HR Modernization. Breaking Down What You Need To Know

HR MODERNIZATION

BREAKING DOWN WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW GOVLOOP POCKET GUIDE 2017

TO MEET THE CHA OPPORTUNITIES P

BY THE EMERGING ENVIRONMENT, PU SECTOR HR MUST ITS PROCESSES.

ALLENGES AND PRESENTED G DIGITAL UBLIC T TRANSFORM

FOREWORD FROM ADOBE An interview with Karen Terrell, Vice President of Americas Public Sector, Adobe

It’s no secret that digital processes are driving transformation and efficiency.

It’s not easy to achieve the promise of a digital-driven world. In particular, government human resources departments struggle with modernizing processes.

Why is that? It’s not that simple to change the way you’ve always done things when you’re held back by paper-based processes as most human resources departments still are.

HR organizations are charged with fueling a critical resource—its people. But with so much time being spent on paperwork, procedures, and compliance, valuable resources are being wasted.

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“Governments must move forward and transform their services to digital, and move away from the paper-based processes that are holding them back right now.”

—Karen Terrell, Vice President of Americas Public Sector, Adobe

Manually routing and approving forms is a tedious and expensive process—and it delivers a poor experience for employees, which can then affect engagement and efficiency for agencies with critical hiring needs. Despite this particular HR department challenge, though, governments must move forward and transform their services to digital, and move away from the paper-based processes that are holding them back right now. New digital processes are more critical today than ever, because they can help government HR departments slash manual paperwork and digitize signing processes.

By digitizing the entire workflow, from document creation, collaboration, and execution to archiving and management, HR departments can speed signature processes and reduce costs, making onboarding smoother and giving potential hires the modern recruitment process they are looking for.

To understand the savings achievable by transforming your paper-based HR department into a modern, digital one, try out our Adobe Digital Transformation Savings Calculator. By entering a few factors, like how manual form submissions you perform per year and their routing times, you’ll be able to see exactly how digitizing forms could make your process more efficient and cost-effective. Then you can truly understand how modern HR processes can help you reduce operational costs, improve efficiency, maximize taxpayer value, and deliver great government experiences—every time.

Digitize your paper-based processes. Take the time now to dive into this pocket guide to see how to modernize your HR departments.

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CONTENTS

Foreword 02 What HR Modernization Means in Government Today 08

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Then and Now: HR Modernization 10 Today’s Landscape of HR Modernization 12

Industry Spotlight 16 Learning From Others: Case Studies 18 Cheat Sheet 22

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Everybody knows that governments are facing tough times today, especially from a resources standpoint.

The call to do more with less is resounding, and government must innovate and look to new solutions to move forward. One surprising stumbling block is preventing them from charting a new path, though: employee disengagement. According to a 2016 Gallup report, “Employee disengagement costs the U.S. economy roughly half a trillion dollars a year….

Considering the size of their workforce and budgets, disengagement is costing state and local governments, conservatively, up to $100 billion—more than the entire spending budgets of most states.”

Given the range of services any government HR agency provides—recruitment; hiring; retention of talent, benefits, and more; and interactions with external citizens and internal employees—it is of the utmost importance to make sure that HR processes and portals are digital, modern, and user-friendly.

The reason poor employee engagement costs government money, according to Gallup? “Engaged employees drive innovation and move their workplaces forward. Actively disengaged workers do the opposite, costing their states millions of dollars and interfering with government goals.”

To meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the emerging digital environment, public sector HR must transform its processes—from streamlining workflows and adapting to mobile to adopting e-signatures and e-documents.

One critical way to improve this deficit in engagement is through technology. The use of modern technology in the government workplace promotes citizen and internal employee engagement and efficiency by making jobs easier and more enjoyable. And today, with the explosion of touchpoints and ways to communicate, the public is asking more of government in terms of technology than ever. The pressure is on for government decision-makers to provide online and mobile-friendly services that are comparable to those offered by the private sector. But preparing agencies to provide this level of digital experience is no small task, and it is especially critical and daunting in the area of government human resources.

Why, then, are many HR departments still printing crucial employee-centric documents or using static PDFs in their processes? What does it say about a government today when it still recruits, onboards, enrolls, and communicates with citizens and employees in ways that are not modern or digital?

Senior HR leaders in government and their staff must explore and discover how they can modernize recruiting processes and retain talent while reducing costs and processing time in their workflows. They must think about what the future of work looks like and how HR will change in the public sector.

This pocket guide from GovLoop will give you an overview of HR modernization in the public sector, why it matters, and how we can be better at it, as well as case studies and how-tos that will help you get to where you need to be today.

