Creating Public Value Through Employee Experience: The LA-BORA! gov Journey

Most would agree that the “human factor” is crucially important, and not only so on the receiving end of implementations and solutions, but also in their coordination and operation, where very often public servants and municipal administrations are strongly involved. Yet, if we look at the programmes of many Smart City expos and other exchange formats around the world the focus continues to be often through a technical lens or a governance lens that is too far away from the actual subjects.

Shifting this focus was the ISCN Global Mixer on Creating Value Through Employee Experience: The LA-BORA! gov Journey. Luana Silveira de Faria, head of LA-BORA! gov innovation lab within the Brazilian Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services gave a fresh and incredibly sincere input on what engaging public servants in new ways can mean. You can watch the recording of her keynote here:

Luana cautioned against taking the potential on social and institutional innovation lightly. She stressed the immense and evidence-based impact behind the service catalogue of LA-BORA! gov: “This is not here because we think this is cool or this is nice (…), we have data and surveys and research that support these topics that we cover.” Some of these topics are adaptive strategic planning, data storytelling at work, or building psychological safety. One of our speaker’s favorites are the games and icebreakers that foster creative confidence and can intentionally build relationships.

Two impressive figures that are backing up the success story further: LA-BORA! gov counts 218,000 impacted public servants and has a satisfaction level from participants in its programs and services at 99% – according to surveys and feedbacks that are anonymous!

[The content of our service catalogue in the lab] is not here because we think this is cool or this is nice (…), we have data and surveys and research that support these topics that we cover

After having walked us through the story of LA-BORA! gov, and a passionate and convincing plea for fostering employee experience, Luana closed her presentation with an intriguing quote from Minouche Safik, Director of the London School of Economics: 

In the past jobs were about muscles, now they are about brains, but in the future they’ll be about the heart.

Further links

• LA-BORA! gov’s website with more information.
• Connecting with Luana Silveira de Faria via Linked-in.
• Contacting the ISCN for any further questions on the ISCN Global Mixer in general or this session specifially.
• Overview of the ISCN Global Mixers and the opportunity to register for them.