Case Study: GovTech Singapore
GOVTECH SINGAPORE
A statutory board of the Singapore government with about 3,400 GovTechies.
How can we create a safe and supportive experience for GovTechies to raise the workplace challenges arising from COVID-19 and gather relevant support that they need to thrive thereafter?
DESIRED OUTCOMES:
Having greater awareness and acceptance of challenges GovTechies may face with mental wellness. To encourage GovTechies to proactively reach out for support and access workplace wellness programmes.
Research Process & Findings
The design team assigned to GovTech spoke to Senior Leaders and wellness ambassadors, who were appointed by GovTech to champion wellness in their teams and GovTechies. The design team also conducted an organisation wide survey to understand the needs of GovTechies.
The design team identified and mapped bright spots and pain points across 5 different domains - strategy, meetings, resources, structure, and workflow. They found that GovTechies loved the purpose of their work in building a nation and collaboration was great within teams with a strong sense of teamwork. However, strategy and meetings showed up as pain points and these were mapped to people and process.
From the research, the team’s key findings were:
Staff experiencing burnout from meetings
Inadequate sharing or storing of data
Desire for protected personal time
Desire for more transparency
Key Learnings
The design team learned that while quick wins were great, in the context of mental wellness, the wins may only serve as surface level band-aids. These band-aids may even be counterintuitive in the long run, potentially reducing bandwidth and by extension, mental wellbeing. What they needed in this situation was to dissect the problem and dive into the root cause, making significant structural changes.
As a design team, the key takeaways they would like to share with other organisations are:
Focus on quality, not quantity. One may think a lot of programmes are needed or programmes need to be constantly added. However, it is more about creating the awareness and increasing accessibility of existing programmes.
It is still about individual choice and ownership - being able to identify situations and to seek appropriate help.
Prototypes
The design team proposed six recommendations to GovTech, which the organisation has incorporated into the current work they are already doing, along the lines of not creating new programmes and incorporating the recommendations into current work reviews. The recommendations are:
1. No f_n without U!
A series of fun and casual initiatives organised by internal team members on a roster basis
2. Onboarded & Ready
Restructuring of the onboarding experience of a new staff based on three aspects - information, knowing your people and ways of working
3. Wellness 2.0
A boost and reboot of existing wellness initiatives with a coordinated approach to communication and engagement
4. Pizzas Please!
A meeting format which hold the following criteria: 1) should have no more than the number of people who can consume 2 large pizzas, 2) should be one of these 3 reasons: gaining shared understanding; shaping options; making decisions.
5. One Place
A centralised knowledge management tool.
A new way of storing, sharing and managing data
6. Automated Assistance
Creation of automated email workflows
Updated documentation on overall processes and requests
DP Architects
An architectural practice based in Singapore with design offices worldwide.
GovTech Singapore
A statutory board of the Singapore government with about 3,400 GovTechies.
Impart
A non-profit organisation in Singapore that pioneers volunteer-driven community solutions to enable transformative youth development.
Pivotal Learning
A SME that focuses on equipping educators and practitioners with the skill sets to be more effective and engaging in delivering their content.
Our Journey
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