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WHAT HR MODERNIZATION MEANS IN GOVERNMENT TODAY Customer-centric, design-led HR processes are the next frontier in public sector hiring and retention.

This brief section defines “HR modernization” as well as why it matters.

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“We’re really looking at the HR directors and the HR executives to be more strategic and have a seat at the table to make sure that they’re really contributing to the mission and goals of the agency.”

—James Honchar, Deputy Secretary for Human Resources and Management for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

IN-PERSON

EXTERNAL SOCIAL NETWORKS

+28%

BACK-OFFICE SYSTEMS

Increase in employee engagement if org uses ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES

59 % $16.90 51 % 42 %

MOBILE, DEVICE DELIVERED

RELEVANT STATISTICS

Average transaction costs for the GOVERNMENT

ONLINE

40¢

Use of new technologies in the PRIVATE SECTOR

DEFINITION: HR modernization is the automated or online administration and delivery of a range of human resources and human capital management (HCM) services and data. It is attained through the implementation of highly automated human resources information systems and supporting technologies, such as e-signatures, delivered through or supported by cloud-based services.

“How does a system deliver information that helps them design better assessments and make better choices? The goal is not to automate a process entirely. It still requires talented, trained, experienced HR and assessment professionals to do this well, so the technology that we design has to help them do the very best they can.”

WHY IT MATTERS TODAY: No longer can agencies

electronic signature solution report a 28 percent higher level of employee engagement.

(Source: Aberdeen Essentials)

afford to treat HR as a back-office function focused solely on compliance and paperwork. Instead, the future of HR is about making it a strategic partner that works alongside other departments to build and maintain a thriving workforce. The rise of cloud-based systems, analytics, and other online tools is moving agencies away from paper-based processes to the digital era, and HR must keep pace.

Many transaction-based functions, such as time and attendance and payroll, are being optimized and, in some cases, centralized to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.

“You must ask, how does your software help professionals do what they do most effectively, and how does it make space for them to use their expertise to make better decisions?” says Bridget Dongarra, HR Solutions USA staffing product development manager and agility expert at OPM.

RELEVANT STATISTICS: HR organizations using an

In the private sector, 42 percent of companies are adapting their existing HR systems for mobile, device-delivered, just-in-time learning; 59 percent are developing mobile apps that integrate back-office systems for ease of use by employees; and 51 percent are leveraging external social networks in their own internal apps for recruitment and employee profile management. (Source: Deloitte University Press) An average in-person transaction costs the government $16.90, while an average online transaction costs a mere 40 cents.

(Source: Deloitte Access Economics)

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THEN AND NOW: HR MODERNIZATIO 1998 2011 The Government Paperwork Elimination Act, Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, and Uniform Electronic Transitions Act established signing laws applicable to electronic transactions for the federal government.

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The GAO released the report Federal Chief Information Officers: Opportunities Exist to Improve Role in Information Technology Management.

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Not too long ago, digital mandates or modernization weren’t something you read about in executive orders and governmentwide plans, especially in human resources. But a series of initiatives and events has advanced everything from digitization to e-signature legislation, some of which are highlighted here.

2014 The OPM released the Human Resources Line of The Strategic Information Technology Plan, Business Modernization Roadmap in December 2011. issued in February 2014, is a driving force in the government’s human resources information technology strategy.

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TODAY’S LANDSCAPE OF HR MODERNIZATION What is happening in the public-sector HR modernization initiative today that you need to know about? This section dives into different areas—drivers of HR modernization, benefits of HR modernization in government, and key aspects of HR modernization—that your agency should focus on.

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THE DRIVERS OF HR MODERNIZATION

RISING CITIZEN EXPECTATIONS

ABILITY TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN TALENT

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE UNDER INCREASING PRESSURE TO ADOPT SOLUTIONS THAT WILL STREAMLINE WORKFLOWS AND SAVE MONEY. FROM POLICY MANDATES TO RISING CITIZEN EXPECTATIONS, HERE ARE A FEW FACTORS THAT ARE MAKING CHANGE INEVITABLE.

By far the biggest driver of digital services transformation in government is new citizen expectations, driven by the customer-oriented, data-driven approaches now offered by most of the private sector. The majority of citizens aren’t only accustomed to instant gratification—they expect it.

They want a personalized, relevant, and engaging experience with their government agencies right from the start. They have a specific checklist of demands, including seamless availability on all platforms and channels; uncluttered, easily digestible information; and clear, straightforward calls to action with no hoops to jump through.

