Training public sector employees to increase the mobile public services uptake
in the public sector: training for technical personnel comprising 30 hours of training and training to front-facing government officials comprising 16 hours of training. Training focused on the theoretical and technical background of the use of mobile public services, the latter’s relevance to delivering a 24/7 Government and how mobile public services can facilitate mobility. Training also included the promotion of mobile public services through Social Media to increase awareness. The aim of both training courses is to make Government employees more aware of the mobile public services that have been launched last year so that they can better direct citizens and businesses in using these channels to communicate with government. This will help to reduce bureaucracy and is in line with the government’s policy of increasing efficiency in the public sector.
Technical training
The technical training was aimed to give practical tools to participants who are involved in the development / procurement of mobile public services. Its focus was related to what people expect from mobile services so that the needs of citizens and businesses can be catered for. It also aimed to provide an overview of the mobility concept and information about the tools which are available to assess mobile service usability and identifying the appropriate channels of marketing for different mobile services. Topics covered included: • user centered design of mobile public services (including • • • • usability and accessibility) use of digital marketing vs traditional PR methods search engine optimization and visual aspects of the mobile public services mobile apps: trends and different channels mobile application analytics and performance: result interpretation and strategies to increase take-up
Non-technical training
The non-technical training was aimed to equip employees in the public sector to deal with the citizens’ and businesses’ queries on mobile public services. It was therefore important that these public-sector employees received the appropriate training to be able to support the take-up of mobile public services. Participants were given information on: • the basic know-how of mobile services and their link to a 24x7 Mobile Government an overview of the different emerging technologies enhancing the participants’ ‘soft’ skills in promoting mobile public services, especially customer care an overview of the benefits of Cloud • • •
The first batch of training courses were organized between 1st December and 2nd February. Positive feedback has been received from the training participants and similar training courses will be delivered later this year.
Joanne Deguara MITA Project Leader within the Digital Outreach Team