Humanity: Serve with empathy

Public service organizations that want to improve experiences should ground everything they do in appreciating people’s humanity—whether experiences are face-to-face or digital.

Today, nearly one in four Canadians feel they are treated more like a number than a human when they interact with government organizations. This is a signal that government organizations could widen the aperture of how they see the people they serve. With a life-centric approach, governments can see clients as they see themselves: unique individuals doing their best to make their way through life.

There has been an increase in Canadians' interest in digital interactions with their government. People still value "human" channels where they can feel "known" and connect with another person. This is especially true when they are accessing (Figure 1) information. For example, 49% rank over the phone and 36% rank in person as there top preferred channels for accession government information. Canadians prefer less "human" channels such as emails, letters and websites when receiving (Figure 2) information from governments. These affinities signal a chance for governments to determine which activities to digitize and which to direct to frontline staff.

Organizations that solicit feedback and co-create solutions with people have more insight into the best ways to deploy digital solutions. Yet as personalized as digital solutions can be, people still need an “escape hatch.” This is the option to bring a human into the experience if a chat bot, IVR tree, online application or another digital tool isn’t helping them.