In the HR area, besides meeting rising citizen expectations, retaining and attracting talent is a huge driver of digitization. A major difficulty facing the public sector is attracting and retaining the best employees. Salaries and opportunities for advancement and work must be desirable to compete with the private sector, as well as a workplace that is perceived as a digital, modern one. In response to the challenges of today’s hypercompetitive economy, digital technologies are increasingly ramping up HR leaders’ capabilities to more effectively attract and retain talent, as well as manage services and requirements in a more streamlined way.

COST SAVINGS

SECURITY NEEDS

The cost savings of moving to digital HR process include productivity benefits from a staffing perspective; additionally, the money saved on shipping and mailing costs can be huge, depending on the volume of hiring.

Significant benefits and savings also accrue in terms of paper and document storage. In a world where government is tasked with doing more with less, the efficiencies and cost savings of moving to electronic processes from paper-based ones are significant drivers.

Threats are rapidly evolving, so public sector security must keep up. A week does not go by without news of another data breach exposing the personal information of many. To better protect themselves from a similar breach, agencies are updating their systems and looking for new strategies to secure their content.

CIOs are recognizing that traditional network security is not enough to keep their content secure, especially in HR departments, which contain so much sensitive and private data.

POLICY New rules and mandates are driving agencies to change. At the federal level, there are new requirements to improve the management and promotion of electronic government services and processes as put into place by the E-Government Act of 2002.

Since then, information security and electronic government policy mandates and recommendations have passed, driving even more digital change.

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BENEFITS OF HR MODERNIZATION ENABLE MORE RESPONSIVE AND REAL-TIME HCM

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HR modernization in government today can provide a more complete picture of the employment lifecycle and help bring together formerly siloed knowledge and work practices. By accelerating the adoption of digital platforms and methodologies, it can also help bring about a culture emphasizing talent management that adapts to changing markets and opportunities for the business. Consider the other ways today’s digital and cloud platforms can increase the value and role of HR in your agency:

ACCELERATE RECRUITING, HIRING, AND TRANSITIONING

IMPROVE THE EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE HR modernization opens up training and development opportunities and improves employee quality of work life.

HR modernization elevates the role of HR and talent management and facilitates the move to a data-driven culture.

HR modernization bolsters recruiting, while streamlining the selection and hiring process and accelerating employee onboarding.

It also eases the exit and retirement process.

LINK PERFORMANCE TO BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS

INTEGRATE COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS WITH INCREASE BUSINESS NEEDS TRANSPARENCY

HR modernization reshapes performance management by tying employee performance metrics to business goals.

HR modernization improves compensation and benefits management and can better target compensation requirements to meet business objectives.

As the adoption of digital platforms and methodologies accelerates, HR leaders are assured of greater compliance and legal coverage—a digital record is available for all interactions within the organization.

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Digital HR streamlines processes, often reducing the time to complete projects from days to minutes. For example, performance reviews, which involve distributing printed checklists to involved parties, can be streamlined and consolidated online. As a result, HR executives will see their roles elevated to that of enterprise leaders and advisers, especially at a time when organizations are experiencing severe imbalances between skill shortages and changing priorities.

Nobody wants to have to answer to a soulless machine. Interacting with technology should bring people closer together, not isolate them. A highly interactive and informal social media presence— perhaps involving a high-level executive—may go a long way toward opening communication channels. Technology interfaces and solutions should help people not only do their jobs better but enjoy their jobs more.

HOW YOUR AGENCY CAN START HR MODERNIZATION

RETHINK HR PROCESSES AND WORKFLOWS

THINK IN TERMS OF DATA

LOOK AT CLOUD OPTIONS

RAISE AWARENESS AND PROVIDE TRAINING

HR executives and their business colleagues need to adopt analytical thinking in their decisionmaking. Ultimately, the ability to tie results to the business is the most powerful role for HR. Successful staffing, compensation and performance decisions and strategies are increasingly driven by metrics, available through today’s digital HR offerings.

The cloud offers many capabilities to businesses, including human capital management. Modern HR is highly agile, and capabilities can be acquired from a company’s own data centers or through cloudbased services, such as software as a service.

Modern HR brings the entire enterprise into many of the processes once hidden away within HR departments — talent management, recruiting, hiring and more. It’s important to communicate how modern HR will help make managers’ and employees’ jobs easier, as well as improve relationships across the board, including with the job applicant community. It may be a relatively straightforward process to adopt cloud-based HR solutions that replace legacy systems, but transitioning HR staff may require different workflows and processes.

Re-evaluate training approaches, including shifting the HR team’s emphasis toward an integrated view of the entire environment — not just slices of specific tasks.

