SPONSE RETHINKING THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT IN LIGHT OF COVID-19 The City of Tyler is transforming how we do business to meet the needs of both residents and employees in our increasingly connected world. New collaboration technology, along with the growing limitations on revenue generation and unfunded mandates from the State, compels cities like Tyler to find solutions that reduce costly overhead, provide greater flexibility for their workforce, and offer more opportunities to connect with constituents. As a lean organization serving a rapidly expanding regional hub, we recognized the need for a software solution to replace outdated email and paper workflows. A unified communication and collaboration platform that could integrate with the existing products and scale to the entire organization was selected, followed by the implementation of virtualization software to provide remote access. It was predicted that a full transition by all departments would take many months. Then, something completely unexpected occurred: a worldwide pandemic.
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The coronavirus pandemic catapulted the adoption of these platforms. The rollout, which began with 400 users, accelerated to more than 800 of our 1,100-member staff — without a spike in email. A 328% increase in messaging and a diminished reliance on email produced both time and cost savings. Virtual meetings offered remote access, with residents able to join online or by downloading an app. Meetings were much more efficient, and several departments have reported increased productivity due to virtualization. Moving forward, built-in analytics features will be used to better understand workforce behavior, and identify future opportunities for meaningful culture change. THE USE OF MESSAGING OVER EMAIL SAVES TIME AND INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY.
JOINT INFORMATION CENTER
The City of Tyler created a cross-organizational workspace to collaborate in partnership with Smith County; the Northeast Texas Public Health District; and 30 communication professionals from the state, local hospitals, schools, universities and representatives in the outlying communities. They utilized the platform to coordinate the Joint Information Center.
Virtual communication and collaboration have also been vital to our regional emergency response to the virus. Because the solution we chose allows anyone with an invitation and an email address to collaborate within the platform, we coordinated a multiagency response with no additional cost to our residents.” Julie Goodgame
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