Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision A Strategic Assessment (2007) / Chapter Skim
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4 Toward Organizational Transformation for Electronic Service Delivery
4 Toward Organizational Transformation for Electronic Service Delivery
Pages 91-124
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From page 91... ...
This chapter provides a high-level assessment and set of impressions regarding the SSA's organizational culture and approaches to service provision on the basis of input that the committee received over the course of this study. The chapter also explores how the SSA's organizational culture, leadership, management choices, and policy choices may affect the agency's ability to plan and execute a new service-delivery strategy that emphasizes electronic services.
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From page 92... ...
Organization and organizational culture -- especially as they relate to structure, decision-making processes, approaches to problem solving, service provision, change management, and so on -- are significant determiners of the success of any large organization's attempt to make fundamental and critical changes. By "cultural issues," the committee is referring to a combination of history, leadership, existing social and political relationships, overarching regulations and rules, and existing operational procedures that determine or influence the agency's activities and ways of doing business.
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From page 93... ...
During its study and associated briefings and conversations, the committee noted that there seemed to be an understanding of the promise of an IT-enabled organizational transformation and of its potential for supporting electronic services delivery. But the promise of such a transformation seemed to be outweighed by the concern of the organization and many of its people for the impact of such a change on SSA users and beneficiaries.
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From page 94... ...
These observations about the impact of the SSA's organizational culture and resistance to change become increasingly important because the technological and social environments in which the SSA operates are changing rapidly, making the alternative of an IT-enabled organizational transformation an increasingly attractive alternative for supporting effective operation and service delivery. The number of the SSA's beneficiaries will soon expand rapidly as baby boomers retire or qualify for disability.
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From page 95... ...
. An updated employee skill mix will be needed to support technological innovations indicated as part of a modern electronic services strategy.
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From page 96... ...
Of particular note is the effective split between the electronic services organization's mission and that of the communications 8 This description is current at the time of this writing and the discussion is based on material from the SSA's public Web site, "Organizational Structure of the Social Security Administration." See http://www.ssa.gov/org/ssaorg.htm, accessed June 9, 2006, and May 30, 2007 (for up-to-date organizational information)
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From page 97... ...
Although analogous experiences in the private-sector financial services industry (see Chapter 2) indicate that resistance to such changes can be expected, those experiences also suggest that these changes are important, both to support the move to electronic services and to precipitate needed cultural change.
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From page 98... ...
Recommendation: When evaluating new electronic service-delivery initiatives, the SSA should when appropriate seek to balance risks and rewards by recognizing such upside benefits from automation as cost reduction, fraud prevention, and customer satisfaction. 10 See, for example, "Few Key Bits of Info Open Social Security Records," USA Today, April 7, 1997, p.
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From page 99... ...
Contributing factors may be a lack of sustained leadership commitment over the years and an organizational culture that appears to equate electronic or online services with impersonal rather than moreresponsive service. Here too, these cultural predispositions need to be overcome in order to enable the SSA to embrace the proactive planning needed as the basis for electronic service-delivery initiatives.
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From page 100... ...
Finding: The SSA's organizational structure does not support the establishment of a strategic focus in electronic services that is sufficiently high-level and broad-based. The SSA has an opportunity to be more proactive in fundamentally reassessing its customer service value chain and, for as many customers as possible, focusing on the potential substitution of electronic services for other delivery channels, such as paper mail and face-to-face interactions in field offices.
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From page 101... ...
what kinds of marketing and promotion of services it will undertake in order to encourage the use of electronic services, and (3) how the SSA's core competencies and potential partnerships could be combined to strengthen and enhance service provision across the board.
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From page 102... ...
Such a determination should also consider likely increases in electronic services adoption due to the improved functionality that results from using an up-to-date relational database technology.
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From page 103... ...