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FOCUS ON INTERACTIVITY, AND MAINTAIN THE HUMAN TOUCH

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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT An interview with Lisa Croft, Group Product Marketing Manager, Adobe “Most of our younger generation today expect that they’re able to do things online and do that pretty much immediately,” Croft said. “So e-signatures are one way that gives that experience of being able to do that, and it is a much better experience than having to do that on paper. If you’re hiring a younger generation, you want to make sure that they feel like Document signature processes represent one of the the agency that they’re working for is modernized greatest opportunities to accelerate government HR and has the ability to serve them in the way that they see fit.” modernization. We all know why—employees can spend countless hours hunting down approvals and pen-and-paper signatures that they then must print, E-signatures simplify the way organizations gather, scan, email, or snail mail. This results in delays and track, and manage signatures and approval. While a less than optimal user experience for citizens and government agencies appreciate the improvements that e-signatures can bring them, they also are HR employees. searching for any legal implications.

The solution lies in the implementation of electronic But in fact, e-signatures have possessed the same and digital signatures. To discuss why e-signatures legal status as handwritten signatures in the United are so critical, GovLoop sat down with Lisa Croft, Group Product Marketing Manager at Adobe, a leader States for the past 15 years, since the ESIGN Act was signed, which gave e-signatures their legal standing. in cloud-based and e-document software.

Governments across the United States are working to digitally transform their processes through technology to focus on agility, efficiency, cost savings, and better citizen experiences. One important aspect of this, particularly in the HR realm, is document signature processes.

Besides the obvious benefits in cost savings, efficiency, and improved experiences, Croft pointed out that the use of e-signatures promotes government hiring and retention by reflecting the modern environment that younger generations want to have in their workplace.

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Though e-signatures are as binding as handwritten signatures, Croft explained that you need to have a tool in place to help you track the trails and verification around e-signatures.

“If you’re hiring a younger generation, you want to make sure that they feel like the agency that they’re working for is modernized and has the ability to serve them in the way that they see fit.”

—Lisa Croft, Group Product Marketing Manager, Adobe

“You’ll always need a way to verify your identity, and agencies also need a way to determine intent to sign,” she said. “And then there’s typically something called an ‘audit trail’ that’s available as well, which means that you have a way to look and audit how and when and who signed that document electronically. And security is paramount as well.”

“Adobe Sign is scalable and allows government to comply with the laws, mandates, and regulatory guidelines,” Croft said.

Additionally, automated tracking in Adobe Sign confirms when recipients receive or take action on documents, providing an audit trail that helps maintain compliance. And processes aren’t delayed To find the right signature approach for an agency, HR if people are out of the office, as recipients can edit, needs to understand and balance regulation and risk sign, and approve documents from their smartphones and consider what level of effort is necessary to make or other mobile devices. sure transactions are both legal and secure. That’s From recruiting and onboarding to performance where Adobe Document Cloud, including Adobe management and transition, every step of the Acrobat DC and Adobe Sign, comes in. employee lifecycle involves documents and Adobe Sign in particular keeps the document secure signatures. But if an agency’s HR document workflows still include manual steps, there are throughout the entire electronic signature process numerous roadblocks. Moving to e-signatures and certifies the signed document with a tamperin the public sector will help HR departments evident seal to confirm its integrity. Each step in modernize, become more efficient, and attract the signature process is logged with timestamps, the kind of talent that will help power agencies’ IP addresses, geolocations, and more. The result is missions for years to come. captured in a secure audit trail that produces clear evidence of each party’s signature.

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LEARNING FROM OTHERS: CASE STUDIES Now that you’ve learned the basics, here are a few examples of HR modernization in action to inspire you and help you build a case for digital HR at your agency.

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TULARE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE Centrally located in California, Tulare County is home to more than 400,000 people in an area covering 4,863 square miles and large tracts of public land, including Sequoia National Park. Since 1852, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office has worked with the community to improve quality of life through professional services and community partnerships.

The Sheriff’s Department has 1,300 full-time employees and works with volunteers at 21 locations across the county. The dispersed offices made it difficult to share information and handle routine processes, such as obtaining multiple signatures for approvals on human resources documents.

“Adobe Sign gave us an efficient, accelerated workflow that helped us process more than 5,000 human resources and other business contracts in just over a year,” says Lt. Chris Galvez. Before implementing Adobe Sign, an Adobe Document Cloud solution, when the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office wanted to share documents among remote offices and headquarters, it relied on emailing, faxing, or scanning documents, as well as using volunteers to courier documents. Manually routing personnel forms, policy authorizations, purchase requisitions, and other paperwork prevented the accurate tracking of document status, while delaying contract processing and approvals.

