look at how your organization can streamline the recordkeeping process immediately.
Direct Feedback from Citizens
In order to receive issues or feedback from citizens, government organizations had to sort through paperwork, listen to lengthy phone calls, or sit through disorganized meetings. With today’s technology, applications developed for desktops, mobile devices and tablets are streamlining this government task, as well as enabling citizens to take a more active role in their local government.
Apps like Boston’s Citizen Connect and SeeClickFix allow citizens to report issues within their city and neighborhoods. These issues are then submitted in a much more comprehensive format for government employees to review, address and prioritize. Additionally, apps like SpeakUp empower government staff with civic engagement strategies that reach beyond social media. Government agencies now have the tools they need to gather deeper and more meaningful feedback from the public because it is timely, targeted, and actionable.
Without this technology, fewer issues are addressed and government employees are forced to spend time on one issue, rather than addressing the issues that matter most to their constituents.
Printing and Workflow Processes
Campaign flyers, meetings, legislative documents and so on have required excessive printing costs for government organizations. This is a strain on budgets, as well as the environment. With today’s technology and social networking channels, printing can be cut significantly and even eliminated.
In a survey with clients, we found that government agencies save an average of $2,000 to $10,000 by using a paperless cloud environment.
Additionally, technology applications can greatly improve workflow and enable staff to work together from anywhere in the world. Collecting items for meeting agenda, routing approvals, and distributing information can all be done on one application with a few clicks of a button. It’s transparent, streamlined and efficient. This is what a world of great technology can do.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of introducing technology into government organizations is its power to put public feedback at the fingertips of government staff and elected officials. In-person meetings and printed flyers just won’t cut it anymore.
Community ideas and action are not represented by people who have time to schedule meetings with government leaders or stumble upon a flyer — they are happening with people who are multi-tasking online and getting their news from multiple channels. It’s time to step up and figure how your organization’s processes can be streamlined today.
What technology have you implemented to streamline your efforts and increase citizen engagement? Share in the comments!
Image Courtesy of sfllaw; Flickr