The process of establishing such quantitative goals also serves the useful purpose of causing interested organizational entities to think carefully and specifically about 20 One discussion of measures of effectiveness for security efforts is available in the 00 National Infrastructure Protection Plan, published by the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council, available at https://www.fsscc.org/reports/2006/NIPP_Plan.pdf, accessed July 11, 2007. 21 Two types of measures seem appropriate -- these are just illustrative examples: The first type is deelopment measures, indicating how closely the design and implementation are believed to meet the policies.
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From page 104... ...
The agency should place major emphasis on the systematic reduction of its organizational goals to metrics that are quantifiable, although not necessarily monetized. As noted earlier, typical areas where electronic services might be compared with other service channels include customer satisfaction, cycle time, error rates, cost per transaction, paperwork burden reduction, and even impact on program integrity (that is, fraud rates)
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From page 105... ...
Moreover, it has used private marketing firms, the Ad Council, and major polling organizations to assist in the development of media campaigns. Since the committee received a comparatively brief presentation on the SSA's marketing strategy, it did not have enough information to assess whether or not the SSA has translated a comprehensive understanding of its diverse users' needs into an effective marketing campaign for electronic services, or whether it has chosen to promote electronic services over other service-delivery channels for certain categories of users.22 In some ways, this approach is consistent with much public-sector marketing, which is more likely to take the form of "informing and educating" the public instead of encouraging them to use one product (such as electronic services)
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From page 106... ...
The committee did not receive information about similar use of quantitative metrics of this type to guide the SSA's management of electronic services marketing. Core Competencies and External Partnering In an increasingly complex and demanding world, many organizations, including government agencies such as the SSA, are constantly 24 Stephen H
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From page 107... ...
Given the ongoing transition to more electronic services and the emerging demand from a variety of user communities for large-scale and highly effective electronic services, the SSA will face questions about which functions to maintain and which to outsource or partner with others for. In common with other federal agencies, the SSA must address privacy issues as it considers expanded outsourcing.
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From page 108... ...
Another type of partnership would be partnering with large payroll-processing services to increase the adoption of electronic wage reporting. Cultivation of effective interactions that take advantage of electronic services where possible with a broad range of user communities could deliver substantial benefits to beneficiaries and the SSA as well as to third parties.
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From page 109... ...
The Internal Revenue Service, the Department of the Treasury, and the E-File program all agreed on the need to increase public adoption and were able to build a consensus for a number of legislative changes to support public adoption of e-file. As an example, RRA '98 included authority for the IRS to accept credit card payments and electronic signatures as a way to make e-file completely paperless, reducing costs for the IRS and making it more convenient for taxpayers.
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From page 110... ...
Given these geographic constraints and a culture that focuses on personal customer service, trying to institute an electronic services strategy dependent on the effective use of IT and an expanded understanding of third parties could be seen by some in the organization as antithetical to providing personalized customer service. Further, the use of third parties is also antithetical to the hands-on customer service that SSA staffers want to provide.28 Thus, although it may not be an agency-wide policy that third parties are not to be dealt with, the prevailing organizational culture results in some field offices having a different view on this matter.
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From page 111... ...
The role of the private sector in government service delivery -- and, indeed, policy development -- is often overlooked or underestimated. Some e-government researchers suggest that "although the public may traditionally have thought of government as synonymous with bureaucracy, in the future government will be highly networked and delivering outcomes through federations of organizations and agencies."31 Finding: There are opportunities for the SSA to partner with other agencies and third parties in ways that could provide mutual benefit.
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From page 112... ...
Because of SSA's broad reach, the quality of its customer service can affect the public's view of government overall, and SSA has committed itself to providing world-class service to the American public."32 The report concluded that the SSA would be challenged to maintain a high level of service to the public because demand for services is expected to grow significantly, while the expectations and needs of the SSA's customers are changing. The GAO further noted that some are expecting faster, more convenient service, while others, such as non-English speakers and the large population of beneficiaries with mental impairments, may require additional assistance from staff with more diverse skills.33 Chapter 2 in this report provides a general overview of the kinds of functionality that world-class financial institutions routinely provide these days and observes that the users of the SSA's electronic services are likely to expect such things, and more so as time passes.