Using Adobe Sign, an employee now simply uses the widget to generate the necessary form and sends an email to the required signatory—obtaining signatures in a fraction of the time. “We no longer have to deal with paper forms. A requisitions request needs three signatures and a final copy delivered to the business office,” says Galvez. “With Adobe Sign, the forms can be completed by all signatories and the business office can receive a signed, more secure PDF copy all in less than a minute.”

Automatic tracking prevents delays that previously plagued the process by providing the document status. If a supervisor is unavailable to sign, the document can be rerouted to another authorized signatory by sending the email and document to that person. “The reporting and automatic reminders in Adobe Sign encourage fast response and accountability,” says Galvez. “Adobe Sign is now used across departments in the Sheriff’s Office for every document requiring a signature.”

“Adobe Sign has eliminated our need to handle physical forms, boosting our efficiency and helping us improve costs and efficiencies countywide,” Galvez concludes.

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STATE OF HAWAII

With a population spread across multiple islands, Hawaii offers distinct challenges to the state government as it works to reach all 1.4 million citizens quickly and efficiently.

When elected to office, Gov. David Ige promoted the idea of paperless workflows. By reducing the amount of paper that the government uses, Ige recognized that the state could cut costs and positively impact the environment. But just as importantly, adopting digital processes, including supporting electronic documents, helps the government communicate more effectively across islands and deliver services as efficiently as possible.

“Government agencies must be responsive to citizens and held accountable, so our departments have to manage a lot of paper trails and signed document approvals. Electronic signatures are essential for

“Using Adobe Sign as part of our state’s eSign Services program, we eliminate much of the time previously spent preparing and routing documents. State personnel can sign with just a few clicks, so we can focus on state business and roll out new services faster.”

—Todd Nacapuy, Chief Information Officer, State of Hawaii

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paperless initiatives to succeed,” says Todd Nacapuy, Chief Information Officer for the state of Hawaii.

When Hawaii began developing its electronic signature capabilities, which the state eventually branded “eSign Services,” Adobe Sign was considered not only for its ease of use to get departments up and running quickly, but also for its strong integration with many third-party solutions already used by the teams. Departments can work with Adobe Sign as a standalone solution, or use it in Microsoft SharePoint workflows.

“Being able to integrate Adobe Sign within existing SharePoint environments and department workflows gives state employees more options for an integrated solution to send and track documents,” says Nacapuy.

Accelerated signing also dramatically reduces the time that employees spend on paperwork overall.

For instance, newly hired government employees, who once spent two hours filling out onboarding paperwork on their first day, can complete online forms at home before setting foot in the office.

In addition, all employees must sign about 30 documents a year on average, from annual tax documents to updated acceptable use policies —a process that can be greatly streamlined with Adobe Sign.

“The HR department can send documents out for signatures to state employees, and track the document status for every signer,” says Nacapuy. “Now that new hire onboarding can be done electronically, it has dramatically reduced the onboarding process time from two hours to just 20 minutes.”

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CHEAT SHEET This takeaway section gives a brief summary of the benefits of e-signatures, as well as considerations and additional resources on HR modernization.

1 2 34 BENEFITS OF E-SIGNATURES Customizable permissions and clear audit trails keep contracts secure, showing who has accessed them, when, and how.

Secure e-signature solutions encrypt files, meeting critical security certifications and making implementation a breeze.

An e-signature has authentication wrapped around it at every stage of the process, ensuring that the signer has been properly verified.

E-signatures are just as valid as ink signatures in most developed nations.

1 2 3456 KEY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER AS YOU MODERNIZE YOUR HR PRACTICES What HCM system(s) are you using today?

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There are multiple use cases for e-signatures in HR. Which is the most urgent for your organization?

Are other departments using e-signatures to speed and automate business in your agency?

Do you worry about the compliance and security of your employees’ sensitive information?

Do paper processes slow down your team?

Are you delivering the best possible experience to attract and retain top talent?

FOR MORE INFORMATION Modernizing HCM: Why the Digital Employment Experience Matters Adobe’s Workflow Optimization for Human Resources Transactions How Digital Transformation Elevates Human Capital Management

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THANKS TO ADOBE FOR TH SUPPORT IN PRODUCING T PUBLIC-SECT RESOURCE. 24

THEIR THIS TOR

About Adobe Adobe’s trusted and proven enterprise solutions enable next-generation digital government. We help government agencies modernize service delivery while reducing cost to serve, and processing time all while delivering remarkable digital experiences. www.adobe.com/government

About GovLoop GovLoop’s mission is to inspire public sector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 250,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to the public sector.

For more information about this report, please reach out to info@govloop.com

Today, to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by an emerging digital environment, there are a number of transformations that human resources in the public sector needs to undertake.

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