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From page 113... ...
This elevated role for electronic services would serve as the organizational focal point for conducting market research, establishing and maintaining partnerships, setting priorities for the development of new electronic information and service-delivery systems, and working with the IT organization to ensure that appropriate technologies are put in place to support electronic services. Over time it is likely that some of these responsibilities could devolve to program areas in a way that is analogous to what has taken place in the private financial services sector, where these businesses have split up their central e-commerce units to respective business units after achieving a critical mass of expertise and associated policies and practices (that is, having passed though the second stage of electronic service provision maturity as discussed in Chapter 2)
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From page 114... ...
The SSA is a unique enterprise in some important ways, but as discussed in Chapter 2, there are many other ways in which its constraints, contexts, and clientele are similar to those under which other large-scale financial institutions must operate. The extensive stock of experiences and lessons learned by these other institutions should serve as a useful guide to the approaches that the SSA might take during its evolution toward electronic services.
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From page 115... ...
The next section provides a brief description of governmental transformation conceived broadly that lays out a forward-looking vision for the SSA as it seeks to bring about the kinds of change that will be needed in the years and decades ahead. THE PROSPECT OF GOvERNMENTAL TRANSFORMATION As the SSA develops and implements its electronic services strategy, what the agency is attempting to achieve is taking place within a more comprehensive shift to electronic service provision across the federal government.
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From page 116... ...
study committee made a number of recommendations related to Social Security Administration (SSA) systems mod 1 Jane Fountain, Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001.
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From page 117... ...
5 National Research Council, Systems Modernization and the Strategic Plans of the Social Security Administration, Board on Telecommunications and Computer Applications, Washing ton, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990. 6 See Social Security Advisory Board, How SSA's Disability Programs Can Be Improved, August 1998, pp.
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From page 118... ...
Whether it is a financial services organization or a retailer, users have come to expect that those businesses understand them as a customer across organizational units, products lines, or service channels. An existing customer of a large financial institution might reasonably expect that if one has car insurance and wants to buy homeowner's insurance from the same institution, a person will not be starting from scratch in filling out the application for the new product -- at a minimum, an agent might provide a pre-filled-out application as a starting point.
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From page 119... ...
Although it may be possible for a government organization to outsource its electronic service capabilities and achieve orderof-magnitude improvements in convergence, such change more typically occurs incrementally. Several models have been developed to describe or predict such an evolution of e-government capabilities.39 (Figure 4.1 presents as an example a four-stage model of e-government.)
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From page 120... ...
:122-136, 2001, copyright 2001, with permission from Elsevier. desired form of e-government, which includes horizontal and vertical integration of organization, data, and user experience that is fundamentally different from traditional forms of government service provision.
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From page 121... ...
For ex ample, Sharon Dawes, director of the Center for Technology in Government at Albany, defines e-government as "the use of information technology to support government operations, engage citizens, and provide government services." And the European Union defines e-government as "the use of information and communication technology in public administrations combined with organizational change and new skills in order to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support to public policies."
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From page 122... ...
. Her article, "The Future of E-Government," is based on testimony presented to the New York City Council Select Committee on Information Technology in Government's hearing, "An Examination of New York City's E-Government Initiatives," June 24, 2002, available at http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/future_of_ egov, accessed July 11, 2007.
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From page 123... ...
48John Halligan and Trevor Moore, "Future Challenges for E-Government," Monograph, available at http://www.agimo.gov.au/publications/2004/05/egovt_challenges/overview, accessed July 11, 2007.
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From page 124... ...
This report suggests an immediate examination of the agency's management structure, its decision-making processes, and its organizational culture, to ensure that all are poised to support the shift toward a culture that continuously strives to meet effectively the manifold pressures for change. Although the challenges outlined in this report are numerous and sizable, the committee is confident that they are not insurmountable for the SSA.
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